Bishop Yvette Flunder Interview with Deshna, Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org

all right well Bishop Flender thank you so much for being with me here today and taking time in your busy schedule to meet with me and I'm just excited to get to know you and hear about your your journey and your story and what's what's working for you and where you're being challenged and what's exciting you these days so thanks so much well thank you but I'm glad to be here awesome so some of these things I mentioned in an email to you at one point and so some of this will be a little bit repetitive but I figured I would just sort of do a quick background as you may know I'm the director of the nonprofit organization progressive Christianity org and we are an international organization primarily online we offer resources for people who are building community who are in faith communities and those are a wide range of spiritual resources such as sermons articles books books reviews curriculum study guides that kind of thing and we also offer networking and community building support so we're wanting people to feel supportive in creating or sustaining their progressive communities and another thing that we're doing right now is that we are publishing the subscription newsletter called progressing spirit and that was that grew out of the previous Bishop Spong newsletter which was a new Christianity for a new world and he had a large following and he retired a couple years ago and gave us his endorsement to allow it to evolve into something a little bit new and so we took that opportunity to seek and we continue to seek authors and leaders and visionaries who are at the cutting edge in the progressive theology world of Christianity so a big part of what I'm doing right now is seeking out people who we feel are leading this movement either locally in their communities as examples or on a larger scale through books or speaking engagements and whatnot and as I mentioned to you we are really doing our best effort right now to Center voices of women of color people of color in general but primarily women of color we feel that for much of the movement it has been led by predominantly a white male mostly kind of like scholar historian pastor type author type person and that has really done an effective job at helping Christians who are leaning into a more authentic path to to become informed to deconstruct potentially what they were taught and [Music] look at the Bible and the history and the teachings of Jesus from a more historical scholarly perspective and that was really important I think for a lot of people and it sort of left us with this vacuum of how do we reconstruct our faith then if we're inclusive if we're looking at the Bible from historical perspective if we're questioning the beliefs that we've been passed down what you know where does that leave us and if there is indeed a progressive Christian movement what is that what are what are sort of the tenants what are the beliefs where do we want to go what do we want to do in this world as a group of people so in some ways this is a long history and in other ways we're at a precipice we're in a transitionary moment right now of bringing together people from around the world to figure out how we can be a predominant force in the world of compassion by following the teachings of Jesus and also still be very relevant and meaningful in today's world so that's a little bit about us and I am very interested I came across some of your sermons and then I went on like a yevette Flender you know and even and one of them was a very moving sermon and you were basically saying I'm not gonna quote you because it was a while ago now but you're basically saying look we need prophets you know and we need people who are willing to push the edge where I'm willing to stand up and and lead and this whole sermon the whole time I was thinking like you you know it's great that you're calling that out and also I really see that in you I admire your work and my your teachings very much so thank you now I'm really interested in your theological journey kind of you know a background on your on where you came from and how you grew into the role that you're in today and maybe some of those shifts when they happened and why well I am thank you very much for the opportunity to share with you sister I appreciate your work and John Shelby Spong is both a friend and a mentor and I'll be able to talk a little bit about that as we go along but I am born and raised among African American Pentecostals who who migrated from the South primarily Texas in my family Texas and Oklahoma to the United States unusual realities in California like it's like a foreign country in the United States you know but that's what my folks did just prior to world war ii and I was raised in the womb of the Church of God in Christ which of course is a Trinitarian Pentecostal group that was founded by Bishop Charles Harrison Mason and it came out of the Azusa Street movement under William Joseph Seymour in Southern California I was raised in a reasonably close society closed fundamentalist society and in organization and church and denomination so my grandfather was a bishop connected to Bishop Mason in the early early years I have two other kojic bishops in my family both of which of course are men and I had a very good wonderful childhood and you know I was safe in the womb of the church you know everything we did our recreation and interaction and and all I eaten and everything we did among ourselves and I felt very safe I went back and forth to the houses of the different saints as we called each other was raised with their children tolerated school and the church was so much more important than anything else you know and matriculated through the denomination and through the church and sorta was some destined that wasn't a highborn family so I was destined to be kojic leader among women which is cost very different than the leaders among men I would suggest that I had three distinct departures that made me leave it experience one was that I sensed myself to be called to social justice work in our eschatology did not really embrace the idea of Beco justice or fighting back or pushing back against racism or certainly not pushing back against patriarchy and sexism basically what we were were focused on is enjoying ourselves with each other and essentially our wonderful worship services and our singing and our satellite but our eschatology had us always focused on the soon coming of Jesus mm-hmm Jesus was really coming like on Friday Sunday so there was very little time in energy put into repairing the planet being engaged in the body body politic when in the political systems why all of this was in the hands of Jesus and you know it's it's so sort of a oxymoron to try to heal the earth when you is so sure that Jesus is kind of come blow it up in any given time so yeah our focus was on trying to get right with God and stay right with God because you could sin and and you would be damned the hill so you had to keep coming back trying to get it right so it was a it was a huge part of our time and effort was trying to get ourselves right with God and get everybody that we met right with God because of this imminent and punitive return of Christ and so that was the way I was raised and I part I departed from it because I had a real problem with the call or reconciling the call to social justice to that kind of eschatology is apocalyptic aesthetes ology I couldn't connect it why would I care about people but I did deeply care right about seniors about children that I had a Foster Foster group home or hard-to-place young people got engaged in the HIV epidemic worked very very hard to save people's lives and the two things just did not jive so that was my first departure I would say my second departure would be that I sense myself fully capable of doing this work as a woman and it just wasn't allowed mm-hmm we were we had to speak from another podium we couldn't go to [Music] mount the pulpit we couldn't go up the stairs to the except the cleaning lady she got a pass for some reason but the rest of us women we couldn't have we had to talk from the floor never from the couldn't us into the pulpit we were in this constant place of having to always affirm our men we had to keep talking about how wonderful they were and how we thank God for them even if we were writing their sermons our job was to make them feel secure always because they seemed that their the patriarchy was very fragile it seemed that there was always some way you could cross that line and then you would just screw up the whole rest of your life and so I couldn't figure that out and I remember one of my relatives that had been incarcerated was a minister and he got out of jail and one of my uncle's I wanted to appoint him again to be over the youth department which the whole time he was in jail I was responsible for the youth department and I asked my uncle I said so tell me how is it that he's going to be over the youth department as the youth pastor what does that make me he said well you just keep doing what you're doing it and keep helping him but we can't make you the pastor as I said let me get this clear I'd keep doing the job he gets the call and the title wait while I'm doing the juggs well you know he said it's everything is not in a name everything is not in a title I said okay well there why don't we call you uh uh sure while you're the pastor of the church how would that make you feel yeah you feel about that so needless to say shortly after that I had to find somewhere else to go yeah I was in trouble of several levels you know internally externally the whole deal around around wind like it what year around was young I was uh in my probably my middle 20s I was young and I also it would be important to lift up what what is really the third departure some people think it's the initial departure but it's not the other two came first my the third was when I sensed myself to be a same-gender loving woman mm-hmm now I wasn't alone there's a there's a significant underground of same general loving people in in every fundamentalist denomination that I know of yeah in basically every religion that I've ever been connected to I have always known that there were same gender loving people and trans people and people who walk the line in terms of gender identity and so forth so I wasn't alone I didn't you know I didn't learn sex outside of the church I learned sex inside of the church the church the reason I had to leave when I left was because I could not conscience lying about who I was yeah and who I am I just couldn't pull it off yeah didn't make sense to me that God would call me and not be aware of Who I am mm-hmm same God that called me knew it was me when God called me right particularly to to be engaged in ministry and in justice work and so I couldn't reconcile that I decided if I was gonna err I was gonna err on the side of authenticity and I would not try to serve God in subterfuge that that wouldn't work for me so I began to get involved in justice work I left Church altogether and justice work big was my worship I'm working with seniors working with young adults working with people living with HIV helping people to get off substances and all sorts of things like that felt very good about it until I had any PIFAN II driving down the street in my car when I felt in my Pentecostal self mm-hmm what was in fact and indeed the voice of God speaking to me such that I had to pull over to the side of the road and I had that moment you know I'm a pretty costal who experiences the presence of God I speak in tongues I pray in tongues I sing in songs I was raised that way yeah and it's real it's the real manifestation I've come to believe that God does honor your expectations and your experience in terms of how you are how you are how you express the divine in your personal in private prayer life so spirit knew what to do with me overshadowed me in my car I had to pull over to the side of the road and I heard what what was almost an audible voice say to me that it was time for me to get re-engaged in the ministry of the church or in the church and I argued that's how much I heard the voice I said oh no I'm I'm out here doing this get somebody else I'm good I've been there done that you know but the call was very clear and that's what began my journey back to back to ministry full time back to engaging the text back to trying to repair the breaches both inside myself and with many of the others that I came in contact with so those are the broad things I'm sure the talk with more specificity but those are some of the things that really moved me to evolve to the person that I am today well I honor your bravery because coming from where you came from and it took a lot of courage to to step into that authentic path and to be willing to ask those questions and it sounds like to still hold very dearly your own faith and your own personal relationship so that's that's a hard line I think to walk I think what many people just believe you know and then they have spiritual wounding because they're left with nothing else you know but that doesn't work so then it's nothing so do you remember what when you had to pull over in the car what the message was exactly here was it just that it was clear to you that you were being called into ministry well called back into ministry that was the thing it was a was a sort of a supernatural u-turn you know but I was different you know when I left you know I left for the reasons that I lifted up to you when I made the u-turn and I came back it was clear that there was a synergy hmm it wasn't justice or Jesus it was justice and Jesus man and then it moved to what I call justice for Jesus essentially justice or Jesus suggested that it you could be so heavenly minded that you know earthly good you know justice and Jesus suggested that both of these concomitant streams that were running through me needed to merge and I needed to see Jesus in justice and justice in Jesus but then I move forward to a justice for Jesus which meant that I needed to understand the beauty and the power of Jesus humanity right I remember the aha moment when I realized Jesus never wrote anything yeah nothing everything that we know basically was written about him excited to hear that he wrote any he might have been functionally illiterate I don't know you know but one thing I do know is that we don't have anything that we believe that Jesus wrote right so I think that that is part and parcel to why we have always had perceptions just like the Bible writers did I think they interpreted Jesus through their own hermeneutic to their own lenses I find it amazing that Jesus was never given or permitted some very clear passionate relationships human relationships right it was pretty much a human man teacher you know what and what human what human man do you know that is never experienced arrows right oh they're very few that were not given passion in a personal relationship what happened to Jesus I think about it since I was a boy and I remember once to myself I was praying Reza when I was younger it's like Jesus I need you to help me with this you know this out-of-control libido stuff that happened and then it dawned on me I said where am I asking you this never happened to you so what do you know about it right I have a pretty good feeling here did you know but you have to come to that because what most party was Sinise the mother even suggest the end and to say to Jesus is very human and not liberate Jesus to be passionate in intimately and erratically passion to have arrows to to take that from him there's so many things to take it from those that follow him unless this it's done in some sideways backwards kind of way right and the church has never been good around Iran no this week we just don't have grown folks conversations about this kind of stuff you know no I I wanted to not only liberate myself from the bitter justice of Jesus in Jesus but justice for Jesus began to be a passion hmm who was this brown skinned Palestinian Jew yes and what was he really up against because he like so many other freedom fighters was killed by a coalition of religion and Empire absolutely and I've seen it happen again and again and again and so that made me sort of move myself toward something different from my cultural Pentecostal sale keeping the culture I still clap on the two and four I still enjoy oh yes I still enjoy a tambourine and the full drum set but the logically I am an evolving Christian and I am a disciple of Jesus there's no question of that and I have had to bring those two things together internally in harmony Oh on that note as you're starting to reform the life of Jesus and the person the human Jesus in your mind did you have sort of an internal battle with you no because there's a pretty serious belief that Jesus was God mm-hmm and so did that start to shift your relationship with God with Jesus with Christianity was that it was that a struggle or did it just sort of fall away and felt very easy and natural to you well I had some I had some in real questions you know you know the Bible is a tricky um Malaga mission in pulling together of different things that really conflict with one another interesting ways you know what I mean by that right so it depends on your hermeneutic you know what I mean and my when my hermeneutic was one thing I could see those things yeah that came with that hermeneutic with my hermeneutics ship did I go back to the same places and I see something else completely different so when my hermeneutic began to really want to liberate Jesus I began to hear him say things like I and God are one and at the same time say things like that I have done great things essentially but greater things will you do or your you know we you're the firstborn I'm the firstborn of many brethren or many siblings mm-hmm there are things that that essentially happened in his life in his experience but there were more things to come that would be even greater than what his life and experience and and then the whole concept of his anguished prayer to God and then his prayer to God that says let them be one with you and I the way we are one we want them to be one it made a universal opportunity for people to walk in the same steps that Jesus walked in and to do not only work like Jesus did but perhaps greater work and but Muhammad gnudi permitted that right and I began to see was something that Paul said in his writing he said that the mystery of the ages are revealed through Christ in you is the hope of glory that was a good day for Paul he didn't have good days all the time there were times that he wanted to beat up his flesh and stuff and I feel like I wanted to take him into counseling and try to help that's what I want to tell him so bad you got to get past that whatever it is that took you there we got to get you some help to go with it but there are other times that he would say things and I would I agree with him wholeheartedly I believe that the Christ in us as the versus the Christ on us and the Chrysler round us in the Christ you know it's the Christ in us it is recognizing and finding the God life in us that gives us intimate relationship with our understanding of the divine I think Jesus came to that he had to have because if he was very human he had to evolve maybe God and evolve at the same time how do you pull that off you know what I mean and he was doing the the real work man if he got really mad yeah you know and if we're to read it right he got really pissed sometimes yeah and then he was awesome Oh into taking care of his own people as a priority yeah you know and one of the other things I pushed back against is Paul's whole concept of my being grafted in you know that I'm a contingency plan because Jesus own tribe his own people didn't receive him and so since they didn't then he opened up to the rest of them I said nope I don't believe that mm-hmm but if I had been Jewish Palestinian Jewish and I had written the book I probably would have referred my people over everybody else to me you know um yeah I find that concept of exceptionalism problematic though idiots all over the text people yeah it was a very tribal tribal in Syria very and all you have to do if you have white supremacist it's just take the take that group of people to set them aside and put yourself in their place yeah then you can you can justify a sense of superiority because the Bible is written that way right it is written that way to suggest that one people are greater orcs more special to God then then all the rest of the people on earth everybody else is a contingency plan it's an afterthought you know which is very frustrating so many of the stories in the Bible are written to to place somebody as a leader or place some person in a lineage or you know it's it's not all just perfect teaching relevant beings what we do you know I would you do it you would tell the story of your lineage a certain way the story of my lineage a certain way okay because we love our people so I'm clear that it's just that to take that and make that the foundation upon which we build relationship with the divine is problematic and it's another one of those cultural realities that show up in the text you know so you know that my shift is in process right you know I have I have lived long enough to get in touch with the fact that I'm I'm part Native American I'm part Irish I'm part African Wow and all of those things going on inside of me have had experiences with the understanding of the divine mm-hmm and mine you know among Pentecostals and the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of ascending in a spiritual way are not substantively different than what happens in the sweat lodge when my other ancestors prayed for a revelation of it an animal spirit or a spirit animal or when the Muslims world and the whirling dervishes yeah until they feel the presence of their understanding of the presence of God it's that combination of spirit and culture mm-hmm that beautifully shows up from one group of people to another and if will drop the silos yeah that make us feel exceptional because our experience is different we can find the sameness in one of them absolutely I clearly see a golden thread through the especially the mystical sides of you know the religious there's there's the religion that all were awoken through a mystical experience you know and then they became institutionalized but mystical experience that that awareness of oneness the interconnection with the divine and you know this planet that is threaded through all all of our various religions and paths it is really the way and I want all my stuff you know and so when I so wherever I go I keep one thing in the back of my mind says never for the sake of is this essentially acceptance or affirmation never denied the authenticity of your own lived experience never do that but I also think it's important to never deny the authenticity of other people's own myth experience absolutely we can never know you know someone has gone through and I personally and I mean I know for sure as an organization we believe that not none is more authentic or valid than any other and it's all you know for me it's that's where we're pointing toward the moon you know and we can spend a lot of time looking at the hands pointing or we can turn toward the moon oh what I am I'm very impressed with all the work you're doing locally and in your church can you take a few minutes to just share I know you've grown from a small community and then you were accepted into the United Church of Christ denomination um currently like what's working for you as a community what's what's helping you thrive and grow and diversify if those are true and and maybe where do you see the challenges still lie as as far as in general you know church communities out there seem to be really struggling right now a large number of them they want younger people they want families they say they want to diversify they say they want to be inclusive they're not always showing up in that way however but you know they're they're aging and they're they're getting smaller and so when I find communities like yours that seem to be just fully alive and engaged and active I am really excited and I want to learn you know and what's what's that what's that journey been like for you guys how is what's working and what's where you still find your challenges there well let me say is I'm coming just up upon 30 years of pastoring this church Wow and I feel great and I love the work I am you know having the conversations about succession yeah cuz I'm one of those people that don't want to fall over demo but I want to you know be able to examine to your point of what we have learned and how what we can download right and didn't upload from the generations that are coming after me you know and and I have moved from a couple of things I'd like to say I think that that that church I'll use the term Church because that's you know what if what we do is called yes I don't think church was ever supposed to be theatre style right I think it was supposed to be choreographed you know down to the define science I don't think that was ever the intent of the heart of God that we ever did that yeah I think it was supposed to be more less ceremonial and more familial yes so what I have tried to design and have had to design because I have been I'm pulled away from my own church my local church often for a senior pastor and the senior leader to to the offspring of this church which would be the fellowship of affirming ministry so we have congregations all over the United States and then of course in East Africa and in South Africa in several parts of Asia Mexico and these congregations it may require that I come through there some time at least regionally mm-hmm and then we touch each other I had to come come up with in a necessity sort of created this reality what I call as versus a pyramid style Church yeah the church is at the top and then after that well the pastoral leadership is at the top and then perhaps the diaconate or councils and auxilary leaders and department heads and then down here is community yeah okay so what we what we have is a wagon wheel you imagine a wagon wheel with spokes with a hub in the middle and spokes that go up and each of those folks is in some way attached to the hub which perhaps represents some leadership from all of the spokes and held together by the community which I see is the rim so if the rim is what holds it together the spokes are these individual kinds of ministry pieces then there's a hub that that is the decision-making and when I say decision-making I'm thinking in terms of some representative again from all of these groups so to be even more specific I don't take a full salary as a pastor I take a stipend they say a certain amount of money or certain expenses that are paid for in my regard in each of the associate pastors are all also working all of them are degree when they're all working in the fields that they are degree to work in hmm Social Work counseling substance abuse intervention education something and then so they have also some spoke on this wheel where they provide services that are their contribution to the community in some real way so what it means is that the pressure of the senior leader is not anything like it is in many of our parishes that senior leader has some tasks that are unique to their role but that's just one spoke and all the spokes are equally equidistant so equally important yeah some of them have to do for instance with feeding people there's a group of folks and leaders that do that some of them have to do with housing you know a group of folks that do that some of them have to do again with counseling some of them have to do with worship design and implementation and each thing is important but it doesn't wear out one person or two people and it means that we can also interact in community because we have tasks outside of the church and since we're not full-time in the church we have opportunities to do things outside of the church that creates a linkage between the ministry and the community community probably like the larger town and community the is my mayor said to me once a you know you're my pastor I didn't say back to him but you ever come to church hahaha because I knew exactly what he was talking to do with the way we interact and the authenticity of that without my making any effort I don't even invite him the church he he's gone you know he would come when I was in San Francisco but I didn't and the folks that come to our food program come by the hundreds but we never even pass out a card that welcomes them to worship you don't we don't give them a pamphlet we don't wear t-shirts that have your name and logo they ask us I heard it's a church here and we'll say yeah well we do have a worshipping community well when do you worship well then we tell them yeah but we don't tell them unless they ask because we never want them to think in any way they will feed them because we're trying to get them to join us right right we worship has begun and ended when we put with that food our package that food up or give them the wherewithal to choose whatever they want to eat and they walk away it's the benediction when they take their food and they walk away and they worshiped God you know in care half God's people and camille yes so that's a different style out to me I think it is very different from what the way I was raised and it does not suggest success is determined by the number of people who are in the seats on a Sunday yeah that's one of the things we do yeah but if you ask us at the end of the week we have a clinic we have a pharmacy when asked us at the end of the week how many people did we serve that's a very different number and I see it as Church unusual as versus Church as usual so how do I imagine the future of the church a familial second community the cure inclusive less side you know welcoming also raggedy that's my word yeah I think church should be raggedy yeah real yeah I we went to a church My partner and I are Church hop you know Church sizing and you know beautiful building beautiful people and and yet as you said it was it was it was so choreographed mmm Oh like I was almost in a dream because it was so the same as in this type of church and we went to another Church where the people had their shoes off and and there was time for people to just sort of talk and share what was happening and it felt like family it felt like friends you know both of them were serving different communities and so there was a reason why the people that were there were there but for me a real community is that realness it's it's the ability to come in with bare feet if wanted it's the ability share that really uncomfortable thing that's happening and for the people to share the like you said the responsibilities the teaching the whole the whole thing so they may add one another thing in in that raggedy environment as we called it you know we have children that are on the autism spectrum and there and they have moments and so we have had sessions we had we've dedicated whole Sundays to talking about autism yeah so they we as a community it doesn't stop our choreographed service because it's not choreographed yeah well the children has an outburst we know as a community what to do we have other people have service animals they bring their dogs and sometimes the dogs don't get along so they have this moment we have one of those last Sunday we look down to these two little bitty little so they get into it a little bit of dogs with each other and then we have to you know managing yeah you know we've got stop a minute and we have to kind of work with the situation you gotta pick up where we left off and when when you have real moments like that you know as I said to a church once when I went to minister this is the most perfect place I've ever seen as a job even your flower arrangements man she loved it that's the most amazing thing I've ever seen Oh opposite sides of the pulpit this is amazing yeah they had light color fabric pews uh-huh light colored I mean can you don't light color fabric pews that's really something well you know I said so I'm just curious when I was talking to him I said so why would your homeless people sit yeah yeah because essentially your building is preaching before you do absolutely about who can come and who can't come mm-hmm it's not like that if you go as I was saying my community if you go to your mama house mama house yeah and your mama knows that you have when your children is real different than your mama knows that your mama is gonna make provision for that child maybe and and it starts with the most troubled child from the most troubled child right because your mama knows that's why I see God it's sort of like that right I'm writing a book about it now yeah ality and a homiletic of radical inclusion yeah what does that look like you know what is what does it look like when the house of prayer is like Mama's house yes that's the difference in our beliefs should should inform our actions and if our actions do not match them the beliefs are empty in my opinions so we have just 10 more minutes or so one of the things that's a little bit of a tough topic for 10 minutes but I'm I'm wondering is it possible do you Mike do you think that Christianity can make reparations for the racism and sexism that's been inherent in our societies and if so you know where do we start I think that Christianity in the fundamental teachings of Jesus and what is attributed to Jesus I think that Christianity can make reparations but it's the beginning point that's complicated yeah and the beginning point is repentance truth-telling mm-hmm it has to start with with telling the truth about what really happened it's got us in this place of racism and exceptionalism and anti immigrants and the subjugation of women there's so much I could say all of it has some scripture to back it up let the folks differ so we have to begin with repentance and repentance is very very hard what is built into repentance is an acknowledgment and a turning away and Christianity is among the most bloody religions in the world and certainly it's a conquering religion over and over again so we've got to go back to the beginning of that kind of reality for Christianity and we have to repent uh-huh even those of us who were colonized by Christianity who carried on those realities into our own communities and benefit from got to repent but this is not just about the Christian folks that did this historically it's about the Christian folks who have now embraced it right and pulled it into our lives mm-hmm and then out of that place still abused when they abused become abusers and worshiped a white male God there you go and and to to huge loss of everything else that we have in our bloodlines you know that's self-hatred that's the difference in good hair and bad hair as I say all the time used to tell me didn't let my hair look like yours I had bad hair and so we did everything we could to make our hair look like you're here because we had bad hair why was our hair bad it was I yeah and when we started wearing our hair the way it grows out of our scalp yeah the greatest enemy to that were other people who look like me absolutely so I'm colonized by it on the inside which is the same thing as what happened with Christianity we have to repent and acknowledge the wrong done and then we can it's not just about buying somebody a sandwich it's not just about you know getting the poor person some clothes it's got to be a real systemic change that begins with repentance that is the way yes did you have a moment in your own theological spiritual journey where you did realize that predominantly as a Christian we worship a white male God okay have those two what happened when did you know what I changed it just it happened in the mirror the truth Peter oh yeah when they stand in the mirror I made a decision sister I made a real decision and the decision was that I am going to deeply love myself because I believe myself to be an manifestation of the divine on earth yes and I believe that had to believe that first for myself before I could believe it for you or for anybody else and that everything that God made is good that means I'm all together lovely complicated but I am God's handiwork and I accepted that now that was one of the hardest things authentic affirmations of affirmation is a really hard thing to do yes when you were taught that your substandard or as a woman when I was taught that I'm not not only substandard but I was designed by God to suffer yeah and that I will only realize freedom from that suffering in eternal life I'm not gonna happen in this life it was a hard thing for me to push back and tell Paul I love you baby but I don't agree with that stuff I'm trying to you yeah you were wrong on that one you needed you needed a counselor you because I'm just not gonna I'm not gonna hate my flesh it I'm 64 years old and it has taken me all of my adult life almost yeah the finally fully embrace my own divinity and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna release that I'm not gonna let that go for anybody living or dead uh-huh it took that long to really embrace it so when you do have self-love it is out of that place that you can love other people yeah I don't think we can genuinely do it really genuinely do it unless we can love the person in the mirror that is my truth that is my divine truth yeah is there anything else so you're feeling called to share with us before we go I would say this finally this it's important to humanize Jesus we got to do it because then we'll understand the divinity in ourselves don't degrade Jesus to humanize Jesus mm-hmm I think the other thing is that we need to drop the silos hmm and just like a whole bunch of silos in the field the whole big field and a bunch of silos if we drop them I'd like to start a movement called white choose go from place to place and denomination the denomination and faith to faith and still find the the essence of the divine and I would like to suggest that we work for more to bring the kingdom of God to earth and to try to get from Earth to heaven thy kingdom come thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven that I believe is the thing that Jesus taught us to pray absolutely and I believe we should pray and live and here we are with all of these incredible resources to actually be able to manifest that absolutely yes right now man you okay I love you sister awesome I love you too thank you so much for your time and I hope thank you same here - take care

Channel: ProgressiveChristianity.org

Views: 1,157

Rating: 4.875 out of 5

Keywords: Bishop Flunder, Progressive Christianity, United Church of Christ, progressive theology, city of refuge, oakland, Where the Edge Gathers, Black theolgoy, womanist theology, Progressing Spirit

Id: BVRddhGq_9Q

Length: 51min 52sec (3112 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 07 2019