Wes Howard-Brook on Reading John

Wes Howard-Brook is a retired instructor of New Testament at Seattle University. He is an author of several books, including Come Out My People, John’s Gospel & The Renewal of the Church, and his most recent book Empire Baptized: How the Church Embraced What Jesus Rejected (2nd - 5th centuries). He co-leads Abide with Me with his life partner Sue Ferguson Johnson. They have led a weekly Bible study for 11 years. 

We invited Wes on the podcast as a follow up to our previous talk with Amy-Jill Levine, who encourages Christians to stop using the Passion of John as part of the Good Friday liturgy and who discourages Christians from using “Judeans” instead of “the Jews” in trying to correct antisemitisim in the text. Wes is a proponent of using “Judeans.” Since these two scholars both grapple with antisemitism within Christianity but come to different conclusions, we decided to host both conversations.

This is a difficult topic - Christians addressing antisemitism in tradition, teaching, and text. Scholars will not agree on how to accomplish this, but pastors and Christians in the pews all need to take the necessary time to think about the language we use and consider how it has been utilized to harm people through history and how antisemitism continues to worm its way into language, thinking, and practice. To be good Christians we cannot rest on denigrating other people and their identities. 

Janet Wolf on Prisons, the Gospel, and Non-Violent Organizing

The Rev. Dr. Janet Wolf has worked as a poverty rights organizer; United Methodist pastor with urban and rural congregations; college and seminary professor; learner, teacher, and animator with think tanks inside prisons.

She recently retired from the Children’s Defense Fund where she was focused on public theology, transformative justice, and nonviolent direct action organizing to disrupt and dismantle the cradle to prison pipeline through leadership by and partnership with those who are now or have been caged. 

She is the Dean of CDF’s Proctor Institute’s Dale P. Andrews Freedom Seminary. Her recent book is Practicing Resurrection: The Gospel of Mark and Radical Discipleship.

Thanks to Janet Wolf for all of her great work and the wisdom she shares with us in this conversation. Here are some key links from our conversation.

Breaking the Silence:  kingandbreakingsilence.org/

National Council of Elders:  nationalcouncilofelders.org/

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program:  insideoutcenter.org/

Amy-Jill Levine on John's Passion and Antisemitism

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine is the Rabbi Stanley M Kessler distinguished professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.

She is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Emerita,  Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies Emerita, and Professor of New Testament Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt University.

Professor Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. In Spring 2019 she was the first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute; in 2021, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association, and the Association for Jewish Studies.  She served as Alexander Robertson Fellow (University of Glasgow), and the Catholic Biblical Association Scholar to the Philippines. She has given over 500 lectures on the Bible, Christian-Jewish relations, and Religion, Gender, and Sexuality across the globe.

Her books include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus; Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi;  The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us (with Douglas Knight; The New Testament, Methods and Meanings (with Warren Carter); and The Gospel of Luke (with Ben Witherington III; the first full-length biblical commentary co-authored by a Jew and an Evangelical). Her most recent book is The Bible With and Without Jesus, co-authored with Marc Z. Brettler

Her children’s books (with Sandy Sasso) include Who Counts? 100 Sheep, 10 Coins and 2 Sons;  The Marvelous Mustard Seed; Who Is My Neighbor?, A Very Big Problem, and 100 Sheep: A Counting Parable.

With Marc Brettler, she co-edited The Jewish Annotated New Testament; she is also the editor of the 13-volume Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings, and The Historical Jesus in Context. Presently she is editing several volumes in the Wisdom Commentary series, and she is the New Testament editor of the new Oxford Biblical Commentary Series. With Joseph Sievers, she is co-editing a collection of essays on the Pharisees.

Her adult education volumes and videos include the Teaching Company Great Lectures: “Introduction to the Old Testament,” “Great Figures of the Old Testament,” and “Great Figures of the New Testament”; Abingdon adult education: Short Stories by Jesus Study Guide;  Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week; Light of the World: A Beginner’s Guide to Advent; Sermon on the Mount: A Beginner’s Guide to the Kingdom of Heaven; The Kingdom of Heaven: 40 Devotionals; and The Difficult Words of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to HIs Most Perplexing Sayings.

These are not easy conversations but it's essential that we have them.  Thanks to AJ Levine for being our guest once again!

S2 E2 What's Up with United Methodism

The United Methodist Church, a global denomination with around 12 million members, is facing an uncertain future after two delayed meetings leaving the church unclear on whether and how the denomination will split and reorganize. In the meantime, LGBTQIA+ UMC members and those yearning for a decolonized and anti-racist denomination struggle to trust an organization that has fallen far short in creating a radical vision of God’s beloved community. This podcast talks about how the nation's second largest Protestant denomination has reached this point and what is at stake. This talk follows on the heels our the talk on Christian Nationalism with Katherine Stewart, and they are, sadly, related. We point you to that conversation as well.

Andrew and Pastor Katie welcome the Rev. Dr. Izzy Alvaran and the Rev. Jeremy Smith for this conversation. Rev. Dr. Alvaran is an out gay ordained Elder from the Philippines who works for the Reconciling Ministries Network and is a proponent of the Christmas Covenant. Rev. Smith is the pastor of Seattle First United Methodist Church, serves on the board for the General Commission or Archives and History and runs www.HackingChristianity.net, a blog about technology, faith, and the church.

• Hacking Christianity covers the ongoing issues within the denomination and detail.

• Christmas Covenant lays out one plan for a regional reorganization of the denomination.

• Liberation Methodist Connexion is working for a new progressive denomination.

• Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation (“the Protocol”) is a proposal for schism.

• Alaska Omnibus Proposal attempts to combine the Christmas Covenant, Wespath Provisions, and the Protocol.

• Information from Wespath can be found here.

• The Global Methodist Church is the church being formed by the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a conservative movement.