On deconstruction and picturing what is to come….
It’s often challenging to picture a world after deconstruction and following old formation from institutional Christianity. In this episode, Starlette paints a picture of what is to come. An idea, a vision, the possibilities, of rooting our faith in the Kingdom coming. “There’s another way things are supposed to be!” Starlette also reframes identity outside of racialized distinctions. Here’s more about Starlette Thomas:
Starlette Thomas is an author, activist, visual artist and race abolitionist. She is the founder and director of The Raceless Gospel, LLC, a non-profit para-church teaching ministry dedicated to leading didactic dialogues on race and its progeny, which empower Christian believers, leaders and thinkers to passionately, pastorally and prophetically speak about the sociopolitical construct of race and the myriad injustices that intersect in their churches, communities and country.
A womanist in ministry, Starlette is graduate of both Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School and Buffalo State College. She has served as an associate and interim pastor as well as a denominational leader. She regularly preaches and teaches in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region and her sermons have been featured by Sojourners.Â
She has written for Herald, a publication of Baptist News Global, Baptists Together, a publication of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Formations, a publication of Smyth & Helwys Publishing Company. She is a contributing correspondent with Good Faith Media and writes on the intersections of race, faith and politics. Starlette is a contributing author for the book Faith Forward: A Dialogue on Children, Youth & a New Kind of Christianity.
An unrepentant academician and bibliophile, she is presently pursuing a Doctor of Ministry degree at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., studying ecclesiology, the intersections of gender, politics and race and their interplay for a transformative spirituality.
Find her online at her website: https://racelessgospel.com/; Twitter; Instagram; and her links.
Show Notes
- Welcome
- Intro about Starlette Thomas (4 mins)
- Growing up in the African American church
- Pushing back on patriarchy and cultural malaise
- Theological gigolos
- On unhealthy church leadership and consumer culture
- Who are your people? What does community look like in a deconstructed universe?
- Deconstructing whiteness and race towards the ‘raceless’ Gospel (20 mins)
- Cultural gaslighting, abuse, and the preservation of power
- White Jesus (24mins)
- Dropping racialized identity for ethnic identity (26 mins)
- On kinship and reconciliation (29 mins)
- Can the institution steeped in whiteness change? (33 mins)
- Pathways of deconstruction and imagining something better (37 mins)
- Race creates a mask vs. dying to self (40 mins)
- Race as conversion–dying to your cultural identities in exchange for power.
- Anti-race discipleship (42 mins)
- Living into regeneration
- The challenge of living it all out in community.
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