Podcast appearances and mentions of marcia ledford

The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, is a practical theologian and Episcopal priest, native to Detroit, Michigan. Dr. Ledford worked as a civil rights attorney for over 30 years, including as an ACLU co-operating attorney on constitutional matters, prior to her ordination. ----------This conversation is for anyone who's been grappling with accepting who they are and living in their faith. We talk about not everyone and every place will be safe for those of us who are marginalized and how we need to find our people and create full lives where we are accepted, valued and loved.----------Ways to connect with MarciaEmail: marcia@miptm.comWebsite: https://www.politicaltheologymatters.comMedia Resources: https://www. politicaltheologymatters.com/mediaBlog: https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blogSocial Media pages and handlesFacebook: Political Theology MattersMarcia Ledford AuthorThe Lazarus Lives! ProjectMarcia Ledford (personal)LinkedIn:Marcia LedfordInstagram:@docledfordTwitter:@docledfordMore resources from Dr. Ledford available at http://diversitydish.com———————Diversitydish.com – How can I be of service?——————–Other places you can find resources and help support my work:Patreon / Discovery Den: https://www.patreon.com/sedruolamaruskaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sedruolamaruska/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sedruola/Website: http://sedruolamaruska.com/work-with-sedieFacebook: Sedruola Maruska (limited) 

We talk with the Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, civil rights attorney and Episcopal priest, about equipping progressive Christians to speak out in the political arena, how theology evolves both academically and personally, and growing up and coming out in the era of second-wave feminism. Connect with Marcia online: Website: Political Theology Matters Facebook pages: Political Theology Matters, Marcia Ledford Author, The Lazarus Lives Project (support page for LGBTQ Christians) Twitter: @DocLedford Instagram: @DocLedford For a full transcript of this episode, visit blessedarethefeminists.com. Find us on Instagram @holyfeminists or Twitter @holyfeminists. Share your feedback via email at blessedarethefeminists@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at (737) BATF-POD (737-228-3763). Help us keep the show going by supporting us on Patreon.

This Week's Guests: Rev. Dr Marcia Ledford Comedian Boris Khaykin The World's Famous comedy Cellar presents "Live From America Podcast" with Noam Dworman and Hatem Gabr. The top experts and thinkers of the world and the best comics in the Nation get together weekly with our hosts to discuss different topics each week, News, Culture, Politics, comedy & and more with an equal parts of knowledge and comedy! The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's ministry focuses on Southwest Detroit's Latinx population — located at an international port with an aggressive regional ICE director. Dr. Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. She has dedicated her working life to the pursuit of justice because when one group of persons is diminished, we are all thus diminished. An Episcopal priest, Dr. Ledford studied theology at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. While there, she engaged in urban studies for ministry and explored theologies of the marginalized from around the world. Dr. Ledford holds a Master of Divinity from the (Episcopal) Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP). She earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from the Pacific School of Religion (PSR). Both CDSP and PSR are member schools of the Graduate Theological Union, a preeminent global and interfaith consortium for theological study. In college, she majored in American History and Psychology at Albion College. These academic concentrations prepared her for exploring and understanding the psychographic nature of American history and how skin color dictates the American social agenda. Dr. Ledford earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Detroit School of Law, a Jesuit school. She adopted a foundation of Christian faith in legal jurisprudence plus the standard curriculum. Her ministry incorporates Catholic Social Teaching (CST) as its cornerstone. CST's Gospel emphasis protects every human being's dignity and works toward the common good to usher in God's Reign. The Episcopal Baptismal Covenant reflects the same emphasis. It requires the faithful to uphold the dignity of personhood and serves as the foundation for Dr. Ledford's teaching of political theology basics in her courses. Dr. Ledford's first career as a civil rights attorney concentrated on cases involving the First Amendment and Equal Protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Her mission combines her love of the Gospel with expertise in the US Constitution to help others exercise their civil rights to establish a more just American society. Political Theology Matters, LLC, founded by Dr. Ledford, helps the faithful develop public theology mission and broadcast messaging for greater social justice. She is trained for community organizing through the Industrial Areas Foundation and volunteers with Michigan United, where she has a particular interest in racial reconciliation and immigration reform. Dr. Ledford is an award-winning documentary photographer, writer, blogger, keynote speaker, teacher, and preacher. She convenes the Public Theology Network for Province V (the Midwest) of the Episcopal Church. Follow Live From America YouTube www.youtube.com/channel/UCS2fqgw61yK1J6iKNxV0LmA Twitter twitter.com/AmericasPodcast www.LiveFromAmericaPodcast.com LiveFromAmerica@ComedyCellar.com Follow Hatem Twitter twitter.com/HatemNYC Instagram www.instagram.com/hatemnyc/ Follow Noam Twitter twitter.com/noamdworman?lang Follow Rev. Dr Marcia Ledford Website https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/media https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blog FB: Political Theology Matters Instagram: @docledford Twitter: @docledford https://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Journal-Action-Planner-devotional/dp/B09M5L43FD/ref=mp_s_a_1_11?crid=YGOVWJ2EMRIV&keywords=2022+prayer+journal&qid=1638636781&sprefix=2022+prayer+%2Caps%2C133&sr=8-11 #MarciaLedford #RoevWade #PoliticalTheology

“What if the deviations in your life were meant to teach you that one lesson you are supposed to use to help the world? Well, this woman as a young girl sensed she was called to the ministry. But, when she came out, she had a falling out with God. Her journey taught her some critical life lessons. And after practicing for years as an attorney, Marcia Ledford, in her late 40s finally answered God's call. Come and listen to this woman as she shares with us how she successfully and passionately combines law, politics, theology, and social justice. She's a Civil Rights Attorney, a Doctor of Ministry in Political Theology, and another wise and wonderful F50Woman.”We Talk About…·         The meaning of political theology·         Ordination as an older lesbian woman·         Effects of silence about sexuality of any kind in Church·         Falling out with God·         How our strength is built·         Group discernment·         Thinking theologically and politically ·         Centering prayer and “monkey mind"Quotes She Served Up:“The hurts we incur in life teach us and empower us to help those who are in similar circumstances… take the life lessons and apply them to anything you want to”"We all have to... decided who we are going to be and then be it"“Feal the fear and do it any way… and pray on it”Questions to Ponder: When you sit in your house of worship, where is the voting part of you?When you're in a voting booth, where is the worshiping part of you?Does Evil Spread Faster than Love: “Love is more powerful. Typically, evil is overtaken by love”Advice for Her Younger Self: “You do not have a dress rehearsal in this life, so get to it”Book Mentioned: “The Wounded Healer” Henry NouwenRecommended Book: “Centering Prayer” Cynthia BourgeaultMust Do Every Day: Pray or MeditateContact Information: Website: www.politicaltheologymatters.comEmail: marcia@politicaltheologymatters.comInstagram: @docledfordLinkedIn: Marcia LedfordAre you an F50Woman who's not done yet? Subscribe and connect with me if you would like to tell me your story: mailto:f50woman.com@gmail.com | www.f50woman.comFollow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Share us on all of your Podcast Guest Match PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Hosts And Guests For Interviews Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=4UGSTLTM94WJY)

There is perhaps  no bigger "hotbed" subject within the church today than is the subject of the LGBTQ+ and the church.  As I stated on another recent episode, this is a passion of mine.  Why?  Because I have seen too much trauma, hate, and attacks within the church toward these individuals who just want to love Jesus, serve Him and have a place to belong.  I have taken the time to truly sit down and study the verses others use to "clobber" the community and believe they can easily be interpreted differently than the traditional evangelical way.In this episode, I have the pleasure of interviewing The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, a civil rights attorney, Episcopal Priest, and the founder of Political Theology Matters, LLC, where she works tirelessly to help the faithful develop public theology mission for greater social justice.  You will find the show resources below so for now, grab that cup of coffee, have a seat, and let's enjoy this time with Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford on "Coffee with Keith."Links for Podcast Show Notes from the Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, Civil Rights AttorneyEmail marcia@miptm.com or marcia@politicaltheologymatters.comWebsite  https://www.politicaltheologymatters.comMedia Resources (including past podcasts)https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/mediaThe Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's blog  https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blogSocial Media pages and handlesFB: Political Theology MattersMarcia Ledford AuthorThe Lazarus Lives! ProjectMarcia Ledford (personal)LinkedIn Marcia LedfordInstagram: @docledfordTwitter: @docledfordVisit this link to find the book, "How to Think Theologically."https://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Theologically-Howard-Stone/dp/0800699327?asin=0800699327&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1Be sure to get the latest (third, I think) edition of this wonderful book. It's about understanding our “embedded” theology, that which we grew up absorbing and believing, As we grow up and grow in faith, we often realize that what we're taught often doesn't relate to our life. The authors, Stone and Duke are seminary professors. They do a great job writing about how we are all theologians, whether we have a bunch of letters after our names or not. That's because we all must navigate our society, current events, and or daily life as people of faith. This is a great book for “evangelicals” and those who are “deconstructing” their faith.*************************************Dr. Brown's Resources:To follow Keith on Instagram.To donate $5 to help support the show cost.To grab a FREE copy of the .mp3 "20 Signs of Church Trauma," visitVisit www.jkeithbrown.com and look at the top of the landing page to grab your FREE copy of this .pdf worksheet. Then, simply go through the steps and you will be better interpreting Scripture immediately. If you need more help, consider joining one of my Rainbow Champions group coaching journey. I think we all suffer stress in the crazy days. I wanted to offer you a FREE copy of my Create Your Calm guided meditation. Just click HERE to grab your copy.

Dr. Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized.  An Episcopal priest, she holds a Master of Divinity from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.  She earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from Pacific School of Religion.  Dr. Ledford founded Political Theology Matters, LLC, to help the faithful develop public theology mission and broadcast messaging for greater social justice.  She works towards a more just society in: immigration reform, LGBTQI rights, human trafficking and racial justice. Episode Links:Website: https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcia-ledford-679184153/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/politicaltheologymatters/Twitter: https://twitter.com/docledfordInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/docledford/Harvard Implicit Bias Testing (on numerous topics)https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html Civil Discourse Training offered via The Episcopal ChurchFor Individuals: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/For Groups: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/A Spirituality of Resistance: https://www.amazon.com/Spirituality-Resistance-Finding-Peaceful-Protecting/dp/0742532836How to think Theologically: https://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Theologically-Howard-Stone/dp/0800699327?asin=0800699327&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1Links for LGBTQ people of faith: UnClobber By Pastor Colby Martinhttps://familyproject.sfsu.edu Several publications are available by giving your email address and zip codeThe Saint Helena Psalter (Highly recommended)(Church Publishing, 2004)Inclusive language version of the 150 Psalms found in the BibleAn excellent text for LGBTQ populationsLGBTQ Resources from The Episcopal Church https://www.episcopalchurch.org/who-we-are/lgbtq/organizations/ The Human Rights Campaign (interfaith resources) https://www.hrc.org/resources/faith-resouresThe National LGBTQ Task ForceCreating an inclusive and welcoming church: http://www.welcomingresources.org/communityorg.htm:Anti-Human Trafficking  National Hotline: https://humantraffickinghotline.orgProgressive Mainline Christian DenominationsThe Episcopal Church (TEC) https://www.episcopalchurch.orgThe Evangelical Lutheran Church of America: https://www.elca.orgThe Presbyterian Church of the USA: https://www.pcusa.orgThe United Church of Christ: https://www.ucc.orgThe Disciples of Christ (Christian Church): https://disciples.orgJoey Pinz Conversations Podcast Information: • Website: https://www.joeypinz.com • Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/joeypinz • Music by Tom Izzo: @wahlsinger  https://tomizzomusic.com  Support our podcast:  • Subscribe: https://joeypinzconversations.com/subscribe/ • How much is this podcast worth to you? Consider $5, $10 or $20/mo with Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/joeypinz  • How about a one-time payment?  • What is the episode worth to you? $25/$50/$100/$500 /$1,000/$5,000 with PayPal (one-time): https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/JoePannone Please subscribe/follow to Joey Pinz Discipline Conversations Podcast: • Spotify, Apple, Google, or others.  Please consider rating with 5 stars if you like it. • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joey-pinz-discipline-conversations/id1583997438 • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/69SFwY3XSwcw9qNvElAn10 • Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xODI4OTA2LnJzcw • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JoeyPinzDisciplineConversations?sub_confirmation=1Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/joeypinz)

“It's up to us to fully self-actualize, and one of the greatest ways to do that is to be engaged in social justice action.”   Dr. Marcia Ledford Now more than ever, a wider and deeper understanding of the church's role in social and political life is needed. Many church leaders continue to work towards providing important platforms from which people can deal with political, social and economic matters, as well as the relations between the state and wider society. Our guest today, Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, has been working towards greater social justice by empowering people to act on social injustices faced by different groups. The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's ministry is in Southwest Detroit's Latinx population—an international port with an aggressive regional ICE director. Dr. Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. An Episcopal priest, she holds a Master of Divinity from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. She earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from Pacific School of Religion. Dr. Ledford founded Political Theology Matters, LLC, to help the faithful develop public theology mission and broadcast messaging for greater social justice. She is trained for community organizing through the Industrial Areas Foundation and volunteers with Michigan United. PTM is a for profit company but is also an altruistic or philanthropic enterprise. Dr. Ledford want to inspire people to do good--to shock their potential for justice. She believes that she needs to make a living ethically and via positive contributions to society. Engaging in political theology, speaking faithfully in public, for social justice, represents the culmination of her life's work and experiences. She is passionate about achieving greater social justice in American society. Her message's foundation in progressive Christian theology intersects with the US Constitution, especially the First Amendment. She brings humor, poignant stories, and inspiration in her conversations. She sparks dynamic, vital conversations about the most important issues of our time--protecting civil rights and our beloved constitution and democracy. In today's episode, our guest will talk about her journey towards advocating for social injustices. She will also elaborate more about spiritual resistance and what it entails. Social media handles: http://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/   https://www.facebook.com/politicaltheologymatters   https://linkedin/marcialedford   https://www.instagram.com/docledford   https://www.twitter.com/docledford   I write, speak, teach and preach to help people get better equipped to be faith based advocates in the public square for social justice. [3:32] Political theology is taking your faith formation and using that as a basis for calling out injustice and demanding greater equality across our social spectrum. [3:49] My mission came to be after my being absolutely appalled at what our archaic immigration laws are doing to Latino families in southwest Detroit. [4:43] We want to be sure and get our demands in with respect to pathways to citizenship. [5:45] Spanish, like the romance languages are all inflected, meaning that nouns can have a gender assigned to them. [6:51] The practice has been adapted to start saying Latin x, which is neutral, and is intended to include everybody. [7:07] This has been an ongoing effort to be more inclusive when terms from this inflected language are used. [7:30] When I was coming of age in the late 70s and early 80s, I came out as a lesbian. [10:09] I had been very involved in my church growing up and so I had a really difficult coming out process, at least, with my own personal struggle. [10:20] I felt like I had to choose between my faith and being who I was and this is very true even today. [10:44] I had to navigate the society as a lesbian which means that I couldn't access some things. [11:14] I recognize that my white privilege affords me certain benefits and give me opportunities that I wouldn't ordinarily have as a person of color. [11:56] I still was a second class citizen in many of the fundamental ways that we regard being an American. [12:14] Over time, I became more sensitive to the call to ministry that I had experienced from when I was a teenager. [12:32] I wasn't seeing women and I certainly wasn't seeing lesbians up at the pulpit in the altar but I finally agreed to go do this and be ordained and asked for help from the holy spirit. [12:44] I became ordained in the Episcopal Church, where I serve the Latin x community. [13:06] It was a combination of my love of the gospel, and my experience as a civil rights attorney, that really fueled this mission. [13:16] Even though I don't know exactly what it's like to be a person of color, I decided that if we didn't do anything about the ills, it wasn't going to stop. [14:06] I think sometimes people think that when a law is made that it's carved into stone. [15:35] Our Congress has the power to change those laws, and if they won't change them, then we need to put people in there who will. [16:27] The fact that all these voter suppression bills are pending throughout the country is an indicator that elected people know that they are in danger of being voted out for not doing the will of the people. [17:18] What I advocate for is the First Amendment which gives us a place to go where everybody can talk and not have to worry about slandering the crown. [19:03] I wanted to create a place for us to work stuff out and that means that our best chance of doing that is when as many voices come together as possible to say their piece. [19:52] By talking about it, we identify the problems and the issues, and we try to work out a solution that serves the majority of the people. [20:12] Once people realize that they can do it, then we have to instill confidence and provide tools and resources to get people basically off their doffs and go advocate for justice. [20:47] Commercial break. [21:17] The immigration issues affect our country on a national basis and so if immigration is something that you want to work on, you certainly can. [23:32] I really believe in what's called the spirituality of resistance. [23:48] Things bother us, but we feel like they are such big complex problems and I don't really know what to do about it. [24:01] We're all human beings and have a human connection to one another and therefore we got to have everybody. [24:29] The spirituality of resistance involves two things which are digging deep into yourself to determine what issues really bothers you, and finding a group that works on these issues to work with them. [25:23] It is one of the most empowering things I have ever experienced in my life, which is why I work with Michigan united. [26:19] If you feel like your representatives in the Congress are not doing what you want them to do, then you need to be in touch. [28:09] There's lots of ways to be involved even if you're super busy and feels overwhelming. [29:14] One of the mottos I try to live by is we don't get a dress rehearsal and it's up to us to fully self-actualize, and one of the greatest ways to do that is to be engaged in social justice action. [30:27] …………………..….. TopDog Learning Group, LLC is a leadership, change management, and diversity and inclusion consulting firm based in Orlando, FL, USA but with “TopDoggers” (aka consultants) throughout North America and beyond. 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Brief Episode Summary:On April 17, 2020, I hosted one of my first podcast episodes…and still, one of the most memorable, at least it is to me. Its title is Recovering from Religion – Growing in Faith. Confessions of a Recovering Evangelical. My guest was Rabbi Alicia Magal. Today, I have the great joy of hosting political theologian and Episcopal priest, Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, Civil Rights Attorney. The organization she aligns with, Political Theology Matters, has within its Mission Statement, giving voice to social issues that impact the lives of ordinary people. By inspiring the one, it asserts that we can work towards a more just society for the many.Key Topics:What is a political theologian?Dr. Marcie is a lesbian cleric. Why is it so important to her that she write extensively about the gay community and its legitimate scripturally sound loving attachment to the Divine?The American Immigration System is inhumane, it's in tatters and desperately needs reforming (the Immigration Act is 25 years old)! Where do we start?Human trafficking is alive and well in the United States! How can you make a positive difference without getting dangerously close?The pure hatred that was unleashed on America on September 11, 2001 can never be justified! It was pure evil! From a Divine loving perspective, what should our attitude be that hopefully will negate anything like that happening ever again? On January 6, 2021, America came within a hair of losing its democracy and republic. Our guest is more than a little worried!Resources: Shareable link to this episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/859273/9282355 Alan's email address: therabbi@thewalkbook.comConnect with Dr. Marcie by email: marcia@miptm.comConnect with Dr. Marcie at her website address: https://www.politicaltheologymatters.comLink to Dr. Marcie's blog: https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blogHow to Think Theologically - AMAZON.COMLink to Family Acceptance Project (Resources for LGBTQ youth, families, and caregivers):https://familyproject.sfsu.eduLink to  The Human Rights Campaign (interfaith resources): https://www.hrc.org/resources/faith-resouresLink to The National LGBTQ Task Force: http://www.welcomingresources.org/communityorg.htm:Link to Anti-Human Trafficking  National Hotline: https://humantraffickinghotline.orgAlan's link to register to receive new podcasts and other updates: http://eepurl.com/g1DSf9   Link to tell us what podcast themes you'd like to  see us cover: https://form.jotform.com/210597899275071  Sheri Sperry's website to connect with her, https://sellsedona.com/sedona-lifestyleCall to Action If you enjoyed this week's podcast episode, I would greatly appreciate it if you would rate and review it where you listen to your podcasts. Thank you!   Sheri Sperry is YOUR SOLUTIONS  REALTOR!A Realtor in AZ for 10 years, her main goal is to take t Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=NYYG9FE928BF6)

Hear my conversation with the Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, Esq., founder of Political Theology Matters, an Episcopal priest, Detroit native, and practicing civil rights attorney for over 30 years, including as an ACLU co-operating attorney on constitutional matters. Ledford exhorts progressive Christians to exercise their First Amendment guarantees as part of a collective interfaith voice, calling for more compassionate approaches to our social crises. She's also an award-winning documentary and portrait photographer and trained in community organizing by Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). Learn more at https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/ and reach her directly at marcia@politicaltheologymatters.com. Support the show (http://www.patreon.com/naturebreakthroughs)

INTRODUCTION:This is the third and final installment in our three part series which has been focusing on the clobber passages from the bible and the general disgusting anti-alphabet community rhetoric that conservatives like to spew forth out of their cockholsters. It's hard when we get rejected for being who are but the Lord says that even if your very father and mother forsake you then the Lord will take you up. Be encouraged my people and let's stop hurting ourselves, especially over what other people have to say. If you have a moment please visit Marcia's blogs and leave comments at PolitialTheologyMatters.com. Let's go! INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):·       Discussion Of The “Clobber” Passages Used To Bash The LGBTQIA+ Community·       The HYPOCRISY Of Conservative “Christians”·       Focus On Sodom And Gomorrah ·       Suicide Related To Church Abuse·       Diminished Self-Esteem Due To Church Fuckery·       The Foolishness Of Conversion Therapy (Watch Pray Away On Netflix)·       How rape ties in to all of this. ·       Not Letting People Come In Between Us And Our Creator·       How Churches And Pastors Abuse Power·       Why I Extend My Middle Finger To Conservative Judgmental Motherfuckers!!!·       Safe Denominations For LGBTQIA+ Peeps BLOG:·       https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/stop-clobbering-lgbtqia-people-with-the-bible/  CONNECT WITH MARCIA:Website: https://www.politicaltheologymatters.comFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/politicaltheologymattersLinkedIn: https://linkedin/marcialedfordTwitter: https://twitter.com/docledfordInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/docledford/ MARCIA'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·       How To Think Theologically: https://amzn.to/3hkvdfN DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·       Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)           -https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370           -TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs SDJ MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS (FULL EPISODES):·       $2.99 per month.·       Donate any amount for 30 days of full access.·       $25 per year.https://www.sexdrugsandjesus.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ TRANSCRIPT:[00:00:00] You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right. At the end of the day, my name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world. As we dig into topics that are too risky for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your.[00:00:24] There was nothing on the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.[00:00:34] [00:00:34] De'Vannon: This is the third and final installment in our three part series, which has been focusing on the clobber passages from the Bible and the general disgusting anti alphabet community rhetoric that conservatives like to spew forth out of their cock holsters. It's hard when we get rejected for being who we are.[00:00:52] But the Lord says that even if your father and your mother forsake you, then the Lord himself will take you up. [00:01:00] So be encouraged my people and let's stop hurting ourselves, especially over what other people have to say. If y'all have a moment, please visit Marcia's blogs and leave comments at www.politicaltheologymatters.com[00:01:10] Let's go! All right, Dr. Marsha, welcome back to this show for the third time. There's nothing like a good three way baby. And so,[00:01:35] and so y'all today, we are going to be continuing our series dealing with homosexuality and the Bible, and, um, we're happy to have the good Reverend that bag with us today. She's written a phenomenal blog on her website. Political theology matters that org. And so today we're going to be [00:02:00] focusing on Sodom in the Maura primarily, but we're still going to talk about a couple other things.[00:02:06] So, uh, Marsha, go ahead on and tell us a little bit about your history and your fabulous website, and then we'll get right into it. [00:02:15] Marcia: Well, I sensed to called ordination as a teenager, as a kid. And first I wasn't seeing women at the alter or the pulpit. Uh, so I decided to go into law because I thought that would be a way to be a part of a helping profession.[00:02:34] And I became a civil rights attorney and worked primarily within the LGBTQ community. Uh, back in the day when aids was rearing its ugly head for the first time. And, uh, I represented, uh, lesbian and gay parents who were, uh, in, at risk of losing custody of their children because they were considered to be [00:03:00] morally unfit.[00:03:01] Uh, just because of their sexual orientation. Uh, but over time I became increasingly discouraged or maybe, uh, disappointed because you can't really argue that gospel in court and expect to be successful. Uh, so I finally relented to that call of the holy spirit to become, um, an ordained priest in the Episcopal church.[00:03:29] And that's what I've been doing since. Um, and I, my first, um, full ministry was in the Latino communities of Southwest Detroit, and I became appalled at what I saw as a civil rights attorney. Um, in terms of what we're doing to families by splitting them up with our, uh, our archaic immigration laws. And so I decided to study political theology because it's a beautiful convergence [00:04:00] of my love of the gospel and my love of our constitution.[00:04:04] So I started political theology matters and I write, speak, teach, preach, and help the faithful get equipped for, uh, being faith-based advocates in the public square for greater social justice. [00:04:21] De'Vannon: Well, we can just about close on that note.[00:04:28] Well, put, well put, okay. So like I said earlier, we've done two episodes already covering some of the main, uh, passages that people use to try to be anti LGBT Q. Um, today we're doing another one and we're going to cover a few more. And then later on, uh, March is going to be releasing yet another blog that takes it even further.[00:04:53] So we'll be sure to tune into her website for that. Um, so [00:05:00] let's see. So one, one thing from this blog and this particular blog that we're focusing on is called stop clobbering, the LGBTQ people exclamation mark in. So, um, in there you mentioned that people use biblical texts to tell us that we are broken, that we're less than, that were perverted, that were degenerate, that were abominations, et cetera.[00:05:24] I want you to speak to that. Uh, tell us why you wrote that while you feel that way and how it applies to all seven, because there are seven clobber passages that are primarily used and tell us how this all ties into all of them. [00:05:38] Marcia: Well, sure. Um, The seven passages that are used, uh, co have caused considerable damage.[00:05:47] And they have caused people to take their lives. When people use these passages to clubber or be LGBT people over the head with them, [00:06:00] the spiritual fracture, that many experience can be enough for them to just give up and take their lives. And we have got to stop that for the people who use these passages for the purpose of clobbering us over the head.[00:06:21] Uh, they need to stop it. And so I decided for pride month this year that I was going to do three blogs or four blogs about the seven passages and I grouped them together. Um, I did the two Leviticus passages together. We covered that last week. I did the three vice lists that occur in the epistles of the new Testament.[00:06:51] Um, two are attributed to Paul and one is a pseudo Paul or his school. And we covered those in our first [00:07:00] episode. And today we're going to cover, uh, the one that I think has been the most misused, which is the story of Saturday. And I compare it with another, uh, situation to underscore what ancient hospitality was supposed to be like in judges 19.[00:07:20] So we're going to talk about that one today. And then I have one last blog to go up that covers the seventh collaborative passage, which is about Noah and his sons. And we'll get into that towards the end of the show. But, um, I'll tell you a little story too. When I was in seminary, um, there's a, uh, uh, LGBTQ drop-in center in Detroit and I periodically would go over there, um, and just be a spiritual presence with the kids, because a lot of them had been put out of the house at the behest of their pastors [00:08:00] because they'd come out.[00:08:05] So I was walking up this very steep staircase. And at the top of the staircase at the drop-in center was a big whiteboard that said, how are you feeling today? And in big block letters centered both ways. The word that appeared was abomination.[00:08:30] That's what beating people over the head with a Bible does to them, to their self-esteem, to their sense of self-worth all of this things. And I thought to myself, this is the same shit different decade. This is how I felt 30 years ago. And we have got to stop it. So, and this is a little side story, but, uh, I created a page called the [00:09:00] Lazarus lives project, which is on Facebook and it's open and you can go join there.[00:09:05] And I post positive stuff for our communities, uh, about being faithful members of Christ's holy vineyard, as LGBTQ plus people. And yes, it's possible and you don't have to choose between them. Um, and it's called the Lazarus lifts project because the closet is like a two and Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave.[00:09:35] Uh, and I believe that Jesus calls us out of the closet and out of hiding and being ashamed. So there you go. Now let, so we're going to turn to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. If you're ready there to Vanna 'cause I go with you? We have, [00:09:59] De'Vannon: we, [00:10:00] we will get, uh, to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, but I wanted to touch on something about conversion therapy because, um, uh, it just came out on Netflix and I feel like that this ties in to what we're talking about.[00:10:21] Uh, it's called pray away. I haven't seen [00:10:24] Marcia: it yet, but I'm going to watch it. [00:10:26] De'Vannon: It just came out on Netflix. I watched it last night and, um, and, uh,[00:10:34] Because in the blog you write, many of us have suffered damage and even PTSD from conversion therapy to turn a straight and sell. And so I felt like that, that this documentary that, that just dropped with the work that you've just done, you know, or so, you know, on brand. And so in tandem with one another now, um, in, in, in the documentary, you know, one of the main people [00:11:00] who used to run exit is, and exit is, was like the main, I don't know if they are, you know, conversion therapy, shit show, clown show, um, you know, in the country.[00:11:10] And now you got these people who used to lead it, who were on the documentary are still quite gay. And they're like[00:11:20] all the damage. They didn't die. At least they're doing, you know, doing this documentary. But, you know, for years they went around telling everybody. You know, God healed me. He took the gay away and something's wrong with you. You're still gay and other going in, nevermind. We were wrong and we're still gay.[00:11:39] And, and, and, uh, but one of them said that it got to a point because he was married. He had had two sons, but he was like watching gay porn and his wife would catch catches, catch him with his gay porn, uh, and everything. And he was like, it got to a point that he was either [00:12:00] going to have to, you know, leave her and leave the lie he was living or kill himself.[00:12:05] It was, those were his two choices he had come up. And so it made me think about when I got kicked out of Lakewood church and they were trying to do conversion therapy with me in the form of here, read these books and. You know, you know, and go be an usher cause you can't be in the choir around children anymore, you know, you know, until you become on gay.[00:12:29] And one way in the documentary that they were talking about, they would do conversion therapy would be like readings and counseling sessions and things like that. They had group meetings and everything, you know, of people confessing their evil, gay desires. Then they also took away of course, masturbation and basically anything that wasn't this, not a man and a woman at copulating, everything else is the devil, you know, but tell us about the harm of conversion therapy and what [00:13:00] fuckery that is.[00:13:02] Marcia: Well, first of all, um, I have, uh, uh, I, and I don't mean to sound like snobbish about this, but I do think that this is super important. Um, I have a psychology degree from my bachelor's degree. And just on that alone, because I didn't go into that field professionally with say a master's degree or whatever, uh, to become a counselor.[00:13:29] But I could readily understand just from the bachelor work that I did that, uh, counseling people about, um, you know, basic human emotions and activities is a very serious business. That's why we license it. That's why we licensed it because we put people through their paces and they have to study and they have to prepare and they have to take board [00:14:00] examinations, just like lawyers and doctors and architects and accountants.[00:14:08] Um, and there's a reason for that because it needs to be standardized and it needs to be carefully monitored when you start. Uh, trying to counsel people without proper training, you are asking for trouble. And that's what a lot of these churches do. And they hide it under the guise of spiritual formation or, you know, spiritual preparation or whatever.[00:14:37] It's very dangerous, very, very dangerous. I would never want to take that kind of a risk with another human being, trying to counsel them and act professionally with them. If I was not properly trained and people do have post-traumatic stress disorder from conversion therapy, [00:15:00] this is, um, really you can't overstate.[00:15:05] Uh, the point of how dangerous it is to start dabbling. And I say death. And something that you are not prepared to do. And we know that conversion therapy doesn't work because in studying human sexuality, we understand that sexual orientation is an indelible. You can't make straight people gay and you can't make gay people straight.[00:15:34] So why the arrogance and presumption of straight people that, that, you know, trying to change? People's a good thing. That's the other part of this? There's an arrogance that heterosexuality is superior. All this stuff works on an individual who's in this conversion situation, basically telling them that they're worthless.[00:16:00] [00:16:01] Like the fellow that was, you know, ill prepared and being dishonest with himself in the documentary and came to the point where it was either just exit life or leave the life that he had and leave his children.[00:16:19] And, uh, who wants that kind of responsibility. That's, that's one of the questions that I ask. [00:16:28] De'Vannon: And he was also, he was also, sorry, not to cut you off. That guy was also like the spokesperson, the face of the hill exit and exit exited some movement. So that was another burden that he had, he had [00:16:42] Marcia: to. Yeah. I mean, he, I can't imagine too, just living such an incredible lie, you know, your whole, your whole life is.[00:16:56] Yeah. Everything about what you do [00:17:00] and say and how you act. And all of it is a big lie. Why [00:17:05] De'Vannon: do that? Yeah. And then he got, he went to Washington, DC on business. God got tipsy and went to a gay bar. And then of course he was spotted. And then somebody called like a reporter or some shit that was waiting on him when he came outside to take his picture.[00:17:19] Cause he was, he rose to national fame. He was like the spokesperson for Exodus. And now he's in a bar, you know, turning up while the wife and kids are,[00:17:33] Marcia: it's really sad, but you also, you know, if you're going to give it, then you better be ready to get it. If, if you're going to mess en masse with people's lives like that, you've got to come. [00:17:47] De'Vannon: You do. And they said in the documentary, like what you're saying, they, weren't not actually professionally trained to be counseling people on any of this.[00:17:55] And so what they did was they hired people with psychological [00:18:00] psychology degrees, but it's not like you can go to school and learn, you know, get a doctorate in conversion therapy. You can get like a psychology degree then act like you're an expert fondant. And then multiple people will believe you. And so that's what they did to add fire to.[00:18:16] It was, Hey, this person has an acronym was behind their name. So just us religious fanatics over here, though, they were for religious addicts. And so they use that to deceive people even further. Now, these people were going on talk shows, you know, this was huge. And now all of these people are in this documentary saying, oops, Nevermind.[00:18:38] Bye. Right. Right. [00:18:40] Marcia: And the other thing to remember with respect to these psychologists who were willing to be a participant's participants in this, uh, shit show. Okay. Thank you. That's good. Um, and [00:19:00] there's a giant manual called the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental health disorders. The DSM that's what we call it in 1973, homosexuality was removed as a disorder, 1973 in the DSM three.[00:19:21] It has Roman numerals after it by edition. We're at DSM five. It hasn't been put back in. So when psychology licensed psychologists are engaged in this kind of a practice, even though the DSM five does not list this as a disorder, I've got a real issue with that. I've got a real issue with that because the American psychiatric association spends a lot of time on those DSMs.[00:19:54] De'Vannon: They do, um, [00:19:56] Marcia: you know, experts from all over the country, [00:20:00] participate in creating that DSM each edition that comes out. [00:20:05] De'Vannon: That that to me is like malpractice. If you, if somebody in the psychological field goes out of scope of what's in the DSM, because even, even as I, and I'm don't know if you've been really suing somebody for malpractice, if they do something outside of the DSM.[00:20:18] But I think for a lot of it, you can, uh, cause when, even when I was taking my hypnotherapy training, there was stuff in there and the DSM that. You know that as a, as a, as a certified him, the therapist that I have to abide by, you know, I can't just make up my own shit or say, well, the DSM didn't know what it's talking about either.[00:20:38] So I'm just going to do it anyway. You know, work that way. Or as a massage therapist, I can't be like, okay, massage, you know, rules, fuck you. I'm just going to do this, do this other shit over here. It doesn't work that way. [00:20:53] Marcia: That's why, that's why we regulate these professions. That's why we do that. Exactly.[00:20:59] [00:21:00] So it's wrong on so many levels. Uh, and we have to put a stop to it. [00:21:10] De'Vannon: And so some of the fuel that people use to take advantage of people who are mentally weak, you know, and. Are these clobber passages. But you know, when, when I think about it, Marsha, the only reason why I say, like I ever thought there was anything ever wrong with me in the first place was because of what somebody else told me.[00:21:33] It's not like I came to that conclusion by myself and all those people I watched in the video. So many people that I know who have questioned, who they are, hated themselves. Like I used to hate myself and try to become on gay, you know? And I've thought about it recently. I'm like, why the fuck did I ever think that way about myself?[00:21:51] And it was not, it was because of what somebody else said. And I didn't fact check them [00:21:58] Marcia: out. Th [00:22:00] the embedded theology that was put on. Your elders and teachers and church leaders embedded you with this idea [00:22:11] De'Vannon: and some of what they use are these copper passages. And so now we go to Genesis 19 and we talk about Sodom and Gomorrah and, um, And I'll, I can read it since you're going to be expounding.[00:22:27] You're going to be preaching. So I'll be the reader for you in church today. Hallelujah. So, and amen. So Genesis 19 and in the blog, she has like a backdrop of Genesis 18 and everything, but, um, and then she can tell you about that, but I'm just going to read Genesis 19. So it says the two angels came to Sodom in the evening and lot was setting in the gate of Sodom.[00:22:50] When lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, my Lord to turn aside, I pray you to your servants house and spend the night and wash your feet. [00:23:00] Then you may rise up. Erlin go on your way. They said, no, we will spend the night in the street, but he urged them strongly.[00:23:06] They turned, assigned to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread. And they ate the, before they lay down the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man surrounded the house. And they called to lot. Where are the men who came to you tonight?[00:23:22] Bring them out to us that we may know them lot. Went out of the door to the man, shut the door after him and said, I beg you, my brothers do not act so wickedly behold, I have two daughters who you have, who ha who have not known, man, let me bring them out to you and do them as you please only do nothing to these men where they have come under the shelter of my roof, that they say it, stand back and they say, This fellow came to so Jaren and he would play the judge.[00:23:48] Now we will deal worse with you than with them. And they press hard against the man lot and drew near to break the door, but the men put forth their hands and brought light into the house to them and shut the door. And they, the angels [00:24:00] struck with blindness, the men who were at the door of the house, both small and great so that they were themselves groping for the door, preach, preacher,[00:24:18] Marcia: this is a bad example of ancient hospitality.[00:24:25] We can start right there. I don't want to say a couple of things though, about the Bible itself. A lot of times there are folks who will tell you, you know, that the Bible is, um, has no mistakes. No, no. It's in errant. There are no errors. You must believe every single word that comes off the page. Literally this is a fundamentalist view, but it's problematic.[00:24:56] And first of all, it's because the Bible didn't just fall [00:25:00] out of the sky. One day, the Bible was written over centuries. Uh, the new Testament covering the life, uh, death and resurrection of Jesus was not, um, really fully complete until the second or third century after his death.[00:25:26] And there was a lot of argument within the councils about what to include and what not to include. And the old Testament is far older and very complex because not a lot of it was written. Um, at the time things were going on. A lot of it was written after things had happened, like the new Testament, but it spans a longer period of time.[00:25:55] And so we've got to be very careful about that. Um, [00:26:00] and it's important to look within the biblical Canon sometimes at passages that happened right before, or right after a text that we're studying. And that's because as we talked about last time and the time before context is very important, when you get a story, it's usually because something else has already happened that we need to know about and understand.[00:26:27] And then that serves as a building block for stories that come after it. So, uh, Divan and read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which basically is strangers show up lot, takes them in that part of it. He does. Okay. The men find out and they want to, um, have them come, come out and rape them,[00:27:00] [00:27:02] uh, because it was a time of war. Uh, there were always spies. It was a way to gain, uh, physical and emotional power over a rape victim. So this is not what you would call good hospitality. So if we look at the chapter before Abraham and Sarah are visited by angels, And here we get an excellent, a Superbowl example of ancient hospitality.[00:27:38] Um, when you were traveling in those times, first of all, it was hot as could be. And there was no shade out and about away from the cities, it was a lot of desert. Um, and so people got very hot and very thirsty and tired trying to endure that heat. Um, when you [00:28:00] were outside of a city, you were said to be outside of the law.[00:28:04] So that's, uh, you can think of it like being an outlaw. Like you're not protected by any municipality. Like there's no local cops that are going to come and help you if abandoned way lays you and beats you and takes your stuff. So when you came upon a city, it was very important to reciprocate hospitality because everybody would experience some situation where they had to travel.[00:28:31] So you want it to be kind to strangers and take them in and, you know, give them some clean water to wash their feet and have a big drink and something to eat and a place to rest. This was all super, super important in that culture. So these three men come up to Abraham. He doesn't know that they're angels.[00:28:53] Those were where the expression comes, where you're helping angels unaware. Okay. [00:29:00] So they come up and he says, please let me be your servant. He's very, self-effacing he, you know, he says, let me give you a little water for your feet and rest under a tree in the shade. And we'll bring you a morsel of bread and you may refresh yourselves and stay with us over the night and then move on your journey.[00:29:21] All very well done. And then on top of that, he has a calf killed, which is a big deal. They didn't need a lot of meat. Normally it was mostly the proceeds from the animals and the milk, and she's in grain breads and whatnot. So they kill the fatted calf. They put out a spread, they use choice flour. Um, uh, they sat under the tree while they ate and Abraham did not eat with them because he, you know, I think so that they could have more to eat.[00:29:52] He didn't share this meal, even though it was a meal of extravagance. That's really. Amazing [00:30:00] [00:30:00] De'Vannon: what lottery Abraham. He said Abraham, [00:30:03] Marcia: uh, Abraham in the story with the angels lot is the story with Gomorrah, Sodom and Gomorrah. [00:30:13] De'Vannon: Did I, did I mess that up? [00:30:17] Marcia: Okay. No, it's Abraham and Sarah who post the angels and they don't know their angels until later.[00:30:25] And then they say, okay, now we're going to go to Sodom and Gomorrah and see what happens. All right. And we know what happens. It's not good. Um, so this is not a story that condemns same sex interactions. It sounds like it is, but it isn't. And there may have been some tension with lot. Like he was not originally from there.[00:30:55] So he was not, you know, a citizen there and it looked like maybe [00:31:00] he was showing them up by taking them in and you know, that kind of stuff. And that may have wrinkled, uh, the, the citizens of Saddam. [00:31:10] De'Vannon: Do you think that they were all necessarily men? Because I know a lot in the old writings that they don't include women.[00:31:19] It's not that they weren't there, but they thought so little of women, you know, in those traditions know that they don't, they'll say like, you know, all the men gathered, but it doesn't mean that there weren't women too. So do you think that they were women in the streets? I don't think so. [00:31:35] Marcia: Okay. Uh, business was conducted at the gate, you know, lots near the gate, whatnot.[00:31:41] Uh, women did not participate in that. Um, this was a show of force. This was about asserting, uh, physical and military dominance potentially. Okay. So, no, I don't think that women were involved in this one. Um, [00:32:00] so to recap, um, let's compare the hospitality that goes on between the two stories. Okay. So lot w rises to meet the strangers in Sodom, but Abraham ran to them.[00:32:20] So a lot shows less enthusiasm. He, uh, only served unleavened bread, whereas Abraham and Sarah served cakes of choice, flour and freshly prepared before. Uh, lot eight with the angels, but Abraham stood off to the side, uh, presumptively, so the guests would have more to eat. Okay. So just even at the beginning of this, the story is very different and that is important.[00:32:50] Um, let's see. So I mentioned the mob [00:33:00] had been angry with lot who like shows them up in terms of his hospitality by taking in the strangers. Uh, he's a resident alien. He's not even from there and he's, you know, maybe, um, you know, trying to show them up and they don't like that. Um, and then, you know, uh, it was for men, for fathers to do with their daughters.[00:33:26] What they please it's just really that simple. So to calm them down, he offers his Virgin daughters, um, which we have a problem with. Um, I would like to think that, uh, everybody would have had a problem with this, but not necessarily as we'll see in the judge's story in just a minute. Um, so, uh, this threatened male to male rape, uh, is somewhat thwarted because one of the angels [00:34:00] intervenes as lots, trying to reason with them and the, the men are struck blind and lot is jerked back into the house.[00:34:08] They grab him and pull him right back in because he was about probably to get quite the beating. Um, This is this. And it's very differently than the story of the angels that are with Abraham and Sarah. Very, very different. But what happens is, is we talked about this before. This is, uh, a way to read into the text because you don't like homosexuality.[00:34:36] This is about having a pretext or an agenda about, uh, you know, having proof. We call this proof texting, where you try to twist a passage around to prove your point. And that's how this has been used. This is about rape. It really doesn't matter what the genders of the participants are. [00:35:00] This is about, uh, hurting somebody, uh, sexually molesting them, um, possibly, you know, um, killing them in the process.[00:35:12] That's what the story is about. So are we good on that? [00:35:22] De'Vannon: Okay. Now [00:35:25] Marcia: go ahead. And then, uh, if we look at the story, uh, at the city of Gibeah, we have also something very similar and in that instance, uh, not only was raped, threatened. But rape occurred. [00:35:42] De'Vannon: Now we're getting over into the judges [00:35:44] Marcia: and we're moving over into judges.[00:35:45] Do you want to read that one for us? Yep. [00:35:47] De'Vannon: So judges 22, as they were making their hearts and Mary, the whole, the men of the city based the fellows beset the house around about beating on the door. And they said to the old man, the master of the house and bringing out the man who came into [00:36:00] your house, that we may know him and the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, no, my brother and do not act so wickedly seeing that this man has come into my house, do not do this vile thing.[00:36:12] They hold here and my Virgin daughter and his concubine let them. Bring them out now, ravish them and do with them would, seems good to you. But against this man, do not do such sell a vial thing that the men would not listen to him. So the man sees his concubine and put her out to them and they knew her and abused her all night until the morning.[00:36:35] And as the Dawn began, began to break, they let her go. And as morning appear, the woman came and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was till it was light.[00:36:50] Marcia: Right. And then later she's killed. [00:36:55] De'Vannon: Yeah. I don't worry. I can't remember. She died from the rape or whatever, but I know she didn't. [00:37:00] So she, [00:37:00] Marcia: she ends up dying and her body has cut up. Yeah, so this is terrible. This is a terrible, terrible passage. And the story of Gibeah is not better because the rape ended up being heterosexual rape.[00:37:19] The story is just as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah, because it is about rape and a lack of ancient hospitality. And that, that cannot be underscored enough. And you get an example here too, of why it's important to do canonical comparisons, looking at a text in one section and looking at a text and another section that has similar fetch patterns, which is what we just did.[00:37:53] Um, You know, conservative scholars like to argue that, uh, [00:38:00] Sodom and Gomorrah is a cautionary tale about, uh, underscoring homosexuality as a sin. Well, first of all, they didn't even know what that word was that. Okay. That's, uh, an inaccurate, um, anachronistic use of the word, homosexuality plugging it in there, uh, using 19th, 20th and 21st understandings of what homosexuality is into a text that was written thousands of years ago.[00:38:33] Um, sexual orientation was not really understood in the way that we understand it now. So to try to cram that, meaning that interpretation into such an old text, About ancient behaviors that are even older, uh, is really illogical. It doesn't make sense to even try to do it. [00:39:00] Um,[00:39:07] so,[00:39:12] you know, if, if the story is not about rape in Gibeah with the woman, with the concubine, then we would argue that heterosexuality is also a sin. And I really don't think conservatives want to go there, but we, you know, we have to use the sense that God gave us to re recognize what a leap in logic it is.[00:39:33] This is just, uh, a cheap, uh, attempt to try to apply this ancient text to a very different time when there are loving, committed relationships, uh, Linda and I will be together 40 years next year.[00:39:52] Um, devoted to one another. We have built a life together in a home and a family, and we take care of each other's families. [00:40:00] And, um, you know, we, we share a niece and nephew that we lavished with attention. So, uh, it it's apples and oranges. It's really, you know, apples and I dunno, eggplants it's really different, really different.[00:40:18] Um, and of course, if in Gibeah all the men were homosexual, why would they rape a woman?[00:40:31] This is about power. Um, and, uh, you know, uh, conservatives, don't like to hear this, but you can't change your sexual orientation. That doesn't mean there weren't gay people back then. They just didn't know what to call it. They didn't, you know, and their relationships, um, as far as we know are not documented and we, you know, we don't know what was [00:41:00] going on back then.[00:41:03] That's [00:41:05] De'Vannon: my thinking in all of this. And thank you so much for expounding on the word today, preacher. And, uh, my thoughts in all of this is that, you know, in my ministry, in my outreach for it is not to conservative people. I am not called to conservative people. Um, people who are arrogant enough to go through the Bible to try to find out what's wrong with other people can go and fuck themselves in my opinion, uh, because it is there for us to examine ourselves, not other people.[00:41:36] And so, um, Now that doesn't mean that you just go hang around, you know, every Tom, Dick and Harry, but it's one thing to not hang around people out of caution. Hey, that person look shady, or maybe they're a murderer or whatever the fuck the case may be. Or maybe you just don't have a lot in common with them as one thing, you know, in your natural common sense.[00:41:58] Cause you're not going to be friends with [00:42:00] everybody, but it's one thing to just not hang out with people because you don't have a lot in common as opposed to, if you think that there's something wrong with them, according to the Bible. And so, because that to me has this root and arrogance and hypocrisy.[00:42:13] And so I have nothing to say to conservative people other than fuck you. And, um, my message is to the people who have been hurt by the church, you know, kicked out by the church. And that's why I like to do shows like this because, um, I'm trying to talk to people and trying to reach people. Who maybe can be considering suicide, who may be made may feel like they've lost their community because they've been kicked out of their church.[00:42:41] Like I was, who may be confused about who they think they are. Like I once was you may hate themselves. Um, like I once did. And, um, you know, that's who I'm trying to talk to and how you're trying to explain to [00:43:00] people how to go through the Bible and everything like that. You know, that's a, cause a core, core thing to my message is learn how to read it for yourself.[00:43:12] You know, you don't need a preacher. Excuse me. They're great to have, you know, but church, community, all of that as an accessory to your relationship with God, Not the, not, not the end all be all, not what you should hang your relationship off of is what some human told you, because any human being can be wrong.[00:43:33] And the arrogance of, of conservatives people is that they don't think that they can be wrong. They think that the way they think about homosexuality or what they think about anything in the Bible, they feel like it's permanent. And if they dare change and they're somehow compromised their beliefs, but what they forgotten is the fact that they are not God.[00:43:53] And then they also did not write this book. And so, and so they want to be an expert about it and [00:44:00] claim that they absolutely know a hundred percent what it says, and that's not possible because you know, I'm an author, you know, You know, can't nobody say that they're an expert on what's in it, but me, you know, you can have your take on it and what you think, but I wrote it and not you.[00:44:17] And so in the, in the Bible is composed of many authors and yeah, there from a long time ago. And so I don't really feel like any of us can be an expert on somebody else's literary work. You know, we can say what we think we feel, but we can't be so absolute, you know, in our thinking to act like that.[00:44:37] There's no way that we could come up with something wrong. I agree with what you said. I don't think that's the Bible. It has to be completely a hundred percent accurate from cover to cover. It does not even say that it is accurate from cover to cover in there. It does say like in revelation, at the add to, or take away from, but I really have always felt like that that's was specific to that vision [00:45:00] that John had in and God knows conservative people and take away all the damn time.[00:45:06] Whatever's convenient for them, you know? And so, and so, and so the message is consistent. Go to God for yourself, take out the middleman, you know, middlemen, which is pretty much what, you know, preachers who try to put themselves in the place of God, not the ones who are actually loving you and trying to help to coach you.[00:45:28] But the ones who are trying to dominate your thinking and tell you what to think about everything, that's a different story. And sometimes it can be hard to tell the two apart, so you can pray to God for yourself. You don't need to go through a father or a preacher or anything like that. You can ask Jesus for forgiveness directly.[00:45:46] You don't need to go to a, to a human for that. And so, you know, hearing these scriptures and going to go in through it, hopefully people will get the boldness to feel like they can, you know, go through with themselves and just [00:46:00] written just in, in, in anything else, just write, just think about why do you feel bad?[00:46:05] Where did it come from? Who told you, you know, why do you feel bad in the first place? You know, no angel told you that the Lord didn't tell you that people told you that in, you think about where it comes from in this. And so you pass it back to you without one. Well, [00:46:25] Marcia: um, you've raised a really important message here and that is, and people can't see me, but I'm pointing up.[00:46:34] And, um, I don't know if I said this in a previous episode, but it bears repeating. Um, we spend too much time now I'm pointing to the side, allowing others to dictate what our relationship is. Our relationship is with our creator, other, uh, you know, people outside of ourselves, our souls telling us what's.[00:46:57] What about our relationship with [00:47:00] our creator? Who's in whose image we are made versus not letting anything come between that relationship. Now I'm pointing up. It should be a vertical one waste to waste. A vertical two way street in, in determining what our relationship is with our creator. And don't be so concerned about whether what others are saying.[00:47:30] Um, and I think that that is, and if we all did that and just worried, you know, more about our own business and our own behavior, we would all be so much better off. Um, and I think, uh, it's important for us as LGBT people to learn this lesson and stop letting others tell us and presume that the way we are made is less than [00:48:00] stop letting people, you know, letting people tell us that we are less.[00:48:04] But we have to just say, no, we're not going to do that. And I will also say this, most people don't like to change. And if you were raised with an embedded theology, that is anti-gay anti LGBT, for the most part, you will not change unless you have some sort of confrontation that hits you very personally.[00:48:35] Okay. So if you encounter somebody who's really anti-gay, it's probably because nobody close to them has come out yet.[00:48:49] Uh, my dad had a lot of trouble when I came out. And my, my son says that had he not had the confrontation of either accepting [00:49:00] me or losing me, he probably would still be like he was,[00:49:07] but once he was confronted with the idea that all this LGBT stuff applied to his one and only daughter, then he had to take a look at the paradigm he was raised with. And he had to do some deconstructing and think about what this actually means. So, um, when you encounter somebody who's really anti LGBT, here's what I recommend.[00:49:40] If it's just going to turn into a shouting match, don't bother. Uh, you're not going to change their minds, at least not in that conversation. Um, and don't put yourself through it. It's not important. Don't let that person dictate what, you know, your relationship is with your creator. Uh, [00:50:00] and, um, recognize that, you know, they've been taught a certain way and it's very hard to move off of it unless they absolutely have to.[00:50:10] And if they've been raised in a tradition that instills in them, some arrogance for being heterosexual, uh, they're surely not going to change because of a conversation with you or anybody else. It's, it's really the, um, when their paradigm is challenged because they potentially are going to lose somebody.[00:50:30] They love. That's typically how, uh, hearts and thoughts are changed and moved. [00:50:38] De'Vannon: And yet everybody, and that's why. I don't argue with conservative people. I'm not even talk to them. You know, I'm trying to talk to, you know, the people out there who are wondering, and questioning and hurting themselves on open to a different point of view.[00:50:50] I'm not trying to force somebody's mind open. So the only way you can even come to me is if you're, you know, if you, if you were humble enough to be, if you to, you know, that life journey, what can I [00:51:00] discover? What can I learn? I already have it figured out and let me go and try to force other people into what I believe to be true.[00:51:07] And people do your research because remember conservative people and people in general. A lot of times tend to like the disk control or the people, because remember these same conservative people, once we're like all anti miscegenation, which means they didn't even want interracial couples mixing, you know, they were like black and white people, white, Asian people.[00:51:25] We don't want, y'all mixing everything to just be the same race. Then the, now they're like gay people. Don't, y'all, don't do this woman. Don't do this with your body that we detect the trend here. And so then if they want to then go to the Bible and try to justify slavery, anti miscegenation, strictly speaking, you know, if you want to get into not mixing.[00:51:45] Okay. Yeah, the Lord did heal his people not to do that, you know, but you know, we are not Israelites and you know, I'm not going to go down that path, but you know, it's one of those things that, you know, is accepted now. So now you can be [00:52:00] mixed race, even though conservative people once were so against that, but there's a lot of them wanted interracial relationships.[00:52:06] So it was convenient for them to stop pursuing that. Not that people didn't have to fight for the right to do that, you know, also back in the day. Uh, so we just moved forward, you know, we, we in, and so let's go ahead and, um, let's talk about Mr. Um, you know, what's going on over with Noah and then yeah. And then that'll be it for today.[00:52:29] Marcia: This is a strange story. It's from Genesis nine and I'm just going to paraphrase it. So, uh, no. It's after the flood. And, uh, Noah has been blessed with, by God with these vineyards and he makes some wine and he gets drunk. Okay. So first mistake, he gets real drunk and passes out in his tent and he's naked.[00:52:57] Um, uh, and [00:53:00] seeing someone's naked and nakedness can be interpreted as one of two things, you know, just really seeing somebody naked or, um, having sex with them. It's long been, uh, puzzled over this about, you know, did ham, the, one of the three sons see no one naked lay in there, drunk and passed out. Or did he rape his father to, you know, to, um, impose power over him and take, uh, take over his position.[00:53:39] Take over his land and all of that, we don't know, uh, scholars go back and forth. Um, it's a, it's a confusing passage, but because the potential for the ham raping his father, again, there's this conflation of male to male [00:54:00] sex with rape. Uh, and, um, and then saying that, you know, rape is bad, but, and saying that male to male sex is bad or that they're the same.[00:54:14] The only male to male sex that can be had is rape. It's really unclear. And then the other two sons, um, uh, ham goes in the tent, sees his father's nakedness. His brothers are standing at the outside of the tent and says, and he says to them, I just saw our father's nakedness. And so the other two boy. Take a garment and hold corners of it and walk in the tent backwards, looking away from their father.[00:54:46] So they don't see as nakedness and cover him up.[00:54:52] And then Noah wakes up later and realize either that ham has seen him naked or had sex with him, [00:55:00] which I think he would probably know. Uh, and, and he curses Hamm's youngest son Canaan.[00:55:12] So it is a really strange passage. It's very, um, far removed from using it directly to condemn same sex activity. Um, So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it because I think it's really not worth it. It, it should not, in my opinion, be included in the clever past, just because we don't even know what happened.[00:55:41] De'Vannon: That's the, um, the sneaky thing about yes. Hate is that it, it can alert in seemingly legitimate places. Now somebody already has a predisposition against [00:56:00] homosexuality. They can read through this ambiguous as the scripture and come out of it with a million reasons why you shouldn't. Be gay, you know, but this is why we cannot let somebody else's understanding prevail over our own that we have to stop looking at preachers.[00:56:23] You know, like they are the absolute authority on things, rather than just giving an opinion, you know, they are not the voice of God. They're just not, you know, people who they made, they have inspired moments, you know, I'll give them that. But to say that everything that flies out of their mouth is coming straight from God, through them, to you as no, no, no, no, no.[00:56:48] Marcia: Hmm. Well, it's very, it's very dangerous. It's very, very dangerous, uh, to do that now and in a congregational structure where there's maybe a loose [00:57:00] affiliation, um, with the governing church, but for the most part, the chief pastor of a congregation. Um, has a lot of power, a lot of power. And we have seen this, um, you know, evidence of these, uh, pastors of these giant mega churches.[00:57:22] And they just implode because there's so much power and they can't handle it because none of us, you know, absolute power corrupts, corrupts. Absolutely. And none of us can handle that when we get so big for our bridges, you know, that we don't have to answer to anybody anymore. Seemingly and it's very dangerous to fall prey to that kind of pastoral leadership.[00:57:52] De'Vannon: Yeah. I've fallen prey to that before and either in a Vic thing about a lot of like megachurches [00:58:00] that I'm not overly fond of is the. Like, like the people at the top don't really know a lot of what's happening sometimes down in the, you know, down to the most finite inner workings, but, you know, you're ultimately responsible for everything that's happening on it.[00:58:18] You're in, you have to put a lot of, um, trust in a whole lot of different people. That's right. Have you got souls at stake? You know, it's not like a regular corporation where the worst thing that can happen, you know, somebody might get, [00:58:35] Marcia: and in the Catholic church too, over the sex abuse scandal, um, you know, so it's, uh, I mean, I didn't mean to say that only congregational structure churches have problems because we certainly have seen, uh, you know, the sex abuse scandal just explode with respect to Roman Catholicism.[00:58:54] Uh, but any time, uh, people are spiritual leaders. [00:59:00] The danger of abusing, uh, followers or abusing power, uh, can become very, very strong, very it's. Um, it's like, um, an aphrodisiac almost, uh, uh, you know, flowing up both sides. Uh, maybe that's not the right word, but it's, um, it's addictive and it's potentially dangerous.[00:59:31] Um, I'm very glad that I am in a structure where I have a Bishop that I answer to. And, you know, we have to be sure that the Bishop knows what we're up to, what's going on. Um, it's very important and that helps keep some of that in check [00:59:49] De'Vannon: that who was in a position to teach. The Bishop, if they get out of hand, you [00:59:56] Marcia: know, we have a presiding Bishop who has also has a big [01:00:00] staff.[01:00:03] So no, I think that we've got some good checks and balances in place, and we have governing boards in our local parishes. We call it congregation of parish. Um, we have what is called the vestry, which is the governing body of the church. And the priest is typically not the signatory on the bank account.[01:00:28] Um, that's up to the, the wardens, the ones who run the vest rate, uh, they're in charge of, uh, lots of different things. So that, that there are checks and balances that are built into our system. And we are governed much like the federal government. We have a house of bishops and a house of deputies, which are the lay people.[01:00:51] Um, who sir, you know, provide the two chambers of the church for does this, your decision-making. And we get together every three years and [01:01:00] create new cannons and do all sorts of [01:01:03] De'Vannon: things. So that's cool. So that sounds like, kind of like community run rather than one person at the top making all the decisions.[01:01:12] Yeah. I've found that at the, uh, university Presbyterian tourist that I have. You know, attended here. Um, you know, it was like that they have what's called a session, which is like a group of people making decisions together, make, bring up budgetary things to the whole congregation. And it's not like that in every church churches that I've been in with, like you just find out what's the decision has been made by somebody on a fucking day and you're expected to go with it.[01:01:36] There is no, what do the people bullshit? They're not interested in that. [01:01:40] Marcia: I think anytime you can, you know, attend a church or a denomination where there the government's is very straightforward and transparent, it's going to be a lot better for everybody. And we have to do training. We have to, uh, periodically do training about, you know, safeguarding our children and [01:02:00] safeguarding, uh, the faithful, you know, uh, this is all very, very important and those structures are not necessarily in place.[01:02:08] If the tradition doesn't have a structure. So those are things to look for also. [01:02:14] De'Vannon: And one thing I'll say this, and I'll let you out of the last word. Um, the one thing that I've, that I've, that I always keep an eye out for, with the churches is if they're transparent about the finances, uh, what's being raised, how much is being raised, who's being paid.[01:02:29] What? And if they're not, if they're not willing to do that, then, you know, go run the other way because that's, they need to be transparent about every fucking thing. There's nothing. Thank you. This should be being done in the corner and look, LGBTQ community, my alphabet mafia, baby. Honey, don't go to no church that that is not a pro LGBTQ a and pro all of the values that you stand for.[01:02:55] Don't give them your money. They don't deserve our money. Do not support organizations [01:03:00] like Chick-Filet and stuff like that that are donating to people who would legislate against us fly. You can go get a burger from somewhere else already and make it yourself, you know, you know how to cook. And so, um, so now let's take the gay dollar from these people.[01:03:15] They don't deserve to have any of our support and do not go to churches that are against you because you're only hurting yourself. Now, finally, [01:03:27] Marcia: yeah. Let me, let me say a couple of things and then I'll, um, um, we'll close. Um,[01:03:39] The Episcopal church is a really safe place for LGBT people. We are very serious about inclusion. We have passed specific resolutions at our general convention that I mentioned that happens every three years. And this is now several years ago, um, that, uh, we [01:04:00] ordain LGBT people. We, we have specific resolutions about that.[01:04:04] We have a singular one for trans people. Um, if you feel like you're ready to go back to church, I think it's a great place for you to start the PC USA Presbyterian church USA. Uh, look for those letters. Uh, they're good to the, um, ELC, a evangelical Lutheran church of America is wonderful. Uh, we're in partnership with the ELC Lutherans, uh, that, that means that I could serve an ELC church and a Lutheran pastor could serve an Episcopal church.[01:04:43] Um, so those are two places for you to, to check. And what you can do is go to the web website and see what is on their website with respect to inclusion. If they say they're, you know, open and [01:05:00] affirming and you don't see anything on there other than just that expression. Then, you know, maybe you need to move on to another one, but the website is a safe way for you to check out what's going on at a particular congregation to figure out if it would be a good fit for you.[01:05:19] Um, I'm an Episcopalian. I, Linda and I chose it together. I came from the American Baptist tradition and she came from Roman, Roman Catholicism, and it has been the perfect blend for us and we love it. And I can't imagine going anywhere else. Um, my Bishop is a lesbian.[01:05:41] We have several LGBT bishops out there in the Episcopal church. So just keep that in mind and don't be afraid to do some homework before you ever stepped foot in any church and make sure that you feel like they are going to be open and affirming and [01:06:00] welcoming with you. Okay. So, um, I'm going to read a part of Psalm 1 39 for everybody.[01:06:14] And I'm going to read it from the St. Helen assaulter. Now I'm an associate of the order of St. Helena. It's a group of Episcopal nuns, and they've written a, uh, uh, the Psalms in gender inclusive language. Interesting. And I highly highly recommend this for our peeps in the LGBTQ community. It's really wonderful.[01:06:45] They spent years working on this and praying it in their daily cycle of Psalms. And 1 39 I think is a song that we all need to know as [01:07:00] LGBT people. Okay. Are you [01:07:03] De'Vannon: ready? [01:07:06] Marcia: Oh, God, you have searched me out and known me, you know, my sitting down and my rising up, you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace your, my journeys and my resting places and are acquainted with all my ways.[01:07:25] Indeed. There is not a word on my lips, but you all God know it all together. You press upon me from behind and before and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is so high that I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I climb up to heaven, you are there.[01:07:53] If I make the grave, my bed, you are there. Also, if I take the wings [01:08:00] of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the city, Even there, your hand will lead me in your right hand. Hold me fast. If I say surely the darkness will cover me and the light around me turn tonight. Darkness is not dark to you.[01:08:19] The night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light to you are both alike for you. Yourself covered my inmost parts. You'd knit me together in my mother's womb. I will thank you because I am marvelously made your works are wonderful. And I know it well, my body was not hidden from you while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth.[01:08:51] Your eyes be held my limbs yet unfinished in the womb. All of them were written in your book. They were fashioned day [01:09:00] by day. When as yet there was none of them. How deep I find your thoughts. Oh God, how great is the sum of them? If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand to count them.[01:09:16] All my lifespan would need to be like yours.[01:09:23] Search me out. Oh God. And know my heart. Try me and know my restless thoughts look well, whether there be any wickedness in me and lead me in a way that has everlasting.[01:09:43] De'Vannon: Beautiful. Thank you so much. You're welcome. [01:09:48] So. These three sessions have been such a blessing for me, um, to be able to share what I've [01:10:00] written about these passages that are used to destroy us. And I just want to thank you for the opportunity to, uh, make them more available and to hopefully be a help in a bomb to others.[01:10:16] De'Vannon: Thank you so much for, um, coming on the show to share it and for being transparent with your own experiences in life and not just taking your success and strength and hope and running off with it, but, you know, writing it down for people and speaking it. So thank you.[01:10:37] Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the sex drugs and Jesus' podcast. It really means everything to me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at sex, drugs, and jesus.com or wherever you listen to your pocket. Feel free to reach out to me [01:11:00] directly at DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.[01:11:05] My name is De'Vannon and it's been wonderful being your host today and just remember that everything is going to be all right. 

Marcia writes, speaks, teaches, and preaches about the need for progressive Christians to speak faithfully in public for social justice. The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's ministry has been in Southwest Detroit's Latinx population—an international port with an aggressive regional ICE director. Dr. Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. An Episcopal priest, she holds a Master of Divinity from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. She earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from Pacific School of Religion. Dr. Ledford founded Political Theology Matters, LLC, to help the faithful develop public theology mission and broadcast messaging for greater social justice. She is trained for community organizing through the Industrial Areas Foundation and volunteers with Michigan United. Emailmarcia@miptm.comWebsitehttps://www.politicaltheologymatters.comMedia Resourceshttps://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/mediaThe Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's bloghttps://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blog Harvard Implicit Bias Testing (on numerous topics)https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.htmlCivil Discourse Training offered via The Episcopal Church For Individuals:https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/ For Groups: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/10

How far can we keep religion from politics? Dr Ledford blend both in a discussion on political theology and social justice as she sits with Dr. White. Get answers to the questions about social justice and political theology from someone who knows so much and disseminates it all. What is political theology? Why is political theology so important? How did American Christianity become so divided? Were Moses and Jesus political theologians? #theology #socialjustics #politicsandreligion Watch on YouTube and listen on your favorite podcast platform. Canyouth's Exploration goes live from its virtual studio out of Miramar Florida. Comment, rate, and SUBSCRIBE. Follow us on Instagram @canyouthsexploration and Facebook – Canyouth's Exploration. This was a CM-PEN LLC presentation. Marcia's Contacts https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/ https://www.instagram.com/docledford/ https://twitter.com/docledford https://www.facebook.com/politicaltheologymatters http://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/ VISIT OUR WEBSITE (CM-PEN LLC) https://canyouthsexploration.com/?page_id=309 Podcast Support Support the podcast generously. Donate through PayPal link: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=KT5DSZEECRSL8 Charity Donation/Support If you would like to donate to any charity broadcast on this podcast, Do so through our partner company Canyouth's Foundation PayPal Link https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=QWYBX75ULSQNC BLUEHOST We endorse Bluehost for this episode. Click the link below to get your website hosted through a reliable company. Then visit CM-PEN to do the website designing https://www.bluehost.com/track/canyouth/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/radio-white/message

INTRODUCTION:This is the second episode in a three part series that I'm doing with the Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford who runs a magnificent website called PoliticalTheologyMatters.com. In this series we are tackling the clobber passages from the Hebrew Bible which conservative church people like to misinterpret and use to condemn us and make themselves feel better. Marcia is super passionate about the rights of the Alphabet Community and is also very well educated which helps a hell of a lot. The title of today's blog of interest is LEVITICUS LACKS AN UNDERSTANDING OF LOVING LBGT RELATIONSHIPS. I really hope this sets someone FREE!!! INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):·       Discussion Of The “Clobber” Passages Used To Bash The LGBTQIA+ Community·       The HYPOCRISY Of Conservative Christians·       How Conservatives Manipulate Scripture To Condemn Others And Justify Themselves ·       The Issue Of SUICIDE Due To Misuse Of Scripture ·       The Importance Of Learning What's In The Bible For YOURSELF!!! - #READINGISFUNDAMENTAL·       Why It's Healthy To Question Religion And Denominations ·       How To Properly Interpret Scripture ·       How Special *Semen* Is!!!·       A Deep Dive Into The Book Of Leviticus ·       The Culture Of The Israelites Vs. Modern Day Society·       Holiness Defined ·       Why MASTURBATION Is Totally Cool·       Ex-Vangelical Defined BLOG:·       https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/leviticus-loving-gay-relationships/ CONNECT WITH MARCIA:Website: https://www.politicaltheologymatters.comFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/politicaltheologymattersLinkedIn: https://linkedin/marcialedfordTwitter: https://twitter.com/docledfordInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/docledford/ MARCIA'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·       How To Think Theologically: https://amzn.to/3hkvdfN SDJ MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS (FULL EPISODES):·       $2.99 per month.·       Donate any amount for 30 days of full access.·       $25 per year.https://www.sexdrugsandjesus.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00] You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to. And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right. At the end of the day, my name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world. As we dig into topics that are too risky for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your.[00:00:24] There was nothing on the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.[00:00:34] De'Vannon: This is the second episode I'm doing in a three part series with the great Reverend Dr. Marcia Ledford, who runs a magnificent, phenomenal website called politicaltheologymatters.com in this series, we are tackling those clobber passages from the Hebrew Bible, which conservative church people like the misinterpret and then use to condemn us and make themselves feel better.[00:01:00] [00:01:00] Marcia is super passionate about the rights of the alphabet community and that she's also super, very well educated and well versed in matters of the Bible. And, you know, that helps a hell of a lot. And so the title of today's blog is Leviticus Lacks an Understanding of loving LGBT relationships. I really hope this sets someone free.[00:01:31] [00:01:31] Marcia, it's so great to have you back on the show today. How are you [00:01:34] Marcia: feeling? I'm feeling great today and thank you to Bannon. It's lovely to be back with you. [00:01:41] De'Vannon: Lovely as always, uh, same here. And so, uh, today we are going to be tackling another one of your beautiful blogs from your amazing blog page on your website.[00:01:56] Um, we're going to be talking about [00:02:00] Leviticus and the title of the blog is Leviticus, lax and understanding of loving LGBT relations. And as a super important passage to talk about because so many churches and so many people who are supposed to be preachers use these scriptures in order to try to manipulate in otherwise intimidate people.[00:02:21] Uh, but before we get into that juiciness, tell us a little bit about your website and your history. [00:02:27] Marcia: Sure. Uh, for the first 30 years of my working life, I've been a civil rights attorney and, uh, I sensed a call to ordained ministry as a teenager, but I wasn't seeing women at the pulpit and the alter when I was coming of age in the late seventies and early eighties.[00:02:49] So I decided to go into law and I became a civil rights attorney cause I it's a way to help people. Uh, but I became [00:03:00] increasingly frustrated because you can't argue the gospel in court necessarily and hope to be success. And in my late forties, it seemed like the holy spirit was not going to let this go and kept poking me.[00:03:13] So I decided to go to seminary and get into the ordination process. And, uh, then after I was ordained, I worked in the Latino community in Southwest Detroit, and I was appalled at what I saw our government, our laws doing to families, tearing them apart. And so I just started to study political theology and, uh, got a doctor of ministry.[00:03:45] And since then I started political theology matters and that's what I'm working on. Full-time to equip the faithful, uh, to engage in faith based advocacy for greater social justice. [00:04:00] [00:04:01] De'Vannon: Yay. We can all use a lot more social justice, especially in this political climate that we're in right now. You know, when I was in school, I remember reading where like church and state was supposed to be separated and in all of that.[00:04:17] And so it seems like church and state are like, arm-in-arm these days we've got, you know, churches, endorsing political people and, and it's, it's just a hot mess from what it's become. So I think their website is absolutely quintessential is crucial, is unnecessary, and it helps to break down a lot of confusion and I'm excited to see the direction that it's headed in.[00:04:43] And then that is a political theology matters that come, which will be in the show notes.[00:04:52] Absolutely must sugar. And let's see. Um, so today in particular, we're going to be focusing on [00:05:00] Leviticus chapter 18 and 22 and Leviticus 20 and verse 13, I'm going to read these two scriptures and then we're going to get into like a history first, before we really dive into them. And I'll explain how we're going to matriculate go through this.[00:05:16] So Leviticus 18 and 22 says you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination Leviticus 20 and 13 says if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall be put to death, their blood is upon them. And so you talk about in the blog, the difference between looking at a verse in a standalone fashion versus looking at the verses that perceived them in, come after them.[00:05:48] In order to avoid. What would, what you're talking about is a pretext, a pretext, this kind of like a preconceived notion or something that you're infusing Intuit, or as you say, a [00:06:00] foregone conclusion, and, um, you define it more precisely a pretext. You said it can involve a concealing, an intent to mislead understanding or interpretation.[00:06:14] A former pretext concerns offering an interpretation while concealing a preconceived motive or agenda such as can send me the condemning all homosexual relationships across time. And so, and so what we're going to be doing today is looking at looking at the scriptures and adding some context to them and kind of showing people ways that they can go through the Bible and figure out, uh, the true truth on their own and really take a look at it.[00:06:44] And so what we're saying here, Is that the people who have explained these passages over time, didn't do a thorough enough job in a lot of their own prejudices and hate were infused into the [00:07:00] translations that were given.[00:07:04] And so you can go ahead in and speak to us, please, Marcia, about context pretext and why it's important to really take the whole picture when we're looking at scripture. [00:07:19] Marcia: Okay. So thank you for that. Davana because that really sets the stage for us. Uh, the Reverend Dr. Jesse Jackson has a quote that I love that is a text without a context is a pretext.[00:07:41] And so if you go in. To look at scripture, if any of us do, uh, and say we just narrow, narrow in or laser in on one or two verses with the idea that when we want to prove something that's already in our minds, [00:08:00] we are operating with a pretext. And that has been how these Leviticus passages have been read for a long time and keep in mind that, uh, patriarchy is very much at work here.[00:08:20] And, um, the idea that a man would be penetrated like a woman would be penetrated, uh, was anathema to their understanding of gender roles and, um, you know, played into how the female. Uh, his subordinate, not only in the culture, but, um, in terms of concepts like this. So one of the reasons that this was, uh, prohibited [00:09:00] was to maintain the patriarchal order.[00:09:05] Um, another reason was, uh, the Canaanites were engaging in temple cultic prostitution, and one of the most important reasons that we have Leviticus so that the Israelites could conduct themselves in ways that were very distinctive from any other of their surrounding nations. It was a way for them to set themselves apart.[00:09:34] And so engaging in temple prostitution at all was, uh, prohibited. Uh, and, uh, either gender. So we have that to consider, and there would have been, even though the Israelites through God's intervention, defeated the Canaanites to take over their land, they were still there. Uh, and they would have, you know, [00:10:00] um, um, had social contact with the Canaanites.[00:10:05] And in fact, they needed the Canaanites, the help them learn how to grow crops because, uh, the Israelites had wandered the desert. They were nomads, they relied, they ate off of their herds and the manna, they, uh, you know, ate milk and cheese and, um, uh, they weren't in the habit of growing things. So there was.[00:10:32] There's going to be social interaction. And, um, that's how they would have learned some of these cultic practices. And, um, other kinds of behaviors, fear that, uh, the writers of living in Leviticus had codified that went against what God wanted them to do. Israel was a tiny nation. It was surrounded. Uh, they had to have sons, they had to build [00:11:00] an army.[00:11:00] It was constantly on their mind. And one of the things that we see in Leviticus is the blessings of land and children are tied very carefully to, uh, doing what the holy code said, the purity code. And if you engaged in conduct that did not result in LA intimate children, uh, you got spit out of the light.[00:11:28] You were, you know, the language is literally you become vomited from the land. And that's part of why it's important to read the verses around a particular text to find out what's going before and after we call this a canonical reading, you know, sometimes you can read the whole chapter before and after averse.[00:11:51] Sometimes you would read the whole, uh, book, uh, but then canonical reading is very, very [00:12:00] important to help us set the proper context so that we really understand what's going on.[00:12:08] So, um, engaged in conduct that would result in an illegitimate child or no children at all, uh, that was a violation of God's law. And so that's another reason why, um, uh, male to male sex would have been prohibited because it's a spilling of seed and the spilling of seed or semen, semen was considered a finite quantity.[00:12:36] It was a, it had a, um, you know, it had a very holy, uh, aspect to it. And so wasting it so that you're not creating children by, it was considered very sinful. All of these factors weigh in to these passages that typically have been used to just [00:13:00] clobber LGBT people right over the head. So let's look, uh, at what Leviticus, uh, sets forth for people.[00:13:15] It, it, um, Regulates a lot of different kinds of conduct. And I'll give you some quick examples and then we'll get to the ones that we're really going to deal with in this discussion. But the manner in which animals were sacrificed for Thanksgiving or atonement, there are specific rules about that. The means of atonement for individual and for communal sin.[00:13:38] And that's important because, uh, these prohibitions against male to male sex would have, uh, addressed communal sin. Another words now bearing children that would be a communal sin, uh, cure the care of curable skin diseases, [00:14:00] the annual cycle of daily Sabbath and festival rituals. All of this is covered in Leviticus.[00:14:06] It's a very comprehensive holiness code, uh, regulating the purification of women after menses and childbirth. Regulating the purification of men after seminal emission regulating the purification of anyone coming in contact with a court. Now we get into the four that we're dealing with, prohibited sexual relations with close kin prohibiting child sacrifice, which we believe was, uh, practiced by the Canaanites to the God Malek, prohibiting a man, having sex with another man and prohibiting anyone, having sex with an animal.[00:14:54] So, um, you know, this isn't an exhaustive list, but you get the [00:15:00] idea. Um, and particularly we're focusing on passages to do with fertility, killing children or progeny or wasting semen with other men and animals. And if you want to get a much longer list, you can go to Leviticus, especially if you need some sleep to to get us 18 and check it out for yourself.[00:15:22] De'Vannon: It's very interesting to me, how so many of the things on this list, like say the, um, regulating the purification of men after seminal emission. So that basically man, after man had a wet dream, he couldn't, he had to go and like purify himself in a way, like if a woman, uh, was having her period, you know, she couldn't like be around other people and stuff like that.[00:15:52] And now, you know, in this day in time, you know, if I have a wet dream, it's totally cool. I need to like take a [00:16:00] shower and go out and, you know, in a metal with people, a woman can be on her period and just handle that and just still got mixed society. Right. You know, so, so much of this. You know, we don't even fool with, you know, any more at all.[00:16:15] And nobody, even to the second thought about an eye or a wink, you know, if they sort of it's this, this, this sort of thing, it's like people pick and choose what they still want to clobber people with and what it was just going to like be okay. But, you know, but strictly speaking, if somebody is going to reach back to Leviticus and be like, well, it says men are not supposed to be doing this within.[00:16:43] That means, you know, every month, you know, women should just disappear and go into hiding, you know, when they have their periods and for God's sakes, every time a man ejaculated in his sleep at night, you know, the, we got to go into hiding too. You know, you see that would be too [00:17:00] inconvenient for most people, you know, your conservatives and evangelicals and everybody included.[00:17:05] Aren't going to want to sequester themselves on a damn near continual basis. But, you know, it's easy to go in here and throw shade at the things that people don't like, but if you're going to enforce one part of something, so strictly, then you really should enforce the whole thing or nothing at all.[00:17:24] Right. You know? And so I just wanted to highlight the hypocrisy of it, you know, of it all because where they're pulling this from, they don't ever talk about all of these other rules and stuff like that. Um, regarding administration and a thousand other things, like you said, the list is long. It goes for chapters and chapters and chapters in the book of Leviticus.[00:17:47] It's like a whole book of the law, you know, which is what they call it. But people only, you know, conservative people only want to take a few pieces of it. And like I said, in our first interview, [00:18:00] you know, the majority of us are not Israelites anyway, you know, and, and this stuff is very unique to them and to their culture in the book of acts, you know, we were reprieved.[00:18:09] Um, we were relinquished of the responsibility to follow the Levitical code and not, uh, not a few pieces of it, you know, you know, we are not of the bloodline of Abraham. And so none of this applies to us, you know, if you choose to follow the way of Jesus, but if you want to be bound by this, you can, but we were released from all of this.[00:18:31] Right. And so, [00:18:35] Marcia: right. Uh, and w you know, we refer to this as a cell activity when you, uh, you know, rely on some portions, but not others. And that has, that's been a critique of, uh, theologians who are in support of the LGBTQ communities by saying that, you know, look, if you're going to eat shellfish, uh, then you've got to [00:19:00] recognize that this is also a part of the, the purity code.[00:19:04] And, um, you know, they're all on equal footing. None is considered more, uh agregious than another, at least it doesn't state that. And so you're being hypocritical when you enforce parts of it, but not others. Like you said, what you like, you keep and what you don't like you get rid of as is convenient for yourself.[00:19:27] So, uh, that's, that's a serious problem. Uh, when we have people who, uh, are Christians and, uh, eat clothes, uh, or wear clothes of mixed textiles and eat shrimp and, uh, all of those things, but then take these specific passages and start, uh, demeaning, humiliating, uh, creating a superior position for themselves by [00:20:00] attacking LGBT people.[00:20:03] Uh, and that's, that's why I thought it was so important to write about this because a lot of times people don't spend, you know, any study on what the words at the time meant, what the context is. And, uh, it's very dangerous when you start, uh, emotionally and spiritually harming people with specific passages of the Bible in an attacking mode.[00:20:32] Uh, people take their lives over stuff like this, and we have to. [00:20:38] De'Vannon: They do. We rebuke suicide. We're not having it in this, and this is the way that we're rebuking it. Not just in word, but indeed, but through education, correct. Because growing up, you know, people hand those Bibles, they tell us to believe what's in it.[00:20:52] And we do. And it's not until what they got. Nobody ever told me to fact check context, research and be [00:21:00] sure of, they just said, this is it. And you know, and that, that was, that was the wrong advice to, to give me a, for them to give us. And they really did us all with this service, but we now have so much information at our fingertips and we don't have to wait for a preacher to tell us, you know, what's in the Bible or what said exactly and everything like that.[00:21:22] And now you've mentioned something I hadn't thought of before, but how the children of Israel, when they left Egypt, they were roaming through the wilderness. So they did not have time. Too. They, they, they didn't sit still long enough to grow a garden because they were always having to move. And yeah, the older people who were in Egypt were there long enough to grow stuff, but by the time they made it that cane and they had all got it, killed all them all off because they get stem off.[00:21:46] And, um, so the children that were born in the wilderness never knew anything about gardening and that's near and dear to my heart because I, I keep a crop in the backyard. I just pulled some Kush off squash off of there [00:22:00] and some cucumbers as well. And so, uh, I love the garden. Um, and, um, uh, just like, uh, that was a, that was able, I think it was able was the garden there of paint and Abel back in the book of Genesis.[00:22:18] And so, so y'all when she talks about holiness, what she means it. The same thing as like say sanctified in the new Testament, which is to be set apart. So to be holy doesn't mean to be walking around with like a halo glowing off of you or anything like that. It means that like the world is doing this, or like in the case of the Israelites, every nation around you is not a sacrifice.[00:22:44] Their children are, have temple prostitution and worship other gods and stuff like that, but y'all are not going to do that. You're going to be different because I'm the Lord, your God, y'all way, whatever you want to call me. And they have different gods. So [00:23:00] holiness is the term used to define people who care about the Lord and want to follow him versus those who don't.[00:23:07] And so when, so when we're talking about holiness or the holiness code, this is what this is now. It's a very strict code, but they lived in a strict time. You know, things were a lot of rough. People were walking everywhere that it didn't have Alexa this and Mercedes-Benz to drive us around. We didn't have, you know, the internet and stuff like that.[00:23:26] And so they, it was hot. It was very, very hot. And then you could turn around and be very, very cold, you know, that's how those, the Eric climates are. And so the Lord was dealing with a rough people during a rough time, you know, specific to them at that time. But you know, here in the year, 20, 21, like, like I said earlier, people are not going to stay home because they're menstruating.[00:23:50] They're not interested in being restricted. They're not going to put a mask on, they're not going to do anything that they don't fucking want to do. Let [00:24:00] alone everything that's written in the book of Leviticus, but we can focus just on the gay people. [00:24:07] Marcia: Right, exactly. Right. [00:24:13] De'Vannon: But the Lord, but Jesus warned people against the property.[00:24:16] Oh, yes. In his ministry, he didn't say anything about the gays, but he said a hell of a lot about hypocrisy. And that really, really, really, really got on Jesus' nerves. And, um, so conservative people have been warned against their hypocrisy and hypocrisy is in pride to go hand in hand and it's blinding.[00:24:35] And that's why people cannot read through the Bible and find themselves in it, although they can find other people in it because when they read through it, they're not looking for themselves. You know, they're reading it to see what's wrong with everyone else in the world, as opposed as opposed to what's wrong with [00:24:52] Marcia: them.[00:24:53] I believe Jesus said something like quit worrying about the lug and somebody else or the splinter in somebody else's eye [00:25:00] and look at the log in your own. [00:25:02] De'Vannon: Yeah. Depending on which version you read. [00:25:04] Marcia: Yeah. But I mean, the point there is, you know, quit wearing, get up, getting up and other people's business and just worry about your.[00:25:14] De'Vannon: Dan, another party calls them busy bodies, meddling and other men's affairs. Yeah, [00:25:20] Marcia: exactly. Exactly. So, um, yeah, like, uh, one of the examples I give in the blog is if you read a text, uh, and it says that a killed B and you have no other information, none, you can't really draw a conclusion. You don't know if a kill be in self-defense or in the defense of a third party.[00:25:50] Um, and was, you know, indicating he was going to use fatal force B was against a, you don't know this, you can't, you can't make, [00:26:00] uh, you can't learn, you can't draw conclusions when the information on its face, doesn't give it. No, when the text on its face, doesn't give you the information that you need. And so that's part of what we do when we consider the historical context of, uh, of a verse or set of verses, because unless, you know, the history of the Canaanites, um, your ability to really appreciate what this is saying becomes compromised.[00:26:36] And that's exactly what has happened in interpreting these two passages over time. Um, and I would like to, uh, Uh, add in a couple of verses if it's okay with you that I'm talking about in terms of what's happening before what's happening around the text [00:26:58] De'Vannon: to read, [00:27:00] [00:27:00] Marcia: to read some more, and this is what you know, plays into why these prohibitions were happening, because they're supposed to be making babies.[00:27:10] De'Vannon: And that's the fun part. Uh, I just have to say before you get started to home, I gate children out there as, as a mother Ru as mother Ru, uh, Paul would tell us, baby reading is fundamental [00:27:23] Marcia: and I love her. All right. Now, do not defile yourselves by any of these things for all of these nations. I am casting out before you defile themselves.[00:27:38] Another words I cast out the Canaanites because they were doing this stuff to make room for you. So the, the Canaanites were vomited out of their land. Okay. The land became to file so that I punished it's inequity and the land vomited out its [00:28:00] inhabitants, but you shall keep my statutes and my ordinances.[00:28:04] And do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you for all of these abominations, the men of the land did, who were before you, so that the land became defiled less, the land vomit you out when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you for whoever shall do any of these abominations, that person shall be cut off from among them.[00:28:37] So keep my charge, never to practice any of these abominable customs, which were practiced before you and never to defile yourselves by them. I am the Lord, your God.[00:28:54] okay. And what happened? Israel get vomited out [00:29:00] because it did not stay true to worshiping Yahweh and it defiled the land and they got taken away to Babylon. Right. [00:29:14] De'Vannon: Right. [00:29:16] Marcia: Okay. So, uh, And this language, mind you is you shall so it's mandatory. This is not some suggestion that God is making. This is what you are going to do.[00:29:30] If you're going to have this land and be blessed with milk and honey, then this is what you're going to do. Um,[00:29:44] so Canaan has been vomited out to make room for the Israelites, uh, in the, uh, passage in chapter 18. It references Malec the God that [00:30:00] the Canaanites apparently were conducting child sacrifice. Um, there's no male to male conduct or having sex with animals. This all goes back to being, um, you know, creating progeny for the power of Israel.[00:30:18] Uh, so it's not quite as simple as just, uh, you know, there's no gay sex because at the time they didn't even understand what that would mean. Like we do. Now, this was just about copying the Canaanites in some of their sexual practices. You look like, you want to say something [00:30:41] De'Vannon: well, I'm listening to you in a month just thinking and chewing on the information and processing.[00:30:46] Um, you're right. Because, um, it was a lot of, it was about procreation and stuff like that. And I'm, I'm reminded of the, um, Th there's a, there's an instance that [00:31:00] happened when like a man was having sex with a woman and he did not want to come inside of her. And so God killed him.[00:31:09] Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I thought that that was a beautiful, if DACA would use such, it could use such a word to describe it beautifully relates. So we're talking about because the, of what happened own and went in to have sex with this one. Oh, that's what it was. [00:31:27] Marcia: It was levered at marriage. He had to marry his, his brother's wife because he died.[00:31:32] And Leveritt marriage means that, uh, the brother who conceives a child with the widow, that child belongs to the brother. [00:31:44] De'Vannon: Right. And he did not want to honor his brother. They clearly had a misunderstanding of enlightenment, something like that. And if he, so the man was treacherous and instead of telling the woman, he didn't want to fool with her in any way, he wanted to use her for her body and have the sex would not raise [00:32:00] the child.[00:32:00] I have a child. And so the Lord saw that in the Bible. It does say that his semen spilled on the ground right now. They use this scripture in the Pentecostal church to tell us not to masturbate. And they were like, when you see the seam semen, we had spilled on the ground. So therefore when you masturbate, it goes on the ground, which it doesn't necessarily have to honey.[00:32:22] There's all kinds of things you can do with that good baby gravy. And, um, and you, so, and that was an example of them taking it out of context and using it to manipulate us because they felt like masturbation was devil, but it's also, um, A great way to illustrate how Siri is. God was about the raising of children.[00:32:42] You know, if a man has sex with a woman and he, and he comes inside of a condom, it's stealing go inside of her anyway. So, so that's a foolish thing in terms of, Hey, you shouldn't masturbate because of this one scripture. Um, but [00:32:56] Marcia: I wanted you to, did they also teach that using a [00:33:00] condom was, um, sinful, not [00:33:02] De'Vannon: in the Pentecostal church.[00:33:03] They don't go that far with it. They pick and choose,[00:33:10] but strictly, strictly speaking, but if you're going to go by the Levitical code, then yeah. Contraceptives are totally not of God. Right? Period, Blaine. He's not interested in contraceptives. He wants, if you've got to have sex, then have children. Otherwise what's the point. According to this Levitical code.[00:33:29] But straight people are not a mess. Straight people, conservative people are not interested in hearing that because they don't, they want to, you know, you know, get their tubes tied and gave them a second gummies and whatever they can, so they can have as much sex as they possibly can without having to be bothered with too many children.[00:33:45] And this is totally acceptable in conservative circle that I don't have an opinion about it one way or the other, because I'm going to adopt one day and it's not my business, what the fuck to other people want to do. They can find themselves in the Bible. But for [00:34:00] those who, um, who have a problem with so many things that people want to do, honey, you you've already been written about.[00:34:09] Marcia: I heard a story of, uh, a fellow who had a bird that he named Onan because he would spill his seed onto the boat.[00:34:21] So I thought I'd just throw that in there. So a little bit little humor there. Um, [00:34:29] De'Vannon: I'll never look at the birds that feed on my bird theater in the backyard, the same when the seeds fall out of there in the ground. [00:34:39] Marcia: So let's, uh, I said something about gay sex and then, you know, the word homosexuality, uh, that's a relatively modern term coined in, I think, 1869.[00:34:53] Um, it's not a term that's been around very long, certainly not nearly as long as when these passages were written, [00:35:00] uh, the concept of sexual orientation that we have today would not have been something that made sense to folks back then. And so let's talk about, uh, anachronism when you take a term. Um, and you put it, you use it in a context that would be inappropriate.[00:35:20] So do you use the term homosexual with the understanding that we have of what that is today and sexual orientation to, to, uh, translate, to interpret Leviticus using these terms would be to engage in using an anachronism. In other words, something that doesn't belong there because the context is wrong, the context is completely off.[00:35:52] So one of the examples I used in the, in the other blog that we talked about with Paul was if you were watching Ben Hur, which [00:36:00] is a movie that has Jesus in it, uh, Ben her's played by Charlton Heston and he's a charioteer and he is in races in the Coliseum. And if so, if there was a car. You know, uh, 20, 21 Corvette in this race, uh, that would be an anachronism.[00:36:21] And likewise, a chariot in a modern day grand Prix would be an anachronism. So it had to be very, very careful about, uh, either blatantly or surreptitiously, secretly trying to, uh, build meaning into a text that is out of time with it. And that's another thing that has gone on very much so, because we are now post enlightenment, we have the social sciences, we study human sexuality, we study, [00:37:00] uh, all sorts of things about being human.[00:37:03] And we know so much more about, um, sexuality and, and sexual health and all. In 1973, the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental health or mental health removed the word homosexuality as a disorder, 1973, it was the DSM three, which was the current one at the time. We're now up to five. So a modern psychiatry and psychology does not view homosexuality as a mental disorder.[00:37:42] And yet we still see, uh, the refusal to incorporate our modern context of the social sciences in our understanding about human sexuality. And we're still trying to cram them into the Bible, a document that was written [00:38:00] 20 1800 new Testament. What about 1900 years ago? And the old Testament much longer. So this is a problem because what it does is it, it gives a false justification to those who are trying to demean and criticize and exclude LGBT people.[00:38:26] Um, by, uh, reading current phrasiology into super old texts and it is, uh, the consequences can be fatal doing stuff like this. [00:38:42] De'Vannon: Right. And, um, it's being a mental health. I just want to say globally speaking, there's like a lot of mental health problems and you know, some are diagnosed, some are diagnosable and then some are not so a parent.[00:39:00] [00:39:00] And so these people conservative people, otherwise generally hateful folks who are using these scriptures to try to dominate and manipulate other people in their head. They may not necessarily think that they are doing that. It depends on their level of awareness. Um, like when, when I was, when I was getting my hypnotherapy certification, I learned a great, quite a great deal about like the subconscious, which is like, I think it was 88% of the brain and the 12% is conscious.[00:39:31] And then, which means that you're in a working belief system and values things that you don't even think about are running on autopilot. And that's driving the majority of what you do from one day to the next, you know, unless you reach higher levels of consciousness and enlightenment. And so some of these people were setting up here in these churches, telling everybody what all they're going to go to hell for.[00:39:52] And, you know, you gotta get out, you can't stay here. May not even be consciously aware that they're operating from [00:40:00] a space of what we're talking about here, using it at an acronystic approach, prejudice and hateful. They may not even, it. Think of that, you know? And so this is why we cannot trust other people, you know, everything that just calls out of somebody's mouth.[00:40:18] You know, we got to go and look at it for our self because, you know, we don't really know what's truly motivating people and they don't either. [00:40:26] Marcia: Right. Um, it, it reminds me of, you know, how does a fish know it's in water? We are all, especially if we're raised in the church, I'm going to talk about this. Um, we are taught of theology as we are growing up, our parents or grandparents or elders, um, are teachers and pastors, all of that teach us our theology.[00:40:56] Um, there are some couple of professors, stone and [00:41:00] duke. Who've written a wonderful book called how to think theologically. And I'll give this to you in the show notes to Bannon. Um, talk about how we don't even realize that this theological paradigm is being embedded in us. It just becomes a part of us like in water and a fish can't live out of water.[00:41:26] So then if we come up against something that challenges this paradigm, it, it can create a psychic and spiritual crisis in us because it challenges the way, the entire way that we have never navigated the world and our life experience. And it can be very, very disorienting. This happened to me when I was, you know, I was a church kid.[00:41:55] I think I've mentioned that in the previous episode, I was all over church. [00:42:00] Uh, and then when I started to figure out what was going on and coming out to myself, I had a terrible blow up with God about, you know, why did you make me this way and why w what's happening? And, you know, I don't want to have to choose, and I know that I can't change and blah, blah, blah.[00:42:19] Um, okay. I went through a paradigm shift. I had to figure out a way to navigate having my relationship with God and, uh, being my true self created in the image of God. I am a daughter of God, God, that flew in the face of what I was taught growing up. And so, uh, this deconstruction is becoming the word that people are using.[00:42:50] Ex evangelicals are going through what is called a deconstruction of their faith because they to get challenged by these various. [00:43:00] Paradigms. They were taught about, you know, being anti-gay and being sexist and, uh, you know, pay, uh, following the patriarchy and the purity code and all the stuff that people are challenging now.[00:43:12] Uh it's because we are challenging that embedded theology that we were initially raised with. And just because we were taught by our elders doesn't mean it's necessarily good theology. Very often. It isn't, this is a problem. It was a big, big problem. The people who are deep deconstructing don't just walk away.[00:43:33] They want to take it apart and figure it out because they want to hold onto their faith. Um, and so I highly recommend that people who are interested in learning more about, uh, dealing with our embedded theological paradigm, uh, it should take a look at this book. It's an easy, skinny, little. Um, and I think it's, uh, I read it in seminary, but I think lay people, uh, will [00:44:00] benefit greatly from, uh, reading this book to help them with their deconstruction.[00:44:05] De'Vannon: Yeah. You can send me all of that information. I'll put it in the show notes earlier. Evangelical. Yes. What is an ex van Joel? Well, [00:44:16] Marcia: this is a movement now of people who have become fed up with the archaic teachings of the evangelical movement. Again, they focus on patriarchy, sexism, purity, culture, being anti LGBT, um, you know, anti women's, ordination, anti everything you can think of, uh, and people are, and people have been scripted.[00:44:44] There's a lot of folks out there who. Deal with a lot of spiritual, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse through their pastors, their church leaders who with a congregational model and no, um, you know, higher authority, [00:45:00] uh, have a lot of leeway in terms of what they do to their congregants. Um, and this is how we, you know, hear about these stories of various kinds of abuse.[00:45:12] So, and I belong to a Facebook group by the way of people who have left their spirit, you know, they're abusing congregation and they're trying to navigate the world, uh, and, you know, reset their paradigm and figure out how to hold onto their faith, but get away from the, the caustic nature of the toxic nature of an abusive pastoral relationship.[00:45:37] Uh, so there's a whole movement out there of people who no longer consider themselves evangelical. Uh, so they're calling themselves ex evangelicals and I noticed for a lot of the women it's because they're trying to get away from this horrible purity culture stuff. [00:45:56] De'Vannon: So you see people as okay to be pulled out of the matrix, like when you're, [00:46:00] uh, as you're, as you're describing that, I'm just seeing Kiana Reeves as a Neo in the matrix, actually waking up from the bullshit.[00:46:09] And, um, and I think it's important. People know that it, that it, that you would not be the only one to break ranks with whatever it is that you have thought you believed in. And what marsh is saying, it's not. But, you know, it takes a lot of bravery and boldness encouraged it to be like, all right, I believe this for this many years while I've never really thought about why I believe this.[00:46:33] Okay. So let me begin to dissect this because I'm no longer going to take it at face value. As I dissect it. I'm not finding that I'm liking what I'm seeing. So I'm going to find a way to still follow the Lord would do so without being hateful towards other people. And, um, and it reminds me of when I went to, when I left, you know, like the Pentecostal churches and, you know, got more into more non-denominational [00:47:00] realism and stuff like that, I would find people who would say something like they're recovering Baptists, you know, or they're recovering, uh, Methodists, or in my case, a recovering Pentecostal, you know, because you have been abused, you know, by those denominations and stuff like that and his mind, fuck you.[00:47:19] And so now you've got to get yourself in a situation where you can hear it. You know, over time and stuff like that. And so I'm very happy to hear. I've never heard the term ex evangelical. I think that it is, I think is, I think is real humble of an individual when they're willing to take a second, look at something and understand that they can do that without abandoning God or compromising their beliefs.[00:47:42] They just simply saying that they're human and they could have gotten anything wrong. [00:47:46] Marcia: Exactly. There's um, what happens very often too, when somebody's, uh, channel search challenging and asking questions, asking questions, uh, they encounter a lot [00:48:00] of resistance within the church structure because they don't want questions and they don't want anybody questioning their authority.[00:48:07] And then sometimes, uh, an individual will walk away and then the pastor will, uh, instruct the remaining congregants to have no contact with this person. So even though you may have good friendships and, you know, whatnot, uh, the pastor teaches the congregation to shun this person for daring to leave and challenge, you know, whatever it is that has been going on, which is another indication that there's been some pretty serious spiritual or psychological abuse, if nothing else.[00:48:42] Um, and so a lot of times when people are say they're evangelicals, they've lost their church community, they've been booted out. And that indeed does, like you said, take that takes tremendous courage. And then you're being disparaged [00:49:00] by the pastor to the congregation. He's a backslider, you know, she's, um, you know, she's a slot.[00:49:08] She doesn't want to, you know, go by the purity code, blah, blah, blah. So there's all this. Stuff that goes on in addition, uh, is a tremendous amount of loss for people that are deconstructing like this. And it's a, it's a very scary place. But I would say to people who maybe are considering, you know, uh, is this church structure working for me?[00:49:37] Um, it's a, this is a St. John of the cross called this the dark night of the soul. This can be a pretty dark night of the soul going through this, but I believe that any time you try, you are being true to God and asking questions out of a place of humility and wanting to grow closer to God that you'll come out [00:50:00] on the other side, it's going to be okay.[00:50:03] But I'm, I also think that it's important, uh, to, to build a new community. Don't try to do this by yourself. Find others. And you can do that on Facebook and other social media. There's lots of people who are going through this, like you said. [00:50:22] De'Vannon: Right. And, um, yeah, community is a real, it's really the whole, I don't know, that's at least half of the reason why we even bother to go to churches anyway, like in, but you know, during the time that I went to churches, I didn't look at it like that, but there's so much community because you know, we're not designed to be alone and we're gonna seek out community in some type of way.[00:50:47] And when I got kicked out of church, you know, as you were saying that I was reminded of the fact that nobody ever did call me, you know, people I had worked alongside for two, three years, Nights, you know, several days and nights a [00:51:00] week, you know, suddenly I disappeared and nobody called me at all. And so I don't know, maybe they told them I was a heritage, you know, and whatever the case may be, which I don't know.[00:51:11] I think that would be kind of cool. If I was labeled as a heritage, that's a cool name. [00:51:17] Marcia: I would lay money that they were told not to be in touch with you. I I'd put a bet on that. [00:51:23] De'Vannon: And so, and then when you were talking about dark night of the soul, I was, I was gonna mention that earlier, because what you were describing when you were questioning your, it sounded like your sexuality or who you were before the Lord, to me, that sounded like your dark night of the soul as you were going through it.[00:51:40] And I went through something like that too. When I was at a Pentecostal church in Riverside, California, you know, this church was telling you. Yeah, of course not to masturbate because that was having sex with demons, you know, and this, and this, this, this, this, this church here was the sort of church that would like tell people to speak in tongues, you know, lay hands on them.[00:51:59] And [00:52:00] then that's how they would get the holy ghost, you know, uh, receive the holy spirit is people say, um, you know, so they had a lot of liberties, I shall say, uh, as they read through the Bible, it's just, there was a shift that they would just feel like they could do. And they expected us to just believe because they said so, um, during this time I dated girls, I had sex with women to see if I could make myself not be gay, bisexual, or whatever.[00:52:30] Uh, I no longer care to refer to myself by any title. I don't want to, I don't want to be gay, bisexual, whatever. I just, I just, I just, I am that I am. You know, and so I am that I am. And so, but, but I did, I was like, I argued or, you know, I went to an argue with the Lord, but I struggled with it. I was like, okay, why am I this way?[00:52:52] Please take this from me. You know, I hate it myself. And it was because of what other people said, and not because of a [00:53:00] conclusion on drew, not because of bad experiences that I had in the process of being who I am. It was strictly 100% because of the words that came out of other people's miles. And then, um, but I wasn't thinking like that at the time I was impressionable.[00:53:17] I trusted that these people knew more than me because they were onstage. It had pedigrees and titles, which I know all now know. I now know none of that matters. And, um, And I, and you know, you know, a girl, you know, a girl got hurt in the process, you know, cause I couldn't continue the relationship, you know, I wasn't straight.[00:53:39] So you know, the better to date somebody for a few months, then within the, marry them for 20 years and have children and then he'd be like, Hey, you know, I'm not, I'm still not straight. So we just, which does happen. Yeah. [00:53:54] Marcia: So pressure of nothing but pre peer pressure. I [00:54:00] I'd like to just throw a couple of things out there.[00:54:02] Um, don't be afraid of biblical scholarship people. Uh, there, there is a, uh, an undercurrent that if you go to seminary and you, you know, study the Bible outside of the text itself, that you will lose your faith or that, you know, it's going to corrupt your belief or any of that. And I have found that to be the complete opposite.[00:54:26] The more information that I have from scholars who devote their lives to better understanding the Bible and the history behind it, the deeper my faith gets. And I, I think that there's a fear that if you try to really crack the scriptures open, that it will ruin it for you. And I don't think that's the case read one of these blogs, blogs on the clobber passages and feet.[00:54:57] See if you feel [00:55:00] like my cracking them open for context and history has made them less accessible or less approachable because I think it's the opposite. And that was my experience in seminary. And the other thing to remember is the entire Bible is devoted to the liberation of God's people. The old Testament and the new Testament and time after time, God gets pretty provoked with the Israelites and is, you know, ready to really kick their butts.[00:55:37] And somebody talks God out of it because the ultimate message of the Bible is liberation, love, inclusion, support, community, all of those things. That's what the Bible is about. And when people [00:56:00] are teaching you to use the Bible to hate people, there is something wrong going on.[00:56:12] De'Vannon: Well, I feel like that pretty much sums up what the whole conversation was about.[00:56:21] Marcia: You know, hang in there, pray, listen to what God is saying to you. And don't let too often now you can't see me, but I'm pointing up. Uh, too often, we let just what you said, you're he had bad experiences because of what people said to you. And too often, we let these horizontal relationships with other people dictate what our relation is.[00:56:47] Relationship is with our creator and nobody should become coming between us and our creator. That relationship is special. We are created in the image of our maker. [00:57:00] And so stop letting others dictate to you what your relationship with God should be.[00:57:09] De'Vannon: Amen on a Tuesday morning, there isn't anything. There isn't anything else that I am going to say to you as much, try to follow that. So you'll, so this was our second conversation and we're going to have a tougher interview to close out this series and the title in, and then we're going to be talking about, oh, Sodom and Gomorrah and, and, and we've got a really good collaborate with the bin and, uh, and, and, uh, and, and, and a little in a little bit salty pun intended, relating a lot to life [00:57:42] Marcia: quite.[00:57:47] We're going to include Gibeah to judge judges 19. That's a nasty passage. [00:57:53] Yep. We're going to talk about it all. It's so, and so, um, and [00:58:00] so again, uh, I'll listen to show notes, your social media. Your website, uh, you know, and everything like that. And, um, and then we'll be considering continuing the conversation next time.[00:58:13] De'Vannon: It's so we will, we won't really consider the matter fully closed, tell them like they, like they used to do in the ER or do in the Southern churches when they have a revival live. It's like a five day revival. They don't, they don't actually do the benediction or the closing prayer until the fifth night.[00:58:32] So, so we won't do the, we won't actually close this until the end of the next conversation. All [00:58:38] Marcia: right. That sounds great. Well, blessings on you today and whatever you're going to be up to after we're done. It's just been a pleasure. [00:58:48] De'Vannon: Thank you for coming on on this show.[00:58:51] Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to [00:59:00] the sex drugs and Jesus podcast. It really means everything to me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at sex, drugs, and jesus.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. Feel free to reach out to me directly DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.[00:59:20] My name is De'Vannon and it's been wonderful being your host today and just remember that everything is going to be all right.   

This week's T.A.W.K. with the Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, Social Justice Attorney and Ordained Minister on the social responsibilities of NON-BIPOC (white folks) and anyone outside of Black, Indigenous People of Color to stand with BIPOC in the fight to eradicate social injustice. ✊

INTRODUCTION:The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. An Episcopal priest, she earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from Pacific School of Religion. Dr. Ledford founded Political Theology Matters, LLC, to help the faithful develop public theology mission for greater social justice. She writes, speaks, teaches, and preaches about how to do political theology, all while being protected by the First Amendment. This episode marks the first of a series of three which will focus on the bible and the LGBTQIA+ Community or as I like to call us – the Alphabet Mafia! Dr. Ledford has written a phenomenal blog on here website PoliticalTheologyMatters.com and today we focus on the entry entitled PAUL MISUNDERSTOOD HOMOSEXUALITY AND HERE'S WHY. I really hope this helps someone… INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):·       Discussion Of The “Clobber” Passages Used To Bash The LGBTQIA+ Community·       The Resources Found At PoliticalTheologyMatters.com·       Social Justice·       The Feminine Side Of God·       Seminary School Foolery·       Progressive Christians Defined·       The Division Of American Christianity ·       What Is An Evangelical?·       Why The Apostle Paul MISUNDERSTOOD Homosexuality!!!·       Thoughts On The Billionaire Space Race·       Anachronisms And The Original Language Of The Bible CONNECT WITH MARCIA:Website: https://www.politicaltheologymatters.comFaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/politicaltheologymattersLinkedIn: https://linkedin/marcialedfordTwitter: https://twitter.com/docledfordInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/docledford/ SDJ MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS (FULL EPISODES):·       $2.99 per month.·       Donate any amount for 30 days of full access.·       $25 per year.https://www.sexdrugsandjesus.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ TRANSCRIPT:[00:00:00] You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to. And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right. At the end of the day, my name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world. As we dig into topics that are too risky for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your.[00:00:24] There was nothing on the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.[00:00:32] [00:00:32] De'Vannon: The Reverend doctor led for it is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized and a Piskel priest. She earned her doctor of ministry and political theology from Pacific school of religion. Dr. Ledford found it political theology matters. To help the faithful develop public theology mission for greater social justice.[00:00:54] She writes, speaks, teaches, and preaches about how to do political theology [00:01:00] all while being protected by the first amendment. This episode marks the first of a series of three, which will focus on the Bible in the LGBTQ plus community. Or as I like to call us the alphabet mafia. Dr. Ledford has written a phenomenal blog on our website, political theology matters.com.[00:01:19] And today we focus on the injury entitled Paul misunderstood homosexuality. And here's why I really hope this helps someone.[00:01:31] Thank you so much, Marcia, for joining us today on the sex drugs and Jesus of podcast, and this is going to be a power hour and I'm so glad to have you here. [00:01:43] Marcia: Well, thank you, Devon. And it is absolutely a pleasure. And thank you for the invitation. [00:01:49] De'Vannon: Absolutely. Um, you're a very well studied woman.[00:01:53] You're very passionate woman. You're very consistent woman. And your work [00:02:00] speaks to the heart of a lot of what I'm trying to do, which is to get LGBTQ people, to be comfortable with themselves spiritually speaking, into accept themselves as a whole, to understand what the Lord really says about them and to fight politically if they have an inclination for that as well.[00:02:20] And so I feel like you've have it all. And so tell us about that. Politically political theology matters.com, which seems to be your baby and, um, how that came to be and your passion there. [00:02:40] Marcia: Sure. So if we roll the tape back a few decades, uh, when I was in my teens, I sensed a call to ordained ministry, but I wasn't seeing a whole lot of women or, uh, at the pulpit pulpit or the altar.[00:02:57] Uh, and then I came out and then [00:03:00] I was really sure there was not going to be a place for me is, uh, ordained clergy. So I decided to go into law because I thought that would be a way to help people. And I became a civil rights attorney and I did that for many years and I'm very glad I did because the experience, the learning and all of that is.[00:03:23] Invaluable. I've been able to help a lot of people and be a part of some really important cases along the way, especially where LGBTQ suffrage is concerned. Um, but that call of the holy spirit would not leave me alone basically. So in my late forties, I finally said to the holy spirit, okay, I'm going to do this, but you have to help me.[00:03:50] And she did. So, uh, I went to seminary and then I had, uh, a ministry in [00:04:00] Southwest Detroit where our Latino population is. And I became absolutely appalled to van. And at what I saw our government doing to families to little children, being separated from their parents who are deported. Um, I, uh, seldom am I'm at a loss for words, but this really struck me at a very deep place.[00:04:22] And I think it's partly because I know what it's like to be a second class citizen in this country as a lesbian. And, uh, for example, in 2014, Linden, I finally got married legally after being together for 32 years. So, um, I decided to study political theology and I, uh, once again, went back to school and got a, uh, doctor of ministry and political theology, and I started political theology matters as a [00:05:00] base for me to write, speak, teach, preach, whatever consult, uh, about how we can become more active as faith based voices in the public square for greater social justice.[00:05:15] So that's how it came to be. And you can learn a lot more about political theology matters at the website [00:05:23] De'Vannon: right now. I heard you refer to the holy spirit or that's as I call them the holy ghost. Um, as she, now I've only heard that I think. When I was at a unity church, uh, here in Baton Rouge. And, um, I think it's the coolest thing in the world, uh, because God does embody both the masculine and the feminine, but a lot of people don't look at him that way.[00:05:49] So can you tell me more about why you choose to refer to the holy ghost as she, I assume you refer to God and as she as well, I [00:05:59] Marcia: [00:06:00] usually take, um, a more neutral approach to the Trinity. Um, for me personally, the holy spirit is female, uh, because she's nurturing and she looks after us and takes care of us.[00:06:14] All of which are some of our very finest maternal instincts. That's not to say that a lot of men don't have that, but, uh, that's how I look at it. And the Hebrew word for spirit is Rudolph, which is a feminine word. And wisdom is said to have been with God, the creator at the beginning, which also has a feminine, um, uh, name, uh, whole coma.[00:06:42] And, uh, in Greek it's Sophia, which is also a feminine. So for me, that aspect, uh, has a very feminine sense to it. I think of God as more, um, all encompassing and sort of gender less. [00:07:00] And of course, you know, Jesus has been referred to as Jesus, Sophia there's even a book called Jesus Sophia. Uh, because I think that he has, uh, very much got male and female aspects to him.[00:07:18] He w he walked the earth as a man. Um, but he was, uh, not conceived in the normal way. And we don't know what kind of chromosomes were involved in his concession. [00:07:30] De'Vannon: Fair. Yeah. Thank you so much for that break down. And I love how you worked in those Hebrew words there. See everybody I told y'all she was smart[00:07:44] now. Um, Marsha, tell us, um, what exactly is political theology? [00:07:51] Marcia: All right. That's a, that's a wonderful question. Um, so it's pretty simple, really. And I use a, [00:08:00] um, a three prong test, and this is a little bit of a joke for any listeners out there who are lawyers. Um, we learn how to apply the law often by, by applying tests that have prongs or, uh, sections.[00:08:17] So lawyers love prongs. So whenever you hear somebody, um, explaining something legally, uh, and they're using prongs you'll know that's where it comes in. Uh, so the first prong is speaking a faith based message. So something that has to do with our teaching, and I'm not talking just about Christianity, of course, we're talking about any faith tradition because they're all protected under the first amendment.[00:08:48] We, yes, we live in a country founded by a Judeo-Christian, um, uh, mindset. There's no question about that. Um, and we could even say that [00:09:00] America has been an evangelical or Protestant theocracy for, uh it's since its inception. Um, I don't think that's falling far too far from the mark. Um, but speaking of faith based message is the first prom.[00:09:19] So here's an example. Jesus said, feed my sheep. Now was he just talking about, you know, giving somebody a fish for the day? I don't think so. I think he was talking about take care of each other, take care of my flock and all of us at times can help somebody and all of us at times need help from somebody else.[00:09:43] So I think that's what Jesus is talking about. And this is a very powerful message that we can incorporate into our advocacy for greater social justice. So speaking some sort of a faith, uh, [00:10:00] concept to, uh, justify our reasons for our advocacy is the first thing. The second thing is in public. So it could be it city hall or the halls of Congress.[00:10:13] It could be in a public park, it could be on a podcast. It could be, you know, many, many various places, unless there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. So, um, we take those two things, faith based message and, uh, some public airing of that message. And the third prong is, um, sort of subordinate, um, to as broad an audience as possible.[00:10:46] I mean, we ideally, we want to reach a lot of people, but we can't always do that. And that's okay. And sometimes we reach audiences, but that are very, very similar. But they are very, very interested in our, our topic [00:11:00] and our message, which in many ways is better than, you know, a scatter gun approach. So faith-based message in the public square to as broad an audience as possible are the three elements of political theology and theology is the study of God.[00:11:18] So it doesn't necessarily mean just Christian or just Jewish or, you know, just Islam. It's, uh, any study of the divine power. [00:11:29] De'Vannon: Yeah. Hallelu. I, uh, attended seminary in Houston for a couple of years and I was at the time, this was before I got kicked out of church for being LGBT. I was like all going to become like, um, a worship leader, probably with a master's in divinity.[00:11:49] And I was going through the whole theology thing and, um, I wish I had had a better school. You know, I had to leave this particular school because they were, they were throwing [00:12:00] shade at the, uh, at the church that, uh, at the time I attended, uh, Lakewood church in Houston, Texas. And, uh, and they were very, I think, jealous of Joel O'Steen and everything.[00:12:10] And, and so they were talking shit about him, you know, my professor at the theology school. And then also I left the ology school because they were telling us how they like to control people and just very blatant and bold and out there with it. And just one day in class, he just said it as an afterthought.[00:12:31] And I think he came from like a Baptist background and he was like, yeah, we, we, we, we like to control the congregation. And I just kind of was like, wait, what? And I was like the only person in class who seemed to have a problem with this. Everyone else is like nodding their heads. And agreed. And I'm all like, this is not the golden compass or any other, you know, like movie that reminded me of that was made about church domination of the minds of people.[00:12:56] And so I left, never looked back then I [00:13:00] got thrown out of Lakewood anyway. And so, um, I'm glad you had a better experience in theology and then you were able to go on and finish your, [00:13:09] Marcia: uh, and you know, you, you and I can talk about this, uh, as a sidebar. Uh, but, um, yeah, I was very careful in where I decided to go to seminary.[00:13:21] I started at a seminary in Detroit, uh, that was ecumenical. It w I'm in a Piskel priest. So that's, um, the Episcopal church in the United States. And it is part of the, um, the Anglican communion, which was. Started in England, the church of England. Uh, so I was, the Episcopal church is very progressive where LGBT people are concerned.[00:13:47] And of course we ordain LGBT people. Uh, we passed a specific resolution about ordaining, transgender persons in 2012. So we have been at the cutting edge for a [00:14:00] long, long time. So I was very selective because the first school I was at, there was some homophobia. Uh, and I just decided to finish, uh, at an Episcopal school and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made for myself.[00:14:15] So we could talk more about that, but, uh, there are places for you to finish your master of divinity. Absolutely. And they will be pleased have you there, and we'll see your gifts and abilities. [00:14:28] De'Vannon: Wow. That sounds like a dream. [00:14:30] Marcia: Yeah. And it's a reality. It can be reality. So we'll talk. [00:14:35] De'Vannon: Yeah. So thank you so much for that.[00:14:37] Um, tell us what a progressive Christian is as opposed to a non progressive [00:14:44] Marcia: Christian. Well, it's, uh, you know, that's, uh, it's a phrase that has Devon and a very fluid definition because not all ASP aspects of it apply to all persons, [00:15:00] but. Uh, to my mind. And I'm pretty open about how I'm defining a progressive Christian, but this is somebody who believes that women can and should be ordained according to their gifts of the spirit.[00:15:16] Again, LGBT people can be ordained according to their gifts and abilities of the spirit and LGBT people should be able to marry with the blessing from the church, which the Episcopal church currently has as a blessing for a marriage ceremony for same-sex couples. Um, and so there's that, uh, the Episcopal church teaches that to every abortion.[00:15:47] There is a tragic dimension, but the church is unequivocally in support of women being able to receive safe medical, uh, reproductive healthcare. [00:16:00] Um, the Episcopal church has deemed racism to be a sin that we must account for, and that we, uh, we want to undertake that which needs to happen in order for us to create a society with a level playing field.[00:16:20] Uh, let's see, creation care is also very important and, uh, eradicating poverty and violence and, uh, trafficking. So progressive people typically, uh, agree with all or most of these various tenants. Uh, but typically they're, uh, they're open-minded and inclusive and accepting. [00:16:46] De'Vannon: Well, I'm a progressive believer is how I would describe myself.[00:16:53] Um, I have chosen to abandon the word Christian because of what I had. [00:17:00] Uh, the concept of Christianity has become, especially here in America, is people crawl all over themselves, especially are, uh, as they say on the hill, our colleagues on the other, on the other side of the aisle, um, um, uh, you know, trying to tell everybody else, you know, how to live their life in what not.[00:17:23] So the division of American Christianity is why I don't want to be called a Christian. I choose to just be called a believer like they did back in the day, right before Antioch. So how, how, in your opinion, Marsha did American Christianity become so divided in the first place? [00:17:42] Marcia: I think it's always been divided.[00:17:44] I think we're just seeing the cracks in a system that we have consistently spackled over across the centuries. Uh, there's always been to America. There's been free white men initially, [00:18:00] uh, and black slaves. Um, the church was separate by color. Uh, the black church grew out of slavery. Um, and now we are seeing these, these divisions coming to the fore at a time when, uh, African-Americans are now, um, millionaires and able to, uh, um, bequeath lots of money and they're gaining power and it's, uh, making, uh, some white folks really, really nervous.[00:18:43] And they typically are people who are in power and don't want to let white privilege and indeed white supremacy slipped through their fingers. And that's why Trump was so attractive to so many white evangelicals because [00:19:00] they see what's happening. And as America, as a people of color in America become more educated and more powerful and more, uh, equipped to fully participate in all aspects of society makes a lot of folks nervous and they view him, uh, as sort of the last bastion, the last great stand to hold onto white supremacy.[00:19:30] And so that's always been in the church. It's always been in the church and in the south during slavery, white preachers would, you know, call up a fusions and say, slaves, obey your masters. And, you know, that's pretty much all that was preached by white preachers to black folk. Hmm. Now black vote, please preach in black folk, talked about Moses and the Exodus and God providing liberation and salvation.[00:19:59] So [00:20:00] it was a very, very, um, different ethos that was going on in the country and its inner, I hate to say this, but uh, this, uh, sense of entitlement of white people to exploit black people is in our social DNA. And that's why we see something like George Floyd happen or Brianna Taylor or because there's fear and there's a distrust and it's been in us as a society for a long time.[00:20:46] So do I think the church is divided? Yeah. Do I think this is a new problem? Absolutely not. It's been with us since well, before we had slaves in this country for 156 years before the [00:21:00] declaration of independence. So there was never a time at the beginning of this country where we didn't have slavery. [00:21:09] De'Vannon: And so, oh, go ahead.[00:21:12] No, you go ahead. Nope. We're here to hear you. [00:21:17] Marcia: I, I mean to, for people to sound surprised, um, and for, for people to, uh, fail, to understand that, uh, we have an appetite for lynching and we have an appetite for, um, taking justice into our own hands. I'm talking about white folks, uh, when we don't like what's going on.[00:21:41] And that's what we saw in January.[00:21:46] De'Vannon: And fell. It sounds like including [00:21:47] Marcia: a news, including [00:21:48] De'Vannon: a news. I remember the news too. It sounds like, um, the whole taking the power in their hands. It sounds like that the whole Karen [00:22:00] movement, you know, she came out swinging and she still comes out swinging whatever she wants to take control. But I heard in your explanation was a lot of the problems that the Christian Church has had from back then.[00:22:12] And now as the interpretation of scripture, and we're going to get into a lot of that here in just a minute, it's all on how we look at things. So the white people wanted to focus on Ephesians slaves, obey your masters, not considering the context of it, you know, cause you know, the, the Bible is, uh, is from the middle east.[00:22:31] You know, the, it was, it wasn't taken out of context is what they were doing. Right. The black people are going well, no, let, let my people go Pharaoh, you know, all the slave master pharaohs. So it was all about how you look at things now, explain to people exactly what an evangelical is, what would they're supposed to be versus, and then what they became for Donald Trump, [00:23:00] because then you hear that all over the media all the time.[00:23:03] Evangelical evangelical is what the fuck is it? [00:23:09] Marcia: Okay. So I was raised in the American Baptist tradition, which, uh, even today I would say is on the far, far more progressive end of the various flavors of Baptist denominations that there are because there's a lot. Um, and so. They're typically the, um, the highlight or the, the singular feature that distinguishes evangelicals, I think is this concept of baptism as being born again, um, uh, believers, baptism, where you need to say something like I accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior.[00:23:56] And so once you are saved, [00:24:00] you are saved, uh, forever and you are promised to turn a life. Um, that's not unlike my tradition in the Episcopal church, however, we baptize babies. So, uh, Baptist don't like that. They, you have to make a reasonable decision on your own to be baptized. Whereas in our tradition, we will baptize an infant, but they have got parents to raise them up in the tree.[00:24:27] And also when they come of age, they are confirmed. Will they make some of these, uh, well, they take the baptismal covenant. Um, but what I love about our tradition is you are born into the faith versus having to be, uh, subjected to some sort of a formula. If you will. There's also a much stronger, uh, component of, uh, uh, taking the Bible.[00:24:56] Literally. Uh, in some [00:25:00] instances we would call this fundamentalism where there's absolutely no room for interpretation. And, um, so, and, and that has been used to subordinate women wives, submit to your husbands slaves, obey your masters, all the stuff that comes in the epistle. Which is much more about salvation and rules and regulations.[00:25:27] The gospels are more about grace, compassion and forgiveness. So the, the evangelical, um, mindset is much more in the pistols than it is about the gospels. Um, and the particularly the liturgical traditions, Roman Catholicism, the Episcopal church Lutheranism, um, we, uh, orthodoxy, we are very much more about the gospels.[00:25:58] So those are some of the [00:26:00] differences. [00:26:00] De'Vannon: So when, so when you say that they are born into it, do you mean like a physical birth or a spiritual birth where you're saying they're born into your denomination? [00:26:10] Marcia: Well, when a child is born in our congregation, Uh, that child is brought to us at an age, you know, sometimes as young as a month, but, you know, as infants and they're baptized, uh, they're not making a self profession, their godparents make that on their behalf and are responsible for helping to bring them up, uh, into the church life.[00:26:35] And so the life of Christian discipleship and then the child wants a teenager is confirmed and makes his or her own affirmation of faith and is the Bishop lays hands on. And, uh, the child is, uh, that's the end of the form, the formal formation. Into the Christian life. So that's what [00:27:00] I mean. Whereas if I'm born in the Baptist church, when I was born, the, uh, pastor would put Rosebud on the pulpit for every baby born into the congregation.[00:27:10] So Rosebud was on the pulp at the first Sunday after I was born. And then I was dedicated at some point early on, uh, but there was no ritual or a sacramental aspect to that. And then when I felt old enough, when I felt ready, I went up to the front for an altar call, um, and profess that Jesus was my personal savior.[00:27:35] And then I did a baptism class and then I was baptized. [00:27:41] De'Vannon: I sometimes wonder so across so many different denominations with so many different rights rituals and passages, you know, like where did it all come from? I suppose most people would say some leader was divinely giving a message by God to do it.[00:27:57] And my compassion is for people who are [00:28:00] not Christians, or maybe don't believe in anything. When they're examining all the world, all the world's religions, Christianity, it looks like a clusterfuck and it's very confusing and everything like that. And so I'm going to be doing some work, you know, in the coming months too, on my second book that try to go in there and clear some of that out.[00:28:27] And so I love your website because it, it, I think it takes a lot of leaps and strides in that direction as well. And I think people like you and me who believe in Jesus, who are willing to say the church is fucked, but you know, there's still a way, you know, to God. We don't the, the, this fuckery in the news and everything doesn't represent everybody who calls on the Lord.[00:28:52] And, and we're going to keep saying that loud and proud and stand against the confusion that seems to have in golf, what it means to be a [00:29:00] Christian these days. [00:29:02] Marcia: Yes. Amen. My brother. And that's one of the most important parts of my message. I am very ticked off about the way that Christianity is represented in the public square, which is part of what Stokes this mission.[00:29:18] Because I am here to say, and many, many like me and you are here to say, this is not what Jesus was about. And this is not the discipleship to which we are called. We are called to repair the breach. We are called to be a healing bond. In a, in a broken world, we are not called to be mean and exclusive and destructive and controlling and abusive.[00:29:48] And so, uh, it, it really rankles me that progressive Christians are always, almost always on the reactive instead of putting our [00:30:00] own messages out there about the love and the incredible love and compassion of Jesus. So we've got a lot, it's a tall order because we're really bad at this. [00:30:12] De'Vannon: Well, we're just starting with like you and me.[00:30:16] We'll get it done. So I'm going to go ahead and switch gears right now. Typically your blog within your web fabulous blog I've ever read in my life. It's colorful that great picture. You know, it's high lit well and everything like that, but more importantly, it tackles issues that are super relevant. And we're actually going to do a three series, three separate podcast interviews talking about things, revolving around LGBT QIA people and where we stand with God and exactly how to read the scriptures that people [00:31:00] have been used using to abuse us for years.[00:31:05] Um, uh, I'm gonna read the titles of all three of them that we're only going to talk about the first, the first one is called Paul misunderstood homosexuality. And here's why I think that's a very bold title. It's important because so many people give Paul's. Damn credit. And, um, and it's important to get in there and to dismantle and break down exactly what the man was talking about.[00:31:31] And to remember that he was just a man and that he was not the Lord. And then second one is going to be Leviticus lacks and understanding of loving LGBT relationships. And the third one is going to be stopped clobbering, LGBT people with the Bible exclamation mark. And, um, so those two are going to be another episodes, but the blogs are already live at Marsha's website.[00:31:54] And all of that will be listed in the show notes. Also in [00:32:00] another caveat, before we start talking about the apostle Paul from your blog as well, just briefly, I wanted us to talk about your most recent blog post, which is called stepping over the poor to reach the moon. Since we just had this whole race to race, to space this week, I thought it was a hot damn tone, deaf a mess, but I wanted you to kinda tell us what you thought about it since this is trending, like right now as we speak.[00:32:29] Yeah. Yeah. [00:32:30] Marcia: You thought the blog was a hot mess or, yeah. [00:32:33] De'Vannon: Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry. Maybe I wasn't clear. Now. I thought Jeff Bezos and that other fool all up on television in the middle of a global pandemic, when people can't eat, racing the space and making a whole big show out of it. And the, and the bullshit way Jeff Bezos was like, Hey, thanks everyone at Amazon for pain.[00:32:54] I thought they were tone deaf. And I thought they were hot. Damn. Yeah. In Middlefield. [00:33:00] Okay. [00:33:03] Marcia: Did you read my blog? Yep. Okay. So I, uh, I didn't really know a lot about this. I've I've been, uh, started. Uh, sequestering myself to try and get my book finished. So I have not been paying a lot of attention to the news, but when I resurfaced the other day, I read all about this as you call it hot mess, and that's indeed what it is.[00:33:29] And I thought, okay, well, before I just automatically condemn, uh, the use of private resources to gain knowledge about space, let me read about it. So I get all the issues about, you know, all this money feeding the poor I'm I'm right on it with everybody. Who's so disgusted, but I did read an op-ed, uh, by Don Lincoln who works at the fair me accelerator laboratory.[00:34:00] [00:34:00] And he did talk about how this is not the first time that private interests have been involved in, uh, developing space technology. And there are some real benefits to humanity by being able to. Um, expedite learning how to launch rockets that can carry much heavier payloads, like to get a Hubble telescope into space, to monitor the health of the earth.[00:34:26] Uh, you know, that's obviously a very important key, uh, concept and, uh, private enterprise is able to, uh, develop space technology much faster than NASA because there's so much bureaucracy and all of that. So anyway, um, there are some true benefits to private enterprise developing better air aeronautical space equipment.[00:34:56] Uh, what really bothers me, [00:35:00] what th the, the gospel story, the parable that Jesus told that popped in my head was Lazarus and the rich man. Right. And I think that, uh, it's one of Jesus's most brilliant. And damning, uh, parables that he cooks up in order to teach people about inequity and, uh, a lack of compassion.[00:35:25] And so, uh, you know, here's, here's the rich man in his fine purple robes. And of course, purple dye was just very rare and sought after it was the color of royalty. Uh, it was a really big deal. It doesn't sound like a big deal to us when reread it with 21st century eyes, but to wear purple linen and have splendor every day was, you know, most people were just living on a dirt floor and just scraping by.[00:35:56] So we've got very, you know, something's [00:36:00] never changed and we've got a lot of the same sort of things going on. We have this evolved ger and equity between rich and poor across the world. And here's these two guys spending. A billion dollars to fly this thing into space. And so my take on it was, I think sometimes even though people are jerks, uh, that good things can come from what has happened with the blue origin rocket, which looks like a male member, I might say anyway.[00:36:37] Um, so, uh, it looked like wealth porn to me when that thing was taking off anyway. Uh, but I, I think we can strike a balance. I think we can hopefully prevail upon Jeff Bezos and Elon mosque and who doesn't employ [00:37:00] nearly as many people, um, that there, we have to be a good steward with what we're blessed with.[00:37:07] And that means we, it needs to be comprehensive. And the fact that Jeff Bezos has been, uh, very seriously involved in union busting and, um, treating his employees pretty badly. And then to have the temerity, the tone deafness, as you said to thank people who are, even though they work for his company are still having to have food stamps.[00:37:33] It was pretty awful, right. Um, sorry. I think we need to get away from either right or wrong or either, or I think, uh, we need to prevail upon him to get his act together. Um, and hopefully he will, hopefully at some point somebody will get to him to explain to him that if this is all you're going to do with your excess money, then this is not enough [00:38:00] here, here then.[00:38:03] Yeah. And I think that will happen. You know, the Teamsters international Teamsters has targeted them. Uh, Amazon. And I think some of the big hitting unions are gonna make this really hard to, uh, defeat a union formalization, uh, in a subsequent time like it did in Bessemer, Alabama. [00:38:22] De'Vannon: Well, his trip to space is very polarizing and my heart goes out to the people who do work for him.[00:38:31] And people look up to any kind of celebrity or person who they think has more to them and really, really hang on their every word and action. And I know the great broke the hearts of the people who, like you said, are there, who work for food stamps. And my boyfriend's one of his best friends over in Atlanta works at Amazon and he tells him the horror stories of what a hot fucking mess it is.[00:38:55] And, um, And it's less slap in the face, you know, [00:39:00] on the fly up there. He should have flown his ass up there quietly, you know, with little pomp and circumstance and just let it been about research or send someone else. But the way he did it flashing his purple robes as you, uh, yes. [00:39:15] Marcia: It's categorized Pinos, stepping over the, you know, the poor dying man that, that just makes me [00:39:24] De'Vannon: crazy.[00:39:25] Right. Or he could have just done it and just shut the fuck up about it, or just not mentioned they employed. I mean, you know, [00:39:33] Marcia: it's just, so what a gaff, what an incredible gaff, but perhaps an insensitive go ahead. [00:39:42] De'Vannon: Perhaps that's what was needed to provoke that enough action to get him to get something done.[00:39:47] Because I think that that really angered a lot of people. And like a very bitter way that they're not gonna just like get over, you know, like [00:40:00] tomorrow,[00:40:03] Marcia: but this is also very much related to, uh, what we're seeing emerge say out of the black lives movement, black lives matter movement. This is about exposing, um, you know, incredibly rich capitalists who want to keep the system in place so they can continue to exploit and do basically whatever the hell they want, no matter the farm and difficulty and suffering, it causes for other people.[00:40:36] This is all about, you know, the underclass and this transcends color, but it's about that. Um, his sense of entitlement and white supremacy to be able to treat people like this. So that he can, you know, have this vainglorious attempted, you know, becoming a new [00:41:00] son in the galaxy, uh, while other people, this is coming off the backs of other people who never signed up for this.[00:41:12] It's it's about, um, you know, who's good enough and who isn't [00:41:17] De'Vannon: well, let's see what happens over the coming nine months or so. We'll see what the fallout is. [00:41:26] Marcia: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But this is why there's been so much attention. Rightly so finally. I mean, how disgusted do we have to be? To start dealing with these inequities that live in our society, somewhat under an invisibility cloak from Harry Potter.[00:41:48] You know, they just kind of, we even in bobbin or around. Yep. Why, why does something like George Floyd's lynching [00:42:00] have to happen for us to get a clue?[00:42:06] De'Vannon: Amen. And amen sister. So now we're going to shift gears back to, uh, Mr. Paul, the apostle and how he misunderstood homosexuality. And here's why now I love this blog because you, you dig really into the mentality. You touched on this earlier, how you were saying, like, some people have more in a pistol mindset, there's more rules and regulations and seeing kind of a throwback to the old Testament in a way.[00:42:34] And then some more gospel wishing strictly Jesus. Nobody else talking to speak of, and it's more loving and things like that. And you say like, Paul has a focus on misconduct. You compare him to today's kids. Today's evangelicals. Now that that's a strong comparison. May you talk about earlier what an evangelical is?[00:42:58] And now you're [00:43:00] putting Paul in that same boat to break that down to us. The people love their, their precious Paul, the apostle, and they quote him all the time, especially to tell us the people, what we're not supposed to be doing and, and women. And, uh, so how was Paul like? Um, Jerry Falwell.[00:43:26] Marcia: I've got my issues. I've got my issues with St. Paul, but I'm not going to equate him with Jerry Falwell Jr. Yeah.[00:43:39] De'Vannon: That's all we have for the free version of the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, my beautiful people, but Hey, have your vomming on what you're hearing and want to take it to that next level. Then perhaps a subscription may be in order access to full length episodes only cost $2 and 99 cents a month. [00:44:00] Or you can do $25 for a year, or if you're down on your cash, you can literally don't.[00:44:06] Any amount for 30 days of full access, all of this information can be found at sexdrugsandjesus.com, where you'll also find my blog and lots of resources as well. Your subscription strengthens our ability to reach the world and help hurting people. And by subscribing, you would become a part of that effort.[00:44:27] Thank you so much for listening and just remember that everything is going to be all right.    

In this week's TRUTH: In 1000 Words or Less, Steven discusses religious conformity and the role of religion in social justice with the Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, Cvil Rights Attorney.   Email marcia@miptm.com Website https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com Media Resources https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/media The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's blog https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blog Harvard Implicit Bias Testing (on numerous topics) https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html Civil Discourse Training offered via The Episcopal Church    For Individuals: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/    For Groups: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/ A Spirituality of Resistance Great resource for the spirituality of resistance. Roger writes about creation care, but the concepts are applicable to any issue. The spirituality of resistance involves doing the inner work to discover what your passions are. Then you join with others sharing these common goals to work for justice and the greater good. https://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Theologically-Howard-Stone/dp/0800699327?asin=0800699327&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1 Be sure to get the latest (third, I think) edition of this wonderful book. It's about understanding our “embedded” theology, that which we grew up absorbing and believing, As we grow up and grow in faith, we often realize that what we're taught often doesn't relate to our life. The authors, Stone and Duke are seminary professors. They do a great job writing about how we are all theologians, whether we have a bunch of letters after our names or not. That's because we all must navigate our society, current events, and or daily life as people of faith. This is a great book for “evangelicals” and those who are “deconstructing” their faith. Family Acceptance Project (Resources for LGBTQ youth, families, and caregivers) https://familyproject.sfsu.edu Several publications are available by giving your email address and zip code The Saint Helena Psalter (Church Publishing, 2004) Inclusive language version of the 150 Psalms found in the Bible Excellent text for LGBTQ populations Links for LGBTQ people of faith LGBTQ Resources from The Episcopal Church https://www.episcopalchurch.org/who-we-are/lgbtq/organizations/ The Human Rights Campaign (interfaith resources) https://www.hrc.org/resources/faith-resoures The National LGBTQ Task Force Creating an inclusive and welcoming church: http://www.welcomingresources.org/communityorg.htm: Anti-Human Trafficking  National Hotline https://humantraffickinghotline.org

In this episode #130, the hosts Naveen Samala & Sudhakar Nagandla interacted with MARCIA The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. An Anglican priest, she earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from Pacific School of Religion.   Dr. Ledford founded Political Theology Matters, LLC, to help the faithful develop public theology missions for greater social justice Marcia's Insights: Summary of Professional Journey Ethics in the professional world and in general Choosing positivity in midst of negativity and extremism Heart or Mind which one to follow and why? Success has many fathers, failure is an Orphan Owning actions and the RESULTS Making of an author Witty answers to rapid-fire questions 1 piece of advice to those aspiring to make BIG in their careers and LIVES Trivia about Apple Products Enjoy the episode! Connect with Marcia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcia-ledford-679184153/ Dear #TGV Audience…Here is a chance to broadcast yourself

https://determineourfuture.com/Determine Our Future's Facebook group page@LParkerPierce#determineourfuturemarcia@miptm.comhttps://www.politicaltheologymatters.comhttps://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/mediahttps://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blogNational Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888 (24/7 operation; in English, Spanish, 200 more languages)https://humantraffickinghotline.orgThe Reverend Dr. Marcia Ledford is so many things! Marcia is a Civil Rights attorney and an Episcopal priest. Marcia's ministry is located in southwest Detroit, and includes a large Latinx population. Marcia is a lesbian and is proud to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and has been with her partner for 32 years, legally married for 7 years.Marcia has founded a mission called Political Theology Matters, LLC; in this mission, Marcia helps others develop their public theology mission and helps to broadcast messaging for greater social justice. I can't think of anyone better than a Civil Rights attorney, member of the LGBTQ+ community and a priest, to educate us on all these matters. Marcia and my pronouns are she/her/hers.Click this link to leave a review: https://lovethepodcast.com/lzH7aB

How can we be more like Jesus in this world of pain, suffering, and evil? Is it our responsibility as Christians to care for the oppressed? The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford guides us in answering these kinds of questions with empathy and compassion. She candidly shares her upbringing in the Baptist church, her divine call to preach, and becoming a civil rights attorney. She once was given an ultimatum by her church to choose between her faith and who she is. She has tirelessly shown Christ's love by fighting for the rights of immigrants, sex trafficked victims, multiple cultures, races, and the LGBT community. She gives us practical advice on how to deal with a family member who has comes out with grace and love. Also, she explains why we shouldn't talk with loved ones about politics and religion. Our interview is filled with powerful storytelling, inspirational scripture verses, and valuable resources to change your community for Christ. A free course is offered for all the listeners! Bio: The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. An Episcopal priest, she earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from Pacific School of Religion. Dr. Ledford founded Political Theology Matters, LLC, to help the faithful develop public theology mission for greater social justice. She writes, speaks, teaches and preaches about how to do political theology, all while protected by the First Amendment. Links for Podcast Show Notes from Marcia Ledford Email marcia@miptm.com Website https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com Media Resources https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/media The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's blog https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blog Harvard Implicit Bias Testing (on numerous topics) https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html Civil Discourse Training offered via The Episcopal Church For Individuals: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/ For Groups: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/ A Spirituality of Resistance Great resource for the spirituality of resistance. Roger writes about creation care, but the concepts are applicable to any issue. The spirituality of resistance involves doing the inner work to discover what your passions are. Then you join with others sharing these common goals to work for justice and the greater good. https://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Theologically-Howard-Stone/dp/0800699327?asin=0800699327&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1 Be sure to get the latest (third, I think) edition of this wonderful book. It's about understanding our “embedded” theology, that which we grew up absorbing and believing,  As we grow up and grow in faith, we often realize that what we're taught often doesn't relate to our life. The authors, Stone and Duke are seminary professors. They do a great job writing about how we are all theologians, whether we have a bunch of letters after our names or not. That's because we all must navigate our society, current events, and or daily life as people of faith. This is a great book for “evangelicals” and those who are “deconstructing” their faith. Family Acceptance Project (Resources for LGBTQ youth, families, and caregivers) https://familyproject.sfsu.edu Several publications are available by giving your email address and zip code The Saint Helena Psalter (Church Publishing, 2004) Inclusive language version of the 150 Psalms found in the Bible Excellent text for LGBTQ populations Links for LGBTQ people of faith LGBTQ Resources from The Episcopal Church https://www.episcopalchurch.org/who-we-are/lgbtq/organizations/  The Human Rights Campaign (interfaith resources) https://www.hrc.org/resources/faith-resoures The National LGBTQ Task Force

Recently, the groups American Atheists and Mississippi Humanist Association filed a lawsuit against the state of Mississippi over it “In God We Trust” license plate. The lawsuit accuses the state of violating the first amendment right of freedom of speech and religion by in effect forcing them to invoke God on their personal property. On a related note, there's a chance you've noticed that, over the last decade or so, the religious right has developed a very public preoccupation with what they call “religious liberty”. But keep in mind, these are not the same causes. The secular, Constitutional concept of religious freedom has little if anything to do with religious fundamentalism at the heart of the term “religious liberty”, but the obfuscation of these two things is, for the “religious liberty” people, the point. Civil rights attorney and Episcopal priest the Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford joins John to discuss the state of religious freedom and the Christian Left in the time of Trumpism.

How can we be more like Jesus in this world of pain, suffering, and evil? Is it our responsibility as Christians to care for the oppressed? The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford guides us in answering these kinds of questions with empathy and compassion. She candidly shares her upbringing in the Baptist church, her divine call to preach, and becoming a civil rights attorney. She once was given an ultimatum by her church to choose between her faith and who she is. She has tirelessly shown Christ's love by fighting for the rights of immigrants, sex trafficked victims, multiple cultures, races, and the LGBT community. She gives us practical advice on how to deal with a family member who has comes out with grace and love. Also, she explains why we shouldn't talk with loved ones about politics and religion. Our interview is filled with powerful storytelling, inspirational scripture verses, and valuable resources to change your community for Christ. A free course is offered for all the listeners! Bio: The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. An Episcopal priest, she earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from Pacific School of Religion. Dr. Ledford founded Political Theology Matters, LLC, to help the faithful develop public theology mission for greater social justice. She writes, speaks, teaches and preaches about how to do political theology, all while protected by the First Amendment. Links for Podcast Show Notes from Marcia Ledford Email marcia@miptm.com Website https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com Media Resources https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/media The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's blog https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blog Harvard Implicit Bias Testing (on numerous topics) https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html Civil Discourse Training offered via The Episcopal Church For Individuals: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/ For Groups: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/ A Spirituality of Resistance Great resource for the spirituality of resistance. Roger writes about creation care, but the concepts are applicable to any issue. The spirituality of resistance involves doing the inner work to discover what your passions are. Then you join with others sharing these common goals to work for justice and the greater good. https://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Theologically-Howard-Stone/dp/0800699327?asin=0800699327&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1 Be sure to get the latest (third, I think) edition of this wonderful book. It's about understanding our “embedded” theology, that which we grew up absorbing and believing,  As we grow up and grow in faith, we often realize that what we're taught often doesn't relate to our life. The authors, Stone and Duke are seminary professors. They do a great job writing about how we are all theologians, whether we have a bunch of letters after our names or not. That's because we all must navigate our society, current events, and or daily life as people of faith. This is a great book for “evangelicals” and those who are “deconstructing” their faith. Family Acceptance Project (Resources for LGBTQ youth, families, and caregivers) https://familyproject.sfsu.edu Several publications are available by giving your email address and zip code The Saint Helena Psalter (Church Publishing, 2004) Inclusive language version of the 150 Psalms found in the Bible Excellent text for LGBTQ populations Links for LGBTQ people of faith LGBTQ Resources from The Episcopal Church https://www.episcopalchurch.org/who-we-are/lgbtq/organizations/  The Human Rights Campaign (interfaith resources) https://www.hrc.org/resources/faith-resoures The National LGBTQ Task Force

The Rev Dr. Marcia Ledford civil rights attorney lends us her expertise is what the bible says about LGBTQ. Emailmarcia@miptm.com Websitehttps://www.politicaltheologymatters.com Media Resourceshttps://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/media The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's bloghttps://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blog Harvard Implicit Bias Testing (on numerous topics) https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html Civil Discourse Training offered via The Episcopal Church         For Individuals: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/         For Groups: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/ A Spirituality of Resistance Great resource for the spirituality of resistance. Roger writes about creation care, but the concepts are applicable to any issue. The spirituality of resistance involves doing the inner work to discover what your passions are. Then you join with others sharing these common goals to work for justice and the greater good. https://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Theologically-Howard-Stone/dp/0800699327?asin=0800699327&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1 Be sure to get the latest (third, I think) edition of this wonderful book. It's about understanding our “embedded” theology, that which we grew up absorbing and believing,  As we grow up and grow in faith, we often realize that what we're taught often doesn't relate to our life. The authors, Stone and Duke are seminary professors. They do a great job writing about how we are all theologians, whether we have a bunch of letters after our names or not. That's because we all must navigate our society, current events, and or daily life as people of faith. This is a great book for “evangelicals” and those who are “deconstructing” their faith. Family Acceptance Project (Resources for LGBTQ youth, families, and caregivers) https://familyproject.sfsu.edu Several publications are available by giving your email address and zip code The Saint Helena Psalter (Church Publishing, 2004) Inclusive language version of the 150 Psalms found in the Bible Excellent text for LGBTQ populations Links for LGBTQ people of faith LGBTQ Resources from The Episcopal Church https://www.episcopalchurch.org/who-we-are/lgbtq/organizations/  The Human Rights Campaign (interfaith resources) https://www.hrc.org/resources/faith-resoures The National LGBTQ Task Force Creating an inclusive and welcoming church:http://www.welcomingresources.org/communityorg.htm: Anti-Human Trafficking National Hotlinehttps://humantraffickinghotline.org

What could we learn from the two aspects of salvation and how it connects to the LGBTQ+ community? Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, Esq. shares her perspective on the power of sharing love and dignity to all people and how living out our salvation is the other half of the "salvation moment." CONNECT: politicaltheologymatters.com

Welcome to season two of Finish Last!  This week we talk to Dr. Marcia Ledford.  Listen as we discuss how she incorporates being an episcopal priest and a civil rights attorney.  Be challenged by the parable of the Persistent Widow from Luke 18 and how that story is relevant today!  God bless you my friends!

The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's ministry is in Southwest Detroit's Latinx population—an international port with an aggressive regional ICE director. Dr. Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. An Episcopal priest, she holds a Master of Divinity from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. She earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from Pacific School of Religion. Dr. Ledford founded Political Theology Matters, LLC, to help the faithful develop public theology mission and broadcast messaging for greater social justice. She is trained for community organizing through the Industrial Areas Foundation and volunteers with Michigan United. Connect with Marcia here https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/DocLedford/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/politicaltheologymatters/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DocLedford YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvIgWMtYhhL51H9rtvjnObw Brandon Handley 0:43 321 Hey, there's spiritual dope. Today I am on with the Reverend Dr. Marsha Ledford, who is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. Her ministry is in southwest Detroit's Latinx population and international port with an aggressive regional ice director. Yeah, I think I could what that is an Episcopal priest she holds a master of divinity from the church Divinity School on the Pacific of the Pacific. She earned her doctorate of ministry in political theology from Pacific School of religion. Dr. Ledford founded political theology matters, LLC to help the faithful develop public theology mission for greater social justice. Marsha teaches speaks and preaches about political theology and very forums. Marsha, so glad to have you here with us today. How are you? Marcia 1:33 I'm good. And I'm delighted to be with you, Brandon. Thank Brandon Handley 1:36 you. Absolutely. So I always like to start these off with this, this kind of idea that we're we're vessels for source creative energy, the divine right, as it were, and you know, as it is, you and I are having this conversation, but somebody on the other end is listening in and they're gonna get a message that just, I don't know, lights up that divine spark within them today that's going to be delivered through you. What is that message today? Marcia 2:06 That we can work for the greater good, even though it seems like our problems are super complex, because we can tap into our spirituality to empower us. Brandon Handley 2:17 I love that right? The idea that I'm tapping into our spirituality, I think it's um, and I'd love to get your perspective, especially as you said, you come from a marginalized population. Hmm. I feel I from my perspective, anyways, our spirituality is just vastly over neglected. Right. And we don't look at it as this resource that can help propel us to this divine space. Right, right. So in this community that you're serving, how do you? What are some of the tools or ways that you're teaching them to tap into that source? Marcia 3:00 Well, and it's really not just a parochial ministry, my full time work is teaching everybody how to tap into our spirituality of resistance. So you know, it's, like I said before, it seems like it's super complicated, but in some respects, it's not, we just have to do some inner work. And we have to join voice forces with others to do this work. So and I apologize, I kind of lost your question. Brandon Handley 3:37 It's quite alright, so the idea, right, so sorry, you know how so? Yes, connecting to that divine right, so that they can, yeah, leverage that source for themselves? So when you say do some inner work and join forces with some others? What's that look like? Right? Marcia 3:53 That's a great question. And so Roger Gottlieb, who is a professor of philosophy, and is active in his Judah ism, wrote a book called The spiritual spirituality of resistance A few years ago, and his primary focuses on creation care, climate change us, you know, stopping that. But the techniques that he has written about I have really embraced. And essentially, there are two things. And when you when you do this, you can apply it to any issue that is important to you. So it's not limited to climate change or anything else. So you do the inner work, you spend some time with yourself, do some reflection, take some take a course on meditation. Write down what's important to you. That sounds like overly simplified but when you listen to the news every day, you know What really gets sticks under your craw, What makes you say to yourself, I've got to do something about this. And then incorporate that into your meditative practice and listing out things that concern you and that you want to work a list out your skills and abilities. Take a personality inventory, like Myers Briggs or something, doing a Nia Graham, there are lots of resources out there for you to do some of this inner work that I call it. And the other there's another inventory type of inventory that you can do, which is conflict, like, what is your threshold for conflict? Because I get questions, sometimes people will say, Well, you know, I can't be out on the front line of a protest, I am just super uncomfortable doing it, it's not my thing. And my responses, you know, there are all kinds of activities that are required to pull off a protest, or to testify in front of a governmental body or start a ministry or whatever it may be. So there's a place for all of us, we all have gifts that complement one another. Then the second part of doing spiritual resistance is finding a group of people that want to work on issues that are important to you, and bring those skills to the table. We're so much more powerful in numbers. And we know when we know what we're good at, and what's important to us, that makes us even more powerful. And we can join forces with others who can do things that we can't, and we can do things that they can't. And we work together primarily, my recommendation is through community organizing, I think it's the best way for a spirituality of resistance, Brandon Handley 6:56 right? I think that, um, you know, normally with spiritual spirituality of resistance means it means Marcia 7:08 two things happen to us, when we live in such a complex world, we either try to avoid what's going on, or we try to deny it. So the spirituality of resistance, takes that head on, and says, I'm not going to avoid stuff, and I'm not going to deny that it's happening, I'm going to lean into the needle as it were, which is a pretty nice analogy right now. Because even if you're afraid of needles, you got to lean into that. That vaccination, in order that we get this pandemic wrestled to the ground once and for all. So you lean into that, which bothers you. When we avoid things, Gottlieb has this is his expression. And so I'm going to credit him, but he talks about how we have a tendency to put stuff that bothers us or we don't like under the floorboards of our consciousness. Okay, so when we are going to stop avoiding things, we pull that stuff out from under the floorboards and we start dealing with it, and we name it, that's a very important part of the spirituality of resistance. To name What is wrong, because as soon as you do that, you take a little bit of its power away. And then as you continue to work to eradicate whatever this wrong is, obviously, over time, it becomes even more disempowered. So that's avoidance. That's when like, pretending that stuff is not as bad as it is or that, you know, pretending it's not there. And the other thing about avoiding stuff is it takes a lot of our energy that we could put into positive forces positive works. So when we spend a lot of time doing this, and pretending we're wasting our energy and our gifts and talents, does that make sense? Brandon Handley 9:17 It does make sense. So okay. And what I wrote down there tos is the idea of when we avoid these things, or deny them either way, we have an awareness of them. Yeah. Right. And it's the idea of our brains being kind of like computer programs in the sense that if or I think other people refer to it as like, your browser having too many tabs open. Yeah, right. And so you've got all these tabs up, right? You've got all these tabs open and but like, I'm not gonna go back to that page. I'm not ready for it yet. So that tabs like sitting there, sucking up resources that like if you go back over to it, and if you label it as you're saying It takes its power away. But it also says to that this, this has now been identified, right? You've categorized it, you've identified it. And now once it's got a label or a category, you've got the, hopefully, right, you've got some tools that you can leverage with, with those labels and categories, right? So you, right? Or, or you could at least go to somebody and say, hey, look, I've got a couple of these things. Can you help me with this? Because I think another thing that you mentioned is this whole idea of community, building it, or being a part of it, or leaving it was Western societies all? I've got to be the hero in every movie, right? And every scene, if I don't do this all myself, then did I do it at all? Right. Right. And so, you know, I think that when, when you're talking about this person who says that they've, you know, they don't see themselves on the forefront of the line? You know, what, and they think that that's the only way it can be, but you're saying that they can get involved in so many other ways? Oh, yeah. Marcia 11:02 Right. Okay, you know, maybe your speech, or maybe you write great speeches, maybe your graphic designer, and you know, you, whatever project you're doing, need some outreach material. And so you can, you can participate in, it's just as important, as you know, the extroverts out on the front lines, the, the, you know, the the background stuff, the preparation is just as important. I was on a show recently with a really interesting and insightful young man who's a disability advocate, and he's on the autistic spectrum. But I was talking to him about when you're doing the group work, you have to do a power analysis, and you have to study and prepare. And he immediately went to the rope, a dope example with the Frazier Ali fight in 1974. And, you know, at the time, foreman was knocking people out before the fifth, Unknown Speaker 12:00 fifth Marcia 12:03 round. And so Muhammad Ali studied the film, and he realized that while he delivered these thunderous blows, he got tired fast. And so he just barely decided he was going to just go to the ropes and observe some abdominal blows, and just kind of wear him out. And it worked. He knocked him out. And I'm not a huge fan of boxing. But I think the analogy is really important, because it's about studying your opponent together doing power analysis, which is a very specific community organizing activity, figuring out who maybe are the decision makers, because that's where you've got to go. But, and in that sense of persistence in resistance, where you just keep working until you wear them out. And that's all a part of the spirituality of resistance as well. Now, I mentioned denial. We have seen this in this country, we have seen a degree of denial that is really goes beyond description. You know, 80 million people denying that the election was legitimate. a president that lied 33,000 times in the course of a four year term, half of which occurred last year. You know, we have developed a very strange and foreign relationship with the truth. And so when people deny that things are happening, we create an alternate reality. And we absolutely have seen this happen this this past year, and it's strangely enough, still seems to be having some steam to it, even though as the months roll on a beat these conspiracy theories and fantasy assessments of our culture are being proven wrong. So you see the power of denial, and what it can do in terms of undermining good social change. Brandon Handley 14:24 Right. And I think that that's, you know, your your application of the spiritual resistances for social change. Is that, you know, kind of way Yes. Right. And so, let's talk a second about how do you go from practicing kind of, I guess I'll call it a material law. Right. I mean, I don't know what I know, the standard law. Yeah. spiritual law. Right. I think this is an interesting, it's an interesting shift. You know, talk a little bit about kind of the differences and how they kind of you know, how they align Marcia 14:59 for you. They're actually aligned very easily. So when I was coming out in the late 70s and early 80s, first, I sensed a call to ordination, when I was about 15 years old. But of course, back then I wasn't seeing a whole lot of women at the pulpit or the altar. So I decided to become an attorney because I wanted to work to help people. And so I became a civil rights attorney. But that call of the Holy Spirit never left. And in fact, started getting louder as I got older. And I got frustrated, because you can't really argue the gospel of compassion and mercy in a court of law and expect to have a successful legal career because it doesn't really work that way. So, you know, there's, there's no precedent for the gospel. So I decided to go to seminary in my late 40s, along with a lot of other women who experience the same thing because of our, you know, or our common age. And so, when you are an attorney, you read texts, sometimes you write them, you write persuasive arguments, you interpret the law, you do all those things. You do the same thing. As a priest or pastor. It's all about reading texts, and interpreting them and preaching or teaching whatever it may be. But, and, and I, Martin Luther was a lawyer before he became a priest, I am in no way comparing myself to Martin Luther. But you know, that's a famous example of somebody. Brandon Handley 16:55 It's interesting, you put it that way. And I think just as you're saying it, you know, it's kind of dawning on me that Yeah, exactly. Right. It's because I think I did like all maybe three months of business law. And I was like, this is for the birds. I was like, because it's not logical. Yes. No, there's no real logic in it, you really have to have an understanding of a whole bunch of other pieces. Yeah, to be able to interpret it. And I was like, I don't have time for this right now. Yeah. Marcia 17:25 To is really so subject to interpretation. Unknown Speaker 17:29 Right? Yeah. My God, it was mind boggling. I couldn't I couldn't, I did. I'm sure I could have if I really cared enough to, but I didn't. Brandon Handley 17:38 So one of the things that we were talking about, too, was the idea of, um, you know, Christianity and and spirituality. Are they really separate? Or are they, you know, how do they How do they, you know, kind of walk hand in hand, because I hear people always separating religion from spirituality. I'm like, I don't, you know, helped me out there. Marcia 18:00 Well, I think that's a really interesting and excellent question. I think most religions have a component of spirituality in and of course, it's going to vary depending on what that tradition is. Christianity is a very spiritual tradition. And in fact, you know, going back to the Old Testament, and the prophets, having conversations with God, having, you know, this direct relationship, and then seeing Jesus continue that. And as a matter of fact, often the disciples would lose track of him because he went off somewhere to pray. And we see this particularly in the Gospel of Luke, which is, I think, a very spiritual gospel. Jesus is off praying very often. And he's helping, so he goes and prays, and then he goes, and he helps somebody. So Christianity, as a tradition, I think, is very, very spiritual. Unfortunately, and this bothers me a lot. And it's one of the reasons that I started political theology matters, is to underscore that to look back to the Gospels of Jesus and what he did, he prayed and healed. And he challenged unjust systems, and then he healed somebody. You know? That's not what we're seeing in the public square right now. And Christianity is looking is melded, if you will, say to January 6, you know, there's all these flags waving Jesus saves as people are storming the capital of the United States of America. that bothered me greatly, greatly greatly. So it's, it's really important that we bring this idea of spirituality back to the fore I think the American American people, I'm going to make a very broad based statement here, this is my opinion. But I think the American people are just parched for spirituality, they're parched for reconnecting with their Creator, the divine being this, you know, whatever it is that you call it. We don't respect that in public in society. And we should, Brandon Handley 20:28 I'm going to, I'm going to agree with you. And I think that we're seeing a lot of that research. And since I could, it could be, of course, that I've just gone through myself in the middle of all of it. And that's the only people I talked to pretty much outside of outside of work, you know, because but the other thing is, we're seeing it in the workplace. We're seeing, you know, wellness, we're seeing meditation, we're seeing yoga, we're seeing breathwork, we're seeing all this other stuff show up in the workplace, you know, without calling it specifically, you know, you know, reconnecting with source or anything, right. But the surge of people that are running towards it, and embracing it. That's, That, to me indicates that, that what you're saying is 100% true, right? The idea of that the idea of this thirst for it, it exists right now. And of course, it always makes me think of, and I don't know, the Bible for nothing. But you know, it makes me think of makes me think of the line of, you know, I've got bread that are meats that you know, not have, right, that's the nourishment that yes, we're seeking the spiritual nourishment and right that that, you know, will feed us to sustain us that, you know that that's, that's why we're parched. Right. That's why we're hungry, because we haven't been. And we're banished. Marcia 21:53 There's a in the fourth chapter of john, the gospel of john, there's one of the most amazing stories in the whole Bible, and it's when Jesus is at the well with the Samaritan woman. And he says to her, I will giving I'll give you a living water, and you will never thirst again. And of course, she wants this water. And she's taking him much more literally than what he's talking about. But I think that when people and then by extension individuals and by extension of community are more tied into the spiritual, mystical, you know, part of life, I think our regard for other human beings will go up. One of the reasons I think we're seeing these, this episode, we are in a pandemic of police shootings. And I think one of the reasons that we are seeing this is because instead of connecting spiritually, and praying and recognizing that we're all children of God, there's just a lot of fear and power plays. And that's not spirituality, spirituality is getting in touch with our Creator, and by extension, the folks that we share this planet with and in creation. Brandon Handley 23:15 And would you also say that we can eliminate some of that fear if we have some faith? And in our Creator? Of course, I would say that, yeah. You know, but it you know, it goes, it goes to the brain up all the time, it's, you know, it's this, this this kind of idea of let go and let God it releases a lot of these fears. Yes, right. Yeah, you can, you can look at that. And I, I put it into a bunch of different frameworks. But I think that, once you make that statement work for you, and you see in action, there is my book, salming surrender effect was the thing that you feel, and you're like, why haven't I've been doing this all my life, right? Because, you know, there's this resistance to the institution of church and religion. I think that that's what's that's what keeps a lot of people from trying to make that way forward. So, Marsha, we were down to, we're down to kind of get into the end here. We've got political theology matters, right? Yeah. I want to know, a couple of questions. We're gonna do like a couple of spiritual speed dating questions. Okay, so this is like, you know, hey, you and I are at the table. I want to date you, but I'm not quite sure if you're the right spiritual as a line person, for me. And so you know, what's let's take a let's take a couple, take a couple of these questions and see if we can come up with okay. To do what is wisdom and how do we gain it? Marcia 24:52 Well, I think wisdom basically is knowing right and wrong. I think it just boils right down to that, you know, having a moral through line in your life that guides you in terms of your thoughts and conduct and the decisions that you make. And, and we, I think we acquire this as we live longer for a reason. Because as we experience life, it helps us understand what our moral through line is, and should be even greater as we age. Brandon Handley 25:27 Like that. You know, I was always a wise ask growing up as a kid, right. But that wasn't the wisdom that it served. Marcia 25:36 wasn't always asked is different than wisdom, who, you know, you Brandon Handley 25:39 still still put the two in there? Yeah, put the two in there. I was Marcia 25:42 the wiser as to so there you go. That's just a bit. This Brandon Handley 25:45 is part of the journey. Right? I'm going from thinking that you know, everything to knowing that you know, nothing. Yeah. Right. Marcia 25:53 humility, that's part of wisdom. For sure. Brandon Handley 25:56 Yeah. Is current religion serving its purpose? Marcia 25:59 No. Tell me more? Well, yes. And no. I think we're seeing it, I'm going to talk about Christianity, because that's what I know, I really have no business talking about any other tradition. But Christianity has lost its way, and is much more concerned, at least certain corners of Christ's vineyard are more concerned about power than they are about people, and about judgment, and damning people because they're this or that, or they're not this or that. And dictating the terms of that individual's relationship with their Creator, which I think is crazy. And I quit doing that, we got to stop this horizontal stuff. Alright, you did this. So you're bad, you're going to hell, or whatever, like anybody really has the right to say that to somebody else. Our relationship needs to be like this. You know, we need to dictate a relationship with our Creator, or we need to craft it and follow our tradition, and our Creator, and not let society get in between. And I think that's really bad. I think that's where Christianity is failing. The most. Are there any Brandon Handley 27:27 churches, groups, communities and Christianity that you feel like are doing it right, right now? Marcia 27:34 Well, of course, I would have to put in a plug for the Episcopal Church. I am a priest ordained in the Episcopal Church. And I'm, I'm a lesbian. So I didn't have a lot of choices outside of mainstream Protestantism, to become ordained. But I'm still really glad that I'm where I am. Because we have an incarnational theology, which means that God chose to send Jesus to walk the earth with us to understand our lives and to understand what we go through, in order to reach out to us and invite us into the reign of God. And so I, that really works for me, we are very inclusive, we are dating, obviously, we are dating LGBT people. As a matter of fact, we specifically passed a, you know, a resolution a few years ago at our general convention to ordain trans people. So we're on the cutting edge of the LGBTQ issues. But we're also very active in lobbying for greater social justice. reconciliation, racial reconciliation, climate care, you name it, and we are involved on the progressive and of Christianity, and I'm very proud of that. I wouldn't be an Episcopal priest if I was a Brandon Handley 29:01 class. Fantastic. And you know, it's it's great to hear, you know, called sex they called branches. I don't know what they're called. denominations. That's what they are. Right? Marcia 29:10 Yes. denominations. And several that are in company with us. It's not just us, but Brandon Handley 29:16 right right now, but it's great to hear that. There's this kind of release of judgment. Right. Yeah. And there's this acceptance of calm as you are, right? Because, I mean, that's kind of what it's supposed to be about. Right? Come as you are, you're accepted no matter who, what, where you are, right, what you've done. who, you know, you feel like you've wronged I mean, you know, as a parent myself, right. And I can only imagine like, as you know, you know, you know, God, Jesus, whoever, whoever, you know, the creator is that's our eternal parent, you know, doesn't want us to, like, you know, sit their misery over the fact that I don't know yeah, you know, if you Have cause an accident, like by running into a car like that. That doesn't mean you're damned to hell, you know? Like, hey, you made a pretty shitty mistake, right? But go ahead and come on in, we're gonna we're gonna work through this right? Let's talk about this. Let's know, let's, where can we go from here, Marcia 30:15 there's, in my opinion, way too much emphasis on being strictly sinful create creatures of constant failure. And, you know, disappointment. God created us, we're told, because God didn't want to be alone and wanted to be with us in community. And Jesus was all about community. And I think that we have to remember that we are also children, a God created in God's image. And so what we can do then is stop focusing so much on how faulty we are all the time. Recognize that we are children of God, but also recognize that Jesus created avenues for us to seek and receive forgiveness so that we could stay in relationship with God. And that's just incredibly important with that. Brandon Handley 31:08 I mean, I've heard some people call that the way, right there's like, Yeah, right. Yeah. So, so, so much fun to have you on today. Thanks for thanks for stopping on. Really appreciate it much. Yeah. Appreciate it. Where can people go to have more Marsha? Marcia 31:24 Okay, so my website is called political theology. matters.com. I know that's kind of long. We'll put it in the show notes. You can email me at Marsha m AR c IA at MMI. PTM. PTM for political theology. matters.com. So that's the shortened version. Marsha, at my PTM calm. Thank you so much for being on today. And oh, more. Would you like me to send you info when the book drops? Absolutely, absolutely. So yeah, you've Brandon Handley 32:01 got you've got a book coming out. You're working on it. And you're expected to come out this year? Marcia 32:05 Yeah, at the end of next the end of this year. And I'll be sure that Brandon knows when it is. And you can get more information. It's about it's a book about how to do faith based advocacy for social justice. Brandon Handley 32:19 That's great. And I love it. Thank you so much for being on today. Marsha, my pleasure. Marcia 32:22 Thank you, Brandon. Unknown Speaker 32:23 We really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove co You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram and spiritual underscore go. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email there Brendan at spiritual dove calm. And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, make on your zone and trust your intuition. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford and I had a great conversation about loss and belonging and how foundational this is to us as humans. Plus, we talked about the foundations of religion in the US. The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. An Episcopal priest, she earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from the Pacific School of Religion. Dr. Ledford founded Political Theology Matters, LLC, to help the faithful develop public theology mission for greater social justice. She has been a legal advocate, priest, and pastor for the LGBTQ communities for over 30 years. The Saint Helena Psalter (the psalms are written in inclusive language), Church Publishing Corporation, 2004. Reading was from Psalm 139. You can find Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford here; Email marcia@miptm.com Website https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com Media Resources https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/media The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's blog https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blog The Lazarus Lives! Project Https://www.facebook.com/lazaruslivesproject Political Theology Matters Https://www.facebook.com/politicaltheologymatters Twitter @docledford LinkedIn Https://www.linkedin.com/marcialedford Free Civil Discourse Training offered via The Episcopal Church For Individuals: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/ For Groups: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/queervoicez/support

Let's talk about faith and being queer.  A lot of people tend to have an “aversion” to faith due to past experiences. So where does the LGBT community fit into "the church" today? On today's episode of the Queer Profits Podcast, Marcia Ledford shares a different perspective of faith and the separation of church and state. And we explore the importance of progressive Christians, including us LGBT folk, advocating for greater social justice in the public square from a faith perspective.  The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford, Esquire is a practical theologian and Episcopal priest and has been a civil rights attorney for over 30 years. She has joined her two loves, the Gospel and the Constitution, to teach about the ways progressive Christians and charities can exercise their First Amendment guarantees by advocating for more compassionate, just solutions to our social crises. Regardless of your experience with faith or religion in the past, you'll find this episode fascinating.    For full show notes, visit: https://queerprofitspodcast.com/episode-20 

A photographer, a Civil Rights Lawyer, and an Episcopal Priest walk into a bar… This week’s show is no joke, though. Our guest, the Reverend Dr. Marcia Ledford, Esquire IS a Civil Rights lawyer, a photographer, and an Episcopal Priest. Stay tuned for a great conversation that encompases journeys both personal and cultural, the third rails of politics and religion, and where all those things come together in Dr. Marcia’s ongoing work for social justice. Neither one of your podcasts hosts grew up in a regular religious tradition. And we are wary of the dark power that organized religion can wield to oppress and repress. Even the Buddhists in Myanmar are killing people in the name of. But we can’t deny that the US Civil Rights movement was championed by religious leaders. Nor that “church ladies” in Georgia helped swing the US Senate. Nor that a Jesuit priest, Father Boyle, created Homeboy Industries in LA to help young community members de-escalate violence and develop alternatives to gang life. So… we are really excited to have the Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford present the case for a progressive and engaged Christianity. We hope you listeners are, too. Guest Bio: The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford founded Political Theology Matters, LLC, to help the people develop a personal mission grounded in theology for greater social justice. Marcia teaches, speaks, and preaches about political theology in varied forums and maintains a very intriguing blog. For Dr. Ledford's complete bio, links to her social media and website, and curated book suggestions view the show notes at: https://www.here-together.us/pod/how-to-live-for-justice --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/here-together/message

My recent survey indicates people don’t feel they can make a difference. But remember, Jesus, the 12 disciples, and women and men alike, changed the world. Take heart and do something for justice. You will help someone, you will send a strong message that you’re not having injustice. You will feel better because you are contributing to a more just society, and your spiritual life will deepen. How am I so sure? It’s happened to me. Let’s work for justice together. My new book is a heartfelt response to our cruel laws and policies that are tearing our country apart. This book also has some bite. We have First Amendments rights that protect us in speaking out against unjust laws and policies. We are even protected in speaking in the public square about our faith. We the people of faith must speak out when our government marginalizes people. We do not have to settle for what our federal government is doing. Civil Discourse Training offered via The Episcopal Church For individuals: https://www.churchnext.tv/library/make-me-an-instrument-for-groups/109669/about/ For Groups https://www.churchnext.tv/library/instruments-of-peace-a-guide-to-civil-discourse/109671/about/ Email marcia@miptm.com Website https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com Media Resources https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/media The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford’s blog https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/blog Great resource for the spirituality of resistance. Roger writes about creation care, but the concepts are applicable to any issue. The spirituality of resistance involves doing the inner work to discover your passions. Then you join with others sharing these common goals to work for justice and the greater good. Marcia Ledford AUTHOR | PRIEST | SPEAKER | ATTORNEY Throughout my life, I have worked for justice, first as a civil rights attorney, and now as an Episcopal priest. I learned that I wanted to argue the compassionate Gospel in court. The First Amendment prohibits Gospel rhetoric in court. Yet, we can work for justice in the court of public opinion, and the First Amendment guarantees that. Join me to do justice and love mercy for a more compassionate and inclusive American society. Together, we will make a difference. And, rightly so. Facebook-f Twitter Linkedin --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/antonio-myers4/support

On today's episode of The Power to Pivot Podcast, The Reverend Doctor Marcia Ledford joins me to talk about some of the injustices going on in the world today, and Marcia shares tips for helping each and every one of us pivot our hearts and minds to a new approach to leading those uncomfortable conversations that lead to peace and change. Marcia is a civil rights attorney, as well as the founder of Political Theology Matters, and she is on a mission to help those of faith develop a public theology mission for greater social justice. Connect with Marcia: www.politicaltheologymatters.com You'll find a great list of resources over on the website, related to political theology, and how you can get informed and get involved! Email: marcia@politicaltheologymatters.com Course on Civil Discourse: https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/pressreleases/make-me-an-instrument-of-peace-online-course-on-civil-discourse-debuts/ Let's continue the conversation over on social media. Find us online at www.marchforthmediacompany.com Instagram.com/marchforthmediaco Twitter: www.twitter.com/media_forth Facebook: facebook.com/marchforthmediacompany Connect with Elizabeth A. Miles: instagram.com/elizabetha.miles Purchase a copy of Connect You: https://amzn.to/3wkW6p7 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

My next guest requested to be on the show and in reflection there is no coincidence here that we were destined to meet. The Rev. Dr Marcia Ledford is a practical theologian and Episcopal priest, native to Detroit, Michigan. She worked as a civil rights attorney for over 30 years prior to her ordination. She encourages progressive Christians to exercise their First Amendment guarantees, calling for a more compassionate approach to our social crises in discrimination, exploitation and equality. Marcia also fought for the civil rights of those in the LGBTIQ community as an openly lesbian woman. I found my time with Marcia fascinating and learned we had so much in common as we both are on a mission for change. This podcast is brought to you by http://www.ethicalchangeagency.com (Ethical Change Agency).

The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's ministry focuses on Southwest Detroit's Latinx population—located at an international port with an aggressive regional ICE director. Dr. Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. She has dedicated her working life to the pursuit of justice because when one group of persons is diminished, we are all thus diminished. An Episcopal priest, Dr. Ledford studied theology at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. While there, she engaged in urban studies for ministry and explored theologies of the marginalized from around the world. Dr. Ledford holds a Master of Divinity from the (Episcopal) Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP). She earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from the Pacific School of Religion (PSR). Both CDSP and PSR are member schools of the Graduate Theological Union, a preeminent global and interfaith consortium for theological study. In college, she majored in American History and Psychology at Albion College. These academic concentrations prepared her for exploring and understanding the psychographic nature of American history and how skin color dictates the American social agenda. Dr. Ledford earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Detroit School of Law, a Jesuit school. She adopted a foundation of Christian faith in legal jurisprudence plus the standard curriculum. Her ministry incorporates Catholic Social Teaching (CST) as its cornerstone. CST's Gospel emphasis protects every human being's dignity and works toward the common good to usher in God's Reign. Her first career as a civil rights attorney concentrated on cases involving the First Amendment and Equal Protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Her mission combines her love of the Gospel with expertise in the US Constitution to help others exercise their civil rights to establish more just American society. Political Theology Matters, LLC, founded by Dr. Ledford, helps the faithful develop public theology mission and broadcast messaging for greater social justice. She is trained for community organizing through the Industrial Areas Foundation and volunteers with Michigan United with a particular interest in racial reconciliation and immigration reform. Dr. Ledford is an award-winning documentary photographer, writer, blogger, keynote speaker, teacher, and preacher. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/odell-glenn-jr/support

The Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's ministry focuses on Southwest Detroit's Latinx population—located at an international port with an aggressive regional ICE director. Dr. Ledford is a civil rights attorney representing society's most marginalized. She has dedicated her working life to the pursuit of justice because when one group of persons is diminished, we are all thus diminished. An Episcopal priest, Dr. Ledford studied theology at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. While there, she engaged in urban studies for ministry and explored theologies of the marginalized from around the world. Dr. Ledford holds a Master of Divinity from the (Episcopal) Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP). She earned her Doctor of Ministry in political theology from the Pacific School of Religion (PSR). Both CDSP and PSR are member schools of the Graduate Theological Union, a preeminent global and interfaith consortium for theological study. In college, she majored in American History and Psychology at Albion College. These academic concentrations prepared her for exploring and understanding the psychographic nature of American history and how skin color dictates the American social agenda. Dr. Ledford earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Detroit School of Law, a Jesuit school. She adopted a foundation of Christian faith in legal jurisprudence plus the standard curriculum. Her ministry incorporates Catholic Social Teaching (CST) as its cornerstone. CST's Gospel emphasis protects every human being's dignity and works toward the common good to usher in God's Reign. Her first career as a civil rights attorney concentrated on cases involving the First Amendment and Equal Protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Her mission combines her love of the Gospel with expertise in the US Constitution to help others exercise their civil rights to establish more just American society. Political Theology Matters, LLC, founded by Dr. Ledford, helps the faithful develop public theology mission and broadcast messaging for greater social justice. She is trained for community organizing through the Industrial Areas Foundation and volunteers with Michigan United with a particular interest in racial reconciliation and immigration reform. Dr. Ledford is an award-winning documentary photographer, writer, blogger, keynote speaker, teacher, and preacher. 

On this week's episode of the Ernest Thoughts Podcast I speak to Attorney, Activist, Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford. Rev. Dr. Ledford shares her story and her insight the various social issues we discussed and that she's spent years advocating for. You can check out all of Rev. Dr. Marcia Ledford's links below.  Support SAGE protect survivors of human trafficking https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-sage-project-s-survivors-of-human-trafficking#/ Harvard Implicit Bias Tests Website https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html My website: https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com My Bio Page: https://www.politicaltheologymatters.com/media/(There are 100-word and 50-word bios on this page)  My email: marcia@politicaltheologymatters.com  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarciaLedfordAuthor https://www.facebook.com/politicaltheologymatters https://www.facebook.com/LazarusLivesProject (positive vibe for LGBTQ Christians)  Instagram: @DocLedford  Twitter: @DocLedford  LinkedIn: Marcia Ledford. Follow the Ernest Thoughts Podcast on Twitter @ETPodcast and IG @ErnestThoughtsPod.  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0jqpZ4G006f4KP2MDl2yNg Merch store (bonfire): https://www.bonfire.com/store/badforbusiness/ Merch store (teespring): https://teespring.com/stores/es-tease. https://teespring.com/stores/bad-for-business-clothing My book "Late Nights on Broadway" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QDVN1SF/?tag=blacklink05-20 Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/moneyforernest --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ernestthoughtspodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ernestthoughtspodcast/support