Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to Becoming Church, the podcast where we discuss how the message and movement of Jesus is not just about becoming Christians, but about becoming the church. I'm your host, Kristin Mothler Young, and my guest today is Kat Armis. Kat has put her three ministry degrees and her excellent writing skills to good work with her books and Abuelita Faith and Sacred Belongings, where she helps liberate theology from a narrow lens that many of us were raised with. Whether you're a female looking for a more feminine angle, you're lucky enough to understand the complexities of mixed cultures, or you're someone in majority culture that wants to better understand Scripture through other perspectives, Kat will help you begin to decolonize your faith to find a more expansive God.
Hey, Kat. Welcome to the Becoming Church podcast.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: So thrilled to have you. I was looking back through some past guests, and I realized I believe you are our first Cuban American guest.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Really excited to learn from you.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Do you meet lots of other Cuban Americans?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: You know, there are. In sort of the academic space. There are a lot of Cuban Americans, I think, because a lot of Cuban American. Well, a lot of Cubans immigrated here, you know, in the 60s and 70s. And the Cuban experience has been very different from other immigrants, particularly when they came and it was the height of the Cold War, and the US Was like, yes, anti communism. Come on in. And so a lot of older Cubans have had a lot of. I mean, a lot of Cubans in general have had a lot of access. And so my. I study under Fernando Segovia. He's like the empire and Bible person, you know, I mean, he's very old. He. He was the leader of the sbl, the Society of Biblical Literature. I mean, he's like it when it comes to the Bible. And he's Cuban American. And so, yeah, there actually is quite a few of us. So.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. And so we're gonna talk about your new book. We're gonna talk about all of your books, but tell people just a little bit about you and your background.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Yeah, so. Well, as I mentioned, my family immigrated here in the 60s and 70s, and it was due to just some political unrest happening in Cuba, as I'm have heard at least a little bit about.
And, yeah, so my grandfather, he. He left on a boat one night in the middle of the night. That's sort of where Abuelita Faith, my first book, sort of sets the tone for that. And he came to seek a better life in the US and of course, you know, my Grandmother followed, and then he died. And so she raised, you know, us, my family, her children, her grandchildren, you know, by herself. And so my first book is just all about her, you know, her story of resilience and persistence and how, you know, so many people in the Bible, particularly women, carry this sort of legacy of survival. And not just survival, but the idea that they're surviving is in and of itself a sacred endeavor. Right. We see so many women in the Bible, I mean, like, lying and stealing and cheating and doing all of these sort of things to survive. Right. And they're called blessed. Right. And so I think that's worth wrestling with. I think this idea that survival is sacred and holy without needing to over spiritualize it.
And so I wrestle with that in my first book, and I think that's a big part of who I am in my story is. Yeah. How women have sort of carried this. This legacy of. Of survival, of resistance, of persistence. And so here I am, you know, sort of trying to continue that resistance work in. In the work that I do.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I read Abuelita. I. I just took a bunch of Spanish, so I'm like, I'm trying real hard.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you got it, Abuelita.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Faith. I did read it.
Not read that one. Explain how. And you. You touched on it. But, like, how does that book or how does all of your writing kind of challenge, like a more traditional theological framework?
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So in our faith and, you know, you could even say in Liturgies for Resisting Empire, my. My recent. My most recent book, you know, I'm sort of arguing that theology that. That the. The, you know, God, God self does not only, you know, manifest through the formal. Through the pulp pulpits and the, you know, what we consider to be legitimate faith or formal sort of wisdom. You know, I really highlight the notion of wisdom in abalita faith and also in liturgies for Resisting Empire have a, you know, I have my. A whole chapter on this idea of wisdom and that, you know, some of our greatest theologians and some of the most profound things we can learn about the divine do not come from the pulpits, do not come from, you know, the formal seminary degrees, of which I have three. So I'm not against that.
But that's not where we find God working and moving amongst us, I think, in the most profound ways.
You know, I think theology, you know, the act of theologizing in a formal space is fun and it's cool and it's great, and we should do it if you want to.
But I see God working most Profoundly and most intimately in the spaces where we weren't trained to look. Right. In the spaces of survival, in the spaces like that of my abuelita, who, you know, her life mirrored the one of Tabitha, her life mirrored the life of Rizbah, her life mirrored the life of Miriam in these just so incredibly beautiful and difficult and, as I keep saying, profound ways. And so that's a little bit of what Abuelita Faith argues. Right. The greatest theologians, sort of like the line is, the greatest theologians the world has ever known are those who the world wouldn't even consider theologians at all.
And I find that true. You know, I'm saying the same sort of thing in liturgies for resisting empire is that we are told that this is the way that we ought to think and be and act the ways of empire through empire's ideologies. But I'm saying, no, actually, we find true liberation when we act ways contrary to that. The ways that we are told we shouldn't act, or the ways that we are not trained to look, you know, to receive our wisdom or to receive how we should be.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Do you think, Kat, that it was your, like, the way that you grew up and your culture that kind of gave you this perspective because your work does such a good job of breaking people out of, like, a really rigid, you know, narrow perspective. Do you think that, like, there was a key moment that kind of got you thinking this way, or do you think it really was connected to being Cuban American, being raised by your grandmother?
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, of course, everything that I do is, you know, from, you know, where my cultural background, who I am, where I come from. Right.
The ways that I think and the ways that I understand the world. And I think that's sort of what I'm trying to argue. So I, you know, I wasn't raised in the white evangelical church. I was raised in an immigrant Roman Catholic community. And so, of course, that's how, you know, my spiritual formation is from that lens. And then I sort of stepped into white evangelicalism as an adult. You know, I was in my 20s. I was a young adult, but I was in my 20s. And, you know, I had this sort of evangelical experience. And as I began to pursue, you know, oh, this. This is, you know, this is different. And let's see. Let's see what this, you know, I don't know what I. What I can learn from this or, you know, as I began to sort of pursue that, I quickly realized that, yeah, it was very.
All of my. All of who I was I mean, all of my upbringing, all of who I was, I was sort of without being told. I was being told that it wasn't legitimate, right? It wasn't legitimate faith. It wasn't. Because my grandmother didn't lead a Bible study. She didn't. I mean, she didn't have time for that. You know, dedicated to the church. She sang on the choir. You know, she, like I said, she was Roman Catholic, so she administered the. The sacrament, the elements on the weekends. And, you know, she was so dedicated to her faith, but she was also dedicated to her survival, right? She, you know, I was raised by a single mother and a single grandmother. You know, my. My grandfather died before I was born, and I didn't. I didn't have a relationship with my father. And so they were. They led, right? They. They protected and led and provided for me. And all of a sudden, I step into the white evangelical world, and I'm told that men are supposed to lead and provide and protect. And I'm saying, well, that wasn't my experience, right?
And then at the same time, you know, I'm being told that I'm supposed to learn from the experts in the room, those with the suits in front of the, you know, in the pulpits. And. And their lived experience was so different than mine, you know, not that they're, you know, they were raised, most of them, in a rural, you know, Southern town, and that's perfectly fine, but that wasn't my experience, right? And so I started to really question so much of my spiritual formation and my upbr. You know, is it legitimate? Was it, you know, not. Were they not really saved? And for a time there, I believe that my grandmother wasn't really saved. I mean, how twisted is that? Right? But that is sort of this rigid, you know, what we can call white evangelical forms of. I mean, I would say threads of it that convince us that there's one right way to be, one right way to believe, one right way to understand God. And so I'm saying, well, wait a minute, that's not true. Because I've known God. I've known the most intimate, most beautiful aspects of not only God, God's self, but of God's community, of what it means to live in a community that is held together by faith and by survival, right? By shared traumas and shared joys. And.
Yeah. So, I mean, everything, every. How I understand my spirituality is 100 woven because of who I am. And I think that's true for all of us, right? Regardless of where we come from, our cultural Upbringings.
And then I think, yeah, that also, you know, sort of just speaks into the fact that I was very much raised in a Cuban community, very much raised in an immigrant community, and then sort of stepped out of that space into a more general white evangelical space. It was like a major culture shock. And then I said, well, wait a minute. I think there's what I'm. What I'm being taught here. It's. There's something that's not right. And let me see where I can challenge that based on my own experiences.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Yeah. For people, Kat, that don't understand what it's like to step into the white evangelical sphere, maybe because they've always been raised in it. That's all they've known.
Because you said. One of the first things I heard you say was, like, I entered in trying to learn from these people, and they're. But I have a guess that maybe that wasn't reciprocated, that they were not so, like, ready and willing to learn from you. What was that like? And did you feel like you needed to prove yourself, or did all of a sudden they just kind of be like, okay, now we do. Like, what was that. What was that entry point like?
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, as I mentioned, as far as me entering that space, it was, you know, very much a culture shock for me. And I think I, you know, because I'm entering a space where I'm being told that these are the experts. This is who you're supposed to learn from. Of course, I didn't believe that I had any of those capabilities within me. You know, I remember back then.
I remember when I started seminary, I remember thinking, I want to go to seminary because my dream would be to write the. Like, to theologize, right? And I would look at pastors like John Piper, right? And I would say, oh, my goodness, how does he come up with this? Like, he is just theologizing. And I wish I could do that. Not believing that that was my role or my place, even though I had this deep desire and this deep passion to do that.
But as I. The more that I learned about theology, the more that I, you know, sat in these classrooms and. And learned about the history of the church. And, you know, eventually I did leave that specific space to a more affirming space for women. And so that obviously was part of it.
But. Yeah, and then I began to realize, wait a minute. This is all. This is all a construct, right? This is not necessarily what we see when we. When we're reading the New Testament. I mean, we see. And yeah, and this is stuff that I also wrestle with in liturgies for resisting Empire, I think, you know, because of Empire's ideologies. And so here I'll try and weave both of my books together or my book into my story. Because of Empire's ideologies, I think that we are conditioned to think in certain ways. Right. So we are conditioned. One of those ways. We are conditioned to think in very dualistic ways. So one thing is right and the other thing is wrong. And this is, you know, the way that colonizers, you know, stepped into territories that were not their own and said, well, these are barbarians and we are enlightened and reality is very much in this black or white, this or that sort of, you know, framework. Yeah. And I think for me, you know, stepping into the space and realizing that that's not the way that I was experiencing reality. I mean, it was very nuanced. Right. There were so many even in the. In Scripture itself. And. And, you know, we want to read scripture with certain interpretive lenses and we say, well, Jesus, you know, was a feminist or Paul was an anti imperialist. And I'm arguing, well, actually, as much as I, you know, am someone who reads feminist theology and as much as I am someone who is a. I couldn't consider myself a postcolonial scholar. The Bible's not entirely postcolonial, nor is it entirely feminist. I think think what you read in Scripture are people just like us wrestling with what it means to be human in a world bogged down by systems, bogged down by so many different people and things and. Right. That. That make it complicated and messy and complex. And so I want to look at the Bible and say, hey, this is a way that we can read it that is so liberating and anti imperial. And. And look at the way that Jesus uplifted women and look at the way that we. Paul challenged the imperial structures of his day. And also they were people with an imperial patriarchal imagination. And so, yeah, there's going to be times where Paul says, you know, women, you know, you are to be this. Or cover your heads here or whatever, because I think he was. He was wrestling with the same things we are. Right. And so I say all that to say that, you know, as I'm studying theology and history and Christian history, and I'm seeing all of these nuances and I'm saying, you know, there isn't actually one.
One path, right way to understand and be and, you know, read scripture, but it is nuanced. And complex and messy just as we are.
And that's where we see the whole thing where, you know, people do all sorts of questionable things and they're in, you know, the genealogy of Jesus and God calls them blessed. And so, you know, that's where, and I write about this in Liturgies for Resisting Empire. We need to undo these sort of mental scaffolding that is in our minds so that we can truly read the Bible with a liberative lens. And I say that not in one particular, you know, feminist or anti imperial, but we can see it in all its nuances and understand that, that people are just trying to survive then and now. So, yeah, I think that was part of my journey. And then as I began to speak from that place and, and share my experiences, of course, you know, my, my old seminary and my old, you know, evangelical churches called, called me a heretic and all the things. And, you know, I went through all of that.
Right, right. You know, and it was, it was devastating at first because you question, you know, am I, am I hairy? Right.
But I, you know, I went through all that and, and then I just continued to, to, you know, just experience like, no, actually, the more that I learn, the more that I read, the more that I allow my, you know, I always say we should hold, hold our faith with an open palm and not a closed fist. And the more that I held it with an open hand, the more I began to see, you know, God affirming and confirming and also history and theology affirming and confirming all of these things that I felt so deeply in my, you know, all these convictions that I felt deeply in my soul.
So, yeah, so it was a, you know, a difficult journey, but I think, you know, and of course that's where the degrees come in, right? Because people need the formal degree. Say, oh, you know, she has, she has all these degrees. Maybe she, she's right about something because people need that. Right, right. But I always say my whole thing is, you know, our abuelitas, our grandmothers should be our, our primary sources. You know, we should be able to cite them as our primary sources.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: This is what we learned. These were our teachers.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Right, right, right. But we, you know, our Western, the western ideology needs the formal in order for it to be legitimate. And so, you know, we play the game again, the nuance. Right? We play the game the both hands.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Oh my gosh, I love so much of what you're saying. We've, we talk about on this podcast all the time, the nuance and things are not as binary as we want them to be. And so I'm just loving this. This is so great.
You talked, Kat, about, you know, wanting to read the Bible in a different, more liberating way, but not necessarily going like, hey, we're going to go from this one lens to then reading it only through a feminist lens or only through whatever lens. Is that what you mean when you talk and you write about decolonizing theology?
[00:16:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. You know, so, you know, in a more technical sense, when you're reading theology through a decolonial lens, you're looking at it through the lens of empire. Right. And you're looking at the ways that empire influenced the imaginations of the writers of scripture. You're looking at the way that empire, I mean, empire was everything in, in the New Testament, in the ancient world. It was literally everything.
It was how people. I mean, and I argue it's everything now. We just don't. Right. We just don't, you know, a lot of times we just don't recognize it, but it's everything.
Right. Or we don't want to. Yeah.
And so, you know, in, in a more technical, formal definition, I guess you can say a decolon. A decolonial, decolonizing look at the Bible is looking at the Bible through the lens of empire, which I argue is everything I think you need to in order to really understand the Bible. I think you have to look at it through an anti imperial lens. Not as the only way, but I do think it's an important way to read the Bible, to be able to understand the context of what's going on in the world as they're writing it. Right. I mean, everything, if you think about it, if everything that we write now, we're writing it through the imagination of what is happening around us. I mean, we have no. There's no other option to do that. I mean, you know, we're writing theology or spirituality even as we write Instagram posts or even as we write substack posts. And we're literally in the back of our minds. No matter where we land on the political spectrum, we're thinking about everything happening, happening in the world. And I think the same was true for the New Testament writers. Same is true for literally anyone writing at any point in history. And so I think that's why it's extremely important to read through that lens. But when I say decolonizing the Bible because of our, as I just mentioned, our very linear binary sort of thinking, we want to say this is the, the way that you need to interpret Scripture in order to really understand it.
And I think that there are a lot of ways that you can interpret Scripture. I think you should interpret Scripture or read the interpretation of Scripture through a lot of different lenses, because there are a lot of different ways, because people carry all sorts of things in their minds and in their bodies, and as they're reading it through their particular point of view, they're making inferences, and they're, you know, tying dots together, putting things together that you wouldn't, because you are not them. And so I think it's important for, you know, us to be able to step out of this binary way of thinking, step out of this linear way of thinking and allow ourselves to hold all sorts of truths at the same time. And I think that is essentially a definition of decolonizing, being able to hold a lot of truths at the same time. So I read the Bible from all sorts of lenses, just like I read the news from all sorts of perspectives. You know, some more that I agree with than others, but I read them from all different perspectives because I want to understand, you know, what is. What are these people getting from this thing that's happening? You know, I want to know what. What they're hearing. I want to know what they're seeing.
You know, that's something my husband and I do all the time. You know, we'll read something like, oh, my. What. You know, and then I'm like, wait a minute, what are these people saying? Because I want to see what, you know, how did they get there? Right?
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Like, how do they.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: And what is the news telling them? My, you know, a person that I love dearly. We actually. Our relationship has shifted because of politics, and. But prior to everything, we would.
We would talk about politics. That's one of the things, you know, what's your side saying? You know, but anyway, all that to say that this is true across the board, right? When you read scripture, when you read everything, just like when, you know, Paul or Paul's contemporaries wrote a letter, that perspective was going to be different from the perspective of the recipients. And so I think it's important to put yourself in both of those perspectives. What was happening that made Paul or his contemporaries write this and what, you know, what was it like to receive it and what was happening on the other end of things?
So, yeah, I would say, to answer your question, decolonizing the Bible is to be able to do all of that, hold all of these truths, be able to hold, again, theology with an open hand, hold it up to the light. So that you can see all of the shadows and things.
Because again, we are nuanced people and the biblical writers were nuanced people. And if we want to get a full picture of who God is, I think we need to do that.
[00:21:17] Speaker A: Yes. Well, and I think I'm so glad you just ended with that statement because I think for the, I'll just say white evangelical or majority culture people that are listening, that has to be the why. Right. I think sometimes it's like, well, oh, the girls are going to read like womanist theology and then the black people are going to read black theology. And it's like, no, we actually all need to do this so that we can get a bigger picture of. Yeah. Understanding of scripture and who God is and, and all of this. If somebody has not started this process at all and they're like, oh, I want to decolonize my faith, I want to have broader perspectives. What's a practical thing that they can do to start that process?
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Yeah, well.
Oh, this is a difficult question to answer, I think, because so what I'm arguing in Liturgies for Resisting Empire is that empire is so woven into how we think, who we are, how we understand ourselves, each other, our faith, that it's a lifelong journey. Right. And I think because we're all different people and we all have different histories and traumas and joys and callings and passions and everything, I think that empire is going to affect us in different ways. Right. We all have different privileges, right. And so I think that the way that empire seeps into ourselves and our bodies is just going to look different. Right? And so to give you an example, one of the things, you know, years ago I felt like one of the ways that I felt so disconnected was from the land, from the earth. You know, my ancestors had a beautiful relationship with the earth. You know, my grandmother growing up, I mean, her relationship to the land was this life giving, beautiful thing. Her, her relationship to her avocados and her mangoes. And it was this beautifully life giving thing. You know, we would pick avocados from the tree and eat them for our snack. And as I got older, I felt that I was so disconnected from the land that nourishes us, that gives us life, that gives us oxygen. And so part of my particular journey has been. And because of, again, who I am, who I come from, what I come from and what my personal passions and desires are.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Have been to reconnect with the land. So two years ago, my husband and I, we sold our house in the city and we moved out to the woods and we're raising our children in the woods with ghosts and chickens and pigs and, you know, but that's a totally different thing than what someone else might want or desire or can do. And so I think that there are so many ways to step into this work of decolonizing. You know, one of the things I talk about in the book is Empires constantly. The way that Empire has conditioned us to be just productive beings, right? How we are constantly needing to produce and constantly needing to commodify our time, our energy. I mean, obviously with, you know, social media and just, you know, commodifying literally your appearance, who you are, how do you, how you interact in world. I mean, this is 100%, you know, a way that Empire has sort of seeped its tentacles into our souls and our bodies. And so, you know, what's one way that, you know, whoever listening can work toward decolonizing their relationship to Empire in such a way that you, you know, what are some practices that you can engage when it comes to your body and productivity? Right. I know for us, we wanted to slow down our lives, you know, sort of simplify our calendars, you know, do some practices that require us to spend obviously less time online, use our hands to write more. I mean, any, any sort of practice that is going to slow you down.
And that is a direct sort of resistance again, against Empire's constant need for hustle. Our relationship to our bodies, our relationship to time. I know that's something as a parent of two young children, a toddler who's 4 and wants to do everything herself, right? And I, you know, and she wants to put on her shoes and you know, and, and part of my truly parenting and decolonizing my mind has been letting her take her time and not forcing her into this, you know, constant need to hurry, right. That we have been, that we've inherited because all of everything is on a linear time again, productivity, you know, sort of time clock.
And so sometimes that means waking up my kid a little bit earlier so she can take her time to do things so I don't rush her out the door. And it's also meant I've realized in the process that my kid's gonna need non traditional schooling because she just doesn't want to wake up at 7 o' clock in the morning to be at School at 8. And we have fought to try and get her to do it. And I'm realizing I have to stop trying to force her to do this. And let me see what else is out there. Right. Let me see what other options are for her so that we don't have to. I don't have to rush her every morning out the door. Right. And it's these sort of recalibrations of what we would consider normal and thinking what doesn't work for me, what's not working for my family. You know, again, as a parent of young children, how do I see hierarchy in the way that I relate to my family or my children?
Right.
Am I teaching my children that they need to submit to me just for the mere fact that I am older than them? Right. Of course. I want to lead my children and guide them and how they should be. I mean, I think that that is what we are called to do as parents. But. But how. How are the power dynamics here, right? Is it oppressive? Is it suppressing her, is oppressing and suppressing them? I think there are so many different ways that, you know, as we talked about dualism, how does dualism infiltrate how we think, think, how we understand, again, the Bible? Right.
How can we start to. To sort of remove that dualistic framework when it comes to how we understand our theology? And. And the list goes on and on. You know, I talk about dominance and violence. I mean, violence. If you really take, you know, a look at the way that we, you know, talk about God in the way that we understand our theology, even in the way that we talk in general, we have a very violent, militaristic way of saying, speaking. You know, we say like, oh, I shot myself in the foot. You know, if we get something or. Or, you know, kill two birds or whatever it is. You know, our language is very violent. Our language is very, you know, things are very militaristic in the way that we even talk about God.
So I think that, you know, when it comes to decolonizing, it is a lifelong journey. I think that we need to. I mean, you can start with picking up my book and starting to read all the ways ideologies, these ideologies have seen, seeped into our way of thinking and our way of understanding.
And then I think, you know, that journey is very personal. You know, I can't tell you do this.
Do you need to spend more time outside? Even me, who lives on a farm, probably does. Right? Yeah. And so I think that we can.
Yeah, I think it starts in the mind, and I think that that's something.
Adrienne Maree Brown, she's a writer and, you know, justice facilitator, and she calls it fractals.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: The way that our society functions on the whole, right? The way that the cosmos is. I mean, this is literally scientific, right? The swirls and the patterns that you see in the stars, in the cosmos are the same patterns that you see in your fingerprints in seashells. I mean, the same patterns are in the cosmos that are in the tiniest little patterns that we see on leaves and on dirt and on rocks and. And so she uses that to say that if we want to see a change, a big change, systemic change out there, it needs to start right here in our minds, in our hearts. And I think that that is what I'm trying to argue in this book, that we, you know, you can go out and vote and you can go out and march and you can go out and do other things. And you should. 100%, you should. But also, I think you need to start, you know, undoing these ideologies of empire in you, in your families, in your churches, because churches function in very imperial ways, very hierarchical. I mean, you have a charismatic pastor who sort of leads the whole thing, who functions as a quasi emperor. You know, I mean, it's really the same sort of frameworks. And so I'm saying you want to see change out there, you have to start with change in your homes, in your mind, in your families.
And then we can, we can. If we're all, all, you know, decolonizing inwardly, then it's naturally going to flow outwardly into our. Our communities or our. At our small local communities and then our communities at large.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I. You just listed so many of the. I know you talk about the nine different, like, lies or characteristics of empire in here.
I think it's so timely. Sometimes I'm like, look at what God does for this book to be coming out now in America right this exact time.
But of those nine, and I know you said it's very personal thing, is there one that as you were writing it, or it's, you know, coming out now that you're like, man, like, as a society, as a country, like, is there one in particular that has kind of stood out to you that, oh, woof, this one really is applicable, right?
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Probably not one. I think all of them, but I can highlight one.
Do that. So I can start. I mean, I sort of my. The first. Not the first one, but I kind of start the book with talking about wisdom. And I mean, that's really what Abuelita Faith, my first book is about.
And even my second book, I have a devotional called Sacred Belonging as my second book.
And I am really, in all three of my books, I'm arguing that we need to start, we sort of need to recalibrate what we, how we view wisdom, what we think wisdom is, and who we think is wise.
Because society, empire, right? Dominant culture, as I like to call it, has long convinced us that it is the sole harbiter of knowledge and wisdom and that we have certain people or places that we should turn to for wisdom.
And you know, like in my book, Sacred Belonging, my second one, I'm saying, well, in the ancient world, they found wisdom in the stars and they found wisdom in the moon and they found wisdom. And this is not like some woo woo new age thing. I mean, the actual Israelites and in the Bible, if you read it, God says, look to the moon and look to the stars, right? I mean, they celebrated the new moon, right?
And so I bring that up to say that I think Western culture and the dominant culture, again, as I, as I say, has long convinced us what wisdom is, where we can find it, who is wise? And I think it starts with investigating what is wisdom. I think that's a really important question. But more important, I think is the question who gets to say, right? Who gets to say what wisdom is and who is wise.
And I think, I think, you know, it starts there. It starts, where are you? What do you think you know is wisdom? Who do you think, who do you find as wise and why?
Who do you think that lacks wisdom and why, again, parent of young children, I mean, a big source of my, you know, a big part of my journey has been seeing my children as wise beings and learning from them, even at 4 years old, even at 2 years old, learning from them. Because Jesus has a lot to say about that, right? And Jesus has a lot to say about who we should learn from and who should lead us.
And I say that, you know, it's, I, in my book, I do talk about children and not just in this like, abstract way, but actually, you know, in the ancient world, children had less or about as much their status as enslaved individuals. I mean, they were really low on the, the hierarchy. And so for Jesus to say something like, look to these children, I think is a huge, is a hugely subversive thing to say. And it's not just like this cute, like, oh, I'll learn from them, but I think it's an inverting of power dynamics. And I think that, yeah, I think that that carries a lot of weight now, you know, not just in our parenting, but in general of who is Jesus telling us to look to when it comes to gaining wisdom.
And I think it's. It's again, to those that we wouldn't. We're not trained to look to or that we wouldn't naturally look to marginalize. Whether it's marginalized folks, whether it's children. And again, children are among the most, I would argue the most. The most marginal in our study. They have no power and, you know, they're forced to do things they don't want to do all the time, whatever. Anyway, that's a whole another thing. But all that to say, right?
To answer your question, I think that maybe you can start with investigating.
Yeah. Where you've sought wisdom.
Because if you really look to the Bible, I think that you can find wisdom in a lot of unlikely places like the moon, the stars, and not in some new age wave. And. Yeah. And I think that it starts, like, again, it starts in the mind. And so if we can sort of recalibrate that in our minds, then all of these other ideologies can sort of fall into place from there.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: I love that you're encouraging people to ask questions and not like just one question, but then also, why, like, who do you think is wise and why. Who have you been told that does not have wisdom?
And why? Like, I think it's those questions that we have to wrestle with and be like, okay, Holy Spirit, bring all this up for me.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: In order for us to find the places where maybe our theology actually is wrong and maybe it's not that somebody intentionally misled us, but, like.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Right.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: Maybe it wasn't such a wise person. Or when we actually take it to the Bible, we see, oh, no, this doesn't actually line up the right way.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: Way. Right.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: Being able to ask those questions. Yeah. Helps us to unlearn.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Right. And I think, you know, going to what you were saying that, you know, maybe this person didn't intentionally mean to lead us. And I think that's. That's part of it. You know, I was having a conversation in another interview yesterday, and I think, you know, we were talking about this idea that, like, we can hold people to account and also be nuanced in our thinking. And I think that we tend to think that's one or the other. Right.
And it's. I don't think it is. I think that we, because of the ideologies of empire, we think it is, but I think that we can hold someone to account and say, yes, this person has been spewing toxic theology, or these people have been hurting others by their theology. We can hold them to account, say, this is wrong, and, you know, and we're going to change this. And also at the same time, we can understand that these are systems that harm all of us. Right.
I think that, you know, Ruby Sales, she's a civil rights activist, and she once said, which I just love, she goes, we have such beautiful, liberating black theology, but we need liberating white theology. And what she means, as a black woman, an elder, what she means is that white supremacy, you know, all of these sort of things, they don't just harm us, they harm all of us. Right. They harm those that are on the. On the dominant side of that theology, they harm them, too, because these systems are. Are hurting all of us. Right. They're sucking the life out of all of us. And I think that that is.
Yeah, I think that it's important to, again, hold people to account and also zoom out and see that the problem is so much bigger than one individual person getting it right or wrong.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Amen. That'll preach. I'm like, that's so good, Katie.
Well, I know part of your book, you know, the. The subtitle is Seeking Community, Belonging and Peace in a Dehumanizing World.
I think that sometimes people bow to Empire for a lack of a better term, because their desire to belong is so intense.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: What would you encourage somebody who's looking to, like, meet that belonging need?
What would you encourage them to do instead of, like, you know, continuing to bow to the empires?
[00:37:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. I think that was a main, you know, sort of a main reason why I wanted to write this book. I think because Empire has such. Or has convinced us that there are such narrow, I guess you can say, such rigid sort of ways that we can belong. Right. And so for Empire, to belong means to look sound and be like Empire. It means to assimilate, to, you know, ignore or put aside who you really are in order to fit into this mold of who you're supposed to be or what you're supposed to be. And I think belonging is at the core of human desire, human existence. I mean, that is why I think people look. Seek out church, right? Why people leave church because their belonging, they realize that their belonging was fragile and conditional.
And so I think when it comes to belonging, I think we've. So, again, I think that's also a personal journey because we've. It's so hard for us to discern really true belonging because we've been told in many evangelical spaces, don't listen to your heart, you know, like your heart's deceiving. And so when we feel like something's wrong, or when we feel like something's wrong off, or when our boundaries are being. Oh, a lot of us, you know, don't even know what our boundaries are because we've been taught not to have them. You know, especially in churches where you're supposed to volunteer and give your time and give your energy and, like, all of these things for the, you know, lack of your own health. I think there's a lot of ways that, you know, our intuition, our convictions have eroded, and because of that, we find ourselves in situations where we think we belong. But it's conditional, right? It's based on listening to the right preachers and listening to, you know, doing all the right things in order to belong. And I think that we just really need to investigate that in our own selves. And I think we need to. I hate to use the word grace only because the word grace has been exploited so much, but I think we need to allow people to be in process, you know, given their desire to learn and their right motives and right intentions. Right. I also want to, you know, add that caveat that we're not, you know, we're not going to let people just, you know, not be held to account. But sure, all that to say that belonging should not be conditional and belonging, we should be allowed to bring our full to belong is to bring your full self in process, to be allowed to change your mind, to be allowed to learn and grow and say, I was wrong. And I think that, you know, belonging is a really, really, really critical and really tricky to use a. A word that I use for my kid all the time. A really critical and a really tricky thing.
And I think progressives as a whole, I think we need to do better at. At allowing folks or, you know, inviting folks into belonging while they're in process.
Because I think a lot of folks want to be there, but we're just afraid of getting it wrong and being kicked out.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: There should be an expectation that someone's going to make a mistake. Not like, oh, gosh, if you do, then we're going to. No, there's. In process means we're going to mess up along the way. All right, so two more questions for you, really quick, and one of them turns a little bit away from the book. But I know that your grandmother fled Cuba in the 60s during a time of political upheaval, and I know you are not. You don't necessarily work in, like, immigration, but is there anything that you learned from her story or from her experience that could potentially help maybe other immigrants who might be facing a similar instability right now.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, the issue of immigration is extremely nuanced across communities.
You know, the. This.
What my family and my community experienced in the 60s and 70s is wildly different than what immigrants are experiencing now. When we, as I mentioned earlier, when we got here, the US Used really the Cuban community as a sort of, I don't want to say scapegoat, but as a way to push forward their political agenda at the time.
You know, the thing, you know, the enemy was communism. And so, you know, you have the perfect. You know, the perfect enemy is Fidel Castro, and the perfect people are the Cuban refugees fleeing this dictatorship. And so, yeah, they were. They welcomed Cuban refugees to this country with open arms, sort of using them as a. Look, you know, we are.
And I like to say that what empire does is that it creates instability. Right. And it creates vulnerabilities elsewhere, particularly in Latin America, when we're talking about the US US Imperial imperialism, it creates instability and vulnerability elsewhere and then says, oh, we are the empire that can save you from that instability and vulnerability that we caused. Right.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: Look what we've done now, though.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. And so that is very much the story of Cuban immigrants and refugees. Very simplified, of course, that is the story. And what's happening now is that enemy that in the 60s and 70s was communism, now that enemy is the people within. Right. And I think what's so dangerous about what's happening right now is that, you know, this administration is creating homegrown enemies. It's creating saying the people that are already here are the enemy, not the people out there. It's not some distant, you know, far off enemy. It's our own people.
And to be undocumented in this country is not a crime. It's. It's, you know, the process of documentation is a civil. It's a civic thing embedded into our system for a reason. It is not a crime to be undocumented. But yet again, and this is a playbook of empire. Empire needs an enemy in order to justify itself. And we see this in history, we see this in Christian history. I mean, Christianity has long needed an enemy in order to sustain and justify itself. This is how we uphold this sort of violent militaristic theology.
And this is what, you know, and with the marriage of politics and religion, which I argue actually hasn't always been distinct because empire is so woven into our lives and into scripture. I mean, there's always Sort of been a critique of. Of empire woven within spirituality. But I think because of that, we're able to easily sort of spiritualize this. This idea of. Of the immigrant as the enemy, you know, in. You know, in these weird, twisted ways. We not just spiritualize that in particular, but spiritualize the whole political energy behind it.
And so, I mean, yeah, my whole life is shaped by immigration from when I was born.
You know, my. My grandmother to this day. I mean, she's 95.
She's pretty much on her deathbed. Doesn't really speak or. Or, you know, anything at this point. But when she does have moments of. Of clarity, she doesn't speak any English. And when she does have moments of clarity, she will say, I will take my final breath in a country that is not my own. Right?
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Her.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: Her. Her bones will forever be in her home country. And I think, you know, she's. She was. She's in this country because she was welcomed and she was allowed to be here without any issues.
And, yeah, it's a very different story. But I think, you know, it's. It's the same Empire's playbook. They want to create an enemy. They want to use the people.
They want to use fear to instill their agenda. And, yeah, I think that's exactly what we're seeing now. I think we're seeing just the same. Same sort of Empire's playbook.
And I think that those of us who are documented, those of us who are, you know, with privileges, that we don't have to fear being deported. And, And I will say, I mean, that's even something that. That, I mean, I've, you know, American citizens, kids, very easily start, you know, seeing all sorts of weird things. But all that to say that I think that we, yeah, need to know how to say, stand up and protect our neighbors who, you know, are. Are fearing for their lives. And I say it's, you know, it's interesting because Miami is where all my family still is. It's an extremely, you know, Latino American place.
I mean, there's. I know off the top of my head, you know, literally dozens of undocumented people in Miami. And of course, that city will never be touched because again, of the. I mean, I think that city, Obama, because of, you know, the. The very, you know, the politics surrounding it and just the. The very very, you know, partisan history attached to it. So it's all a game that Empire is trying to play. And I think that those of us with privileges just need to know exactly what we need to do. When it's our turn, you know, to. To do what we need to do, to do what's right for our neighbors. Yes.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: Well, thank you for writing this gorgeous book, Liturgies for Resisting Empire. Listen, I don't have a tattoo, but this is so beautiful that I was like, do I need to put this on my body? It is gorgeous, Kat. I love it so much.
[00:47:15] Speaker B: Thank you. I'm glad that you think so.
[00:47:17] Speaker A: Last question for you and then we'll let you go because the podcast is called Becoming Church. How can listeners become the church to the people around them?
[00:47:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, this is a great question.
Well, as we've been talking about, I think it's starts with undoing these. These ways of being and ways of thinking in you so that you can be someone, a conduit of true belonging for those around you. And so I think it, it's investigating the ways that Empire has seeps, has seeped into your body, into your bones, into your mind, into, yeah, your heart and your soul so that, yeah, you can undo the systems within you to then be able to allow that in a fractal way. Be able to allow that to move outward into your community, your churches, your families, and then hopefully into our world.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much. You've given us a lot to think about. Some practical things to do. We'll link up your book, all of your books in the show notes. But this has been so great. Thank you.
If you have questions on how to liberate your theology or you want to know more about reading scripture through different lenses, I've linked up a fascinating book called Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, as well as a few translations like the first nations version of the Bible. You can scroll down and click on any of those titles in the show notes. And if you want to know more about how you can resist an empirical mind frame, specifically when it comes to immigration, I've also linked up past interviews from the this show with Bri Strensrud, who runs Women of Welcome, and Liliana Reza, who is the director of refugee Policy and Human Rights at World Relief for People at the Mexico US Border. I hope that you'll read Kat's book and keep resisting anything that doesn't look like Jesus, no matter how hard you may be encouraged to believe otherwise. Until next time, thanks so much for listening. Share this episode with someone who needs it and keep becoming the church. The people around you.
