All five episodes of the first season of “The Raceless Gospel” podcast are now available.
The new podcast devoted to race, religion and politics is hosted by Rev. Starlette Thomas and is the latest podcast offering from Good Faith Media.
Thomas – a womanist in ministry and the author of “The Raceless Gospel” blog – treats these five episodes as five Sundays. Each episode is structured like a church service and features different elements of a Sunday worship hour: welcome, testimony, sermon, call to discipleship, offering and benediction.
Each episode’s “sermon” is a back-and-forth between Thomas and her guest. Here, a brief listening guide:
Episode One Guest: Josina Guess, managing editor at The Bitter Southerner. Thomas and Guess, who know each other well, go deep early. References to Jacques Barzun, Charles Mills and Henry Louis Gates start off their conversation. Despite the serious subject matter, Thomas’ conversation with Guess features lots of laughs as well as poignant stories about experiences of race in the United States.
Episode Two Guest: Dr. Michael Bledsoe, an author and former pastor of Riverside Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Thomas, a noted bibliophile, gets after James Baldwin up front. Thomas and Bledsoe keep a tight focus on power and political dynamics and how the church is complicit in marring the image of God in others.
Episode Three Guest: Jeremy Bell, general secretary of the North American Baptist Fellowship. Thomas and Bell embrace a rapid-fire back-and-forth in this expansive conversation about “reconciliation” of various types.
Episode Four Guest: Thomas Bowen, the Earl L. Harrison Minister of Social Justice at Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. There’s lots of talk about Jesus in this episode on race, religion and politics – which will make it an unfamiliar conversation to many. Which is exactly why so many need to hear it.
Episode Five Guest: Dr. Leslie Copeland-Tune, chief operating officer at the National Council of Churches. Thomas and Copeland-Tune discuss how the church must “keep the main thing the main thing,” as well as the price everyone pays when that is not the case.
“The Raceless Gospel” podcast, written and hosted by Thomas, is suitable for all ages. It would make particularly good listening and conversation-starters for church groups, as well as students in college and seminary classes.
Get information, a trailer and all episodes of “The Raceless Gospel” podcast here. Learn more about Thomas in this profile here, and listen to her recent appearance as a guest on the “Good Faith Weekly” podcast here.
Reflection and resources at the intersection of faith and culture through an inclusive Christian lens.
