It is a common occurrence to have seasons of closeness to God and times when we have doubt and struggle. Struggles and feeling separated from God are common, so common that Christian mystics refer to these seasons as the “dark night of the soul.” These seasons have not always led people away from God, but … Continue reading Episode 293: Focusing on…

It is a fact: many communities with the highest concentrations of people of color in the United States are also the most polluted. The impact of unsafe houses, unclean soil and water, and food that makes us sick is the very definition of a systemic problem – a problem that will not be solved by … Continue reading Episode 292: Focusing on Wellness –…

Sometimes you experience something that makes you think. I recently had an experience like this when my family and I had a two-week tour of South Africa, a land where the legacy of colonialism and modern-day racism is more recent, and is both similar and different than the ongoing legacy of these issues in the … Continue reading Episode 291: White …

Managing stress may be one of the most challenging things we have to do professionally. The stress we must manage doing antiracism work can be draining, grueling, or overwhelming. And yet, doing this kind of work can also be deeply fulfilling. For that reason, it is important to prioritize mental wellness. Today, our team of … Continue reading Epis…

What does health feel like? Probably as soon as I asked this question you thought about what your body feels like – such as noticing if you are tired or have lots of energy right now, if you are hungry or if you feel like you are sick or in pain. Some people are really … Continue reading Episode 289: Focusing on Wellness – “Physical Wellness.”…

Many of us dream about taking a break from work, or even going on vacation. But what makes a great vacation may differ from person to person, and that is because everyone’s personality is very different. Maybe you have experienced this before yourself – some people want to have little planned; some people want to … Continue reading Episode 288: Pai…

What does it mean to think about white supremacy culture? I mean, to REALLY think about it. What happens when you think about it? Even just hearing the words “white supremacy culture”, or listen to ideas about it, how does it impact your body or your urges? What emotions do you become aware of? So … Continue reading Episode 287: White Supremacy Cul…

I know many people in my city who tell me they will intentionally change their commute to work to “avoid sketchy neighborhoods”… often times lengthening their commute in order to do so. Other people who live outside the city in the surrounding bedroom communities will tell me that they may not want to drive into … Continue reading Episode 286: Whit…

Are you the kind of person who is open to being wrong? Perhaps you didn’t have all your facts straight, or perhaps there was information you didn’t have at the time you made your decision. What do you do when you find out there were other things to consider? A pastor once told me this … Continue reading Episode 285: White Supremacy Culture – “Defen…

Who are you like? For many of us as white people, we know we are white, but we don’t like the idea that non-white people see us as a group with some predictable characteristics. We often talk about our individual characteristics as more defining of who we are. For example, we may identify more with … Continue reading Episode 284: White Supremacy Cu…

What makes you feel good about yourself? I remember how much I used to dread performance evaluations. I remember so often feeling anxious, my palms would sweat, I’d feel restless, and have this sick feeling in my stomach in the hour before I’d have my yearly performance review. I hated it. It like I was … Continue reading Episode 283: An Antioch Po…

What makes you afraid? A common thing that people across cultures run into is having a fear of unfamiliar foods. New flavors, textures, or smells can create strong responses – sometimes embarrassingly strong responses. However, we tend to think that the food “we” like is … “normal.” I remember discovering that some of my non-American … Continue rea…

Have you ever had the thought that because someone doesn’t express themselves with proper grammar, that what they have to say is somehow less? Perhaps we don’t even think about the point the individual is making because they don’t express it according to the grammatical values we hold. Perhaps we never consider how these grammar … Continue reading …

We have been talking the past few episodes about aspects of White Supremacy Culture, and noticed … well … a lot of these characteristics cause us stress. Its true, the list of white supremacy culture characteristics in many ways is a list of stressors that impact so many of us – trying to be perfect, … Continue reading Episode 280: White Supremacy …

“But if we do that, we will lose people!” Have you heard these words before in a meeting? Someone proposes an idea that is in keeping with the mission or values of an organization, and the idea is not shot down on its merits, but rather because there is a fear that it will turn … Continue reading Episode 279: White Supremacy Culture – “Progress! Bi…

Have you ever been the victim of a lost story? Viola Davis tells a story in her autobiography “Finding Me” of a time when she was in elementary school wearing clothing that smelled badly. Her teacher could have told herself a story that black people like Viola didn’t care about standards of cleanliness and that … Continue reading Episode 278: White…

Who is qualified to make a decision? Like it or not, it is in the human nature to continually evaluate our surroundings based on almost imperceptible judgements. Sometimes these judgements keep us alive. Our bodies remember things to keep us safe, to “jump out of the way” of all sorts of perceived dangers. Some of … Continue reading Episode 277: Wh…

Do you think you know other people’s motives? A lot of us do. I remember working in a psychiatric hospital many years ago where a part of my job was to write down the observations I made about the individuals under my care. It took training to try to describe factually what I noticed in … Continue reading Episode 276: White Supremacy Culture – “Ant…

I know a number of perfectionists who tell me that one of the things they like most about their personality is that they strive to make things better. And it makes sense, there are a lot of things about the world, and about ourselves, that could benefit from improvement. But one of the things which … Continue reading Episode 275: White Supremacy Cu…

Everyone has a perspective or bias, and most of us like to think that our biases are accurate. As a therapist, I often hear couples tell me about the problems in their relationship, and I will ask each partner to tell me the story of the problem. Often these stories are somewhat different, reflecting the … Continue reading Episode 274: White Suprem…

What makes you feel good about yourself? I remember how much I used to dread performance evaluations. I remember so often feeling anxious, my palms would sweat, I’d feel restless, and have this sick feeling in my stomach in the hour before I’d have my yearly performance review. I hated it. It like I was … Continue reading Episode 273: White Suprema…

What makes you afraid? A common thing that people across cultures run into is having a fear of unfamiliar foods. New flavors, textures, or smells can create strong responses – sometimes embarrassingly strong responses. However, we tend to think that the food “we” like is … “normal.” I remember discovering that some of my non-American … Continue rea…

The Antioch Podcast is a team of Christian antiracism educators and friends who gather every week to have a conversation about faith, race and the things that matter in our lives. We are a diverse group, but recognize that many of us are… well, we aren’t the youngest people doing this work. So today, we … Continue reading Episode 271: Hannah Reed –…

The Intercultural Development Inventory is a tool to help individuals and organizations assess their cultural competence and chart a path to increase this competence over time. Last year, we took the IDI as a team, and since then, we have reflected on and grown from the information we learned from the experience. On today’s episode, … Continue read…

The Intercultural Development Inventory is a tool to help individuals and organizations assess their cultural competence and chart a path to increase this competence over time. Last year, we took the IDI as a team, and since then, we have reflected on and grown from the information we learned from the experience. On today’s episode, … Continue read…

This Antioch Encore was originally recorded and released in 2020 Songs: O Come All Ye Faithful 2. Silent Night 3. Angels We Have Heard on High 4. O Little Town of Bethlehem 5. Sweet Little Jesus Boy 6. Come Thou Long Expected Jesus 7. Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming 8. Hark the Herald Angels … Continue reading Episode 268: An Antioch Christmas Encore –…

This is an encore episode of the Antioch Podcast recorded in 2022. We are a diverse group of Christian antiracism educators and friends who gather every week to share stories of our lives, which some of the time has to do directly with our experiences as antiracism educators. We also are whole people – people … Continue reading Episode 267: An Anti…

I know that I don’t tend to sit down and ask people, “Hey, what do you think about CRT?” probably because I don’t know what I’d hear… or maybe I do have a guess about what they might say and I’m self-protectively trying to avoid arguments and anger in the event that my guess was … Continue reading Episode 266: Christianity and CRT – “Reflections on…

Before his eventual execution for being a Christian, the apostle Paul wrote these words from his Roman prison cell, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.” He knew … Continue reading Episode 265: C…

As a child, it always was a little bit embarrassing for me when my mother worked as a substitute teacher for my elementary school class. It wasn’t that my mom was a bad teacher. It was quite the opposite, actually. My mother was a riveting and dynamic teacher who made learning fun, and as one … Continue reading Episode 264: Robert Chao Romero & Jef…

When Senator John Lewis died on July 17, 2020, the New York Times published his letter “Together You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation” which he had written three days before his death as his last address to the nation. In this letter, he talked about his hopes for the beloved community, which he … Continue reading Episode 263: Christianity and CRT…

When you enter a space what percentage of people in that space need to look like you in order for you to feel comfortable? Sometimes for me that number is one, but only if I’m with the right people. As a white man married to a Chinese woman, I remember some of the first times … Continue reading Episode 262: Christianity and CRT – “Institutional Col…

In 1958, Mildred and Richard Loving were arrested in Virginia for being an interracial couple. They fought back against their arrest, and their case, Loving vs. Virginia eventually reached the Supreme Court. They won their case on June 12th, 1967 – nine years after their arrest. This case overturned decades of laws against interracial marriage … Co…

What is overt and covert about racism? I remember when I first started learning about racism as a young white man. I grew up in a rural community, had recently joined a multiethnic church, and was doing a lot of reading and making friends with people of color. I was learning a lot about the … Continue reading Episode 260: Christianity and CRT – “Ov…

What does it mean that racism is ordinary? Jim Wallace wrote a book a number of years ago called “America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America” whose title aptly described racism as the sin condition which most profoundly shaped America from the colonial period forward. From this vantage point, … Continue reading …

In today’s session Jane and Michelle pause from the discussion of the book Christianity and Critical Race Theory: A Faithful and Constructive Conversation by Robert Chao Romero and Jeff M. Liou to reflect on what they have read. Both Michelle and Jane identify key takeaways from the introduction and first chapter. They also make connections … Conti…

So I’m a white guy, and I used to never think about my whiteness when I went anywhere, and for sure for sure I never sat around with other white people and talked about our whiteness. I’ve never sat around with other white people and asked, “When was the last time you thought about your … Continue reading Episode 257: Christianity and CRT – “Who Ge…

In the book of Revelations, John is presented with a vision of the end of time when people from around the world are worshiping God in Heaven. The glory and honor of their cultures is present and nothing impure is there … but what exactly is the good stuff about our cultures, and what’s the … Continue reading Episode 256: Christianity and CRT – “Gl…

As a therapist, I see people who often come to my office who self-identify as “broken.” They may come in making poor eye contact, telling me a story of how they were victimized, or perhaps made some choices they regret. Sometimes they have experienced a long string of disappointing or tragic events that now has … Continue reading Episode 255: Chris…

I have a lot of fond childhood memories listening to my uncles and grandpa tell fishing stories. Almost always, the stories seemed to be larger-than-life adventures full of excitement and laughter as they reenacted the scenes of reeling in gamefish from the Michigan lakes where they spent weekends together. It seemed, however, that the hero … Conti…

So we have slowly been talking about the book Christianity and Critical Race Theory: A Faithful and Constructive Conversation by Robert Chao Romero and Jeff M. Liou to understand how these authors see Critical Race Theory as a helpful bridge for Christian witness, theological reflection, and pastoral ministry. In order to do that, it is … Continue …

Critical Race Theory is in the news a lot these days, but many people don’t exactly know what it is. I had a conversation just the other day with someone about this. They thought that they knew what it was, and they definitely thought that they were against it… and when we started talking about … Continue reading Episode 252: Christianity and CRT –…

At our house, we love to go out to eat. We live in a small city, so we get excited when a new restaurant opens, especially if the chef brings an ethnic flavor to the menu. But we don’t just eat what some people might consider “ethnic food”, because all food is someone’s ethnic food. … Continue reading Episode 251: Christianity and CRT – “When Did Y…

This is our last week where we are going to take a journey back into our archive to play some of the best recordings the Antioch Podcast has made over the years on the topic of Critical Race Theory, or CRT for short. CRT has been around for a while first as a legal theory, … Continue reading Episode 250: The CRT Summer Series – “Let’s Talk About Wh…

For the next few weeks, we are going to take a journey back into our archive to play some of the best recordings the Antioch Podcast has made over the years on the topic of Critical Race Theory, or CRT for short. CRT has been around for a while first as a legal theory, and … Continue reading Episode 249: The CRT Summer Series – “An Interview with K…

For the next few weeks, we are going to take a journey back into our archive to play some of the best recordings the Antioch Podcast has made over the years on the topic of Critical Race Theory, or CRT for short. CRT has been around for a while first as a legal theory, and … Continue reading Episode 248: The Summer CRT Series – “BLM and Traditional…

For the next few weeks, we are going to take a journey back into our archive to play some of the best recordings the Antioch Podcast has made over the years on the topic of Critical Race Theory, or CRT for short. CRT has been around for a while first as a legal theory, and … Continue reading Episode 247: The CRT Summer Series – “Marxism and Biblica…

For the next few weeks, we are going to take a journey back into our archive to play some of the best recordings the Antioch Podcast has made over the years on the topic of Critical Race Theory, or CRT for short. CRT has been around for a while first as a legal theory, and … Continue reading Episode 246: The CRT Summer Series – “Individual and Syst…

For the next few weeks, we are going to take a journey back into our archive to play some of the best recordings the Antioch Podcast has made over the years on the topic of Critical Race Theory, or CRT for short. CRT has been around for a while first as a legal theory, and … Continue reading Episode 245: The CRT Summer Series – “Understanding Socia…

For the next few weeks, we are going to take a journey back into our archive to play some of the best recordings the Antioch Podcast has made over the years on the topic of Critical Race Theory, or CRT for short. CRT has been around for a while first as a legal theory, and … Continue reading Episode 244: The CRT Summer Series: “What’s the Problem W…