Today Brandi is joined by Tamice Spencer to talk about objectivity. Tamice is the founder and CEO of Sub:culture Inc an organization that seeks to develop resources and content that will eradicate the spiritual, cultural, academic, and sociological barriers that impede Black College Students and those who want to reach them.
You can find Tamice and her work at https://www.subcultureinc.org/ and find her online at @tammynammy
As always, please subscribe, rate, and review and if you want extra content, or to support what we are doing financially, please join us at patreon.com/brandinico.
Taking our theology back from ideas and systems that oppress.
@reclaimingmytheology
Today Brandi is joined by Tamice Spencer to talk about objectivity. Tamice is the founder and CEO of Sub:culture Inc an organization that seeks to develop resources and content that will eradicate the spiritual, cultural, academic, and sociological barriers that impede Black College Students and those who want to reach them.
You can find Tamice and her work at https://www.subcultureinc.org/ and find her online at @tammynammy
As always, please subscribe, rate, and review and if you want extra content, or to support what we are doing financially, please join us at patreon.com/brandinico.
Taking our theology back from ideas and systems that oppress.
@reclaimingmytheology
Reclaiming My Theology, Episode 7: Objectivity
Brandi: Hello, and welcome to Reclaiming My Theology, a podcast seeking to take our theology back from ideas and systems that oppress. My name is Brandi Miller, and today I’m joined by Tamice Spencer, founder and CEO of Subculture, Inc.
We talk about objectivity and how our assumptions of objective truth create the context for conflating God with the values and assumptions of whiteness. Objectivity plays a role in all of our conversations in this podcast. As such, reclaiming our theology from white supremacy firstly looks like noticing and naming that white culture isn’t an infallible or reliable lens, and is thus insufficient to maintain an ideological or practical hold on objective truth. The reality is that to have objective truth is to have truth without bias, and no matter how good our intentions are, we will always, for better or worse, read ourselves into the story of God.
It is our work, then, to become master question-askers, to dig up truth in unexpected places, to bring our curiosity to the Bible, and to wrestle with all of it in community. So, with that, please enjoy my time with Tamice.
Oh yeah—and we use a few swears in this episode.
**
Brandi: Tamice, what’s up, what’s up? [Brandi laughs] So happy to have you on here.
Tamice: Hey, what’s going on, friend? It’s good to be here. I never thought, never, ever thought I’d be in the seat!
Brandi: Here we are.
Tamice: Here I am.
Brandi: Yeah, you got a pretty good seat, too, with all these Black icons behind you. You know, y’all can’t see, but she’s got everybody.
Tamice: Ah, yes.
Brandi: You want to list off some of the people you got behind you, Tamice?
Tamice: Oh yeah, this is my cloud of witnesses. I got James Baldwin, I got Lauryn Hill, I got Jigga, I got Stokely, I got – who is that back there? – Angela Davis, W.E.B., I got the Obamas. Everybody on there! Fred Hampton.
Brandi: I also like that you have Lauryn Hill pre the time when she’d make people wait like three hours to hear her do a three-song set and then quit halfway through—[Brandi laughs]—you know, no shade to Lauryn, but.
Tamice: I’m trying to remember her –
Brandi: [Brandi laughs] In memoriam.
Tamice: Trying to remember her in the best light. [Brandi and Tamice laugh] Yes. In memoriam of when she used to show up on time.
Brandi: Well I do feel like people are getting to know you a little bit, even in this short exchange—[Tamice laughs]—but I am – but as I ask everyone, I would love for you to express a little more fully, what does it mean to be you, Tamice?
Tamice: I think I’m a cultural archeologist. And I really – I really have been into music and film and things that used to be called profane for so long, but I really find treasure in things that are discarded. And I realize that like – that, if we’re being super spiritual, like, that’s my call. I can really find treasure in the most crazy places. And, so, um, you know, I really love hip hop; I love studying culture; I like reading and really trying to make, like, theology accessible to people and make it make sense.
And so, yeah, I think that’s what it means to be me.
Then, on the other hand, I’m a mom, I’m a wife, and I’m learning how to care about myself. I did not learn that from evangelicalism—[Tamice laughs]—so I’ve begun the journey of – of what does it mean, like, to care for myself, you know. So I’m – I’m in that process. Yeah.
Brandi: I love that you name yourself as being in the process. I think that’s true for most people who are listening to the podcast, and so I am really grateful to have you on as a person who I’ve watched be in process for a while, and so I think there’s things that I’m excited that you will bring. But I also think that your work is super dope. And so normally I’m like, “What’s your sense of vocation?” and I think you’ve described that some. But can you describe some of the work you do, because I’m really into it. [Brandi laughs]
Tamice: Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I started a non-profit. It’s called Subculture, and basically, we’re trying to advocate for Black college students, and we’re trying to do that in tangible ways. And so what that really means is money. [Tamice laughs]
So we give scholarships to Black students when they face a crisis like car trouble, or they can’t pay their financial aid, or they can’t stay in their dorm, can’t buy books, those types of things. Because, for Black students, those things are game changers. They have the potential to be, you know, dead ends for them, even though they’re really just roadblocks. And so we try to step in and connect with those students and offer some sort of financial crisis relief for them, because we think that that in turn will open them up to discipleship more, and it gives them a sense of, like, the Hagar thing, of like, “There’s a God who sees me.”
And it sprung out of just being tired of, you know, giving theoretical change on campus and talking about, you know, theoretical good news, and I couldn’t actually really help students. I used to – I did fourteen years of campus ministry work, so it was like, I got tired of being able to raise scholarships for them to go to a camp in the middle of the woods, which was problematic for Black students anyway—[Brandi and Tamice laugh]—but then I couldn’t raise money for them to, like, buy breakfast, you know, or go to the cafeteria. And that part, it really bothered me, so I just decided to do something about it.
Brandi: It’s so good. It’s such good work. And I love that that follows what I see the model of Jesus being. That Jesus gathers a crowd of people, he heals them and provides for their needs first, and then he gives the hard calls for discipleship.
Tamice: Yeah.
Brandi: And so I see the ways that the work that you’re doing actually feels—a word I don’t use that often, but—biblical at its core.
Tamice: Oof!
Brandi: Very much in the strategy and the way of Jesus.
Tamice: Yeah, yeah.
Brandi: And so I just love that that’s the work that you do and how much that looks like Jesus and how much you look like Jesus as you serve Black folks. Because I think I learned in a lot of my white churches that to do things for Black folks was always about charity or about – or us as a white evangelical church being better, not us as in the collective being better.
Tamice: Exactly. You go and you serve these little colonies in urban areas and – nah, like, I think, you know, I’ve been thinking about justice work and advocacy and obviously the main way is the wealth gap. Unfortunately, the only way, unless somebody becomes a YouTuber or something—[Tamice laughs]—unfortunately matriculation through school is what is going to get them jobs and get them in rooms where they can begin to develop resources and begin to close the wealth gap. That’s why it’s so important for me to not only keep them in school but to – to develop resources that decenter whiteness but that also talk to them about the beauty of God and the beauty of Jesus. So, that’s what I’m trying to do is, like, we just call it, like, we’re removing any kind of a barrier, whether it’s economic or spiritual or academic or whatever. So.
Brandi: Yeah. And that is a tight rope to walk.
Tamice: Yeah. It is.
Brandi: So, I just value you and honor the work that you’re doing in that.
Tamice: I appreciate it.
Brandi: But I love that you call yourself a cultural archeologist, that you’re good at digging up truth in places. And I think part of that is why I wanted to have you on for this episode on objectivity.
Because, I think that at the core of the way that objectivity plays out in white spaces is that it limits truth to only being found in one particular way or for truth to land as one particular pillar or in one particular creed or doctrinal statement.
And, so, as we talk about objectivity, I think that your expertise as this cultural archeologist, uncovering things, actually will give us something very special. And so, can you give us a definition? What do you think about when you think about objectivity?
Tamice: Well, honestly, what I think about is invulnerability. To me, being objective was always a goal because it meant that whatever you said or did from a place of objectivity was more trustworthy and more mature. For me, that’s what I think about, is just this invulnerable space of being able to make decisions and make statements without care for what people think of you, but also without care for how people are hearing you. And now I see that that’s not necessarily maturity at all; but I think it felt like Christian discipleship was always becoming more and more detached from feeling, from subjectivity, and those types of things. So that’s what I think about when I think about objectivity.
Brandi: Yeah, and I think that piece about feelings feels really significant. Because so much of white culture in general, and especially in the church, believes itself to be making decisions just, uh, I think the phrase that we hear right now in this culture and moment is “based on the facts.” And that it’s somehow not totally enveloped in our emotional world, in our experiences, by our personal considerations, but instead, everything becomes factual.
And so I think when I see objectivity in Christian spaces specifically, to me it looks like—well, especially at the intersection of white supremacy—is white folks saying, “The way that we see the world and the way that we interpret scripture is the truth, and it is the goal that everyone should pursue, and that if you fall short of that objective reality, you are either a heretic, or you are destined to be damned.”
And it feels really troubling, because so much of what white folks in the church see as objective truth is heavily influenced by whiteness. And so there’s so many ways that, as we think about that, I’m curious what you – yeah, what you think about the intersection of whiteness and objectivity in a Christian space.
Tamice: Yeah. Well, yeah, most of the people who I felt like called me to be objective were white and male. So that’s – that’s one. [Tamice laughs]
But then I also think about – there’s a sense of – what’s problematic about it to me is the way that whiteness shows up in objectivity is that it will not – it refuses to be interrogated. So, by making a statement about being objective, what you do is shield yourself from interrogation.
And I see that play out in whiteness as well, like this – this sort of standard that cannot be questioned, this standard that kind of appeared out of nowhere; it’s just here, and it’s here to stay, and everything must be measured against that and compared to that. And I think it really bothers me to see that within the Christian realm, obviously, because so much of what we believe is so earthy and subjective.
And so it’s really frustrating to feel like, at some point, discipleship has been relegated to be emotionless, you know, systematic, and objective. And that’s so unhuman. That it’s like, “No, that’s the opposite direction of where Jesus is trying to take people.” Like, the direction he’s taking people is into being more fully human, and not a robot, you know. [Tamice laughs]
So that’s – that’s kind of where I see whiteness permeating this idea of fact-checking or objectivity and it’s like, “Whose fact? What are you talking about, facts?” Like, it doesn’t mean – there is no such thing as objectivity, in my opinion. Because, we’re human.
Brandi: Yes. And that objectivity becomes something that is reinforced by privilege.
Tamice: Right.
Brandi: That you can say something is a fact is you have an academic institution – I mean, we talk about this all the time.
Tamice: Sure.
Brandi: But you can say something is objective if you have the journals to back it up. So if you have generations of white theology that are embedded using the written word, then we use white values to back up white values to back up white values, and that suddenly becomes a – I think about, like, a mountain of objective truth, where you just stare at it and observe the thing, and if you observe it correctly, you might climb it get to the Lord, you know, you just – instead of recognizing that scripture is full of confusing subjectivity.
Tamice: Yes! Yes. [Tamice laughs]
Brandi: And I think for me, I learned so much about the value – the held value by white folks of objectivity when I was first learning about the faith. I recall early in my faith life, the first thing that they taught me was to do apologetics, was to find a set group of beliefs to have and then to figure out how to defend them with proof texts and with a line of dead white men who could tell me why that idea was true.
Tamice: All of them named John.
Brandi: Oh my god.
Tamice: That’s the other part.
Brandi: All the –
Tamice: They’re all named John.
Brandi: All the Johns. I recall being given specifically the book, The Kingdom of the Cults, which was this thick book telling you why every other religious pursuit was wrong and how to defend yourself and your objective truth against the lies of everybody else. And everything became a binary of truth and lies, and you needed to get rid of lies to believe the truth, and if you believed the truth, it meant something good for your life, i.e. proximity to God, because you were believing the truth. And I think this got really twisted in how we view scripture, because it became, for me, about following “the narrow way” or Jesus being “the way, the truth, and the life”—but there was no indication that those things were being entirely shaped by proximity to whiteness.
Tamice: Exactly.
Brandi: So the narrow way was politeness, it was a particular type of purity, it was a particular type of worship and engagement. And so I think I learned the notion of objectivity really early and have been trying to unlearn the shame of not fitting into objective white frames probably since then.
Tamice: Yeah. Dang, that’s really good. Yeah. I feel like the first book that I was given was by John Piper, and it was called—I don’t know if we allowed to name folks, but I did it.
Brandi: Yeah, you’re good. We’re not trying to protect nobody.
Tamice: It’s called—[Brandi and Tamice laugh]—The Dangerous Duty of Delight. And, uh, I got through that one and the person discipling me gave me Let the Nations Be Glad, and then I read those two – there were two thick books that I can’t recall right now, but Piper, and then I got into John Stott, and then I was even reading some John MacArthur trash, and I remember thinking, like, I didn’t ever think that, Man, everybody I’m reading has a particular stance on scripture, they all look the same, and they all come from the same sort of social location.
Brandi: Yes.
Tamice: And I never – I never realized that. But I think for me, when I’ve talked about it with other people, about my discipleship process, the ways that I could see it more clearly was the ways that I would treat my family and treat people who had been close to me, just as I was just living and being a human. I became – judgmental is not the word. Because I felt like I was being objective and that they were just outside of the truth. Like, “Sorry, like, that is not expository,” or “That is not sound.” Or, “Sorry, like, you don’t really understand Jesus.” And – so there’s all of these ways in which I look back and I think, “Ew, I was becoming a white supremacist in a way.” Like, that was Christian maturity, was like, you know, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ”—and the imitation of Christ is, like, a white man in a minivan. [Brandi and Tamice laugh] You know what I’m saying?
Brandi: Yes.
Tamice: I don’t know why he drives a minivan, but I’m sure he does. [Brandi laughs] That or like a Dodge Stratus. [Brandi and Tamice laugh]
Brandi: Yeah!
Tamice: Yeah, like, that’s what I see, in my head. And I think just less appreciation for music, customs, and for family. Like, I couldn’t even see hope for them. Like, they’re debaucherous, and – it’s just really bad. I have old letters and things that I sent to them based off of this new sort of Christian perspective or this sort of conversion that I was experiencing.
And, I mean, it shifted when, you know, when Trayvon was killed, and it was like, Hold up. This – it just – it all started to come crumbling down, and I realized a white man and a white man’s theology—as we have seen, with this white blessing stuff—that they don’t even have a container for what it’s like to be Black in America, and, therefore, like, my theology that I receive from them is – really needs to be subjective at this point, right, like I really need subjective theology. Because this objective shit is not helping me mourn the death of this Black boy. Right? Yeah. So.
Brandi: Yes. And in my experience, white evangelicalism tried to convince me out of believing the reality I was living and experiencing.
Tamice: Yes. Right.
Brandi: It tried to convince me that evangelicalism held everything that was good and true, and that anything that fell outside of that container, like you’re saying, theology fit into, that anything outside of that was something that needed to be destroyed or be given up, or, in Christian language, left at the altar, or given as a sacrifice to the Lord, or as the cross that you bear in giving up.
And it felt like there was no space in a white theology, in that way, to be anything but white, and then necessarily demonize anything outside of whiteness in the name of truth and salvation and heaven.
Tamice: Right. Right. Like oh – like you’re saying, “This is the narrow way, this is the cross, like, sorry if you can’t come, but me and Jesus, this is the way we’re going.” And realizing, you look up, and you’re holding – you know, you’re holding hands with a white man in a MAGA hat. That’s not Jesus. Jesus is way back there. Like, he’s not even going in that direction.
And I think that’s what’s freeing about all of this, is like subjectivity is actually what brought me closer to – to truth, in a way. And we always were told it was the opposite, right, that the more objective you become, the more, I guess, the more open, or the more, how you say, available to truth you are. And, to me, it’s the exact opposite, and that’s my lived experience, right. Especially for people of color in these spaces, always having to deny your history, your lived experience, it’s just – it’s ridiculous. And I’m thankful for a podcast like this that’s starting to, like, really—I’m about to use the word systematic—that systematically tears down the trash of white supremacy in our theology.
Brandi: And – and I think what I’m – the consequence of what you’re describing is that objectivity requires one to fully disembodied, or more and more disembodied, to be right, to be true, to be good, to be Christ-like. And I think that’s why we’re so comfortable in evangelical spaces in particular, erasing the middle of the story of Jesus to erase his life, because his life complicates his death and resurrection, and we would rather have an objective sense of what we think John Whoever said about John Whoever who said something about Paul than actually look at the lived person of Jesus and the full humanity that he’s inviting people into.
And I know that, for me, that was true—that I became more and more disembodied the more I tried to follow Jesus in my white Christian spaces, because it meant that I needed to give up everything so I could, as you said, see clearly or something? Like, that everything was a hazy lens to – to – like, everything in my culture, everything in my life was a hazy lens that was keeping me from seeing Jesus clearly, even though the pastor themselves seemed to think that they saw clearly, even though the whole frame that they were living, expressing, and embodying was whiteness. And they called it freedom!
Tamice: That’s the funniest thing is hearing you talk about this disembodiment that happens, because, again, you don’t realize that you have to do it. And I’ve been thinking about – thinking about even the weirdness of needing to dissociate in order to worship. [Brandi and Tamice laugh] And sing worship songs about how triflin’ I am, and I already feel triflin’ when I go out into a world that hates my identity and hates my Blackness. But now I have to come into your church and take communion over the fact that I’m triflin’ and trash, and sing about it, and in order to stomach that, over time, you end up having to dissociate even – even to worship the god who’s supposedly making you whole.
So it’s just so backwards, it’s a paradox, and I think that’s actually where I met you, where we had one of our really good conversations out at the farm, at Randy and Edith’s farm. And realizing that disembodiment is – is so antithetical to living a life as a believer. Like, it – there’s no way to actually do that, because we believe—our worldview or whatever says—that God is incarnate. And so there is no way to follow an incarnate God and be dissociated and disembodied. It is antithetical to it.
And I remember kind of coming to that realization, it was you and Erna that were kind of walking me through that process of, like, “You’re not crazy. Like, you’re supposed to – if something feels funky, like, get the hell out. Like, it’s okay to do that.” Yeah. So I appreciate you bringing that part up, the disembodiment, because I think it was the first thing to begin to go off like a lightbulb. I’m supposed to feel. I’m supposed to experience I’m supposed to feel. I’m supposed to live subjective, because I’m a human. And that’s what we do. That’s all we can do.
Brandi: And I think some of that has to do – and this might feel a little left-field, so, bear with me—to me, it feels like Christians’ anti-scientism has a lot to do with that, because it tells us that we can’t trust anything that’s not just from the Bible. We don’t tend to believe that all truth is God’s truth, and so we learn to take what our psychological realities and our physiological realities are trying to tell us, and then we spiritually suppress that over and over again, until we can no longer hear ourselves or our bodies think. And then, when we do have space for that to happen, it can feel very retraumatizing.
Like, I was having a conversation about purity culture with my housemate the other day, and she said something, and it triggered me in some way that I didn’t know, and I just wept, for like, thirty minutes. And I was like, “I didn’t know this was, like, in my body somewhere, that this expression of theology had pressed down all of these feelings so deeply that my body was just like looking for an escape hatch to let those feelings out somewhere.” And I think that anti-scientism – that is arguably more objective than anything we say about the scriptures—[Brandi laughs]
Tamice: Exactly. Exactly.
Brandi: —is the thing that we demonize or try to suppress in the name of following objective truth. And then it makes it so that Christians and people who’re trying to follow Jesus can’t hear themselves, and then are only taught to hear from the so-it-called objective voice of white Christianity.
Tamice: It’s the truth. White Jesus gon’ kill us out here. I’ma tell you. He gon’ kill everybody. Because it’s just a mess.
And I feel you on that, this idea that – for you it was purity culture, for me, I love hip hop. And it’s a little different, but, I mean, I’ve always been into hip hop and grew up like, kinda feeling like – like, I still would like Pac and, like, all these things, and I would listen to it on the low. We even sometimes repent, because we were kinda believing in this purity culture, in terms of what we set before our eyes and all this trash.
And then I remember – I remember thinking about it and going like, “Y’all are in here dancing to Kenny Chesney though.” [Brandi laughs] “And like – I can’t – like, I can’t listen to Beyonce’s new album, but y’all can dance to Kenny Chesney and dance to Carrie Underwood.” That’s what started to show me, like, whiteness, evangelicalism, American is one thing. And, with the exception of being American, even that we didn’t necessarily do by choice, right.
Brandi: Yeah.
Tamice: So there are all of these on-ramps that are not intrinsic to us, right. One of which we didn’t have a choice. The other, we didn’t have a choice in terms of how God made us and what we look like.
So, it’s, like, all of these things that are being set up to be the norm are absolutely impossible. But it’s, like, you continue to strive towards that and any type of conversation about how it’s unattainable, you’re devolving into this sort of subjective, emotional place again. Or, like you’re saying, like, you’re not being – like, you’re not up in the Lord enough to be able to see that you’re devolving, or something like that. I don’t know how to explain it.
Brandi: Yes. And the word we use to describe that in white evangelical space is holiness.
Tamice: Yes!
Brandi: That to be holy is to be set apart, to divorce yourself from yourself to be more like God and to be closer to God. But when our image of God is shaped entirely by cultural white Christianity, it is, “Divorce from yourself to be white, and then being white to be like God.”
And, again, I just think that the thing that’s offered is, “Oh, I’m so free in Christ, I tested the word of God and found it to be true.” And I totally believe in that reality. Like, test the word of God and find it to be true. But know what you’re testing and how you’re testing it.
Because, to me, one of the things that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is, in the frame of whiteness, white people will say that to be the most like Christ is to be the most free and then will quote things like John 8, where Jesus says that he who the Son has set free is free indeed. But, to me, the test of whether white evangelicalism is helpful is: Who does white evangelicalism make free?
Tamice: Exactly. That’s good, Brandi.
Brandi: And if freedom is freedom to be white, what does that tell us about what we believe about God? And so if any diversion from whiteness means to be farther from God, then we can just reaffirm that our god is then white. And if we use what is one of the favorite tools of objective white thinking, which is platonic reasoning, we should be able to get to, “Oh, maybe our God is actually more subjective than we think.” But that’s the problem with whiteness, is that it decides where and when it’s done being objective and when it is time to be Spirit-led or lead in the ways that we want to lead. It’s exhausting.
Tamice: You know, whiteness will say – whiteness can be completely irrational, but when someone confronts that or calls that out, the person acknowledging that is irrational.
Brandi: Yes.
Tamice: And then, on the other hand, something that makes no logical sense is now relegated to, like, “Well, the Spirit led me to do it.”
Brandi: Yes.
Tamice: Or, um, “I had a prophetic word.” And it’s like there are all of these sort of categories that it’s like whack-a-mole, you know. It’s, like, you’re just able to continue in this sort of stupidity and ignorance because – because no one’s allowed to check you.
And that’s the – I mean, that’s the deceptiveness of this idea that – that people can be objective about it. Because, um, just because the whiteness is normative, it doesn’t mean white people are objective and white theology is objective. It’s quite the opposite. I would – I would even venture to say that anyone whose theology survives and subverts white theology is probably more objective, because it’s resisting this normative nature of whiteness.
So to me, I think people who have – who develop robust theology that helps people live and move and have their being, those people are the people that we should be sort of modeling or learning from, not the other way around. And I feel like – I do feel like the rational – the irrationality of whiteness is being – is on full display, right now. I really do. [Tamice laughs]
Brandi: Yeah. Say more. How – how do you see that?
Tamice: I mean, I think – well—[Tamice laughs]—the most uninformed person, xenophobic, I mean – is running the county, has the power to completely wipe out other countries right now, with the push of a button. And this – this person is uninformed, historically, culturally, like has no idea what they’re doing, like, doesn’t even know just basic history of the country they’re leading. When you think about that, and then you draw attention to that, it’s, “Well, honor authority,” or, “This is God’s man and God doesn’t always – God can use anybody.” Oh really, but he couldn’t use a Black man from Hawaii with a degree?
Brandi: Mmm, yeah, because that dude was the anti-Christ.
Tamice: Exactly! Yeah, they really straight up told me that. I was like—
Brandi: Yeah, same here.
Tamice: What we – what we want to see is people coming into truth, and the freedom that I think Jesus is talking about is the freedom to not be moved into foolishness. [Brandi laughs]
Um, you know, I remember thinking – when people would use that passage about like, “Oh, he who the Son sets free is free indeed, and that means you can wave flags and worship and do a worship circle” —[Brandi and Tamice laugh]—I don’t think that’s what that means. I mean, I appreciate a flag here and there, but I think it means that there’s a sort of internal freedom. And the “indeed” there means it’s a true freedom, it’s internal, from the need to impress, from the need to – to judge.
The freedom is a very – when we’re thinking about this idea of holiness, it’s that kind of freedom. It’s a freedom to be who you are, fully, without apology, without shame. That’s what I think he’s speaking to, because that same passage has him, like, bending down in front of a naked woman, writing on the sand.
Brandi: Yes. Yes.
Tamice: Like, that’s the same passage. And so we don’t – we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about how this is a frame of mind he’s in. John 8 is one of my favorites, but it was – uh, I’ve been thinking about this passage. There’s a passage I think in Luke, where he talks about how the finger of God has come upon you, then you know the kingdom of God has come upon you, right.
So, to me, when I take that over to John 8, when I think about how he uses his finger to divert the crowd away from looking at this woman and shaming her, do we actually see this scene as the kingdom come? To me, that’s profound, because this woman is caught in the act. We don’t know if it’s consensual; we don’t know what’s going on. Imagine, I just – imagine, being dragged out of a situation like that, and then Jesus goes on to say, “Well, like, I’m the light of the world.”
Well, we’ve used that to be, like, “Jesus is the only way and you gotta do it this way!” But it’s like, “No, I don’t expose people like this! That’s what I mean when I say, ‘I’m the light.’ This is not what you do to people when they’re experiencing such, like, shame. I don’t expose that way. Yes, light exposes, but this is not how I do it. Follow my example. I am the light of the world.”
And so we, you know, reading scriptures subjectively have caused me to worship, because I have never been – I’ve never seen that passage in that way until recently, of like, yo, the kingdom is happening right here. We always just were like, “Oh, this woman…and then whoever is without sin.” And then we just go into this thing of, “Yeah, those Pharisees. They had nothing to – to – they couldn’t win arguments against Jesus.” So it’s really militaristic and argumentative, when really that’s not the scene at all that’s happening in John 8.
So yeah, that’s where – where I feel like subjectivity is probably gonna be – it’s probably gonna save us here, in a minute, I think.
Brandi: Well, and I—[Brandi laughs]—I don’t do a lot of work in John nowadays, because it’s like the book that most people give to people who are newly Christian to teach how to follow Jesus, and it’s like, so confusing. [Brandi and Tamice laugh]
Tamice: It’s the worst book to give to new believers!
Brandi: It’s the worst. John is just doing sermonettes on what he thought Jesus was talking about for the most part.
Tamice: Exactly. [Tamice laughs]
Brandi: But the story portion of John, like, John, you know, two until ten, to me gives one of the most profound apologetics for a lack of objectivity and for why we need to challenge our own objectivity.
Tamice: Yes!
Brandi: Because John 9 is one of my favorite texts, because it’s that long, long story where it starts out with Jesus being asked by his disciples about a blind man: Who sinned, this man, or his parents? That – they have this frame; they only have this one frame about how the world can be: Did this person sin, or did this person sin?
And Jesus is like, “That’s not what happened.” And then Jesus goes on to heal this man, but right afterward, they take the man who was born blind to the Pharisees, and then the teachers of the law say, “Oh, this – this isn’t real. The thing that you’re seeing with your eyes, literally the man is seeing, the thing that you’re experiencing with your eyes, the thing that everyone else is seeing about him, cannot be true, because this man isn’t from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” And so they use an objective frame that they have of what is good, what is not good, to discredit the truth that is being revealed right in front of them.
Tamice: Yeah. Yeah.
Brandi: And the passage to be, as you said before, foolishness of people going – of the Pharisees going to the man’s parents and going, “Well, was he born blind?” and they’re like, “Yeah. He was.” [Tamice laughs] It just makes them all look stupid—
Tamice: Yeah.
Brandi: —because they’re all set on their objective sense of who God is that they can’t let what’s in front of them shape them. And to me that feels like it speaks to the moment that we’re in, especially with police brutality right now.
Tamice: Yes. Yes.
Brandi: Where white Christians can watch videos of Black folks being gunned down unjustly by the police and not trust their own eyes, like not trust what they see because Christianity has so taught us—
Tamice: So good.
Brandi: —to not trust what we see with our own eyes. That we would rather theologize—or, what I would call pathologize—our own experiences, in order to seem like we’re adhering to truth somehow or being objective, when objectivity is both killing people and robbing them of justice because we are so set on what we think hypothetical facts are that don’t let people’s lived experiences come through. So, now I’m ranting but.
Tamice: Yeah. I mean, like, I’m hearing – I mean, first of all, dang. But I think, also, it’s the same idea, like, what you’re saying, like, you can’t trust what you’re seeing, and your mind is somehow telling you that your Christianity has to rise above this atrocity and make it ok.
And so it’s like this – this objective whiteness that we’ve called spiritual maturity is the same thing that can motivate somebody to watch George Floyd for eight minutes and not shed a tear but then be angry about Brett Kavanaugh being called into question, right. And, you know, this explosion of anger is justified because, “How dare you call this man who is to be a judge – how dare you call his actions from the past into question?” And yet we can look at George Floyd and go, “Well, his past is very relevant, and that’s why we’re not crying about it.”
And that’s what I mean about the irrationality of whiteness, is that it shapeshifts based on situations in order to just protect itself. And that’s, to me, I mean, that’s just straight up demonic to me.
Brandi: I think what we’re getting at, in some way, is that there’s these invisible standards that we’re trying to live in to, and what, to me, what feels dangerous about that is that we attach physical, tangible consequences to hypothetically believing the wrong things, or to doing the wrong things.
And so I can’t, like, shit on people’s experience of trying to make sense of what’s happening before their eyes, because the thing that we’ve been threatened with for not being objective is hell. In the spaces I grew up, it was like, “You’re crucifying Jesus. Jesus had to die because you sucked so bad.” We’re threatened with, “We’re hurting Jesus, we’re hurting each other, we’re hurting the world, we’re going to be damned forever if we don’t hold the objective truth”—and that becomes the motivating force of a lot of evangelism.
Tamice: Yes. I was thinking about that. I’m kind of tired of telling Jesus that I’m trash. [Tamice laughs] Like, so, can we just settle it, that that’s enough? [Tamice laughs] I don’t really want to continue to – just, how stupid is that?
I have a child, right? So, here’s the thing, is like, again, my lived experience has – has framed a lot of my theology, especially in becoming a mom. Because now to think about, even some of the things within Calvinism, right, like that is so dumb. The trauma of birthing that little girl, and the idea that me having a child that is just – that I am creating to, I don’t know, eternally torment for life makes no sense as a parent. It’s so – that would not even cross your mind.
Do you know what parents do for their children? And then you have – have Jesus telling stories like, “If you then, you aren’t even – you guys aren’t even completely whole yet, you don’t even know how to love like I love.” And he’s going, “If y’all know how to give somebody the right gift, how much more?” So you’re telling me – this is the disgustingness, this is the part about that objective sort of theology, is that it makes you call evil good and good evil. And that is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and that’s what Jesus calls the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
If I’m feeding Harlem, because I’m her mom, and it’s dinnertime, like that’s just what you do, you feed your kid at dinnertime. And she’s like, “Mom, thank you so much. I do not deserve these chicken nuggets. These chicken nuggets are so good, but I know I don’t deserve them, and please just, you know, I’ll try to be a better two-year-old, and I’ll stop pooping in the bathtub, and gosh, you know, I just can’t believe that you gave me these chicken nuggets in spite of the fact that I’m pooping everywhere and that I’m a jerk sometimes.” And it’s like, “What the hell are you talking about, kid? Just eat your chicken nuggets.”
Brandi: Yes!
Tamice: Like, what? How awkward is that? And we write songs like that.
Brandi: Yes.
Tamice: I don’t know, so, for me, my lived experiences now, my lived experience and my body are now determining what soundness is. Because if I can’t see myself doing something to my daughter, then how dare I think of my Mother God, Father God doing that to me? Absolutely not. It’s just – it’s just ridiculous.
Brandi: Yes.
Tamice: Ridiculous.
Brandi: It absolutely is. And I think that many of us are probably deeply traumatized by being taught over and over again that we suck and that we’re terrible and that God has to work really hard to love us, like, work so hard as to be murdered to love us. And I think that we can make sense of that in our logical brains, but when we’re indoctrinated into something that’s called truth, and then consequences of not believing that are leveraged over us, it becomes impossible to believe ourselves and to believe what our experiences are telling us.
And I think that what happens, too, is that—and I’m curious what you think about this. Because I think some people could hear what we’re saying and then go, “Well then, how can you believe anything? Is there – what does it mean to pursue the truth? What does it mean to say that?”
Because it can sound like we’re throwing the Bible away and believing our bodies, believing our experiences, and, I don’t know. I’m of the opinion that I can be foundationed on the Bible and still pursue God and the expansiveness of God and let that be shaped in conversation with scripture, let scripture be in conversation with my body, and my body be in conversation with my friends, and my friends be in conversation with their pastors, and their pastors be in arguments with God, and God, you know, be back in conversation with me. And we don’t have to just create some mountain of whiteness to worship, but instead let theology and let our lives be a conversation.
So I’m curious what you think about that.
Tamice: Yeah well, I mean I’m thinking about – I – I actually love the gospel, so I do think that what Jesus is saying when he’s in this conversation with Pilot, Pilot goes, you know, “What is truth?” That’s a real legit question. And Jesus is like, “Well, if you don’t want to see it, it can’t be shown to you,” right?
To me, what I take away from that, is that truth can be believed, but truth is not abstract or theoretical. It’s personified. It’s embodied. And so if our adherence to truth is dissociative, if it’s disembodied, if it doesn’t have any real implications for our neighbors, I would argue that that’s not what Jesus is describing as truth.
And to me, again, me knowing that truth has set me free. Because I don’t care whether y’all think I’m biblically founded or not—and that’s what he’s getting at. Like, if you know the truth, the truth will set you free. So, some of the freest people I know are throwing off and not only decolonizing but divesting whiteness. Those are some of the freest people I know. Some of the most—I’m not even gonna say “godly” because it has connotations—but some of the most neighborly people I know have divested of this thing. And, to me, that is guiding my pursuit of truth more so than trying to grab hold of, like, some sort of abstract trying to get a handle on God. Like, how do you even get a handle on God? You can’t get a handle on God.
Brandi: No. It don’t make any sense.
Tamice: Don’t make no sense.
Brandi: And I think if we were to do that, to focus – I love that you replaced the word godly with neighborly. I think that Jesus probably really digs that, as a concept, but I think that that saves us from really doing bad Bible work. Because I think the notion of objectivity flattens our ability to read scripture in almost every way.
Tamice: Absolutely.
Brandi: Because it tells us that, before we read the text, there’s a certain way to read it that’s revolving around whiteness; there’s a certain box that everything has to be able to be shoved into. And if you can’t shove it in, you have to make an excuse for why you can’t shove it in. And what that then does to our biblicism is it makes it about proof-texting. I think that’s where proof-texting comes from.
Tamice: Right. Absolutely, right.
Brandi: Is we think that we have an objective frame, so then we find little places in scripture that can reinforce and build our little theological kingdoms, all while Jesus is building this other kingdom out there that’s actually freeing people and letting people think with the brains that God gave them and, in so, is honoring people fully and, therefore, honoring God fully, and honoring ourselves and our neighbors fully. And so I just wonder if there is a way that stepping away from the notion of objectivity doesn’t actually pull us farther from pursuing truth but actually opens us up to a world where we hear God more often through more things and with more clarity than we would if we just tried to protect ourselves from being “of this world”—as we get into John’s sermonettes later. [Brandi laughs]
Tamice: Oh, goodness. [Tamice laughs] I’ve been thinking about something Cornel West said, was, uh, “If you are going to set out to do theology, then you need to be open to being devastated. If you’re not open to that, then you don’t need to do theological work.”
Like, that is so true. I mean, I find that at every turn, I’m hearing something or learning something that is, like, causing all these sort of – it’s, like, raining on the parade of my former theology, right. And so I have a choice if I’m just gonna, like, embrace it, play around in it, or whether I’m gonna, like, call what I’m experiencing stupid or heretical or liberal, for goodness sakes, whatever that means.
And – and so I’m thinking about that now, and I feel like the way that I know that I’m getting closer to truth is because I’m getting free. Not only free, like, to cancel people, but free to love myself and free to love other people, because I can see that they have a lived experience and their stories are worth hearing. And to me, that’s the bar—if you can call it a bar, you know, if you were thinking in a linear way. But to me, it’s actually more cyclical, right? Like, you pass these turns over and over again where you realize that you’re not living into truth, and because of that, you might even be preventing another person from living into truth. What if discipleship and evangelism and all these buzzwords were formed by that? I think it would change – I mean, I learned some of that from Randy and Edith. Do we think that we can be converted in the process of discipleship?
Brandi: In all of that, it seems like life with God is actually less like a standardized test that would be associated with objective truth and more like a lab, where we come into it, and we try things out, and we experiment. And as we do so, we discover things along the way, and as we make discoveries, we share those discoveries, and we form hypotheses and theories, and if we mess up, we mess up. If we get hurt, we get hurt. But we’re trying a thing out. Because at the end of the day, I can’t imagine even in whatever version of heaven you believe in, if you believe in one, that God’s gonna be like, “Alright, what’s the trinity?”
Tamice: Oh my god.
Brandi: “Did you pray the prayer? Umm, how’s your sex life? Did you marry someone? Did you have kids? Were you anti-abortion but not pro-life? What – what about that?”
Tamice: Glory.
Brandi: And I feel like that’s not what God is up to. It seems like the way of Jesus actually isn’t about believing the right things or pursuing objective truth in that way; it’s about following Jesus and being a total mess on the way, or Jesus would have picked better disciples.
Tamice: Yeah. I mean, I –
Brandi: Because those guys were the worst.
Tamice: I mean Peter was strapped the whole time.
Brandi: Oh my god, yes!
Tamice: That’s – strapped the whole time. He didn’t go home to get that knife and cut that guy’s ear off. He had that thing with him.
Brandi: He had it with him!
Tamice: So that’s what I’m saying man, these guys were – they were messy.
Brandi: Yes!
Tamice: Okay? Which – and it gives me hope! You know? Because I’m messy.
Brandi: Yes. And I love that. I love that this ends up being story about allowing ourselves to be what we already are, which is messy, instead of hiding our messiness in the name of being included in white Christianity, because I’m over that. And it doesn’t make any sense to me, and I’ve never seen it bring freedom. What I’ve seen it bring is control. Because what objectivity does in white Christianity specifically is it creates control around non-adherence to whiteness.
Tamice: Whoa.
Brandi: And, so, I wonder if the thing that we need to get free from isn’t God, Godself, or even the pursuit of truth, but rather the controlling narrative of white supremacy that threatens us into theological submission in the name of protecting people from sinning in the name of honoring God. Because that platonic line breaks down really quick in scripture every step of the way.
Tamice: It really does. It really, really does. Yeah, because – yeah. I don’t got nothin’ to say to that. That’s just – Selah.
Brandi: I think in that, another attribute of white supremacy is the right to comfort or feeling like the need to stay comfortable, and I think that certainty, um, as Sarah said in our last episode, certainty is one of the most comforting things you can have. And it creates context where we try to indoctrinate people into certainty, because it helps us to avoid the middle ground that is subjectivity, which is the lab where we find God and where we find ourselves.
Tamice: Absolutely.
Brandi: And I think like honestly, to reference a white guy, I think this was evidenced in people’s response to Love Wins, Rob Bell’s book.
Tamice: Yes! [Tamice laughs]
Brandi: Because people came out here calling Rob Bell a heretic for questioning whether God—
Tamice: Oof. All kinds of stuff.
Brandi: —would send people to hell. And I think that’s a fair question. But what it seemed like was happening was that white evangelicalism was seeing the entire foundation of white control being questioned by another white man, which like is a particular kind of danger, because it holds a different type of authority in white space. And they were seeing the thing that most threatens people into submission being questioned.
Tamice: Yeah.
Brandi: And I could see the white panic happening as that went down, because certainty was crumbling.
Tamice: Oh my goodness, yes.
Brandi: Because control was crumbling. Erna Hackett calls it, uh, white theology like a Christmas tree, that in and of itself is a complete structure that every other theology that’s put on is ornamental or elective.
Tamice: Wow.
Brandi: And so it seems like when whiteness sees the tree burning—because it should have never been the primary thing that everything was stacked on to begin with—they panic and demonize and call people heretics or backsliders or all of those sorts of things.
Tamice: All kind of stuff. I – you can’t be – again, that goes back to this irrationality. You cannot be certain. Because you have a birthday. [Tamice laughs] Like, just the fact that you have a birthday means that there is no way for you to have objective certainty about anything, because shit was going down ’fore you got here.
Brandi: [Brandi laughs] Yeah.
Tamice: So I think those types of things, that doesn’t – I feel you, on this like grasping at certainty to find some sort of, like, safety in that, but, again, to me, that demonstrates a lack of trust in the Divine. Because if – if someone needs – for instance, I’ve been wrestling with inerrancy and stuff. If someone needs the scriptures to be inerrant, you know, I remember getting books by Strobel and all of them, too.
Brandi: Oh, yeah. Josh McDowell.
Tamice: And – mhmm. [Tamice laughs] And I remember that we were talking about, you know, the authority of the scriptures, and the reason the scriptures are authoritative is because they’re infallible, they are inspired, and they are immutable, or something like that. And I remember thinking, “Ok, well, so, this is why we trust the scriptures, because there are no errors.” And, uh, that’s stupid. [Tamice laughs]
That’s not a trust in the Divine; that’s a trust in my own logic and ability to piece things together. If I need the scriptures to be inerrant in order to trust them, then I’m actually trusting in my own intellect. I’m not trusting in the ability of the Divine to keep me, whatever that means, or to find me, or to love me.
And that – I mean, I feel like, once you realize that, again, it’s irrational. Because now, logically, it doesn’t make sense but we’ll find anything – so, somebody will find a way to say that what I’m saying is liberal or universalist, and again, if I hadn’t tapped into what I think Jesus is saying is truth, that would matter to me. But it doesn’t matter to me anymore. Because I’m free.
Brandi: To have a rigorous pursuit of truth is to dive into the messiness of all of it!
Tamice: Yes.
Brandi: A rigorous pursuit of truth isn’t adherence to indoctrination. It is a deep wrestling with what we privilege about Jesus in the stories of Jesus.
Tamice: Yes. Yes.
Brandi: It is a rigorous exploration of the subjectivity that we bring.
Tamice: Yes!
Brandi: Because there’s things that as, like, a straight person that I bring to the text that I might think are objective—but are not. And I’m, like, really actively unlearning that, like, unlearning homophobia and transphobia in my theology. There’s things that I bring as an educated person, to the text, that aren’t objective. They’re subjective. But the more privilege that we have that compounds, the more we feel like we have the authority to say what is true and what is not. And I just think that we would rather – yeah, we would just rather have someone tell us the thing than discover it on the road along the way.
Tamice: I think at the end of that, Brandi, though, at the end of you being given the answer, really the end of that is God owes you. I think the logical end of having the answers and possessing truth, rather than truth sort of possessing you, is that God owes you in the end. And I think that that’s the thing that people are afraid to look at in themselves, that’s the messiness that people are – are running from. And I think we just have to run into the darkest parts of ourselves to find out, like, hey we’re still lovely, right, to God.
Brandi: Well, it feels like we’ve decided that objectivity as a concept is stupid—[Brandi and Tamice laugh]—
Tamice: How many times have I said “stupid” in this thing? Whew, Lord.
Brandi: But I think a summary, in some ways, as we consider whiteness and objectivity together, is that it is easy to hold a dominant framework when that dominant framework has consequences, family, fellowship, truth, damnation, all attached to it. And I think it makes it nearly impossible to actually explore scripture with our own eyes, to read scripture through – even, you know, there’s that book, Reading Scripture Through Middle Eastern Eyes.
Tamice: Yes.
Brandi: Like, we don’t know how to read the text with accuracy, because we can’t read it through our own eyes. And I’m not advocating for, like, utter subjectivity. I think that is the problem with a lot of neo-Liberalism right now, is that everything becomes so subjective as to being morally devoid of any kind of meaning and like so subjective that it’s just like, “My truth is my truth!” And I’m like, eh, okay, I think there’s probably some more moral things to pay attention to than that, because you – no one actually – no one saying that logic wants to follow that logic to the farthest end for people who aren’t like them. It’s only, “My truth is my truth as long as other people believe my truth and accept it.” So—[Brandi laughs]—I don’t know, I think –
Tamice: Yes, yes.
Brandi: I have some problems with neo-liberalism in that way.
Tamice: [Tamice laughs] And I think the guiding principle for me is humility, being neighborly, and worship. If God – if the Divine becomes just sort of a better version of – of me, then that prohibits worship, right? I need to be in awe and wonder, right? The thing about the Divine is it inspires awe and wonder. And if – if I can be a jerk, right, well then something about what I am embracing as truth is obviously antithetical to – to what it seems Jesus is calling people to do.
So for me, like, when you’re talking about neo-liberalism, I think what shields me from that is – is, you know, the boundaries lines for me—like in Psalm 16, the beautiful boundary lines—are worship, humility, and being a good neighbor to people. Like, those are the lines – I’ll go as far as those lines, and then I won’t go past those lines. Because I don’t care if you’re a liberal or, you know, conservative or progressive or whatever, you know, in some ways, you still gotta be Christian, right? [Brandi and Tamice laugh] Like, so, the question is, “What does that mean? What does it mean for you to be liberal and Christian?” And that’s sort of what I’m wrestling with right now, um, personally.
Brandi: I’m wrestling with that too. Because I think it – it requires the question, “What do the beliefs that I’m developing now believe when they’re taken to their farthest extent? Can I actually follow this line of logic as far as it will take me and still feel good about that and still feel like that makes me a good neighbor to all people?” Because it is much easier to cancel people than to say that I believe in freedom and freedom for all people, and it’s much easier to critique everything, right?
I think there’s a danger, even in this podcast, of doing that, of critiquing everything to the point where there’s nothing left, and then – and I’m like, “Do I want to do that?” The question really is, do we actually want to reclaim, or do we want to deconstruct? And I feel totally uninterested in deconstruction, because all deconstruction does is looks at the idol of objectivity that we’ve built, and then we stare at it, and then we hammer it, and then we watch it crumble, and then we stare and it, and we critique it forever, and then find that we are empty and have nothing left on the other side of that.
And to me that is a deep tragedy. Because I think that the life that Jesus offers in the scriptures, that is found in the scriptures, is so much better than that.
And so I wonder for people, as we move to a close, who might be feeling lost in this conversation, who might be feeling like, “I can’t believe anything because of the ways that oppressive ideologies have impacted how I see scripture, that everything is a subjective mess, and I don’t know where to start”—what would you say to those people, who might be feeling lost or not knowing where to start or not knowing what relationship to have with the Divine or the Bible in the midst of this process of unlearning objectivity?
Tamice: Yeaahh, I would say probably, like, just step. You know? It’s not a minefield. It’s – it’s not a minefield. You’re gonna be alright. People have stretched all manner of things way further than you probably would possibly even dream, and they’re alright. And I think that we have precedent in what we see in an incarnate God to walk in some tension with some stuff. And so I would say, like, just start. Wherever that takes you, whatever that means, um, I am pretty confident that you will either back into Jesus, run into Jesus, or trip and fall on Jesus. And – and that gives me confidence to let people, you know, figure things out.
Brandi: And I think there is precedent in scripture for that. That even the – I think about the road, the story of the men on the road to Emmaus, who have their back turned to religion, who have their back turned to the story they thought Jesus had told them, to the betrayal they probably feel, to the grief they feel, and as they’re walking away, Jesus meets them in a way that they cannot imagine, that they literally do not recognize him.
Tamice: Right. Right.
Brandi: Like, if their sense of objectivity said Jesus could only be found one way, they’d have totally missed it.
Tamice: Right.
Brandi: And instead, Jesus comes with them, causes their heart to burn as they hear the scriptures anew for the first time.
Tamice: Yes.
Brandi: And so I wonder if stepping away from objectivity isn’t stepping away from Jesus; it’s about stepping away from the structures that tell us who Jesus should be and letting Jesus meet us on the road or as the treasure in the field that we stumble across and find, and that, in that, we would find a more robust picture of Jesus that can’t be flattened down into The Kingdom of the Cults or a ready defense or – or whatever, because that—[Brandi laughs]—I honestly am just kind of bored with all of it at this point. [Tamice laughs] Like, I’m just bored with it, and I don’t know that I’ve seen it bring a lot of life.
Tamice: I gotchu. That’s good.
Brandi: And I love that, just to take a step. And one thing that I – I don’t know, for those of you who, like me, really love the Bible, I would start with the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Plain in Luke.
Tamice: Eyy. Yes. Yeah.
Brandi: I think if Jesus gave two major teachings, then we should lean into those, and we should ask, “Okay, if I’m going to try to frame something that is even relatively – that I’m going to lean on as the thing that I wanna interpret everything else through, let Jesus be your lens.” Let Jesus be your lens to read Paul; let Jesus be your lens to read the Old Testament; let Jesus be your lens to interpret who is neighbor; let Jesus be your lens to interpret violence. Let Jesus be your lens.
And I think those sermons are great places to start, because some of the theological wizardry of the authors of the gospels is they essentially—well, Matthew and Luke in particular—is that they – they share these sermons and then they show Jesus living out what the sermon looks like in real time, both before and after.
Tamice: Yes. Absolutely.
Brandi: And so I think if we can fall in love with those two sermons of Jesus, then I think we can actually learn to trust ourselves more. Because objectivity teaches us that we cannot trust ourselves; but I think if we embed ourselves in those stories, it gives us a frame to both trust ourselves, discover Jesus, and to find a God that is much more expansive than we maybe could dream or imagine.
Tamice: That’s good.
Brandi: Is there anything else you want to add to this conversation? Any thoughts that are percolating in you as we close out?
Tamice: Nah, just hearing you talk was, like – my favorite thing about Jesus is that he’s not religious. That’s like my favorite thing.
Brandi: Can you say a little bit more about that?
Tamice: It’s interesting, right, because people develop religion around Jesus, and he’s the most non-religious person. He didn’t – there’s no religion, like, involved in the life of Jesus in the sense that – he obviously is living like a Jew, but he’s not a religious Jew, because they’re calling him a glutton and a winebibber. But then also, like – which means – I mean they’re not gonna call you something if you ain’t doin’ something. [Brandi laughs]
So – so you have this man having table fellowship with crazy people, and then you also have him knowing the scriptures, better than even the teachers. And, you know, Nicodemus is like – and Jesus is like – when Nicodemus comes, and he’s like, “You’re supposed to be the teacher of the law, and you can’t understand the wind?” [Tamice laughs] And like, you know, like the – like what he said made a whole lot of sense. Like, that didn’t make no sense, like come on, you can’t go into your mom and be born again, like whatcha talking about?
And I think the point is like there are so many ways to articulate reality that religion is – is not a container for it. And so I just love that he’s – he’s not religious.
Brandi: It’s so good. Because I do honestly think that this conversation around objectivity is one of the hardest ones for people who are in whatever you would call the journey: deconstructing, decolonizing, reclaiming, any of that. I think it’s one of the hardest because it can feel like, at least, taking the ball of yarn and pulling the thread and hoping that the whole thing doesn’t unravel or assuming that it will. And I just think that a lot of us could use a little bit of unraveling.
Tamice: Amen.
Brandi: Not so that we have nothing left at the end but so we honestly know ourselves and our experiences and what we think and have a critical lens to do so. Because I tell my students this all the time, like, “Your body’s the only body you’re ever going to live in; so you oughta know it.”
Tamice: It’s true.
Brandi: Like, you oughta know what’s in you, what’s through you, what’s happening, what’s percolating in you, what’s engaging you, what’s bringing you life, what’s brought you trauma? And if you know those things, if you listen to those things, it’ll tell you something about who you are and who God is and actually allows you to honor the image of God in others because you’ve learned to honor the image of God in yourself.
Tamice: That’s so good.
Brandi: And so I think subjectivity, at its core, is learning to honor the image of God deeply in others as we see people more fully, not as just people who sit outside of the objective frames that we think are so valuable.
Tamice, it’s been so good to have you on. Is there anything you want to plug?
Tamice: Yeah. You can check out Subculture if you want. You can go to www.subcultureinc.org and check out kinda all the things we’re doing, and we got a book out called Dope Believers of Black History’s Past, Present, and Future. People really been dealing with that and wrestling with that. Yeah, we got some stuff coming out. So I’m excited about it.
Brandi: I love that.
Tamice: All that revenue is going to keep kids in school, so!
Brandi: That’s a good way to spend your money, y’all. Yeah, if you say you believe in reparations, might as well get yourself a dope book or get connected to a dope organization to do it. [Tamice laughs] You got any social media you want to plug out there, too?
Tamice: Um, I’m tammynammy out here on the streets. [Brandi laughs] Yeah. T-A-M-M-Y-N-A-M-M-Y.
Brandi: Well, thank you so much. You’ve been deeply challenging and have brought us a deeply good picture of what this journey can look like, and that it is a journey, and not just, again, a standardized test that we try to pass or fail in order to not be hated by God.
Tamice: That’s good. Man, Brandi, thanks for having me, and, like, I’m your #1 fan. [Brandi laughs] Some – I’m excited for you and I love, love, love your podcast. So I appreciate it.
Brandi: Oh, thank you so much. It’s an honor to have you.
**
Brandi: Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Reclaiming My Theology. It has been so fun to hear how you are using this podcast in churches, discussion groups, listening parties, and on your own.
If you’d like more resources and practices in your journey to reclaim your theology, feel free to follow along with us on Instagram at reclaimingmytheology. We will post ways to unlearn, relearn, or at the very least look at the values that may undergird how we see God and each other.
If you like what you hear, as always, continue to subscribe, rate, and review. It’s been awesome to get to see how the show’s been impacting you and to see other folks find the show through those of you who have done so.
You can also find us on Patreon at patreon.com/brandinico. As little as $5 a month gets you extra content and makes this show possible. Plus, early next week, I’ll release a devotional just for Patrons. Because, you know, our inner lives do matter.
So given that, let’s do the work, take care of ourselves, and just try to do a little bit better together.