Theosophia Podcast: Recent Episodes
Sarah Elizabeth Smith
The Rev. Janie Kirt Morris. Mother Janie was the 6th woman to be ordained to the priesthood in the Diocese of Oklahoma. The priesthood was a second career for Janie as she was a well respected teacher in Norman, Oklahoma for many years and a lay leader at St. John’s Episcopal Church. Janie recalls her discernment process and how she had an inner message from the Holy Spirit urging her to do more with her life. She shares the challenges of raising a family as a single mother while in seminary as well as how her various church contexts handled having a female priest. What I find most compelling about Mother Janie is her calming, strong presence and steadfast devotion to her faith and call. And you will hear that in her voice. Towards the end of the episode she shares some stories of how she ministered to families who didn’t want a female priest to be their rector and ya’ll, her faithful witness of love literally transformed people.
In her retirement, Janie serves on the Board of Directors of Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma and chairs the Many Beliefs Serving Together committee. She also volunteers her time as a Spiritual Care Provider at Palomar, our Oklahoma City Family Justice Center.
This episode features the Rt. Rev. Robert Moody, the 4th Diocesan Bishop of Oklahoma serving from 1989-2007.
Most notably, during his Episcopate, Bishop Moody dealt with the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Murrah building bombing, supporting the consecration of Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man to become bishop, and increased ministry to the prisons, Native American communities, college campuses and Anglican schools and health clinics in the West Ankole Diocese of Uganda.
In this first episode of the mini-series on women’s ordination in Oklahoma, we chat about his perspective on the gifts women bring to ordained ministry and what the national and local landscape of the church looked like during his episcopate. Bishop Moody also gives his insights on how the Church can stay faithful to tradition while responding to the ever changing needs of a society and community in our modern times.
This episode features Beverly Bradley, a former Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Oklahoma who was the first woman Bishop Moody ordained to the priesthood in 1988. She was the second woman in the Diocese of Oklahoma to be ordained to the priesthood and the first woman in the Diocese to serve as Rector of a parish.
In this episode, Beverly shares intimate details of her path to ordination including gaining the graces of the patriarchal authorities in her life and how she managed being a lone ranger female priest in Oklahoma when there wasn’t much support for ordained women at that time.
I’m especially delighted and thankful to share Beverly’s story as we continue to unfold the history of women’s ordination in this mini-series. Her story is one of boldness and faithfulness to the Spirit’s call in her life. She is sharp, witty and truly a pioneer in the Church in Oklahoma. Thank you for your witness, Beverly.
The introductory episode features a three episode mini series about the History of Women's Ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma. This oral history project helps unfold the details of the trailblazing efforts of men and women in Oklahoma to make ordained ministry a reality for the Episcopal Church in the United States.
I am so excited to share with you a lively conversation with my friend, Dr. Susannah Larry about her new book entitled “Leaving Silence: Sexualized Violence, the Bible and Standing with Survivors.” Dr. Larry is an assistant professor of Biblical Studies at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. She is dedicated to reclaiming the Bible as a liberating Word to the contemporary Christian life and exposing flaws of biblical interpretations that use the text to justify sexualized violence in anyway.
Content Warning - we discuss topics that are graphic and violent in nature. But this book ya’ll, is so needed in our world today. Dr. Larry tackles some tough tough passages in the Bible and teaches in such a clear, intentional and pastoral way. We get into issues of power analysis, trauma informed exegesis, gender roles, ancient contexts verses our contemporary contexts, how Jesus experienced sexualized violence and so much more.
Our hundredth episode features the Rev. Teresa Pecinovsky. Reverend Teresa was born in South Korea, raised in Iowa, holds a master of education from the university of Houston and a master of divinity from Vanderbilt university. She’s an ordained disciples of christ minister and currently serves as a hospice chaplain, preacher and children’s minister.
We chat about her upcoming children’s picture book called Mother God illustrated by the incredible artist Khoa Le. With lyrical, rhyming text and exquisite illustrations, Mother God introduces readers to a dozen images of God inspired by feminine descriptions from Scripture. Children and adults alike will be in awe of the God who made them as they come to know her as a creative seamstress, generous baker, fierce mother bear, protective mother hen, strong woman in labor, nurturing nursing mother, wise grandmother, and comforting singer of lullabies.
Pre-order the book at tkpcreates.com or https://www.beamingbooks.com/store/product/9781506479019/Mother-God.
Follow Teresa on instagram and twitter @tkpcreates
The Rev. Katie is the Staff Officer for Church Planting at Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s office. She founded The Abbey, a missional worship community based in a coffee shop in Birmingham, Alabama. There she served many folks on the margins including folks experiencing homelessness, mental illness, addiction and many more.
In our conversation, the Rev. Katie and I explore the ups and downs of church planting. She explains the difficult balance of creating sustainable community while also being a business enterprise, how covid is breaking down the Church’s idolatry of the Eucharist and how good Church is not fast, easy or cheap!
Sara and Sarah chat about stewardship and parenting during covid-tide. Sara explains how her family of five are caring for one another and being extra thoughtful about how they are spending their time in their small town Tennessee life. We are keeping all our friends and family who are navigating these hard times in our prayers. Parents, teachers, administrators ya’ll are doing the lord’s work out there and we appreciate you. We hope this episode gives some guidance and framework for thinking about how to create a healthy family dynamic by centering our lives in, on and through God’s Love.
This week’s podcast features a very inspiring lay leader in Sarah's community of Oklahoma City, Ann Ali or as some folks in her call her in her community, “Rev” Ann Ali. Ann and Sarah chat about her life and service to her community and country as a police officer, army reservist, pastor and teacher. They also discuss what god is calling us to during this time of corona virus. Ann is full of cultural and familial wisdom antidotes and speaks of a faith that moves mountains and restores weary souls to their Maker. Ann is an agent of change and seeks to share the love of god to all those she meets especially those on the margins she works with in homeless outreach as an Episcopal lay leader in her home church of St. Augustine’s Oklahoma City.
Happy Pride Month! In celebration of the rich, beautiful, diversity God created in LGBTQ folks we wanted to share this episode on ethical non-monogamy! Sara and Sarah chat about their experiences with ethical-non monogamy. They explore the theological and practical expressions of this relational practice as they de-mystify its use in the world. They hope you all find this helpful as you navigate your own relationships and relational ethics.
This episode is a two part combined episode of a conversation around Nadia Bolz-Weber’s latest book entitled “Shameless - A Case for not feeling bad about feeling good, about sex.” The first part our co-host from last season, Kelsey Davis joins Sara and I for an Instagram Live session about the first half of the book. The second part is just the Sara’s talking about the second half of the book and what stood out most to us and how we could use the book practically in our contexts.
Sarah explores what it means for mothers to image the Divine and how we can practically relate to God as Mother as we honor all mother figures today. The music before the sermon is Grace Church Episcopal Yukon’s amazing praise band’s rendition of This is My Mother’s World.
Kate McElwee is the Executive Director who works from Rome Itay and Katie Lacz is the Program Associate who works from Denver, Colorado.
The Women’s Ordination Conference is the uncompromising feminist voice for women’s ordination and gender equity in the Roman Catholic Church since 1975. The Conference has been championed and ran by some incredible women in theology including theologians Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Mary Hunt and Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz to name just a few.
Sarah's conversation with Kate and Katie explores the meaning of Catholicism in their lives and how the Conference provides support and valuable ministry to women who feel called to the priesthood. In the second part of this episode, Sara and Sarah digest her conversation with their Catholic friends and how much they admire their strength, tenacity and fiery spirits.
Yadenee is a playful and fierce scout for the oracles of ease, wholeness, and liberation. Her practice and ministry are to cultivate spiritual wellness and healing as a lifestyle. She is a Unitarian Universalist minister based in Tulsa, OK. The first half of the episode is Sara and Yadenee chat about her pilgrimage to India and how space/place impact our spiritual lives. In the second half of the episode, Sara and Sarah digest Yadenee's wisdom and reflect on how her wisdom shows up in their current life situations especially in the aftermath of the Nashville tornado.
To kick off Season 3 of the podcast Sarah interviews her new host, the Rev. Sara Green. Sara is a Unitarian Universalist minister as well as the youth and young adult of color ministry associate for the UU Association. Sarah and Sara chat about Sara's path to ordination in the UU tradition and what exactly UU theology is all about and how her questions have shaped her life in pursuit of liberation, healing and covenantal relationships.
Margaret Ernst learned what she knows about faith and justice from organizing alongside clergy, school parents and airport workers in Philadelphia and has organized alongside immigrant communities resisting ICE in mid-Tennessee. A program manager with Faith Matters Network, she has helped build a curriculum on Movement Chaplaincy through Faith Matters Network's Daring Compassion Project under the leadership of Micky Scottbey Jones and Hilary Allen. Margaret lived for the past 4 years in Nashville, TN and recently moved back to Philadelphia. There she continues her work with Faith Matters Network, and has joined the pastoral team at Chestnut Hill United Church. As of this Saturday, she is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. She loves to sing and laugh at all costs. More background and updates on Faith Matters Network's Daring Compassion project can be found at: https://www.faithmattersnetwork.org/daringcompassion, including a link to download a guide Margaret created for movement chaplains to provide care for communities responding to white supremacist hate rallies.
Mother Ruth tells the story of how her multi-cultural community came together with all it’s ups and downs. Holy Family is a mixed congregation of Anglo, Hispanic and Filipino folks from all over the San Jose and surrounding areas. I had the privilege of worshipping with them this Easter and I can tell ya’ll from first hand experience, this is what the Kingdom of God looks like on earth. It was BEAUTIFUL. It is the Beloved community. Thank you so much Mother Ruth for sharing your heart and wisdom and what thoughtful leadership looks like in holding together God’s diversity in a community. You are such an example of how the church can and I think how the church should combine cultures and identities together in the one christian identity but at the same time honor their differences and particularities. Such important work for the church.
Mother Ruth is the first female priest at Holy Family Episcopal Church, San Jose, CA. Holy Family is a multicultural and multigenerational community whose mission is to celebrate God through Jesus Christ. She is also a native of the Philippines.
Mother Ruth and I met when I was in California visiting our co-host Kelsey Davis. Kelsey was giving the Easter homily at Holy Family as Mother Ruth presided over the celebration. We got to chat for a good half hour before the service and I was captivated by her story and immediately asked her to be on the podcast. So we are thrilled to share this interview with you all. Mother Ruth is an incredible woman and one of the most delightful people I’ve ever met.
In episode, we chat about her journey to the US working in ministry, how she transitioned from the United Methodist Church to the Episcopal Church and what her experience has been like in ministry as a woman of color.
A Note from Ruth: US embassy in the Philippines was not removed but instead they removed the USCIS.
The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is Senior Minister at Middle Collegiate Church, a 1000-member multiracial, welcoming, and inclusive congregation in New York City. She is an activist, preacher, writer, theologian and fierce advocate for racial equality, economic justice, and LGBTQ equality. Middle Church and Jacqui’s activism for these issues has been featured in media such as The Today Show, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The New Yorker, Essence and The Huffington Post. Jacqui is a frequent contributor to MSNBC.
Jacqui earned her Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and earned a M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in Psychology and Religion from Drew University. She has been adjunct professor at seminaries across the country, including Princeton Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, and the Graduate Theological Union.
Mama Jacqui is nothing short of a super woman theologian and we are so so thankful she took the time to be with us at Wild Goose Festival this year! We cover a lot of ground in this episode. We chat about her incredible multi-cultural church in New York, how the center of faith is Love, and all the way to deep theological conversations about why Jesus didn’t need to die.
This week we are sharing Sarah's latest sermon. It was her first Sunday morning sermon at her home church of Grace Episcopal in Yukon, Oklahoma led by the wonderful priests Fr. Tim & Mother Kirsten Baer and Deacon Helen.
She took a pastoral approach to the text instead of a strictly theological one. This means she was meeting the people where they are at and offering a personal story to relate to the congregation. She wasn’t coming at the text with a teaching head but rather a coming at it with a heart of love and compassion. These two aren’t necessarily opposites but it does matter how you approach a text when you are interpreting it to make a message to a community.
In the Episcopal tradition, we develop sermons around the gospel reading for that particular day in the calendar and last Sunday’s reading was Luke 11: 1-13.
Khortlan Becton is a native Houstonian. By the grace of God, she has received Bachelor's degrees from the University of Alabama in African American Studies and Religious Studies as well as a Master's of Theological Studies from Vanderbilt Divinity School. Khortlan is passionate about affecting social change, serving underprivileged children and youth, and writing poetry. She will be attending law school in the Fall.
In this episode, Kelsey and Khortlan talk about God as Mother and the myriad of ways God's character shines through women in motherly roles.
Khortlan Becton is a native Houstonian. By the grace of God, she has received Bachelor's degrees from the University of Alabama in African American Studies and Religious Studies as well as a Master's of Theological Studies from Vanderbilt Divinity School. Khortlan is passionate about affecting social change, serving underprivileged children and youth, and writing poetry. She will be attending law school in the Fall.
The Rev. Kayla Bonewell joins us for a second episode about her church Cathedral of Hope’s prison ministry. What started as visiting an incarcerated parishioner turned into a quarterly open and affirming worship service and pastoral care session for the many inmates at a prison in rural Oklahoma.
The Rev. Kayla Bonewell was born in Oklahoma City. She earned a BA in Religion from Oklahoma City University (2002), a Master of Liberal Arts from Naropa University (2004), and a Master of Divinity from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California (2008). Ordained in the United Church of Christ (2010), Kayla has ministry experience as a hospital chaplain, campus minister, social justice activist, youth minister, associate pastor, and solo pastor. Her personal mission statement is “To empower community, through experiences of the divine, to lead lives of deep meaning, while cultivating health, peace, and beauty in our world.” She is passionate about relevant worship, spiritual growth, and community engagement. She is currently the pastor in charge at two UCC churches in OKC, the Cathedral of Hope and Church of Open Arms.
Kayla and Sarah have a candid conversation about the intersections of her faith, doubt and sexuality. She shares her story of growing up with a passion for all things God and church but finding no refuge in her home church of the United Methodist tradition and her journey to finding a home in the UCC tradition. They also chat about how the social landscape of Oklahoma has changed since we both grew up here and what gives her hope.
Rocky’s work is a ministry to those who have oppressed and harmed by people’s interpretations of the Bible. The documentary traces the steps two scholars took in uncovering the history of how the word homosexual was put into the text nearly 50 years ago and subsequently used as a weapon against the LGBTQ community.
This is a powerful and timely story for not just the queer community but all christians that have struggled with what they were taught about the biblical text in terms of sexuality and sin and how to treat others. Rocky recounts how her story ran right into Kathy Baldock and Ed Oxford’s research on the translation team that put the word homosexual in the Bible and the divinity student who wrote the team telling them of their error that he predicted would be very costly on people’s lives.
Forge Article: Has “Homosexual” always been in the Bible?
Follow Rocky's work on instagram and twitter @litthemovie
Website: litthemovie.com
Email: litthemovie@gmail.com
To honor Pride Month we are highlighting stories of LGBTQ women. Rocky Roggio is a film maker out of Los Angeles, California. Rocky shares that “As an LGBTQ female Christian, I have been navigating a religious environment that views me as “other,” “less than,” and “not equal,” for too long. These beliefs, held by many dear to my heart, have cast a dark, dangerous shadow over my life. After years of searching for my voice, and calling, as a storyteller, my path has led me here. It is my goal to change the Christian narrative and liberate the many LGBTQ people living in the dark; oppressed by bad theology. I want us all to live and be acknowledged as equals, under Gods love. There are truths that must be shared. We are here to share those truths.”
This week is part II with the Rev. Chelsea Yarborough. Chelsea is a Ph.D. candidate at Vanderbilt in Homiletics and Liturgics in the Graduate Department of Religion. If you missed last week’s conversation I would highly recommend listening to that first episode. As one of our friend’s commented, it is completely and utterly a delicious conversation on Chelsea’s notion that "if it’s not dialogical, it’s not ethical." This second episode echoes this ethical framework - the process of homiletics and preaching should be transformative, authentic, real and vulnerable. Ya’ll this one is full of wisdom bombs again so you may have to listen to it twice!
The Rev. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough is a Ph.D. candidate at Vanderbilt in Homiletics and Liturgics in the Graduate Department of Religion. She is an ordained minister, a poet, an enneagram enthusiast, and a lover of leadership development. Her motto is "live to love and love to live each day” and is excited to continue her journey of cultivating and engaging curiosity in all that she pursues.
This week Kelsey and Sarah chat about stories to continue our mini series on Story. We explore what it means to share stories, what stories do to us, how they impact the way we see the world, how we see ourselves and how stories are created and for what purpose.
Kelsey and Margo dive deeper into the importance of story telling and how it can be a transformative practice. Margo Guernsey is a filmmaker and director of Time Travel Productions LLC, a documentary film and media company.
This weeks episode is the beginning of a mini-series on Story. Filmmaker Margo Guernsey shares her wisdom on the power of storytelling. In theological language, this episode explores story as "hermeneutic." Hermeneutic is a fancy word for interpretation. It is how a story shapes and informs our lives, as our lives influence how we hear/understand a story.
Margo is the Director and Principal of Time Travel Productions, which she founded in 2012 to produce documentary films and related media. Margo's feature directorial debut, Councilwoman,is touring the country and will air on PBS's WORLD Channel in fall 2019. Her current project is tentatively titled, The Philadelphia Eleven: To Be Whole. It tells the story of the Episcopal Women who were ordained as priests in 1974, against the rules of the church, and found themselves at the center of a media firestorm about who speaks the word of God.
Over the past 20 years, Margo has worked as a union organizer, non-profit development director, Spanish/English translator and media instructor, always building multi-racial collaborations across class lines to inform the work of building a more just society. Margo works with teams that reflect the subjects in the film as a cornerstone of her artistic process. She is passionate about distributing documentary film in new ways, to empower people, and shift narratives.
In this episode Margo explores the intersection of spirituality and the film making process. She shares about the importance of deep listening and the way stories hold the potential to transform us.
Thank you to my sweet mentor and friend Mother Becca Stevens for letting us share your powerful and eloquent message of God’s Love living in us as Fire. She reminds us of Jesus’ message of Love saying “You think that cathedral is beautiful, you think that temple is amazing, you think those stones are huge? it is nothing it is DUST compared to the kingdom of Love that God is building in you.”
The sermons starts with the gospel reading for Easter Day which is John 20: 1-18 then a beautiful song written and composed by Becca’s husband Marcus Hummon and performed by Marcus and the St. Augustine’s choir and band.
This week on the podcast is the Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers. Dr. Meyers is an episcopal priest, dean of academic affairs and the Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. We chat about her sabbatical project on multi-cultural worship congregations and what got her hooked on liturgical theology.
Kelsey's Easter sermon given on April 21, 2019 at Holy Family Episcopal Church in San Jose, California. The sermon is spoken in English and in Spanish.
All are welcome at Holy Family Episcopal Church. They are a multicultural, multigenerational community whose mission is to celebrate God through Jesus Christ; proclaiming, living and sharing the Good News in their daily lives. They believe that all people are God’s people.
This week features Dr. Christine Caron Gebhart. Christine has been the Director of the Gender Relations Center at the University of Notre Dame since 2012. The mission of the GRC mission is to help students form healthy and safe relationships as they learn about who they are and how they want to be with others. In addition to her administrative duties, Christine is a First Year Moreau instructor and serves as a co-chair of the Committee for Sexual Assault Prevention, co-chair of the greeNDot violence prevention program, a Title IX Resource Coordinator and a Pregnancy & Parenting Support Specialist.
The first 25 minutes we chat about Christine’s Catholic faith and deep love of theology. We get into why she holds onto her tradition even though it has its problems. The last 15 minutes we discuss her work at the Gender Relations Center at Notre Dame and the Catholic Trinitarian theological framework that steers its vision and programming.
The Rev. Becca Stevens is an author, speaker, priest, social entrepreneur, founder, and president of Thistle Farms. Kelsey and Becca talk about mentoring and community.
Kelsey and Sarah sit down and talk about the meaning of Lent. Lent is the liturgical season in the Christian calendar that represents the 40 days Jesus went to the desert before his death. The season begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. Kelsey and Sarah explore the ways in which Lent has been used to as a theology of shame and guilt and how we might offer a theology of original goodness to help modern believers to find a balance in our tradition’s season of penitence.
This week we are featuring a sermon by the Rev. Canon Naomi Tutu on Luke 13:31-35. The Rev. Tutu is a dear friend of mine from our time together in Divinity school and was on the pod last year in episode 7. The Rev. Tutu joined the All Souls Cathedral in Ashville, NC in November 2018 as the Cathedral Missioner for Racial and Economic Equity and Missioner for Kairos West Community Center.
This episode features the Rev. Jen Logsdon Kellogg she is the Associate Pastor at Quail Springs United Methodist Church in OKC, OK. Rev. Jen actually attended the conference and will share with us first hand experience of what it was like there. We chat about the differences interpreting scripture, understanding the Holy Spirit and how pastoring to both sides is critically important.
The Rev. Sam McGlothlin is Associate Pastor for Belle Meade United Methodist Church near Nashville, TN. Sarah and Sam discuss the latest decision the UMC Church made on the ordination of LGBTQ people and the ability to facilitate same-sex marriages. Sam explains the 3 different plans that were voted on and how her church community has taken the news. She also shares her pastoral response.
Bishop Mary was born and raised in Miami, Florida. She graduated from California State University, Fullerton, in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in History and a minor in Music. She earned her Master of Divinity degree from the College of St. John the Evangelist in New Zealand in 1994. She was ordained in the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Los Angeles to the diaconate in 1994, the priesthood in 1995 and to the episcopate in 2007 in the diocese of El Camino Real.
As a priest, +Mary served as assistant rector in two parishes in the Diocese of Los Angeles before accepting the call to be rector of St. Margaret’s in Miami Lakes, Florida, in December 1998. Following six years of service as rector she joined the staff of the Diocese of Southeast Florida as Archdeacon for Deployment. In November 2007 Gray-Reeves was elected as the third bishop of the Diocese of El Camino Real.
Welcome to Season 2 everybody! This week Kelsey and I sit down to talk about our work in the world, why we love theology and what our hopes and dreams are for Theosophia Podcast.
A sermon Kelsey delivered last year on the Feast Day of Transfiguration. Kelsey Davis will be joining the Theosophia Podcast for season 2 as a co-host and co-creator of Theosophia. She’s currently the curator of Emerging Communities for the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real in CA.
Rev. Hanlin currently serves as an associate minister at Marble Collegiate Church in New York. We dive into a lovely discussion about self-care for pastors and the importance of talking about mental health in the church.
Rev. Brittany was born in East Orange, NJ, and moved to Charlotte, NC at age 11. She graduated from Howard University in Washington, DC with a major in Sociology and minor in Community Development. Upon graduating, Brittany became an AmeriCorps Volunteer, serving as Youth Care Worker for young ladies between the ages of 11-14 at Mercy Home for Boys and Girls in Chicago. She earned her Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School in 2016. Brittany is very passionate about providing authentic and effective pastoral care to children and youth. She is currently an Associate Minister at Marble Colliegate Church in New York. Welcome, Rev. Brittany Hanlin.
This week we talk about evangelism in the church. We talk specifically about Evangelism as Relationship and Community Building instead of the old traditions and histories of the evangelism as colonization. We chat about the unique ways churches are evangelizing to their communities and how evangelism is a loving spreading difference as the church acting as the hands and feet of Christ.
With a passion for people and for God, Kirsten sees the best in everyone she meets. She is a nurturer and loves being a pastor and priest. Her and her husband Rev. Tim Baer co-founded the church plant Grace Church in Yukon, Oklahoma. After serving at Grace Church for 5 years, Rev. Kirsten began full time as Assistant Chaplain at Casady Episcopal School in OKC in the fall of 2018. She is the first female priest to serve at Casady School. While she serves at Casady during the week, she is blessed to continue to serve at Grace on Sundays. She is a 2011 graduate of Virginia Theological Seminary (M.Div.) and the University of Oklahoma (B.A. and M.Ed). She loves baking and scrap-booking, but spends nearly all her free time with her children, Hannah and Andrew. Here’s Rev. Kirsten Baer.
This week we hear from Heather and Kelsey about what marriage means to them. We explore the idea of marriage as sacrament, what they did to prepare for marriage and what they do to help their relationship flourish. Hope ya’ll enjoy this lovely conversation, here’s the Davis’
Merry Christmas! Christians around the world are celebrating the birth of Jesus, the god-son who was born of the mother of God, Mary. The theology surrounding God incarnate as man or incarnational theology is the idea or beliefs that God came to be with us in our own flesh and take on our experience in this world with us. Our God is a relational god, one that wants to know us and share with us in this life. And to celebrate this theological moment in our tradition I thought it would be fitting to have the first couple on the podcast to symbolize god’s relationship with humanity. God is relational so therefore we are relational.
Sarah shares some exciting news about the podcast for next year and her best friend Phillip asks her questions about the past year and the future for the podcast and her career.
Michelle is the creator and owner of Ruffled By Grace: Parisian Wedding Blessings. She serves as an officiant for couples seeking personalized spiritual wedding blessings or to renew their wedding vows in Paris. In the episode, Michelle and I talk all about her entrepreneurial church business Ruffled By Grace.
Rev. Michelle Wahila was born and raised in Endicott, New York. She graduated with honors from Grove City College in 2002 and received her Master's of Divinity from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in May 2005. Michelle was ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) in November 2005. Michelle is the creator and owner of Ruffled By Grace: Parisian Wedding Blessings. She serves as an officiant for couples seeking personalized spiritual wedding blessings or to renew their wedding vows in Paris. She works with a team of professionals to offer creative and tailored services that reflect the uniqueness of every couple.
This is the last week with Rev. Anita Peebles who is the Associate Pastor for Next Generation Ministries at Seattle First Baptist Church. We discuss her work on atonement theology for children. Atonement theology is more or less the meaning of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension. It can be very heavy stuff so Anita’s strategy for presenting this to children is really fantastic and I think super helpful for even adults who are learning about atonement for the first time or just trying to explore their theological understandings of god more
Rev. Anita serves as the Associate Pastor for Next Generation Ministries at Seattle First Baptist Church.
Sarah and Dr. Robyn have a lively discussion about the ethics and theology of polyamory and ethical non-monogamy. And also, what it means to be in christian relationality.
**“Knowing intimately that the borderlands are a place of learning and growth, Dr. Robyn draws on their identity and heritage as a queer Latinx in everything that they do. From doubt to divine and everywhere in between, their call as an activist-theologian demands the vision to disrupt hegemony and colonialist structures of multi-layered oppression.
As an anti-oppression, anti-racist, non-binary Transgressive Latinx, Robyn takes seriously their call as an activist theologian and ethicist to bridge together theories and practices that result in communities responding to pressing social concerns. Robyn sees this work as a life-orienting vocation, deeply committed to translating theory to practice, and embedded in re-imagining our moral horizon to one which privileges a politics of radical difference.”*
I’m honored to share another episode with Rabbi Jill Hammer. This is one way I think we can build relationships across religious lines and learn from other amazing humans. This is my act to make the world just a little bit better, a little more loving and to start tearing down the ignorant walls of anti-semitic bigotry. Rabbi Hammer shares about the Jewish Tradition’s history of speaking about God as woman.
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is the co-founder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, a program that trains women in embodied, earth-based, feminist Jewish spiritual leadership. She is also the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a pluralistic seminary for rabbis, cantors, and educators. She is the author of eight books, including Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women, The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for all Seasons, The Omer Calendar of Biblical Women, The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership (with Taya Shere), The Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook, and The Book of Earth and Other Mysteries. She lives in New York City with her wife and daughter.
Megan Black is the National Clergy Organizer for Faith in Action and a life-long Catholic woman. Megan and I chat about the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Church. Megan shares a beautiful and raw poem she wrote about her experience walking out of mass in response to how her Church is handling their sins. Hope you all enjoy this super honest and emotionally stirring conversation. Here’s Megan.
Megan Black is the National Clergy Organizer for Faith in Action, a multi-faith, multi-racial network of faith-based community organizations committed to ending racial inequity and economic injustice in our communities. Megan earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Master's of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School.
In this episode, Megan and I chat about her life and upbringing in the Catholic Church and why she chooses to stay in it. We also explore her racial and spiritual identities and call to ministry as a layperson.
These episodes are meant to engage current events happening in the world and provide a little theological and social reflection from actual theologians.
This week Dr. Bryant and I discuss Colin Kaepernik and Nike. I am thrilled to have such a learned and eloquent ethicist on the show. I think ya’ll will really enjoy this one. We get into the notion of communal solidarity, willful ignorance and theological connections of the erotic.
Round 2 with singer, song-writer, recording artist and LGBT advocate Jennifer Knapp.
In this episode, I ask Jennifer why she went to Divinity School and we dive into the importance and value of theological education and how her faith continues to guide her life sense of community as a traveling musician and speaker.
She’s currently on tour with her Kansas and Love Comes Back Around sets. Check out her latest work and tour dates on her website jenniferknapp.com and follow her on all the social media platforms.
Jennifer Knapp is a beloved singer-songwriter who got her start in 90s Contemporary Christian Music scene. She received four Dove Awards and two Grammy nominations during her CCM career then left abruptly leaving her successful albeit stressful career behind.
Seven years later Knapp came back with news that she was gay and wrote a lovely memoir about her childhood growing up in rural Kansas to her path to the CCM world, why she left and her how faith never ceased during her self discovery of her sexuality.
Now Jennifer is an advocate for LGBT issues in the church and she just released her 3rd album post-sabbatical called Love Comes Back Around. She begins her tour for the album this weekend in Waco and travels mostly around the midwest and east coast.
In this interview, Jennifer and I discuss the impact her music has had on people’s lives, her career in the CCM world and her spiritual journey amidst her discovering her sexuality.
Our Bible App supports the belief that spirituality is a spectrum and that faith is a journey. At its core, the holy text was written to be inclusive of all of God’s creation especially those on the margins. Our Bible App is bringing it back to the roots celebrating the diversity of God’s creation with devotionals highlighting the inclusiveness of the text. Whether one goes to church to find spiritual clarity or to the sanctuary of nature, Our Bible App supports the belief that we are each trying to understand our place in this grand universe. Our goal is to untangle the binds that Christian colonizers have spread across the globe over hundreds of years. Through devotionals highlighting pro LGBT, pro-women and encourage interfaith inclusivity we hope to provide a tool that is needed to create healthy prayer and meditation habits.
Crystal Cheatham is a social activist creating conversation and action concerning LGBT people in religious spaces. Crystal works as a ghostwriter but maintains a public voice through articles op-eds and blogs. She is a columnist for the Philadelphia Gay News and a contributor at both the Huffington Post and the New Civil Rights Movement. She’s a musician, a podcaster and most recently she is the founder and CEO of the OurBible App which seeks to “Uplift Believers of All Stripes.”
What I admire most about Crystal is her unwavering faith in the Holy and her devotion to her spirituality in all its complexity. She sees the beauty in the complexities of her identity and image as G-d made her and she provides the world a transparent and honest telling of her story so others might connect and find solace in their experiences of faith and identity as well.
This week is round two with the newest female Episcopal priest in Oklahoma, Rev. Erin Jean Warde. Erin serves as rector of St. Luke's in Ada, OK.
We chat about preaching and sermon writing. We discuss her theology of preaching, methods of sermon creation and the importance of connecting everything to scripture.
You can find Erin @TheRevEJ on Twitter & IG and her most recent written work at www.erinjeanwarde.com.
Rev. Erin Jean Warde serves as rector of St. Luke's in Ada, OK. She received her bachelors in English and Creative Writing from Troy University in Troy, AL, and her masters of divinity from Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, TX.
Erin and I talk about her unchurched path to ordination, what sacraments mean to her and how she understands priesthood as story telling.
Today we are launching a new episode format. Once a month we will be featuring Sarah and another woman in theology talking about a current social issue. We will provide theological reflection on something that’s going on in our world.
Today's episode includes Rev. Shantell Hinton and Sarah discussing Lebron James’ new I Promise school and its theological implications on the world and society.
“What’s Going On with Sarah and Shantell”
Fr. Joe Alsay of St. Augustine's OKC invited me to preach on the Feast Day of St. Mary Magdalene on July 22nd, 2018. He thought it would be most fitting to have a female preacher on the day we celebrate the first disciple male or female who was commissioned by Jesus to spread the word of his resurrection. Mary Magdalene was the first person to meet the resurrected Christ.
Also, following in her legacy, I wanted to note that yesterday, July 29th was the 44th anniversary of the ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven. In 1974, The Philadelphia Eleven were the first women to be ordained in the Episcopal Church two years before the General Convention authorized the ordination of women. Most folks don’t realize the Episcopal Church was relatively late to ordain women to the priesthood compared to it’s other protestant friends but as an Episcopalian I am grateful for these women and their trailblazing, persistent attitudes and spirits that opened up the possibility of priesthood for us women.
Therefore, to honor the legacy of women being commissioned by Christ to do God’s work from St. Mary Magdalene to the Philadelphia Eleven to all the amazing women priests out there I know and love, here is a sermon to honor you all.
This is Episode 2 with Army Chaplain Jennifer Lane. We chat about her life as a woman serving in the United States Army as a chaplain charged with “nurturing the living, caring for the wounded, and honoring the fallen.”
You can follow Jen on twitter @CHJenLane and @loveusveterans
And as always, please rate and review Theosophia on iTunes and visit us at theosophiapodcast.com and theologycorner.net.
Jennifer has a bachelors degree from the University of North Carolina, a Masters in Public Administration and Juris Doctorate from Indiana U and most recently a Master In Divinity from the Vanderbilt University. She wrote her final thesis on "Soul Repair of Moral Wounds from War.” In 2014 she was ordained as an American Baptists pastor and went Active Duty as an Army Chaplain with the 209th Aviation Support Battalion on Wheeler Army Airfield November 1, 2016. She also founded The Veterans Chapel in 2014 to teach churches and clergy how they can better minister to military families and Veterans, particularly marginalized groups of Veterans.
We chat about Jen’s journey to Army Chaplaincy. We discuss her religious upbringing in the Episcopal and Baptist Church, her various career lives and why it is so important to have women in ministry. Hope ya’ll enjoy, here’s Jen
We chat about the difficult topic of guns and violence in our world today. Becky and I have differing views on guns which makes for an exciting conversation. We ask a lot of questions of each other and approach the topic like Becky would on the Twisted Sisterds podcast - we dissect and deconstruct a social issue and how it affects our world.
She’s a chemist, a Nazarene and host of the Twisted Sisterds podcast which highlights - "women deconstructing culture, theology and a random stray thought here and there.” We chat about the Nazarene tradition, the genesis of the Twisted Sisterds podcast and how she experiences the divine.
Today we talk faith and politics and wrestle with the question of can and should our faith be political? We get into Emilie’s take on this question especially as it relates to theological education and her post as Dean of a Divinity School. She drops some serious wisdom bombs in this episode ya’ll are gonna love it.
Emilie is currently the Dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society.
This week we chat about Emilie’s life and discernment of her vocation(s) of ministry, teaching and leadership in academia.
She’s a pioneer, a visionary, and dare I say - a prophet.
A Flexible Faith is a project aiming to create a theology of dialogue. Bonnie surveys the history of the Christian tradition to show how Christians have responded to life’s questions theologically. She presents topics from atonement theory to should Christians vote to women’s equality and offers various responses and discussion questions to help folks engage with one another. Also, throughout the chapters, Bonnie includes brief interviews with Christians from varied traditions such as Anabaptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, Womanist, Liberationist and many more. We discuss what sparked Bonnie’s interest in this project and how it has shaped her theology.
Bonnie is a political writer and author. She's an editor at The Week and a fellow at Defense Priorities. Her publications also appear on news outlets including Time, CNN, Politico, The Hill, Relevant Magazine, Rare, The American Conservative, and more. She holds a Masters in Christian Thought from Bethel Seminary. Bonnie recently came out with a new book entitled “A Flexible Faith” : Rethinking what it means to follow Jesus today.
We discuss her religious upbringing, journey to the Mennonite Church as well as her passion for news and politics and what led her to pursing theological education.
Find Bonnie at bonniekristian.com and @bonniekristian on Twitter.
Chanhee and I discuss a paper she wrote about the troubles the church has in dealing with the intersectionality of human identity including race, gender, sexuality, nationality and ethnicity. We focus in on korean immigrant churches structures of power and then to the purpose of church writ large. Can church be a home for minority peoples and how can it be when it preaches problematic ideologies from the pulpit and perpetuates hegemonic norms that regulate and create “otherness?”
Chanhee Heo is a Korean immigrant that is an ordained minister in the Disciples of Christ Church. In this episode, Chanhee and I talk about her background coming from Korea to the US to study gender and sexuality issues in Christian Theology.
Trigger Warning: #metoo Chanhee shares a story of sexual harassment that was monumental in her vocational and theological development. So to those who are not needing to hear a story like this you may want to wait until next week’s episode where we get into theological questions of identity.
Today’s talk is about how Caroline uses her theological education in the field of medicine. We explore the doctrine of incarnation and how the lens of understanding God as with us helps her treat each patient with the dignity, respect and care all god’s children deserve. We also chat about her non-profit clinic she started for LGBT youth.
Caroline Leithner is a Nurse Practitioner in the State of Washington. She received a dual degree in nursing and theology from Vanderbilt University. She’s also an Episcopalian and has gone through a large portion of the ordination process but has put that part of her path on hold to pursue her career in health care. Caroline is insanely smart and an absolute delight of a person to be around. We discuss her religious upbringing in the church, her path to divinity school and nursing school and we begin to chat about how theology informs her nursing practice.
Kait is a doctoral candidate in systematic theology at the University of Aberdeen and the curator for the Barth Collection at Princeton Theological Seminary where she earned her Master of Divinity. In this episode, Kait and I get into her dissertation work on Paul’s apocalyptic theology on sin and death. This conversation ties in nicely from the previous episode about Kait’s encounter with the alt-right white supremicast groups in Charlottesville where she wrestled with questions of death and darkness in the form of racism.
Kait is a doctoral candidate at the University of Aberdeen and Curator for the Barth Collection at Princeton Theological Seminary. In this episode, Kait shares about her dreadful experience during the Charlottesville protests confronting racism in the flesh with her clergy friends as they counter protested the alt-right white supremacist groups.
Today, I’m posting a sermon I gave over spring break when I was in Breckenridge Colorado. Fr. Charlie Brumbaugh of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church was kind enough to let me share a homily with his community during a Eucharistic service on March 21st 2018. In this sermon I am using the Lent 5 gospel text which is John 12:20-33. I explore the idea of atonement as reconciliation.
Julia Nusbaum shares about the genesis and purpose of her writing community project Her Story. Julia began the project during her time working at Thistle Farms, a social enterprise helping women get off the streets. Inspired by Thistle Farms theological vision of Love Heals she created brave spaces for women to share their stories. Julia says, “When you write down your own story…all of a sudden you realize the power inside of you.”
Julia Nusbaum is small town farm girl raised in Illinois. She currently holds the position of Event Manager for Your People’s Ministry in the United Methodist Church. She has a Masters of Theological Studies from Vanderbilty University and Bachelors in history and religion from Augustana College. She lives in Milwaukee where she’s writing her first novel. She’s also the founder of HerStory an online blog that empowers women through storytelling. In today’s episode Julia shares about her upbringing in the Lutheran tradition, her passion for social justice work and finding the divine outside of the church.
Amy founded The Church at the Lipstick Lounge in 2017 in East Nashville, TN. The Lipstick Lounge is a lesbian dive bar that’s famous for its night life and karaoke. Amy and I talk about what it means to create a sacred space for folks on the margins, how to build organic pastoral care and ministry and how to maintain professionalism in a non-traditional church setting.
Amy is a Baptist Preacher, Professor, Entrepreneur. Amy is a certified Life-Coach, Former NCAA Track and Field Athlete for Belmont University, she started six companies before the age of 30. She is a member of the Academy of Homiletics, Society of Biblical Literature, Academy of Preachers. She is a professional songwriter and actor, most recently on the show Nashville.
Amy holds a MDIV from Baylor University. She is an adjunct faculty at Belmont University in the College of Theology and Christian Ministry. She was ordained to Gospel Ministry on August 13, 2017 by First Baptist Church Decatur, GA. She lives in Nashville, TN and Santa Fe, NM and founded the Church at Lipstick Lounge in East Nashville, TN.
This week we really flesh out Courtney’s work on the Erotic or Eros. Courtney posits the Erotic is not simply sex, but it is a mode relationality through the flesh. We chat about bodies, womanist thought, pornographic ideologies and how the church is asking the wrong questions.
Rev. Courtney Bryant-Prince shares her journey to priesthood and vocation as a theologian. We also start discussing her dissertation work on using Womanism to explore the idea of God as Eros and Erotic Theology.
Rev. Naomi Tutu discusses what it means to be a Christian in 2018 with the reality of society's obsession with wealth, power and materialism. She posits that the church should be a source of critique and challenge to our social structures. Instead of giving charity, the church should simply live in community, a community like Jesus envisioned and created while he was on earth.
The challenges of growing up black and female in apartheid South Africa have been the foundation of Nontombi Naomi Tutu’s life as an activist for human rights. Tutu is the third child of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nomalizo Leah Tutu. She was born in South Africa, was educated in Swaziland, the US, and England, and has divided her adult life between South Africa and the US.
Sarah speaks with Naomi about her new title as "Mother" and the problem with titles for men and women in the church. They also discuss her experience of racism in South Africa and the US, the Anglican Communion and her call to ministry despite not wanting to follow directly in her father's footsteps.
Rev. Valle shares with us a liturgical play she created as a coming out ritual. Coming out as what? You will have to listen and see. Lis performs this ritual in her burlesque stage presence called Sofia Diviniatrix. Lis’ creative, artistic vision opens up our imaginations to consider other important moments of our lives as sacred and holy. It also opens up our imaginations of how we think about God and implores us to engage in a more intimate relationship with God as Holy Eros.
A daughter of a female pastor, Lis Valle shares her story of growing up in Puerto Rico. She first obtained her juris doctorate and practiced immigration law in Puerto Rico before starting Divinity school there. She came to the states to finish her MDIV at Louisville Seminary and later started her phd at Vanderbilt University in Homiletics and Liturgics. Lis and Sarah discuss her quest for gender justice in law and faith, how and why her gender informs her questions and how the church is the problem but needs to be a solution.
"Christ demonstrates grace through the care of bodies through the feeding and washing and healing and restoring households, very concrete practical things that are lived out in flesh." Claire and Sarah discuss embodied theology through the lived experiences of motherhood and priesthood.
-Candidate for Ordination in Episcopal Church Diocese of East TN -Spiritual Direction -Keep Watch With Me - Advent Reader -Epiphany Book Club -Presbyterian (PCA) to Independent Charismatic Methodist to Church of God to Episcopal -Sophia as embodied wisdom and intuition -finding meaning in the sacraments and liturgy and rituals -baptism
BONUS EPISODE!!! Sarah Elizabeth Smith preaches at Casady School, an Episcopal k-12 school in Oklahoma City, OK. To honor MLK's legacy, her message is centered around the theological truth that RACE IS A GIFT FROM GOD.
Sarah and Joy discuss a theology of Beloved Community as it relates to the Eucharistic table and the effects of White Supremacy
Joy explains her path from the Pentecostal tradition to the United Methodist Church and the ordination process.
Nazarene Keegan Osinski discusses her views on the Eucharist and Real Presence of Christ
Keegan Osinski is a MTS candidate and Public Services Librarian at Vanderbilt Divinity School. She joins Sarah this week to discuss her tradition - the Nazarene Church and her rebel spirit growing up in Southern California.
In Episode 2 part 2, Rev. Shantell Hinton discusses her theology of salvation as it relates to justice.
Sarah's good friend, classmate and colleague, Rev. Shantell Hinton, joins her on the podcast this week to discuss her call to ministry and how she experiences the Holy.
Theosophia creator and host, Sarah Elizabeth Smith, and her close friend and Notre Dame classmate, Kelly Simon talk together about the new podcast and what Theosophia means.