Spiritual Abuse and Its Manifestations w/ Ally Henny

Special Guest:
Ally Henny, Author of I Won't Shut Up: Finding Your Voice When the World Tries to Silence You & holds an M. Div from Fuller Theological Seminary

Guest Question:
We have conversations about abuse and power, but don't often talk about spiritual abuse. What is spiritual abuse? How does it manifest? How does it intersect with issues such as racism?

I Won’t Shut Up: Finding Your Voice When the World Tries to Silence You

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Speaker 1 0:02

Hello again, and welcome again to a matter of Faith, a Presby podcast, the podcast where we respond to your questions of faith, justice, and church life. Don't forget to write in and send us your question, why should they do that, Lee ?

Speaker 2 0:18

Because if it matters to you and it matters to us, and it just might be a matter of fate . And I think I could say that in my sleep.

Speaker 1 0:27

I think I could too. And in fact, as this episode's coming out, I'm kind of hoping that I am asleep <laugh> on vacation.

Speaker 2 0:35

Yes, everyone, the last few weeks we have been out of the office. We've been away from our microphones, but this is the last week. We will be back next week for your regularly scheduled programming, but we hope you enjoy our guest for this week .

Speaker 1 0:52

Yeah. And we hope that you all will not sleep on this guest because our guest is Ali Heney, the author of, I Won't Shut Up Finding Your Voice When the World Tries to Silence You. And we hope that you enjoy this conversation that's focusing about , um, spiritual abuse and power, and the intersections with racism.

Speaker 2 1:18

So joining us on the podcast this week is a very special guest. We have Ali Heney, who is the author of, I Won't Shut Up, finding Your Voice, when the World Tries to Silence You And Who Holds an MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary. Allie , welcome to the podcast. We're so excited to have you.

Speaker 3 1:39

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1 1:43

Yeah, we're really grateful to have you and have you with us to think about a question that was written in related to spiritual abuse. So the question reads, we have conversations about abuse and power, but don't often talk about spiritual abuse. What is spiritual abuse? How does it manifest and how does it intersect with issues such as racism?

Speaker 3 2:11

Yeah, so that is a great question. Um, so I'll try to take it in some of the different parts. So first of all, spiritual abuse. Um, whenever we think of abuse, we think of that abuse of power, right? So you kind of have already halfway defined it, at least as I would define it, at least as I would define it. So abuse, you have , uh, you're exercising undue authority and infl and , um, enforcing that undue authority by means of harm. So whether that's physical harm, whether that's hitting people, whether that's emotional, whether that's psychological, whether it's , um, financial , uh, I think I maybe said physical already, but there, there are a lot of different ways that that harm can manifest. And so that's just abuse in general. So whenever you get spiritual abuse, you take that , those things, and then you add spiritual things to it. So you add , um, church membership or certain spiritual beliefs or spiritual practices. And so what you might have then is, and this gets into how it manifests , um, you might have a church or a group of people or a religious movement that financially abuses its members. So they might ask that their members pay the church that they, that they pay you ties, that they give offerings, that they do all those things. And , um, that they do them in a way that, you know, you pay your ties before you pay your bills . So your house is getting ready to be foreclosed on, but there's pressure for you to give an offering to the church to, to take the leader out to lunch, to do what, whatever the thing is. And that thing result would result in harm for you. But there's like an undue pressure, an inordinate pressure , um, to comply with certain spiritual beliefs. Um, we could also talk about , uh, sex abuse, about, about clergy , um, sex abuse. That is a form of spiritual abuse. So if you have a leader , um, who for instance is exercising their authority and saying , well, you know, God would want you to insert whatever activity , um, that would, that would fall under that bracket , um, not only would that, would that be sexual abuse, that would also be spiritual abuse because you have someone who is in spiritual authority over you, quote unquote , um, exercising , um, that undue power that that undue influence. There can also be physical abuse. There can also be psychological and emotional abuse, but essentially it is undue power that is exercised and exerted over people , um, in, in church or religious , um, settings. And so then where we get into the intersection of race and racism then is , um, when people's I , whatever people's , um, religious identity and their individual cultural ethnic identity or whatever , um, is weaponized against them in such a way that it allows leadership, it allows people within a, a church or a spiritual group to exercise. Once again, undo undo authority. So an example of that would be , um, a quick example that I can think of is the , the doctrine of like the curse of ham that some people will talk about. Um, in, in churches. His dad, Noah is very, very upset about that. And so he curses ham and he tells ham that his people are going to be enslaved to his brother's shim and jfe . And so people have used that. White people, white European people used that passage, used that story that that old Testament narrative as justification for enslaving , uh, African people. And so then this idea then was sort of passed down through the generations. And people even now still use it as rationed now as justification for why American chattel slavery happened is like, oh, well, you know, well, black people were cursed. They're, they're the , they're the sons of ham. So like clearly they are, they are cursed and should, and we're going to be enslaved to shim and jfe . And so we are shim and jfe . And so like, obviously that, that must, that must be a thing. So that's u that's spiritual abuse. That's using the Bible, that's using spiritual beliefs, that's exercising it's undue authority over people. And in this case, we have that being done multiple ways over multiple generations , um, that doctrine being used to then justify harming. So whether that's justifying enslavement or whether that's justifying that , that being used as rationale for enslavement, or that being used to justify enslavement later on in history, or that just being a , a way to be racist and be like, well see, yeah, black folks are inferior to two people because y'all are the descendants of ham. Now who got to decide who was actually the descendants of ham? That's a , like, I don't even know who got to decide that. Um, black people probably are not the descendants of ham, but that's like a whole other, that's a whole other discussion. Um, but that, but that idea was leveraged and those ideas were leveraged. So it is not just, I don't wanna reduce spiritual abuse to , and , and racism to just that doctrine. That is one way that spiritual abuse , um, shows up and, and intersects with, with race and racism. So you have somebody creating a doctrine to harm a specific group of people and to justify and rationalize that that harm and that injustice being done to that group of people. And of course, using the Bible, using the pulpit, using theology, using all those other things , uh, to, to carry out those aims.

Speaker 2 8:31

It's, it's really interesting that how we perceive God, it's specifically through the words of scripture and how it is a , it is a pattern, it is a, a trope, if you will, throughout history that has been used to, to oppress people. It is, it is in like the spirituality and kind of the unknowingness of God that people have inserted this power dynamic and this, these constructs that because of the divinity and because of the abstractness of God and because of all these things, like it seems to be kind of like the perfect ground to, to cultivate a culture of abuse because it is something that is based out of, out of faith . It is based out of belief. It is based out of the in , in many ways for me of , you know, feeling the spirit. In some ways it's based out of these things that in a westernized world, it's like we have conceptualized this in some ways. And so it's becoming this like, it's a perfect ground for manipulation and yeah , the abuse of power. And so I wonder how often we have those conversations about how powerful this is, because we've seen it throughout history, like even with the doctrine of discovery, which was signed off by the Pope mm-hmm. <affirmative> , I mean, kind of the authority of spirituality at the time in that area of the world. And like, it just becomes like this perfect ground of all this stuff happening and, and how we silence people. And you talk a little bit about that in your book as well, like this way of manipulating God and manipulating the spirit just for oppressing others and capitalism and all these things.

Speaker 3 10:33

Yeah , yeah, yeah. You know , um, in my book, there is a chapter called Stonewall Jackson. Here are prayers. And the gist of that chapter is essentially is cuz my book is kind of, is part memoir, part cultural commentary, et cetera , et cetera . And so the, that chapter essentially tells the story of my involvement with a group of Christians , um, who a group of Pentecostal charismatic, they , they would, they would more label themselves , um, charismatic. And so how , um, they, they had this idea of like their, their group. They had what they called a justice mandate. And so what that meant to them was that , uh, they wanted to, to see justice. They wanted to see God's justice carried out in the world. And so one of the ways that they wanted that to manifest was , uh, through racial justice. And so that sounds really good . Good. That sounds, that sounds really great , um, on the front end. And for me, as someone who is interacting with that community, I was like, oh, that's, that's wonderful. You care about justice. I care about justice. That's great. There were, there were some, there was some more to the justice mandate , um, that I did , particularly around abortion and that sort of thing , um, that I didn't at the time agree with necessarily every single tenant of it, but I appreciated the impulse of, you have a, you have a value on human life. You're, you're placing a value on human life, even though I don't necessarily, I, I have grown in my own understanding even of , of, of , um, of abortion care and of what those, what that means and the implications and all that and all that for people. I've, I've grown and evolved in my own understanding of that. Um, but even at the time where I would say that, that this group was, was very just, you know , straight anti-abortion, straight pro-life in probably some of the, the strictest of sense of that, that there was aspects that even where I could say, well, yeah, you know, I have a , I have a , I don't want people just like out here , um, using abortion as like birth control or whatever. Um, because that was sort of , those were the alternatives that were, that were painted for me at the, at the time, was that it was like, oh, you can either, you know, like have an abortion or not. And so, and I, I have a much more robust , um, understanding of that now. And so at the time it was like, okay, yeah, I can understand your , your values of life and, and all this other type of stuff, even if I don't necessarily fully agree with how, with how you deploy that. And so this chapter talks then about the power of narrative. One of the, one of the things that this chapter deals with is the power of narrative that in getting people to sort of go along with ideas and to sort of , um, to , to go along with and to adopt ideas because it's like, you know, God is doing this, or God is saying that, or, or you know, well, well, maybe, maybe God is going to use President Obama to end abortion, but he's gonna use President Obama to end God cares about that for whatever reason. Like, he's gonna make, he's gonna make Barack Obama like Abraham Lincoln. Which, which was , which was weird to me because it's like, but Abraham Lincoln didn't care about enslaved people. Like he didn't, he , he was racist. He didn't care about enslaved people. So why are we likening the first black president to this individual? I was not really okay. It , it was the narrative, but it was just sort of that, that didn't, that didn't quite, that didn't quite , um, that , that didn't quite do it for me. I didn't , I didn't quite understand all of that. But then even as that narrative is being built out, it's like, so God cares about this. But at the same time, God doesn't care that Trayvon Martin was killed. Like, y'all aren't saying anything. Y'all care about justice, but you're not saying anything about this young man who was murdered for carrying a can of, of ice tea and Skittles. And it was like God was silent about that. But there's this whole idea of, of narrative where I think that whenever we , um, whenever we see spiritual abuse taking place , um, that, that narrative is often behind it. And in this, with this particular group, my experience is now there, there are people , um, who were part of this movement who definitely, I think, experienced spiritual abuse. That was not my experience of this particular group of people. Um, but I can also say where there were some unhealthy aspects to their beliefs and kind of, you know, how we even stonewall Jackson in the, in the chapter, that's like a whole, that's a whole thing. But essentially all of this narrative then culminates to, because there is such a desire, there was such a desire , um, by this group of individuals for they would say, well, you know, for god's, for God's kingdom and for, and for all these other types of things. But essentially, I think that it was, it was a desire for power. It was a , it was a desire to, for political power, and not necessarily the individuals in the ministry, but some of the broader narratives. If we start talking about black or white Christian nationalism, there were some of these , um, there , there was, there was some of those narratives, some of those, some of those ideas, some of those talking points present that then this then allowed for a situation where in the ministry people were praying and they were invoking Stonewall Jackson in prayer , um, saying like, oh, yes , you know , like , like, we need to be like Jackson standing like a stonewall, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's more, there's more to the story , um, than , than that. But that was essentially where this, where this culminated. And I can't help but see the power of narrative in that. Where I think that if you, if you sat people down and was like, okay, so Stonewall Jackson, even though, yeah , we're , we're in Virginia, and I get that y'all have y'all's own little narrative about what happened in the Civil War and blah, blah, blah, blah. But can we, but can we, if , if , if you sat down and thought about this, you are wanting people in prayer to have the character of Stonewall Jacksons and I , and I , and I get it, but can , but certainly we can have another model for steadfastness in prayer, because the implications of you invoking this person and their, and their name and what they stand for , um, that has some implications for the African-American people in the room. Like, we don't wanna be like Stonewall Jackson. Stonewall Jackson was fighting to, to enslave like literally some of our grandparents, like literally, I'm not from Virginia, but my family, I lived in Virginia for a while , and then , um, my family's origins on my dad's side is in Virginia. So this is like, you know, this is my ancestral, you know, line that we're talking about here. And that dude was fighting to enslave, to enslave, like, you know, my , um, three times great grandparents. I think it was , um, it would've, it would've been cuz cuz um, enslavement is actually pretty well, I mean, it's pretty near , um, to just about everybody's family, but I'm , but I'm only like, there's like one or two less generations removed from enslavement on my dad's side of the family than there is on my mom's side of the family. So it was like my great great , my great-grandmother was like the first person born free on my, on my dad's side. So it would've been , um, my great-great-grandparents then who were enslaved and so, and and enslaved in Virginia. And so it's like, yo, that's like close to to, and that's close probably for a lot of us. And y'all are wanting to invoke this person in prayer. And okay, I understand you're wanting to tell people to be steadfast. You're wanting to, to , to encourage people , um, to, to rally. You're wanting to encourage the nation to rally around Virginians in this time. But, but certainly there is another metaphor that we can, that we can use here that doesn't involve a person fighting for enslavement. But that, but that power of narrative then you have where people sort of almost like, you know, check their brain at the door a little bit. And I think that especially with this, particularly talking about the interse intersection with race and racism, where white people just, oh, okay, you know, it's a civil war. It's whatever. We have our rationale. We have our, we have our little heritage not hate thing. We have whatever it is. And y'all don't want to, sometimes like white folks don't want to be like, want to really examine the narratives and examine the things that whiteness has taught people to believe. And so then going back to the spiritual abuse component and where that starts to get , um, where that starts to get very murky and where that starts to get harmful, even it is when we couple these narratives , um, that, that people, that people build about themselves, about their, their country, about their church, about their whatever, and then they're , and then they're used as , um, as ways to sort of make spirituality into , um, where , where spirituality can become like a , a club, like a , like a beating club, a cudgel , um, not a club like a woo , I'm going to the club. Like, not that kind of thing, not that kind of club. But, but , but the club that you get people with , um, or that can become where that can become so difficult. And we, and we see it, you know, I'm using , um, race as an example, but we can lead these narratives even in some of our current conversations about people in the trans community and about people in the L G B T community where there are these naves about, well, these people, there's something, there's something wrong with them. Now , these are not my beliefs, but I'm just saying that, that the, that the narrative is that, well, you know, these people, they're, they're in sin or they're doing evil, or maybe even they are evil. There's something, there's something wrong with them. And then we use those ideas and narratives shouldn't say we , cause it's not us here, it's probably not us listening, but the church, people in the church are , our Christian siblings will use that narrative then to tell people, well, if you have these quote unquote incl inclinations, if you, if you feel attracted to that lifestyle, all those, you know, things that people, that people say, all those euphemisms that people use those things then come back and they, and they harm and they harm, they harm the kids sitting on the pew. Um, who, the , the kid who's, who's, you know, they've tried praying the gay away , you know , they, they've tried all these different things, but they still, but they still are who they are. They still are who God has created them to be. And that can be, that can be a form of abuse, that can be a form of harm, that can be a form of marginalization that that takes, that takes place. And that undue power and that undue influence. Then when you have a youth pastor or a pastor or , um, a bishop or some other type of spirit , a presbyter or superintendent or whatever, the thing is that that is exercising that power to dictate who gets, who has the right to exist , um, who has the, who has the right to be seen fully as children of God. Um, that just, that, that becomes that, I'm , I'm super duper tangential here, but that can just, that, that can be so harmful. And so , um, I, I talk about some of these themes , um, it's not a big theme in my book, but some of these, these things, these themes of, you know, people who say that they're trying, you know, not to be racist or they're trying to seek justice, but then they're doing these, they're , they're, they are coupling themselves with narratives and with ideas that are the antithesis of this, because they're not doing the work to really examine their thoughts. They're not really doing the work to examine the full implications of their beliefs. And so they end up doing, they end up doing harm , um, because of that.

Speaker 1 22:57

I'd like to, this might be a a a , a tangent, but I kind of would like to go back to your original description about of, of spiritual abuse in general. You had mentioned, for example, getting people to tithe or making people feel compelled to do so, sort of forcing people to feel like they had to do something. Something that I think we've probably all seen in church is this sort of expectation or attitude that , um, oh, if you, if I don't do it when I'm asked to do it , uh, I'm letting the whole church down. The church is gonna fall apart if I'm not the, if I'm asked to help with the church livestream, right? If I'm not the one to do it, everything's gonna fall apart, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 3 23:45

Yeah.

Speaker 1 23:46

Or if I was asked to, oh, you're, you're gonna help set up the chairs, right? If I don't help set up the chairs, it's gonna fall apart. There's this element sometimes of guilt that can be used and , and I wanna say manipulated to sort of get people to feel compelled and it , because it's sometimes hard to say no, especially to people who you care about. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , people that are in your faith community because mm-hmm . <affirmative> , and , and in some ways there's some power to being asked to do something in your faith community because you want what you do to reflect the God that you worship. Right? And so it's like, oh, mm-hmm . <affirmative> , if I say no, I'm saying no to God, well, that's bad, but when actually it's just you setting a boundary of like, no, I can't set up sh chairs today.

Speaker 3 24:24

Right? Right.

Speaker 1 24:26

And I see this , well, I , my question is, is whether what I'm about to describe is actually an example of the intersection of spiritual abuse and racism or something else. Um, so in, let's say progressive circles, we are in a lee and I work, you know, we're in a progressive denomination that's also very white

Speaker 3 24:47

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 1 24:49

So for example, if I am asked, Hey, can you serve on this committee? I am a young person of color in this denomination. Right? It is interesting because I wonder, am I know, I , I hope I'm being asked because of my gifts and my talents and my abilities, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but there's also always this element of I also bring some sort of diversity to the table, right? In this committee, right ? Or in this congregation. And depending on the context, there may be other people of color. Sometimes there isn't, it depends on the congregation, but there is an element of pressure also that what if I say no? Sometimes the depth chart of other people of color isn't deep mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it's either I am the diversity or there is none. Or even if there is a depth chart, and it is a more diverse congregation, there is still this question around what is the criteria for being asked to be a part of something. And then you also have what I talked about earlier around this sort of feeling compelled to do, feeling compelled to participate, if that makes sense. Yeah . But you also, but also as a person of color, you don't want to be tokenized.

Speaker 3 26:07

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Speaker 1 26:09

On the flip side, I've also heard some people say, Hey, if they're asking you to do something or if there's an opportunity and they'll pay for it, go and take those white people's money. <laugh> , they

Speaker 3 26:18

Owe us <laugh> .

Speaker 1 26:20

So

Speaker 3 26:22

Preparations , so I'm ,

Speaker 1 26:22

Yes. Yeah. So I'm curious sort of how you view that kind of a dynamic. Is that, is what I'm describing related to this? Or is it slightly different? Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 26:34

Yeah, that makes, that makes absolute sense. So I think that, you know, there is, there are a lot of things , um, whenever we start talking about undue influence and power and that type and that sort of thing, there are a lot of different manifestations of it. And there are some things that we can say undue influence and power enslaving people that is like, that's horrible, right? Like, we, like, like that's like, that's one extreme. But then there are these, these things where, you know, there can be , um, undue power, undue influence, undue control, and maybe the stakes aren't quite as high. And it's not to say that, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't harm us that it doesn't hurt our feelings, that it doesn't upset us, that it can't have long-term consequences at all. Um, but there's, but I think that there is a wide scope of things that , um, in ministry we have to be aware of. Um, as somebody who has served in pastoral ministry, I'm not currently pastoring, I'm in ministry, but not, but not currently pastoring. But that's, but that's part of , um, that's part of my story , um, is being a , a leader in stuff in church. And I , and I lead a , a nonprofit , a faith-based nonprofit now, and , um, will hopefully one day, one day soon be back , um, in pastoral leadership in the church. And that's something that we have to ask ourselves as leaders whenever we ask somebody to set up the chairs or to help run the livestream or to be an usher or something like that. Um, there's a push pull tension of, as a, as a congregant, as a parishioner, as a church member, we are exercising care for our community, right? So like that, like, we care about, like our, our church in its essence is a community. And so that community is in some way, shape, or form is providing services to people. Now, whether those services are purely spiritual services of receiving communion, of hearing, encouraging messages of, of receiving , um, spiritual direction or that sort of thing, or, or whether those, those spiritual services are also , um, coupled with maybe we're also providing for practical needs. Like, you know, we're feeding people, we're clothing people, we're providing, we're providing education, we're providing all these other types of things that is a community. And so that community doesn't function , um, without, without our care. Um, churches generally aren't swimming in money. There are churches that are swimming in money. I mean, if you watch like the , the documentaries that are out there of some different churches that are swimming in money, but, but most, but your average church is not swimming in money. The way that those churches, the way that those churches have funds and have resources is through donations. It's essentially, it's a nonprofit organization. And the way that a nonprofit organization thrives is through donations. Where we start to get into issues is when talking about the financial aspect, when it is compulsory, and it's treated as compulsory and not treated as an act of worship. So in the Christian Church, our , our tithing, our offerings, those are considered to be acts of worship or acts of piety or acts of faith. And so there are people that make the argument, well, you know, like , like they go and they quote, well , how do you route God? But enter tithes and offerings and, and totally take step , totally take scripture and stuff outta context. I'm not gonna sit here and try to exegete that scripture. You're just gonna have to believe me. Y'all are taking, a lot of folks are taking that stuff outta context. And so sometimes we take these things and we take them outta context when really, like, what I think that the , that the thing is, is that it's about, about being part of the spiritual community and being part of any community. You're , it's about giving of your time, your talent, and your treasure. You don't have to do, some people have the ability and capacity to do all three of those things. Some people might have only the capacity to do two of those things. Some people might only have the capacity to do one of those things. And then there are some people who are, if you're doing your spiritual community, Christian spiritual community stuff, right? There are some people who might have zero capacity for any of those things because they are the, the hurting, the marginalized, the , the folks that, that need that, that need the help of the church, right? And so whenever we place this idea on people that they, that they have to give money or that they have to volunteer, and it becomes a, a compulsory thing that is, that to me, that's, that's an issue. And we need to, and we need to think about how we are treating people within that and not making , um, tithing and all that sort of thing, making that a compulsory thing , um, to where then people feel guilt if they're not, if they're not able to do it. And it's the same even with, with volunteering and serving within the church, I think that we have to be very careful and very aware of the pressures that we're putting on people. So there's the , like I said, there's the balance between I'm part of a spiritual community, and so I want to see my spiritual community thrive. And so I'm going to give my time and my talent and of my treasure and those things. I think that, that, from the, from the place of a person who's a member parishioner or what congregant, whatever you wanna call it, those things should be free will . And we should also care about our community. Um, but then, but then balance that with, you don't have to just keep giving of yourself. And I think that I, I've been part of ministries, I've been part of churches where , um, you were just expected to give and to keep on giving and to not have any time for yourself. And in fact, this very issue comes up in my book where I had a leader , um, treat me badly, treat me, treat me poorly , um, because I essentially had set a boundary and was like, I, I went someplace to do something and they were upset about something, and it became this whole thing. And I was just like, no. Like, I, like , I , I did what I said that I was going to do, and you're upset because I didn't do it the way that you thought that I should have done it, but I, but I did it . And so, like, there's times whenever we, whenever we have to, as, as people who are members of a church, we have to, we have to set those boundaries, right? And so then I say all of that to, to get to, to the race. Part of the question then is I think that some of those things that they, that they, that that's an intersection and that that still applies. And sometimes we can have our, as, as people of color, as, as, as black folks, we can have that sort of, that, that guilt of, well, you know, if you don't do it, then if you, if you don't take the opportunity, then they're, then they're thinking that, well, you don't, well, well, you don't really wanna work for racial reconciliation or whatever the thing is that, or whatever the thing is, or they say, or, you know, that it kind of, we, we, we wonder sometimes, you know, if we don't take the opportunity, will the opportunity not just for us, but for anybody come up again. So if we don't come, if we don't perform to, to the expectation and to standard, will this door open for anybody else again? And so to me, that that is a , that can be a form of harm . That can be a form of, of , um, of spiritual, of spiritual abuse, of spiritual gaslighting where , um, the people who are part of the dominant culture then like wave these opportunities, these, these moments for , um, these, these, these ideas, these these moments that we, that we can have positions , um, opportunities and stuff where those things can kind of be waved in front of us. And, you know, we are told , we can be told, well, you know, you can be the first black or the first Korean, or the first Chinese, or the first, or the first Mexican or the first whatever, you know, you can be the first, the first Spanish speaking or whatever the thing is. And those things are, are kind of put in front of us, and then we sort of have to make these decisions , uh, based on not just for ourselves, but even thinking about how we , um, are representing our entire race or ethnicity or culture cultural group. And because , um, and, and I say this and, and I don't always think that there's necessarily like, specific intent behind that, but I think that just the way that whiteness operates is that it , it operates often like with a scarcity mindset. And so there's this idea that, well, you know, if, if somebody, you know , doesn't take this, so if Simon doesn't take this position, then like, you know, well, I guess we can't, I guess we can't offer it to anybody else, or no , I guess, I guess they're not. So you're representing your whole group. Well, I guess that, that they're not interested in, in doing these types of things within the church, so, so nevermind. And so I think that , that there's a lot of , um, that, that for that, for white people in positions within, within some of these , uh, church organizations, I think that it is so important for them to recognize the impact of their tokenization, of their invitation or their lack of invitation and what, and what pressures that might be placing upon us to have to be, to always have to be the person of color to al , especially in, you know, predominantly white organizations where, like you said, the depth chart <laugh> of, of people of color is not, is not that big. You know, there might be, there might be only a handful. And so if, and so if one person turns it down, or if two or three people turn it down, then it just kind , kind of becomes, well, they're just not interested in this. And it becomes like reason and rationale to, to not include when sometimes, you know, sometimes we turn things down, we turn things down, because, you know, you're already a part of 500 committees. You're already a part , you're already, you're already holding that space. You're already being the person of color, the , the , the token person of color in every room, in every picture, in every video, and you just cannot add one more thing. Um, but sometimes I think that , um, that white folks, like, they don't realize, they don't take the time to, to realize and, and recognize just the, the impact that , um, being part of such white churches or organizations or denominations can have on people of color. And so whenever they make the conscious effort to try to do something, and then it doesn't, it doesn't go the way that they think that it should go, then they just default right back to whiteness, rather than asking, well , why isn't this working? Or how can we make this more, more generative, more conducive for people of color? It's sort of like, well , uh, yeah, you know, we tried the diversity thing and it didn't, and it didn't work, so we're just gonna go back to white supremacy. Like, it's, it's really weird how that happens. And people don't, they don't say it that way, but it's like, but that's essentially what it is. It's like, oh, you know, yeah. We, we didn't , we tried it and, and we couldn't, we couldn't get anybody to do it. You know, we, we tried to have a , a ministry to, to indigenous people, and we just couldn't get anybody to do it. You know, we tried to get a black guy to lead this, and we, and he didn't wanna do it. And, you know, we just, we tried to have that ministry. We tried to, we tried to have that anti-racism committee, the committee, and nobody wanted to do it. And so instead of asking themselves, well, why, why didn't you know the 40 people of color who are working in your offices, why didn't, why did like 39 out of the 40 say no? And the 40th person didn't say no, but they didn't say yes either. Um, instead of asking yourself like, well, why, why is that? It's just sort of like, well, you know, we tried it and it didn't, and it didn't work, so we're just gonna, you know, go back. Like, I guess it's not important, or I guess it's not whatever. And you can extend that again, you can start talking about, you know, L G B T, you could start talking about gender equity. You could start , well, well, there aren't any women that showed up to this thing that we did, or there weren't any trans people that wanted to take this on, or there weren't any gay people. Like , you could, you could extend it out and out and out, but people in power, like some , it's just like, oh no , nobody's wanting to do the things. Nobody's wanting to keep carrying on the , the structure , the systems and structures that we carried in the same way that we wanted to do them. Oh my goodness. Well, I guess we just have to keep doing it. That we just have to keep doing it that way then.

Speaker 2 39:21

Yeah. It's like a institutional gaslighting in a way. And our institution, the denomination in which we work under, is very focused on policy, like the written word and, and, and writing policy and passing these policies within kind of a church institutional way. And in some ways it's almost like that's enough, especially when it comes to like, I mean, our denomination is kind of quote progressive, but at the same time, it's almost, it's a performative progressivism in some ways. And it's also kind of this institutional gaslighting to where we know there's a history behind , uh, when you said Native American churches and Native American issues within our country, that's a big thing, <laugh> that ha there's a big issue that happened mm-hmm . In our denomination. Mm . Yep . And so it, it reminds me, so there's a new show on Netflix, it's called Glamorous. I'm like a big, I love to watch tv. I'm like, I love pop culture and things like that. But there was a, there's a, it's kind of like a very devil worst prototype thing, <laugh>, but there is a , um, like an assistant comes in, helps the, helps the , like the main editor of this magazine, like this makeup company, and this person is non-binary. And then later in the , uh, spoiler alert later in the show, they come out as trans, but was dating this , uh, white, muscular gay man. And this man was gaslighting this person because he did not, this, this other person did not fit what this guy wanted to ha wanted to experience even with his own community. And so, even in like progressive circles I've noticed is also like, how do you co How , how do you , um, what's the word? How do you kind of assimilate how like you might be, you might be a person of color , but how do you assimilate even within this progressive circle of how you should look Yes . How you should present yourself. And it's really this intentional progressive gaslighting that I've also seen in a lot of our institutions within the, like, mainline progressive churches that like, yeah, we say we, we on paper, we say these things, but in reality it is, well, why do you, why do you dress that way? Why do you look that way? Why do you s why do you style your hair that way? What are the things that like, it's all these, like these physical material also questioning even how you kind of express yourself and any kind of identity that you have. But there's also this ability of co-op like of assimilating in this culture that is also very abusive, even within Yes , an institution that claims it is progressive, but only to a certain extent. And how we even talk about, like, I'm a part of the community, we don't really talk about drag or drag performers or like, we don't talk about like the intricacies of culture within, like, even within gay liberation about poor homeless, trans people starting gay, the gay rights movement, like, like those type things. That is also in some ways like very, very abusive because you've believed that this is a safe space for you. And yes , it turns out not so much. Yes.

Speaker 3 42:50

Yeah . Yes. I am so glad that you named that. Um , because I think that even I , I think that you said it like even in spaces that are more quote unquote progressive, there is often , um, a type of stereotyping, a type of tokenization that says, you can, you can be in this space as long as you're not too black. Like you can be black here. You just can't be too black, because if you're too black , then blah , blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can be you , you like, yes, you know, if you're, you're welcome here, but just don't be like too. Like if you, if you start, if you start being too, then we , then that's gonna upset some of the status quo. And really, to me, what that comes down to, what, what all that comes down to is that it is ingrained supremacy culture. And so a lot of cis had progressive white folk. They love the idea of having color, of having queerness, of having all these things around them because it shows that they are good people. Because that's, that's, you know , that that bleeding heart liberal, that bleeding heart progressive look, we're like, look, we love everybody. But deep, deep down there is still some of that programming. And I think especially in church spaces, a lot of progressive church folk wanna be like, well, you know, well , we're not the evangelicals. Well, no, you're not the evangelicals, but have you really divested of white supremacy? Like you're not doing make America great again, white supremacy, but you're doing other types of white supremacy that like, really at the end of the day isn't any better. Or like, you know, are you, are you doing ro rhon, DeSantis, homophobia? No, you're not doing Ron Rhon , DeSantis, homophobia and transphobia, but you're still doing homophobia and transphobia. So like, does it really, does it, if you're, if you have to, if you have to, to assimilate and kind of meter and monitor yourself as a person who holds a marginalized identity, are you really free? If you have to do beyond just being like a compassionate and ethical person, if you have to meter and monitor and kind of bend yourself in a space that you are supposed to be free in, are you really free? And my answer , my answer to that is no. So if I have to walk into a space, and if I can , if I have to be, if I have to think about, well, and I don't even know how you can be like more or less black, but just for argument's sake, like I'm walking into a, I'm walking into a space and like, yes, I know that, like that if I'm in a space full of white folks full of like, you know, old white men, I'm just going to expect, okay, you know, they're not gonna maybe understand slang, they're maybe not gonna understand certain, certain terms of phrases I use . So I've got, so I have to code switch in order to be understood. Um, that like, like I just like, like you get that, and I, and I, and I get, you know, there are things that, that, you know, I am not a person. So there are things about cul about culture that I am not gonna understand. Try as I might as many people, as many friends, as I have as many whatever, there are things that I'm, that I am just not gonna understand. And I'm am going to get those and I'm going to get those things wrong, and I'm going to have assumptions and that . But I think that there's a difference between, between, you know, we're we are, we are actively making progress toward liberation for all people. And we have moments where we realize that we are still operating in supremacy culture, and we could take a step back and say, oh, you know what, that was supremacy culture. Oh , that jumped out my bad. Like, let's, let's do this again. There's a difference between that type of posture and the type of posture that's like, okay, like, I hear you, but we're not gonna change anything. And it's like, you know , it's like the white, like liberal, white progressive smile like, oh yes, I, I'm , I'm listening and I'm learning, but I'm not going to change anything. And I get so frustrated by that because it's like, you know, hey, I'm, I'm telling you the things that you are doing are not helpful to black people. It's not helpful for black women. This is coming off, this is giving homophobia, this is giving transphobia , um, this is giving fatphobia, this is giving ableism, this is giving whatever. And you smile and noob , but then you turn and you do the same thing. You turn around and do the same thing that is gaslighting. And I'm glad that you named that institutional. You're, you're, you're tell , you're , you're smiling in my face and saying that like, you know, you're listening, you care, I'm heard , I'm whatever. Then why aren't you changing? And I understand that in big institutions it takes time to change that . There have to be plans . Like I, like I understand I am, I am not ignorant. Um, at the same time, you can also stop doing the thing. You can, you can stop doing the thing and you can say, well , we're gonna stop . We don't know what, what we're going to do yet, but we are going to stop doing the thing. And if maybe the thing there are wheels and stuff set in motion that it, it takes a long time to turn, to turn a big ship We under, we understand that. But, but we , look , I'm pulling the brake, I'm pulling the lever. We are , we are trying to stop this thing. So many times people keep doing the thing. They keep, they, they, they smile. They say, oh, I'm sorry, they shed a couple of tears. And then they turn around and they keep doing it. And then, and then six months later you come back and you're like, okay , well remember that thing that we talked about? And they're like, yeah, yeah. Oh, I was so upset about that. Okay, well that's, that's great, but you're still, this institution is still is still doing this. Oh, well, and then, and then you get the excuses and you get, you get the talk and you get, and you get all these other types of things. And that's very hard , um, to feel, to feel safe in. And when there's an expectation of assimilation, I think that what people, what what people don't realize, what the church doesn't realize is that there , you can only do that for so long. There are people who are holding on by a thread. They believe in God, they believe in the institution, they believe in their denomination, they believe in their church, they believe whenever. But they are, but they hold marginalized identities. They are people who have, historically, they're part of groups that have historically been excluded, and they are hanging on by a threat . There are only so many of us who are equipped and able and have the capacity and the ability to stay and to try to change things. And you're even gonna start driving those people away because y'all don't, because y'all don't wanna change. Y'all want to, y'all want to do a lot of lip service. Y'all wanna do a, a lot of running your mouth and having a lot of meetings. Cuz lord , lord Jesus, the meetings, the , the , they , they will get you, they will get you in a meeting. They will get you in a , a six month track of meetings where you tell them what the problem is and you keep unpacking your trauma and elucidating everything that is that they've done. And like, you can't, you can't say it different ways. You've said it , you've said it in a box, you've said it on a chair, you've said it in the air, you've said it everywhere. You know, I will not eat green , green eggs and ham. I will not eat them same . I am like, I cannot tell you what else to do. What else to say? What ? Like, like how do you , short of taking my brain out and hooking it up into a projector to where like, I , I don't know , I'll probably dating by myself here . There's a show called like All Real monsters where the monsters on the , where the monsters would go and scare. And so they would hook like this thing up to the monster's head, so it would project like they're scaring out of their eyes and they, and then the teacher would like, cr would critique it. It's like you , aside from you hooking me up to like the projector machine and me and my brain showing you the racist incident that happened, like I I've told you, I've told you everything that I, that I possibly can about it. So when are you going to act instead of, instead of like, is like, I understand you've, sometimes you gotta have meetings, sometimes you have to fill out paperwork, sometimes you have to document stuff. But then there is a certain point though, when y'all just gotta do the right thing. Y'all just gotta say, we're gonna stop doing the thing. We don't know how we're gonna fix it, but the very least we can, we can, we can reduce harm by not doing this thing that, that people are saying is, is harmful anymore. And yeah, you know , I'm not gonna , I'm not gonna hold y'all , but my, but my goodness, you know, I think that that so many times that the , that institutional gaslighting, it gets, they think and they, and they think that they have done something like the gaslighting is so deep that they literally will think that they have done something by having six months of meetings with you and by writing a statement or by writing a plan, they, they put, they put so much labor into that, that, that , that they confuse that with doing something. And it's like, no, this is the first step. Y'all still haven't done it. Like, like that , that, like, that was, we did , we did six months of meetings. That wasn't, that wasn't doing it. Like esp like in the church context, it's like y'all still got churches that are still saying these things. Y'all still got pastors that believe this. Y'all still got this in the pulpit. Your liturgy still has this. I understand that it takes time to change your book of prayer or your service book or whatever. Like, I get that. I get it. It takes, I get it takes action. It , but, but can, but can we do something? Can we, can , can we actually physically do something? Just something. But they, but they will think, but they will even gaslight themselves into, oh, well we had meetings so clearly we , like we we took action.

Speaker 2 52:48

You literally just described so much familiar familiarity <laugh> in our, in our existence. But yeah, it is, and uh, breaking that cycle, I hope one day that may, may happen. But Allie , we are really and truly honored and blessed to have you with us and to talk with us about all the things. But we did want to end our conversation. If you had anything to say about your book, we would love to hear from it, all the things, how to get it, all those things. And, and everyone will put a link in our show notes. But we did want to give you opportunity to talk about your book.

Speaker 3 53:34

Yeah. So you can get, I won't shut up Finding your voice when the world tries to silence you . Um, pretty much any place that books are sold , um, if you want to get it from the Bezos , the Jeff Bezos marketing place, you can absolutely get it from there. Um, it, it , it benefits me , um, for you , for you all to get it from there, but don't feel like that you have to, that you have to buy it from Jeff Bezos. You can also , um, bookshop.org . Um, I understand that like a lot of indie , um, book buyers and indie stores , um, you can, you can request books there, I believe. And then you can also , um, buy books from there, which is really good. Barnes and Noble, Barnes and Wool Books a Million. Um, something that a lot of people don't realize. I think a lot of us, like young people who are, who are so used to doing things on the internet, but like, you can actually, like, you know, go to a bookstore and if they don't have the book, you can request that they order the book. And what's really cool about that is if you, if you do that, like a lot of times they're not just gonna order one copy of the book. Like they're go , they, they might, you know, to make it worth their while. You know, they might order like, you know , 10 copies or something like that. And so that's something that's, that's really, that's really helpful. Um, you know, for the, for the book to be , um, just, you know, on the, on the shelves, on the whatever, if you see it in the Christian section, I like, I am a Christian or whatever, but kindly ask them to move it if they can. Um , because it's not, my book is like, I talk about the church, I talk about Christianity, but it's not like a Christian book. And so sometimes it'll be like, they'll be like, Ooh , Christian living. And I'm like, because of the , because of the publisher and stuff, I'm like, wow , that is a , that's a mis categorization, but we're gonna go with it. Um, whatever. So if you see it just like, be like, Hey, you know, I know the author she told me to that , that like, you know, that , that that wasn't the right category for it. Um, but anyway , so yeah, like, you know , don't, don't, like, don't , don't your your book's door person off, but just like, don't be a jerk about it, but just be like, you know, hey, like if you can just so more people can , can see it. Um, let's see, what else? Um, definitely leave reviews. Um , you know, tell, tell, you can, and you can go on like the Bezos Shopping Network and like, you can leave reviews. Um, they won't be like verified reviews, but you can, but you can still leave reviews now. You can go on Goodreads, wherever you bought your book from. Um, buy it from, buy it from black bookstore, see if you have a , a black bookstore that's local to you, order it from there, buy it from there. And also your local library again, request the book. They're not just probably gonna buy one copy, they're probably gonna , you know, get like two different, two or three different copies of it, depending on the size of your library. And so, like, you know, if you aren't able, you don't have the resources , um, to afford, like, buying books, like I'm , I buy too many books. I've been trying to use my local library a lot more so, because like, I'm too poor sometimes. Like, I'm like, I'm gonna be too poor. Like if I do this, if I keep buying these books. So like, if you're like in a position where you're just like, nah , I ain't got, I ain't got like, you know, $25 to spend on a book. Like, or I think it's like $20 maybe on the biso place, but you ain't got that money. Get get it at your local library.

Speaker 1 56:39

Awesome. Well, Allie , thank you again so much for being with us on the podcast. And folks, be sure to check out the book. We've also got a link in the show notes. And Allie , we wish you the best in your work, in your writing and in your opportunities, whether it is , uh, preaching, pastoring, and of your other endeavors. Thanks so much.

Speaker 3 57:02

Yes, thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 2 57:05

Well, thanks everyone for listening to this episode of our Matter of Fate , the Presby podcast. We hope you enjoyed our conversation this week. We hope you subscribe wherever you get your podcast and leave us a review, preferably five stars, and leave us a little note. We would love to hear from you. If you have any questions, send 'em to Fate podcast@peaceusa.org. Check out our website a matter of fate podcast.com. There you will find all the episodes and our Spanish and Korean sibling podcast. You'll also find our listening guides and advocacy watch. So check out the website and again, we will talk to you next week.