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S3, E49 Jackie: A Magnificent Millennial

Born and bred in the Bronx, Jackie Andalcio has taught high school in her hometown for three years. Her insular life as a Black girl raised in the New York City borough most known for its working class communities of color was in stark contrast to the life she discovered in college. On this episode, she talks about how the overwhelming whiteness of her college was one of many things that unsettled her once she became an adult. Jackie shares that in many ways, the role she played as peacekeeper in her family made her anxious and ill-equipped for dealing with the common travails of young adulthood. She had to learn how to advocate for herself in school, at the doctor’s office and eventually at work. An attractive woman of 25, Jackie is also balancing the fine act of making room for love, but not allowing an insincere lover to step over boundaries. She shares how she’s become more conscious of the relationship prototype that Black women are encouraged to seek: suffering and sacrifice until a man realizes you’re worth a relationship. She provides examples in pop culture and in everyday life of this “sassy” Black woman who complains about being treated poorly, but who does nothing about the poor treatment. She is getting better at ending relationships that take that shape as soon as they start. A Christian woman, Jackie also acknowledges the church’s historical allegiance to patriarchal archetypes have often led women of her mother’s generation to believe that this model of wife-as-sufferer is noble. Young Christian women her age, thankfully, reject such conditioning. Because she is committed to family and community, Jackie is beginning to see the need to create a path that is hers alone. “To consider myself free,” she says, “I need to be able to pursue the vision and desires I have for my life over anyone else’s vision or desire for me.”

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S3, E44 Armani: A Magnificent Millennial

At 23 years old, Armani Eady has committed her life to social justice – even if it doesn’t always mean she’ll create from scratch the platform from which to do it. On this episode, she shares how the first thing she did as a brand new college freshman was charter her predominately white university’s first ever organization for Black women’s equal and fair access to the school’s resources. Having gone to an all-girls high school where the student body and some of the faculty looked like her and reflected her worldview, Armani underestimated how life outside of her comfortable girl power bubble would require her to explain herself and resist constant edicts to shrink herself. She admits that those first few years post-high school surprised her because she’d never considered there were multiple ways to do womanhood and college exposed her to the diversity in choices young women like her were making. She has used these years in her young adulthood to learn how to enter romantic relationships from a place of wholeness, to adjust how she practices her faith and to take advantage of mental health services that are invaluable for her growth. As she works towards being a free Black woman in every sense of the word, Armani says what she needs to claim that title is to commit herself to her own wellness. “I’ve learned a lot of people aren’t interested in being well,” Armani states. “I decided I would be committed to being a well woman so I can help others become well, too.”

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Ep 9: Kyndra’s God Accepts Her Sexuality (And So Does She)

A clinical social worker and Associate Pastor at First Corinthian Baptist Church (FCBC) in New York City, Kyndra Frazier felt called to ministry while still a child. She was very active in youth activities and felt comfortable sitting in the pews at the Church of God. In this episode, she shares how she spent years doing everything but formally ministering to fellow Christians. When the opportunity to serve presented itself at FCBC, she accepted it with no hesitation. At FCBC, Kyndra has been charged with spearheading and serving as executive director of the church’s free mental wellness clinic, The Hope Center. Equally important, she has shown the LGBTQ community that it is possible to be a disciple of Christ while living in the fullness of your sexuality – even if it that sexuality does not conform to the heteronormative narrative. From the pulpit, she has shared her story of trying to pray her same-sex attraction away and sitting silently as a family member shamed her for being unsuccessful at faking heterosexuality. Kyndra’s message of God-Has-No-Problem-With-Who-You-Are has made the LGBTQ congregants feel accepted and included when they come through the doors of FCBC to worship. A trained theologian with a Masters of Divinity degree from Emory University, Kyndra discusses why many black churches are not ready to move (en masse) to progressive theologies. She believes that not enough church leaders have the courage to preach progressive interpretations of the Bible. Though their training and own critical thinking skills have brought them to new ways of looking at the Bible, fear causes them to continue teaching theology that is accepted as truth. “I find it odd when people say, ‘The Bible says this’ because the Bible doesn’t really say anything. It just reads a certain way,” Kyndra states. It is through her work with FCBC and her forthcoming documentary, A Love Supreme: Black, Queer and Christian in the South, that Kyndra does the noble work of Jesus by reading the Christian holy book as a document that includes all.

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Ep 3: Danyelle Drops the Real Story of Ruth

Chief content contributor for UnfitChristain.com, D. Danyelle Thomas, grew up as a preacher’s kid. She assumed homophobia, sexism and the pursuit of respectability were just unquestionable tenets of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As she evolved in her spirituality so did her theology. In this episode, she shares how she chose to remove the belief in an actual hell from her theology and to fight against purity culture that is prevalent in many evangelical churches. This culture, exclusively aimed at Christian women, encourages single women to connect abstinence and conservative sexual mores to a closeness to God. Or more precisely an effective link to marriage. A crucial reason why Danyelle fights against purity culture is her discovery of the real story of the consummate good girl: Ruth. Once Danyelle researched the translation of a key word in the biblical text of Ruth and Boaz’s romance (as orchestrated by her mother-in-law, Naomi), she found that the way the story had been pitched to many a young single Christian woman was in direct contrast to the actual way Ruth and Naomi got down. “Basically, Naomi needed to secure that bag,” Danyelle quips. “So, Ruth had survival sex with Boaz.” The moral of this real Ruth story, according to Danyelle, is just as different as the way the story has been sold to generations of godly women.

 
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