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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 19: Candace Studied Her Way Out of Religious Belief

Author of The Ebony Exodus Project: Why Some Black Women Are Walking Out on Religion – And Others Should Too, Candace Gorham describes her younger self as much more “deep into religion” than the average child. She actively involved herself in both the Jehovah’s Witness and the Methodist church. On this episode, she shares her journey from becoming an ordained minister while she was barely out of her teens to trading in religious belief for secular humanism. After a young adulthood spent worshipping god and ministering to his flock, she began to question common precepts in the Christian faith. After examining the biblical text more in depth and exposing herself to others outside of it, Candace began her slow, yet steady progression to atheism. It was this journey to non-belief that inspired her to compile the stories of other black women like her in The Ebony Exodus Project. Once she finally accepted that she could no longer honestly claim belief in a supernatural power, she sought out other women from her cultural background who felt as she did. What she discovered was a common theme in their journey to non-belief: examining the biblical text more critically and coming to the logical conclusion that the Christian construct of god was more fallacy than truth. When she thinks about the gift of embracing humanism, Candace expresses gratitude for letting go of the anxiety she felt as a devout Christian. “I no longer have fear of hell or the god who might send me there,” she says. “I feel like it freed me from constantly thinking about all the ways I could put my very soul at risk.”

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Ep 11: Gabrielle, An Atheist in the Bible Belt South

A retired member of the military, Gabrielle Tolliver began questioning what she was taught in Sunday school early into her childhood. While the adults in her family were not frequent attenders of church, they did require the children go to service as often as possible. When Gabrielle challenged the inconsistencies and cruelties taught in Sunday School lessons, she was chided with: “You are just too young to understand.” In this episode, she talks about being a nonbeliever in North Carolina, where church and god are as deeply woven into the culture as speaking to strangers and asking after a casual acquaintance’s Mama. From missionaries knocking on her door offering her salvation through Christ to grocery store clerks wishing her God’s blessings, Gabrielle often has to “out” herself as an atheist even when she’d rather just sit at home and watch television with her wife or buy broccoli at the supermarket for that night’s dinner. Gabrielle dismisses the suggestion that because she does not believe in a supernatural deity, she does not have a solid moral code. She finds it insulting to imply a person needs some force outside themselves to influence their decision to be a decent human being. “I don’t need a sky pappy to tell me when I’ve wronged another person or harmed a defenseless animal,” Gabrielle explains. “I don’t need the god gap to fill in the blanks about the world for me.”

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Ep 10: Kimberly is a Minister Who No Longer Needs Religion

A professor and performer, Dr. Kimberly Chandler has a long history with the Christian church. When she organized a family reunion and there was a requisite Sunday church service planned, she did not have to corral her people to a house of worship. Between the licensed ministers, choir directors, lead sopranos, ushers and first ladies among her family members, the Chandlers had their own church service right where they had their barbecue the day before. In this episode, she reveals why she no longer has a place for “manmade” religion in her life. A licensed minister, she experienced firsthand the sexism and commitment to rigid gender roles that keep many forward-thinking women away from churches. She maintains that the sexist pushback she felt as a woman active in the church has nothing to do with scripture. It is more about how men relate to women and the stain of toxic masculinity. Her own father – a minister himself – discouraged her from responding to the call she received from God. Dr. Chandler does not resent her father and faithful Christians who truly believe that it is God’s will to abdicate leadership to males who then serve as overseers to the women doing most of the work on these religious “plantations.” She knows the “black church” is a diverse entity and in today’s world, she believes one can find a church home that matches one’s progressive ideals. As she articulates where she is on her spiritual journey, she talks about freeing herself from the image of the Angry God who rules with punishment. Having overcome mental breakdowns in the past, Kimberly decided, “I had no choice but to to free myself from the belief that God was out to get me. I had to take care of myself spiritually and emotionally.”

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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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