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As I say in the introduction to this episode, I have two goals in this ongoing series on peacebuilding. The first goal is to enable you to become aware of the extent of people active in peace work and peacebuilding efforts and to learn how each person draws resources from her or his faith or worldview perspective to do her or his peace work. The second goal is to provide for you practical resources for peace work and peacebuilding in your own life.

You may have noticed a change in my terminology. Formerly, I was using ‘peacemaking,’ because that is the term used by Glen Stassen in his book, Just Peacemaking, and Irfan Omar and Michael Duffey in their book, which inspired this series, Peacemaking and the Challenge of Violence in World Religions. However, I like the distinctions Rabbi Amy Eilberg makes in her book, From Enemy to Friend. She describes ‘peacekeeping’ as that which militaries do to prevent further violence in a situation, ‘peacemaking’ as the negotiation process diplomats or mediators do with larger groups or nations, and ‘peacebuilding’ as what ordinary people do in the course of their daily lives. Since my focus in this series is on what we can do, I am changing my term.

Although I didn’t know this at the time of recording, this episode is the first of a two-part interview. In this episode and the next, I focus on resources from my Baptist heritage.

My guest is Ken Sehested.

Ken is the editor/author of the online journal, prayer&politiks. Once upon a time he played football at Baylor University, back when few outside Texas had heard of the place (and its sports teams were the ragamuffins of their conference). And a traveling teenage youth evangelist. No longer a teenager, he is still an evangelist, though his understanding of what it means to follow Jesus has changed considerably.

Ken’s closest brush with jobs people understand were as a typesetter and, later, as a stonemason. Being picky about your work means creating your own, as a full-time mendicant with Seeds magazine (1978) when it became a monthly magazine focusing on food security and world hunger concerns; then as the founding director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America (1984); as founding co-pastor of Circle of Mercy Congregation in Asheville, NC (2001); and now as the electronic ink slinger of this site.

An award-winning activist and author, Ken’s greater honor came when a four year-old granddaughter memorized and recited his favorite Mary Oliver poem as a Father’s Day gift. His most recent books are Peace Primer II: Quotes from Jewish, Christian and Islamic Scripture & Tradition (published by the Baptist Peace Fellowship) and two collections of litanies, prayers and poems, In the Land of the Living and In the Land of the Willing (Wipf & Stock).

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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In her extensive work with peacebuilding, Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer (Listen to PGE12 below.) stresses the importance of focusing more on the heart than the head. By this she means that building bridges of peace and relationships between people who disagree and/or are in conflict more often occurs when the people involved in the disagreement/conflict tell and listen to each other’s personal stories and life-journeys rather that when each tries to persuade the other through reasoning. Focusing on the head tends to devolve into further conflict and destructive behavior.

Meta Commerse (Listen to PGEs 24-26 below.) speaks of this process of bridge building, peacebuilding, and healing through the telling of personal stories as story medicine.

In the efforts to deal with LGBTQ rights and issues through the head, bitter conflict, destructive behavior, and tragic brokenness has been the result. Drowned out in these efforts has been the stories of LGBTQ people, especially LGBTQ Christians. But heeding the wisdom of Rabbi Fuchs Kreimer and Meta Commerse is vital. It is what changes minds and brings healing and reconciliation. Hearing stories such as the ones you will hear in this episode is what helped change my mind and has helped me to grow in my walk with Christ.

So, the purpose of this episode is to let you hear the personal life stories and journeys of four LGBTQ Christians who span three generations. My guests are Nancy Flippin, Mindy Allen, Amy Cantrell, and Sully Hart.

Nancy and Mindy are married to each other. Nancy is the daughter of missionaries and lived in Seoul, Korea for six years moving back to the United States to attend Biola College where she earned a B.S. in Mathematics. After working for a few years for Corporate America, Nancy knew this was not her calling in life. She worked as a campus minister for three years at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, GA, and then began working in affordable housing development in the inner city of Atlanta for ten years. After that she worked for eighteen years with the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Currently, Nancy is the CFO at Manna Food Bank in Asheville, NC. Nancy serves as a deacon at First Baptist Church, Asheville and as treasurer for the Alliance of Baptists. Nancy’s faith journey has led her to engage in social justice initiatives and to advocate for systemic changes that will lift up those who have been and are oppressed.

Mindy holds both an undergraduate degree (B.A. from Shepherd College) and a graduate degree (M.A. from Marshall University) in Health and Physical Education. She is a life-long educator, having taught in West Virginia, Hawaii, Georgia, and North Carolina. After living and working in Atlanta for thirty one years, Mindy and Nancy moved to Asheville, NC, where Mindy currently works at Evergreen Community Charter School. Mindy is a runner/walker, photographer, and outdoor enthusiast. As a life-long seeker and follower of Jesus, Mindy has a passion for social justice and serves on the Mission Council at her beloved community of faith, First Baptist Church, Asheville.

Amy (Reverend Amy Cantrell) lives, moves, and has her being in the intentional community, BeLoved Asheville where she is deeply engaged in the daily life of loving neighbors and building community with people on the streets, Latinx and African American neighbors, and a whole host of people committed to making love real in the world in our daily lives. She was school educated at Converse College and Columbia Theological Seminary and street educated in Harlem, NY; Ponce DeLeon Ave, Atlanta; and on South French Broad Ave. and Grove Streets in downtown Asheville, NC. She is a pastor in the Presbyterian Church, USA.  A queer woman who is married and who loves being mom to twin six year olds.  She loves the color purple, playing guitar, studying movement history, and being a pretend alligator with her kids on the playground.  Find her on Facebook @Amy Cantrell and @BeLovedAsheville.  For more information about BeLoved Asheville, visit www.belovedasheville.com.

Sullivan “Sully” Hart is a native of Asheville, North Carolina. On his path as a musician, Sully has been fortunate to sing with many church communities, learning from different Christian traditions and practices. In 2017, Sully graduated summa cum laude from Furman University with his bachelor’s in vocal performance. Sully earned his master’s degree in vocal pedagogy from the New England Conservatory of Music in 2019. Sully currently lives in Boston where he works as a freelance musician and church chorister. Sully also writes a blog titled Off the Syllabus which you can read at offthesyllabus.com.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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As I say in my introduction to this interview, in her superb book, These Truths: A History of the United States, historian Jill Lepore holds a particular understanding of history. She says that history is, ‘…not merely a form of memory but also a form of investigation, to be disputed, like philosophy, its premises questioned, its evidence examined, its arguments countered (p. xvi).’ She argues that such an understanding of history-as-inquiry was central to the nation’s founding and that to study the past is to unlock the prison of the present (pp. xvi-xvii).

In my mind, such an understanding of history-as-inquiry and as a key for unlocking the prison of the present is also central to a church that needs to be continuously reforming. What we call the Reformation was a first occasion of significant Church reform.  During that time the Church was in crisis because of the mutually reinforcing interplay between certain Christian doctrines and clerical/ecclesial corruption. While it is true that since the Reformation, the church has been in the process of continuously reforming, it seems to me that we may be in the process of a second significant reformation. The Church is in significant crisis again, and for similar reasons as before. We are in what is broadly being called a time that is post-modern, post-colonial, and post-Christendom.

For a lot of us, especially those of us who have been his students, a person whom we believe to be one of the most astute interpreters of the Church is Dr. Bill Leonard. It is to him that we turn for insight into how the Church has come to be in its present crisis and for wisdom about what Christians and the Church should do moving forward.

Dr. Leonard is the founding dean and now Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Wake Forest University’s School of Divinity. Dr. Leonard’s research focuses on Church History with particular attention to American religion, Baptist studies, and Appalachian religion. He is the author or editor of some 25 books. His most recent works include A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the U.S., and The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Church History: Flaming Heretics and Heavy Drinkers.

An essential resource to broaden and deepen your understanding of the insights and wisdom Dr. Leonard shares in this interview is the archives for his regular contributions to Baptist News Global.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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As I say in the introduction to this episode, an article in The Lancet by Jane Davis makes the case that reading literature out loud has potential for healing and wellness. As a part of The Reader Organization, Davis says, “Our hypothesis is that reading literature aloud with others offers something uniquely valuable.” She goes on to say, It “…facilitates the creation of a series of powerful interplays: between the written text and the aural experience; between hearing the text from outside and processing it within; between one’s own experience and that of the author and characters; between the privacy of personal consciousness and the public experience of group…For by reading aloud in a group it may be that readers experience what we might call interpersonality both with the book, and its author and characters, and with other group members…To see oneself in others, to see others in oneself, this is the rich experience going on within the group and with the book (‘Enjoying and Enduring: groups read aloud for wellbeing,’ by Jane Davis, The Lancet Vol. 373, Issue 9665, February 28, 2009, pp. 714-715.).

Jewish and Christian scripture have always ranked among the worlds greatest literature, and both Jews and Christians have known since the time each community was started that the reading aloud of their scripture was something important and profound in multiple ways, not the least of which was for healing and wellbeing.

What I love about the art of Biblical Storytelling is that, as my guest, Dr. Kathy Culmer says, the telling of scripture adds something more that simply the reading of scripture. It enables, as The Lancet article claims, an interplay and interpersonality for people in which they identify with the characters, the story, and others listening to the story. They are enabled to live the story and see themselves in others and others in themselves.

Of course it takes wonderful storytellers to enable such experiences to happen, and my guest is one such storyteller! If anyone can transport you into the story, it is Dr. Culmer!

Dr. Kathy Hood Culmer is an author, storyteller, speaker and teacher and Christian educator. A graduate of Spelman College, the University of South Florida, and United Theological Seminary, Kathy holds a B.A. in English, an M.A. in English, and a D. Min. in Biblical Storytelling. She has taught on the secondary and college levels in a variety of subject areas ranging from English to Speech Communications, to Broadcast Journalism, to Religious Education. As a professional storyteller, she has been a teller and workshop presenter in churches, schools, libraries, at festivals, retreats, on college campuses, in business settings, and a variety of other venues. Kathy has performed at the Exchange Place at the National Storytelling Festival, Georgia State University, Duke University’s Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture, the Texas Storytelling Festival, and was the Featured Storyteller at the Network of Biblical Storytellers 2008 Festival Gathering. She was a part of a 2008 Biblical Storytelling Mission Trip to The Gambia in West Africa. Her life’s work is to provide words of encouragement, truth, and inspiration to others through telling, writing, and speaking. She is the editor of a collection of personal narratives called Yes, Jesus Loves Me: 31 Love Stories and is also author of “Big Wheel Cookies: Two For A Penny,” published in The Rolling Stone and Other Read Aloud Stories and “Feasts a Plenty,” published in Holiday Stories All Year Round.

You can learn more about Dr. Culmer here and from her website: kathyculmer.com.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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The reason I am seeking to keep Steady State Economics as a subject before you, as my audience, is that few other economic options subsume economics under the ecosystem. Rather other economic options subsume the ecosystem under the economy. In addition, most other economic options growth oriented economies and assume that the ecology can be saved while still growing the economy and this does not provide solution enough to address the stress every world economy is putting on our planet. If those monitoring the changes in our planet are correct, our time to make necessary and important changes is getting shorter. Awareness and implementation of a better economic option is vital!

In every field of thought and research there are the visionaries, pioneers, and trailblazers. In Steady State Economics that visionary/pioneer/trailblazer is Herman Daly!

Herman E. Daly is professor emeritus at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. From 1988 to 1994 he was senior economist in the Environment Department of the World Bank. Prior to 1988 he was alumni professor of economics at Louisiana State University, where he taught economics for twenty years. He holds a BA from Rice University and a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. He has served as Ford Foundation Visiting Professor at the University of Ceará (Brazil), as a Research Associate at Yale University, as a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, and as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in Brazil. He has served on the boards of directors of numerous environmental organizations, and was co-founder and associate editor of the journal Ecological Economics. His interest in economic development, population, resources, and environment has resulted in over a hundred articles in professional journals and anthologies, as well as numerous books, including Toward a Steady-State Economy (1973); Steady-State Economics (1977; 1991); Valuing the Earth(1993);  Beyond Growth (1996); Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics (1999); Ecological Economics: Theory and Applications (with J. Farley, 2003, 2011); Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development (2007); and From Uneconomic Growth to a Steady-State Economy (2014).

He is co-author with theologian John B. Cobb, Jr. of For the Common Good (1989 ;1994) which received the 1991 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas for Improving World Order. In 1996 he received Sweden’s Honorary Right Livelihood Award, and the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1999 he was awarded the Sophie Prize (Norway) for contributions in the area of Environment and Development; in 2001 the Leontief Prize for contributions to economic thought, and in 2002 the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic for his work in steady-state economics. In 2010 the National Council for Science and the Environment (USA) gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014 he received the Blue Planet Prize awarded by the Asahi Glass Foundation of Japan.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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This episode is Part 3 of my interviews with Meta Commerse. In this episode we bring together the threads of Meta’s writing and aesthetic arts and her healing arts into the tapestry of their use in racial healing. As I say in the interview, if we are going to have a better future, especially together as people broken by prejudice, misperception, understanding, and the terrible history of hate, violence, and oppression that is the legacy of white supremacy, we have to know where we are going–a vision of the future and what it looks like– and have a way to get there–a map or guide.

Meta offers one option both for the vision and guide/mission. On her website, storymedicineworldwide.com, there is a tab called The Race Relations Station. Under that tab is a tab for Community Action Project. On the Community Action Project page there is a Vision and a Mission statement. The Vision is: A Well, Diverse, and Just Community. The Mission is: Racial Healing and Relationship Building through Story.

Under Meta’s wise and practiced guidance and the guidance of other good visionaries like her, it is a realizable journey I am eager to take together with any of you willing to join.

One of my favorite posters that I had on over the desk of my office in the church I pastored is one of Sitting Bull saying, “Let us put our minds together and see what life we will make for our children.” If we follow folks like Meta, it will be a better one!

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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This episode is the Part 2 of 3 interviews with Meta Commerse. Part 1 focused on Meta’s poetry and novel. In this episode we discuss the story/journey of Meta’s development of Story Medicine and her use of it to facilitate healing.

As Meta said in Part 1, “My work with people, it takes them to those stories, to those places that they had not told and they had not spent time with, and that they had spent a lot of energy not telling. And preparing a way, working with them, somehow, to prepare a way for them to find their language and break their silence and go ahead and tell it.” This is the nature and purpose of story medicine.

You can learn more about Meta, her Story Medicine Wisdom School, and her publications (in addition to how to buy her books) from her website:

storymedicineworldwide.com

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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My guest for this episode is Meta Commerse. Meta is a poet, a novelist, and a healer. My initial motivation for this interview was and still is as a continuation of my series on Racial Reconciliation, because Meta offers a class through her Story Medicine Wisdom School titled, ‘Story Medicine for Racial Healing.’ But as I learned that Meta was a poet and novelist and had developed this resource she calls story medicine, I wanted to talk with her about each of those aspects–her art, her development of story medicine, and the use of her art and story medicine is facilitating racial healing. As you will learn, Meta prefers to speak of racial healing rather than racial reconciliation. It is because of her reasoning on this issue that I am changing the name of my ongoing series.

Consequently, this episode is the first of three. In this episode I talk with Meta about her story as it lead to her being poet and novelist and you will get to hear Meta read some of her poems and a selection from her novel.

Meta is the author of six books: Landscapes of Abuse (2001), Rainsongs: Poems of a Woman’s Life (2012), The Mending Time, a novel (2014), Blues Doula, poems by Meta Commerse (2019), Womaning, a memoir (forthcoming), and Diamonds and Pyramids: Story Medicine for Racial Healing (forthcoming).

You can learn more about Meta, her Story Medicine Wisdom School, the courses, lectures, and internships she offers in that school, the Community Action Projects offered through The Race Relations Station, and purchase Meta’s books through her website, storymedicineworldwide.com.

I want to offer a special word of thanks to Carol and Tony Asiaghi for letting Meta and I use their beautiful and peaceful West Asheville Garden Retreat and Sanctuary to record these three interviews.

The audio clip of Womanist theologian and ethicist, Dr. Katie Cannon, from the documentary, Journey to Liberation: The Legacy of Womanist Theology and Womanist Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, is used by permission from Union Theological Seminary.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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The Ekklesia Project began as the result of conversations about the works of Catholic political scientist, Mike Budde, and Protestant theologian, Stanley Hauerwas. Both Budde and Hauerwas hold that the primary task of Christian churches is to live as faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Budde and Hauerwas, each in their on way, go on to claim that churches’ efforts to live faithfully to Christ in the United States have been compromised by their own self-understanding and purpose, and hindered by their accommodation to the culture of the United States. To live as faithful followers of Jesus Christ is to give priority of one’s allegiance and loyalty to God’s Kingdom over any other entity seeking that same allegiance and loyalty. Such a commitment is a political commitment, thus making faithful followers of Jesus Christ a unique politics.

Those involved with the Ekklesia Project agree with Budde and Hauerwas and have believed it useful and helpful to organized in such a way that their shared efforts enable them as individuals, congregations, institutions, and traditions live more faithfully as the Church.

As the Ekklesia Project’s website, ekklesiaproject.org, states, participants share the four core convictions that they are unapologetically God-centered, Church-centered, Shalom-centered, and Political. In order to live more faithfully, participants in the EP do a variety of things to strengthen the church, encourage one another, and seek out new friendships. Among the things they do, they say probably the most important thing they do is to talk with one another about being faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Those conversations, with intention, involve scholars, pastors, and laypeople.

Consequently, my guests for this episode are Kelly Johnson, a scholar/theologian, Kyle Childress, a pastor, and Chi-Ming Chien, a layperson. They help us understand the Ekklesia Project better and its importance.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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Although I have interviewed Melissa Rogers on her book, Faith in American Public Life, this episode will be the first in an ongoing conversation with The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, now called BJC.

The purpose of this series is to do two things. First it is to keep before you that there have always been certain Baptists who have, since their beginnings, argued for/advocated for/championed religious liberty for all people and the separation of church and state. These Baptists have done so because of their fundamental conviction that ‘soul freedom’ is a gift from God that enables everyone to have an active relationship with God. For these Baptists, for faith to a true faith, it must be embraced without any coercion of any kind. Since governments and religious bodies have often been the source of coerced faith, these Baptists have insisted that there must be a separation from government and institutional religious bodies.

The reason I want to keep before you the awareness of ‘these certain Baptists’ is for two reasons. The first is that many who are Baptist and, of course, most non-Baptists are unaware of the history of Baptist’s contribution to and  advocacy for religious liberty for all and the separation of church and state. The second is that there are a growing number of Baptists who are a part of what is being called Christian Nationalism that have sought and continue to seek to undermine religious liberty for all and the separation of church and state.

The second reason for this series is to make you aware and educate you on specific challenges to religious liberty in government. The BJC is an excellent source for keeping you apprised of these challenges. In addition, the BJC seeks to challenge and thwart these aggression on religious liberty by actions in The Supreme Court and in Congress.

You can find the BJC at:   bjconline.org

An excellent video introducing the BJC can be found on their website and here.

My guest is Amanda Tyler. Amanda is the Executive Director of the BJC. She is a member of the Texas and United States Supreme Court Bar. After graduating with a degree in foreign service from Georgetown University, Amanda worked for the BJC as an assistant to the general counsel. She left the BJC to earn her law degree from the University of Texas. Before returning to the BJC, Amanda has worked in private practice, as a law clerk for a U.S. district court judge in Dallas, and on the staff of U.S. Representative Lloyd Dogget, where she served as his district director and counsel for the Ways and Means Committee.

In addition to the resources provided by the BJC about the history of Baptists’ contribution to religious liberty and the separation of church and state, numerous links can be found by Googling ‘Baptists and Religious Liberty.’ An excellent link is Middle Tennessee State University’s The Free Speech Center: First Amendment News and Insights from MTSU. One of the resources of The Free Speech Center is The First Amendment Encyclopedia that has an article on Baptist contributions to the first amendment. That article is found here.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.