Strengthening Democracy Through Faith

[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, again, everyone. Time now for some fierce love for yourself and for the world. Some of you know my next guest, one of New York's foremost spiritual leaders who herself leads a Christian church, but who I think would describe herself also as a universalist. It is the Reverend Dr. Jackie Lewis. Reverend because she is the senior minister at the Middle Collegiate Church on East 7th in Manhattan. She is also a public theologian, and we'll talk about what that means. Doctor because she holds a PhD in psychology and religion. Universal because even though Middle Church's physical space burned down in a fire a few years ago, its website says they have members in 40 plus states and 20 plus countries. Those members are Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, atheist or agnostic, and Christians of every denomination and creed. What unites us? Asks the website, commitment to this movement for love and justice.

Reverend Dr. Lewis has been on the show to help us deal with isolation and grief at the height of the pandemic in 2020. She was on in January of last year to reinforce Black and Jewish mutual support along with Rabbi Joshua Stanton, and she was on in 2021 for the publication of her book, Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness that Can Heal the World. Next weekend, Middle Church and Reverend Dr. Lewis are holding a three-day conference that they call Freedom Rising 2024: An Election Year Gathering, and she gathers with us now. Reverend Doctor, always great to talk to you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Brian, I'm so glad to be with you today. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: I am okay. Thank you for asking. That's probably the first thing you say to everybody doing what you do, “How are you?”

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: It is. It is. I want to know, and I'm glad you told me. I'm okay too.

Brian Lehrer: What's a public theologian?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Oh, it's a person who puts talk of God, talk of our relationship to God or a holy other or a spirituality in the public square, not just inside the box of a particular institution, but really in the public square like right here, right now, Brian. This is public theology, so thank you for asking me to come.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Listeners, Middle Church members, those of you simply intrigued by the intro, anyone else with any questions, stories, spiritual conundrums, comments on how to come together in universal fierce love in this polarizing time, and Reverend Dr. Lewis definitely talks about common humanity, or anything else relevant as our hopefully big tent and Reverend Dr. Jackie's big tent are open for free entry. Reverend Dr. Jackie Lewis at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Before we talk about spiritual community, can we talk about your physical community space? Because many New Yorkers will remember that a six-alarm fire. This was in every outlet's newscasts and newspapers and websites. A six-alarm fire that spread from a nearby vacant building destroyed most of your Middle Church sanctuary in December 2020. A few months ago, you had to tear down the remaining facade because the damage was too great to save it, but I do see or do I see correctly that you're planning to build something new called The Center for Spirituality, Justice and the Arts?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: You have the best research, Brian. That's exactly right. That fire was devastating to us. Taking down the facade felt almost like taking our hopes and dreams off life support. Do you know what I mean? The facade felt like, "Ah, the last piece of us." We did have to take it down because it wasn't safe. Well, I am delighted to tell you that just yesterday, we picked the general contractor who's going to help us rebuild, refurbish the part of the building that is left as a Center for Spirituality, Justice and the Arts.

We have a five-story townhouse, Brian, that was linked to our sanctuary through this inter-building. It was damaged on the lower floors by the water and the smoke, but the top part of it is in pretty good shape. We are going to be working with a company called Triton who actually did the demolition for us to rebuild. We're starting in May and hoping that we'll be back in our site, at least that part of it, by King Day of 2025. You're going to have to come meet with me in person, Brian, that day.

Brian Lehrer: Ooh, that's fast.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: That's great, right? It'll have classrooms and a gathering space, a big kitchen where we can feed our neighbors like we used to, spaces for our clothing drive, and our AA/NA meetings will be back, our spaces for little kiddos and a two-story worshipping space, gathering space that will be temporary. It will sit about 225, and we hope that we'll be able to build more later.

Brian, by then we'll be able to do our conference in person there, we'll be able to do our Sunday worship, the neighborhood will be able to use our site like it always has for town hall meetings and programs. [unintelligible 00:05:41] got installed at our sanctuary before, so we're so ready to open our doors for our interfaith loving justice thriving community in the East Village. We are thrilled to get home.

Brian Lehrer: That's very exciting, and I know it's been a long haul since that fire in December 2020. Are you still holding your worship services at the East End Synagogue, which I know had been housing your congregation with Rabbi Stanton?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: We are. They have been a mishkan. Our Jewish friends will know. They've been a tabernacle for us for over two years now. We are thrilled that they've been making a space for us. We've outgrown that space in some ways. Our worship is a bit larger than their sanctuary can hold. We're continuing to share space. Probably going to look for some temporary space between now and January that might be a little bigger, but they are our besties and have been just so loving to us. Thank you, Josh, if you're listening.

Brian Lehrer: Sometimes out of challenge like this fire comes growth, right?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Absolutely. That's right. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Would you remind people-- oh, go ahead. Do you want to finish the thought on that?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: I was going to say out of challenge comes growth. I think it's fair to say that the October 7th violence has been a challenge to all of us, especially our Jewish family. We've been walking tenderly with each other all the way through this time as we continue to organize across faith for a just society.

Brian Lehrer: That's good. All those different lines that you cross, so admirable to so many people. I'm going to come back to that in a minute and ask how you pursue common humanity at a time of such polarization and division along many different lines. Would you remind people to set that up of the basics of your theology, if that's the right word, or philosophy because fierce love, the title of your book, can sound like a contradiction? Ferocity and love are not words we usually utter together. Remind people, what's at the foundation of fierce love Reverend Dr. Jackie Lewis philosophy?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Fierce love is the religion of Rabbi Jesus is what I would say. When asked by followers, as he was growing a movement called The Way of Love, he wasn't a Christian. Jesus wasn't a Christian. So when he was asked, “What does it mean to be faithful? What are we supposed to do now?” He was reforming. He took the 630 laws, codes in Jewish life and said, "Here's what it is. Here are the greatest laws. You love God with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength, and you love your neighbor as yourself. Love God, love neighbor, love self, love period." That's what it is.

I've been tasked by my board, by my community, Brian, to reclaim and reframe Christian, as the religion of Jesus. Not as a religion of hatred and violence and derision, but in the name of the immigrant baby, whose parents took him to Egypt so he could survive. In the name of the poor man whose father was a handyman. In the name of a person raised in the midst of Roman Empire as an outsider, who was Galilean, Nazareth, Bethlehem, those places are Jesus's story. In the name of the outsider we tasked to love the outside in.

How can we be anti-Semitic in the name of the Jew? How can we be anti-immigrant in the name of the immigrant? How can we have xenophobia in the name of the one who was in fact taught by his people to love the stranger because they had been strangers in a strange land? That's the bedrock, philosophy, theology of Middle Church, love period. Love for all the people. Not love that's a word, but love that's in activism and justice. You love the people, they have health care. You love the people, their children are safe. You love the people, they're not bigoted. They get to love- -who they want to love. You love the people, they have human rights because God gave us unalienable human rights. This is what we're working on all the time with colleagues across the nation and around the globe, love as a public ethic that demands justice.

Brian Lehrer: Love as a public ethic. I think I heard as part of that answer went by, it's really love, not just as a noun, but love as a verb. You know what I mean?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Absolutely. That's exactly right. In fact, my friend Titus Burgess wrote a song, Love Is An Action, a verb, not a word. It is almost an anthem for us, Brian. If we love each other, we go to the polls and we take our neighbors with us. We organize for a just society. Our relationship to God demands that we relate to each other as though they’re our kin, because they are. That's why we're organizing this conference that you're going to ask me about in a little while.

Brian Lehrer: That I'm going to ask you about right now. What's this conference you're having next weekend called Freedom Rising: An Election Year Gathering?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: It's our 18th conference. We've been doing a national conference of this time as a part of our public theology to go back to the top. This year, Freedom Rising, You Move The World is a time of organizing religious people. Brian, and by religious people I mean, Valarie Kaur is coming, Simran Jeet Singh, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who's an actor's coming. We've got activists, theologians, prophets, preachers, teachers who from their faith, whatever that faith is and faith and love are gathering to say, "We are organized toward justice."

There's a lot of organizing, Brian, right now as you know, around hatred and violence and the disruption of human rights in the name of God. A lot of organizing around fascism. We are saying over here, bring yourself to Marble Collegiate Church, who's hosting this for us as we're placeless, bring your family, bring your friends, and let's talk about the importance of loving ourself, caring for our bodies as we do this work. That's day one.

Day two, loading in around movement building to be pro-democracy, pro-voting rights, pro the right for women to do today with their bodies, what they need to, and not go back to legislation from 1860s. Pro all the lives matter, pro-religious freedom and pro the separation of church and state. I can't tell you who to vote for, but let's gather together and look at what a platform that is based in love would look like as we are on the way to November.

Then the last day is just wild inspiration. Great church, people like William Barber, Valerie will be there, Valarie Kaur and others to say, "Here's how we can dream a world together across faith and ethnicity and gender." All the atheists come, let's dream a world together that is based in sustaining our planet and sustaining the people because we can and we must.

Brian Lehrer: Looking at the three-day program, and I read every word of your three-day program. My weird night last night was reading your Freedom Rising Program and watching Bluey, Bluey coming after-- [crosstalk]

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: I love Bluey. Isn't that a great show?

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: The family is so sweet.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: I love that show.

Brian Lehrer: The character is so sweet.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: It is.

Brian Lehrer: Looking at the three-day program, it looks like you combine self-care, if that's the right word, with movement politics. Day one is called You. You were talking about the different days built around what you call radical self-love. What's radical self-love in the context of the just society for all that you're trying to build?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Yes. I think, Brian, your listeners know me. They know I'm an African-American person, you know I'm a Black person. In our country and around the globe, there are so many forces at work to teach children that they don't matter, that their lives don't matter, their stories don't matter. These childhood traumas as a Jewish human being, Muslim folks, Asian folks, unless you're white and straight and rich in America, you can get a sense that you don't matter and don't belong. Those wounds, those scars can stay with us.

We're saying at the conference, one of the most important tools in our kit for justice-making is to look at ourselves and love the self, to delight in our own particularity, to care for the body that's been created in the image of God, we would say as people of faith, right? To notice ourselves, to be good to our minds, to have strong mental health, to take care of our physical body. Because in fact, when we take care and love ourselves, it is the best rehearsal for loving the other. That's why those commands are in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, that kind of love, neighbor love self. You yourself, is the best rehearsal for having a relationship with another that is that is located in love.

Brian Lehrer: You have an interesting line in the program, and I said I was going to get back to this idea that says, "The oppressive systems attempt to ensnare us in inaction, convincing us that our differences and identities render us incapable of unified movement. But we defy their grip as we come together to illuminate the interconnectedness of our struggles." That's a quote from your literature.

Can you talk about that? Because we certainly hear that critique, at least from the right, but not only from the right, that identity politics, as they would call it, divides people into narrow interest groups that contribute to a fracturing of society, not a uniting, not the identification with common humanity that at least on one level, you're very much about. Would you address that critique?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: I will. I will. I will first say that the folks on the right, the, you know who we mean, the fascist uprising, the sense on the right, their identity politics is "whiteness" Brian, and I have whiteness in quotes, air quotes. But like intolerance, inflexibility, the right to take land from the Indigenous people, the right to build wealth on the backs of Black people. America exported whiteness identity politics around the globe to South Africa, and it becomes Apartheid, to Germany, and it led to the shoah, to the Holocaust.

Right here in America where my enslaved ancestors built this nation, and still quite honestly, don't have lives that matter in the hegemony, hierarchy, white supremacist, white nationalist politics of America, which can lead somebody like Donald Trump to be revered by some pockets of our nation. Ironically, this conference is at Marble Church, hah, where they're hosting it, where Trump was married twice and tried to hide his bigotry. In the Power of Positive Thinking of Norman Vincent Peale, my colleague, Michael Boss inherits Marble Church and joins me in this love ethic, creating a culture built on love.

That's a critique of the people critiquing identity politics in truth, in truth. My colleagues who are doing this work of intersectionality understand the candid, authentic particularity of each of us. When it comes to the table, we have a strong table. When Black people organize with Hispanic people, and Asian people, Indigenous people, when we organize with Polish people, and Ukrainian people, across faith, we organize together. Across gender sexuality, we organize together. Our table is strong because we're making a wide enough table, a big enough table, and a wide enough tent for all of us to be there.

America is only going to work, Brian, when we look squarely at each other and see the others' children as ours, the others' elders as ours, the others' healthcare as ours, the others' sense of what needs to be in the environment as ours. That's how we make a true multi-ethnic, multicultural, many-gendered, many-classed nation. We make space for our identities to be welcome.

Brian Lehrer: Kai in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, I think is going to try to move this from what Kai may be hearing as abstraction to a position on something. Kai, do I have you right? You're on WNYC. Hello?

Kai: Hi, Brian. It's me again. Yes, I'm surprised I haven't heard the word Palestine, Palestinian genocide. You mentioned October 7th. I wonder what your opinions are. And I'm- -concerned because after Middle Collegiate was burnt down, now you're being hosted in a synagogue that you've been silenced, that you cannot speak on the Palestinian genocide.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Oh, thank you so much for that question, Kai. Brian promised me we were going to get back to that, so I'm letting him lead me there, but I will tell you two really-

Brian Lehrer: She led you there.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Yes. See, I have two really important things to say. Our fierce love at Middle Church is a fierce love for all the people, and we have not been silent about our concern for our Palestinian brothers and sisters. In fact, I sat next to my friend Linda Sarsour on the Manhattan Bridge when we shut it down, shouting, “Free Palestine.” What I was alluding to about being in the synagogue and us tenderly walking, I don't have the same viewpoint as the synagogue in which I'm hosted about what's happening in Gaza.

Middle and I are saying it's a genocide that needs to be stopped. We're calling for a ceasefire every day, all the time. Please follow me @RevJacquiLewis in all the places and see my bold proclamation for the well-being and the thriving of all the people. The full-throated support for my Jewish family to live a world in which anti-Semitism is a past time paradigm, but also the full throated undeniable support for Palestine and the truth-telling that this war needs to stop, that Palestinian lives matter, and the Israeli government and Netanyahu have transgressed with war crimes in Gaza.

I'm on record there on television, and now on this station, and in every place I've spoken and written. It is unbelievable to us and our hearts are broken. I did not lead with that because I knew we were going to end here, and this is a really important thing. I'm so glad you said it out loud, Kai. I've not been silenced by my friends. We just disagree with each other and we love each other anyway.

Brian Lehrer: How, in your experience can you get people from both sides, and I realize there are many sides and there are different points of view within communities, but to feel like you're on all of their sides without engaging in sort of mindless bothsidesism, but by the same token, real respect for both. Some Jewish listeners listening to you right now, just now, may be thinking, "Oh, she's using the word genocide," which they may consider an exaggerated description of what even a lot of Jewish people think are war crimes in Gaza but not genocide, and that that's just to make Israel seem as evil as possible. Or free Palestine, which can sound like it's a call for Israel as a Jewish state not to also exist.

I've said here that so many of our callers from any background seem mostly concerned with arguing about which side is worse. We try to get beyond that, but it's hard, and sometimes even trying to have dialogue strikes people as polarizing when they feel that there aren't two legitimate or equivalent sides. How are you approaching that these days and will you approach it at the conference?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Thank you so much, Brian, and again, thank you, Kai, for that really beautiful question. Yes, I will say I'm on a side of love. I'm standing on the side of love, Brian, and it's hard. To be honest with you, it's been hard. Josh isn't here to talk with me, but we talk. We have meetings to talk about this.

Brian Lehrer: Rabbi Stanton.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Rabbi Stanton. Rabbi Josh Stanton. It has been really hard for them to have this loud [laughs] pastor in their sanctuary standing at the [unintelligible 00:24:35].

Brian Lehrer: By the way, we immediately got a text that said, "What about the hostages?" so.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Yes, of course, of course, of course. So, two things, right, Brian? If you and I were talking for five hours, I could tell you that this tragedy happened on October 7th was a horrible thing. Horrible, horrible violence on October 7th, and on October 15th, Josh and I were on television with our colleague Hussein Rashid on MSNBC. I took my two friends to MSNBC to talk about this tragic horror, and Josh's cousin is one of the hostages. Hostages, please read my work, guys. Look at my pages and see me saying release the hostages. Hear me saying permanent ceasefire. Hear me saying two-state solution.

I'm not a politician, but I've been to Israel-Palestine six times, and in every time I've been there I've been in conversations with soldiers who want a ceasefire and want two states. Combatants for peace, with mothers whose children have been killed as soldiers on both sides. I've been in conversations with rabbis, I've been in conversations with leaders, The Hartman Institute. My Black Christian woman universalist in America position is all of those people are my people.

My mentor, my reason for existing as a clergy is a Jewish baby raised in Nazareth, in Galilee and Palestine. People don't like when Black leaders like me call Jesus a likely brown Palestinian Jew, Brian, but that's what we think. Okay? That's what I think, a likely brown-- I'll piss people off more with this. I'll make people more angry. Sorry, Brian. An African Asiatic Semite [unintelligible 00:26:40].

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to invite you to say that again because you just went into background. Did you lose part of your connection there?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: You're back.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Yes, I don’t know what happened, but I’m back. Okay, great. Let me say that again. Our understanding of the source of our faith is a Jewish baby born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, which is in Galilee, in Palestine. Our sense as, I'm going to say African American scholars, is that this people group are Asiatic, African, Semitic because of the genealogies, because of the location, because of the first people in the world are those people. So when I'm saying I follow Jesus, I'm saying I follow a Palestinian Jew, likely Brown, a marginalized outsider, outsider in the Roman Empire, who taught us to only love.

I have a passion about being able to be a universalist Christian who wants all the people to be free. I don't have to choose sides, and I'm not going to choose sides about freedom. We, America, taught Germany how to exterminate Jews. We, the white western world, watched the Holocaust happen, watched the shoah happen, the catastrophe, right, Brian is what that word is, happen. We also have watched the Nakba happen, watched Palestinians to be destroyed. We didn't fight Western Christianity, sit down with Jews and Palestinians, and decide how they should share a land. We decided to give the land, and we created conflict and death to peoples, including Palestinians and Jews.

I'm for the freedom of Palestinians, and I'm for the freedom of Jews, and I'm for a world that works, that does not have prejudice and bias and xenophobia, and I'm for the release of every single one of those hostages, including the hostages that are languishing in jails because they threw rocks at soldiers. I'm for the end of the violence that whiteness causes around the globe, for the violence that we as nations with power, cause in Sudan, in Congo, in Haiti, and Gaza. Fact is we got to stop that.

Brian Lehrer: And there we leave it with Reverend Doctor Jacqueline Lewis, the senior minister at the Middle Collegiate Church. Middle, an interesting word in this context.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Rebuilding on the Lower East Side after the fire, and just tell people who are interested how they can attend your conference next weekend in person or virtually, and is it free or is it ticketed?

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Thank you, Brian. It is freedomrisingconference.org to get a ticket or- -just go to middlechurch.org if that's easier to remember. We have in-person tickets at Marble Collegiate Church. They are not free, but they are really reasonably priced, and you can get a digital ticket as well. I would say if you're listening to this radio broadcast and you want to come, register with the code partner, that's my gift to you for listening to Brian and giving me space to talk. Rabbi Rick Jacobs is coming to the conference, as is Dr. Hussein Rashid at the conference, as is Stosh Cotler, a Jewish activist, as is Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian activist.

Brian, we're living in the middle, pulling people in the middle to organize for this election and a public ethic of love. A call to peace and freedom, not only in America, but also around the globe. That's what we're doing, friend.

Brian Lehrer: Aiming for universalism, Dr. Reverend Jackie Lewis-

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: [laughs] Yes, that's right.

Brian: Lehrer: -and it's hard. Thank you very much.

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis: Brian, I appreciate you. Thank you. Take care.

 

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.