The podcast relaunches with an interview with Sisters Theresa Aletheia Noble and Danielle Victoria Lussier. They are the Sisters of the Little Way of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness, a new, “Private association of the faithful intending to become a religious institute.” (That’s church language for, The Sisters are in the yearslong process of officially being recognized as a new order of nuns.) The Sisters’ stated mission focuses on, “Listening and solidarity with people on the fringes of the Church, especially those who have been wounded, scandalized, or abused by members of the Church.”
I wanted to interview them for many reasons: I was struck by their courage in speaking out about the grooming and abuse they experienced at the hands of a spiritual director. The power of their new audio documentary podcast “Descent into Light”-- which draws on their experiences as survivors to illustrate the broader picture of how adult abuse unfolds in spiritual settings– has hooked me and Bethany as we consider how to build a ministry and small organization with transparency and accountability.
On an even more universal level, I was drawn to their perspective on finding vocation and belonging within an institution that has harmed them. How do you relate to an institution, even after it has harmed you? Can you stay with integrity, without your presence tacitly supporting the systems and leaders that failed you?
I believe their reflections about hearing a call - in the darkness of their suffering and as a response to the harm they endured - is a beacon for all of us who wonder how to follow Jesus within the church. I believe their reflections on choosing to remain in the church, even after its flawed systems enabled abuse against them, are valuable to hear for all of us wondering if and how to find our place in the ancient and imperfect institution.
At the website Sisters of the Little Way you can read more about their journey to leave their former order and start a new one, including time spent ministering to the homeless on the streets of Portland, Oregon, and studying at the Gregorian in Rome to receive a diploma in Safeguarding; learn how to support their mission; follow their writing on Substack; and listen to their podcast.
I hope you find in this interview new understanding about abuse in spiritual settings, practical suggestions for helping survivors and preventing future abuse, and a doorway to the Sisters’ beautiful and important podcast and ministry.
The Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf is Senior Pastor of Lake Street Baptist Church in Evanston, Illinois as well as the author of Sanctuary and Subjectivity: Thinking Theologically About Whiteness and Sanctuary.
In a moment when the question of how the church supports the immigrant community is of utmost importance, I wanted to speak to him because of the many perspectives he holds on that question. As a pastor he can speak about his church’s successes and shortcoming providing sanctuary to an immigrant family for the last ten years. As an academic and ethnographer who has studied the sanctuary movement he can speak to the opportunities and dangers of partnerships between predominantly White faith communities and immigrants. What are the difficult power dynamics? Can they be avoided or worked with in healthy ways?
We talked about Michael’s joint call to ministry and ethnography; the racial dynamics of Sanctuary; the screening process for taking in recipients of Sanctuary and the ethics of raising the voice of the “ideal migrant”; if and how Sanctuary as a tactic might still be effective in 2025; what his congregation loves most about hosting a Sanctuary family; Michael’s own prayer practice for examining his conscience around Whiteness; and how Michael became the rare White Baptist pastor from Alabama with a primary ministry focus on racial justice.
If you want to read more of Michael’s writing there are links to his book and numerous articles here:
- Michael’s webpage with links to his writing and sermons
- Sanctuary and Subjectivity: Thinking Theologically About Whiteness and Sanctuary
For any person of faith troubled and outraged by President Trump’s promise to deport 11 million people and wondering “What can I do?” “How can I be effective?” “How do I plug in?” listen to the Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra. In this interview I talk about these questions and more with the organizer, author, Lutheran pastor, and professor.
Alexia’s lengthy list of books and articles can be found at the Fuller Seminary website where she has taught since 2014 and is Academic Dean for Centro Latino and Associate Professor of Mission and Global Transformation. I reached out to her, however, not primarily because of her academic accolades but because of her extensive experience leading faith-based organizations for immigrants rights. As it says in the introduction of her newest book, God’s Resistance, “Salvatierra offers a firsthand and behind-the-scenes glimpse and understanding of the inner workings of the U.S. Sanctuary Movement. Dr. Salvatierra was a young member of one of the first congregations to declare sanctuary in 1980, a founding member of the New Sanctuary Movement in the 2000s, and an ongoing leader in the development of other faith-based approaches to the immigration crisis.”
We talk not only about ethical and effective support of migrants in the US at this moment but also about her formation and call as madrina, or godmother, of faith-based movements for immigrant rights; the theology of the border and the limits of Christian love; her involvement in the Sanctuary movement of the 80s and how that experience shaped Alexia to lead the New Sanctuary Movement beginning in 2007; the divide between Right and Left in today’s media environment around immigration and the role of immigrant churches in bridging it; the tactics she expects Trump to take against migrants and which will be most pernicious; how White churches can support immigrant churches; and how as Christians “all children are our children”.
You can see a reference list of legal terms, organizations, and leaders in the movement in my post about the episode at duncanhilton.net
Have you ever sensed something true and beautiful in the words and witness of the likes of Martin Luther King Jr, Cesar Chavez, or Dorothy Day – Christians who believed that the gross inequality in America was sinful; that the inequality had more to do with sinful societal structures than with individual behavior; and that Christians bear responsibility for resisting and reforming those systems? Have you ever wondered about the history of this theological tradition which scholars call “social Christianity ”, and what knowing that history can teach us about how to keep the tradition alive today?
I talked about these matters with Heath Carter, Associate Professor of American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary and its Director of PhD studies. Heath is the author of numerous books and articles, including Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago (Oxford University Press, 2015). We talked about: his call as a professor writing at the intersection of Christianity and American public life; why he thinks we’re living in a “New Gilded Age” and what that means for the direction of the social Christian tradition today; understanding the place of the Catholic Worker in the social Christian lineage; and why he’s an “evangelist for institutions.”
Beyond just the pleasure of learning more about the history of the social Christian tradition, I enjoyed Heath’s honesty and optimism about the decline of mainline Protestant churches. Speaking about Princeton Seminary he said, “We've been in the past a finishing school for elite Presbyterians, and all these worlds that we've long served are now going away. And so, what new life will come up in the midst, even as this thing that is definitely dying is dying, and in my lifetime will be mostly gone?” I appreciated how Heath could hold two things to be true, in a single sentence and in a whole interview: the reality of the breakdown of the “ecclesiastical machinery”, and the simultaneous possibility for the emergence of creative and daring new ministries, and important and long-lasting institutional reforms.
Go to duncanhilton.net or https://duncanhilton.substack.com/ for a post about this podcast and more links to Heath's work and background related to the interview.
How does a White Evangelical guy from Southern California end up as a jail chaplain and pastor to Latino gang members in the Skagit Valley, north of Seattle? How has that work been a process of mutual transformation for him and the men he works with? How do differences in White and Latino cultures affect the possibilities and challenges of ministry in jail? How does the White Savior complex manifest in him and in the churches he equips? What spiritual practices “work” for men in solitary confinement? What are the broader lessons for Christians about with whom and where to read the Bible, the connection between visiting the imprisoned and genuinely belonging to a place, and the messiness and gloriousness of following Jesus?
I talked about all this with Chris Hoke – Founder and Executive Director of Underground Ministries, Presbyterian minister, author, father, and husband. Chris has been working as a jail chaplain in the Skagit Valley for nearly twenty years. In 2015 he wrote Wanted: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws, and Across Borders (HarperCollins) about his own journey and transformations in the gang members he has worked with. As a chaplain he also founded Underground Coffee, a roasting business employing formerly incarcerated people, and Underground Writing, a writing program for at-risk communities.
For all his success, what stood out most from our conversation was Chris’ honesty and vulnerability about his failure. In 2018 Chris learned about betrayal and deceit committed by Neaners - a former gang member whom Chris had accompanied as a chaplain through prison and release, one of the main people in his book, his Underground Ministry Co-Founder, and a “best friend” and “primary teacher.” Chris reflected on his terror, shame, despair and near nervous breakdown as the truth came to light; his own willful blindness leading up to the revelation; and how, out of that trial, and despite his initial resistance, Chris started with others the One Prisoner One Parish program to equip faith communities to build supportive relationships with prisoners and accompany them after their release.
Helpful Links:
I found this article to be a helpful summary of the theological framing for One Parish One Prisoner. It connects the Eastern Orthodox understanding of resurrection as breaking open the gates of Hades with “unburying” people from mass incarceration.
This written interview with Chris goes into more detail about the connections Chris sees between the history and ecology of the Skagit Valley and its prison population
You can read more of Chris’ work and listen to him here.
Chris refers to a handful of academic and theologians whose lives or work has shaped him: Tony Campolo, James Allison, Rene Girard, Michelle Alexander
To get involved with One Parish One Prisoner, or to make a donation, go here
Chris talks about Bob Ekblad at Tierra Nueva as an important mentor. Bob’s book is Reading the Bible with the Damned
The book Chris recommends for teaching Centering Prayer to men in prison is Finding God Within by Ray Leonardini
Chris’ book is Wanted: A Spiritual Pursuit Through Jail, Among Outlaws, and Across Borders
Chris refers to Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, and her call for a new Underground Railroad
Do you ever have a nagging sense – maybe when you hear Jesus tell the “Rich Young Ruler” to sell everything he has and give it to the poor, or when Jesus tells his disciples that it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God– that Jesus had a different message about wealth than much of what gets said in church: “Support the stewardship campaign!” “Give generously!” “We need to be prudent stewards of the endowment!”
Miguel Escobar, after many years working as a self-described “church bureaucrat” for Episcopal institutions in New York City, had such a nagging sense; so, he researched and wrote a book exploring his questions more deeply, The Unjust Steward: Wealth, Poverty, and the Church Today. The book looks at the evolution of Christian thinking about money over the course of its first 500 years through twenty-four “snapshots” of Christian theologians and saints from that time period.
I found Miguel to be an insightful and provocative conversation partner based on his intimate knowledge of very different worlds of faith and wealth. Growing up in small-town Texas, as the grandson of Catholic migrant farm workers, Miguel has a deep appreciation for how the announcement of Jesus’ arrival as the Son of God in the Gospel of Luke heralds good news for the poor. As Mary sings in the Magnificat, “[God] has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” In the world of his grandparents, Mary’s news about what God promised for the rich and for the poor was Good News. As an adult, Miguel has worked for the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Church Foundation, and for Episcopal Divinity School at Union. In these roles, he has worked with and for wealthy organizations and individuals. For them (and for me), Mary’s news is challenging news.
Miguel and I talked about the worlds and experiences that have shaped his thinking around Christianity and wealth; the history of the church “stewardship campaign” and its ethical complexity; his advice for wealthy churches like Trinity Wall Street (Trinity has over $6 billion in its real estate portfolio); the parable of the unjust steward as an alternative ethic for “promiscuous generosity” (a phrase Miguel credits to Louie Crew); how to work through feelings of hypocrisy and shame around being wealthy and Christian toward faithful action; and the threat of middle-class churches becoming “boutique version[s] of Christianity” that don’t include the poor.
Helpful Links
Here is a link to Miguel’s book, The Unjust Steward: Wealth, Poverty, and the Church Today.
Here is a New York Times story about Trinity Wall Street, The Church With the $6 Billion Portfolio
Miguel talks about the history of pew rentals, a common way that churches collected money prior to stewardship campaigns.
There is more here about the history of the “every member canvass” replacing pew rentals in the early 20th century.
Miguel references the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s critique of the stewardship model of Christian fundraising. Here is more about Reinhold Niebuhr. Miguel summarizes Niebuhr’s critique in the introduction of The Unjust Steward.
In the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus’s followers express worry about having sufficient food, drink, and clothes, Jesus answers, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you” (6:33). What if you decided to wager your life on Jesus’ claim? What if you decided to live as if those words were just as true today? Where would God lead you? What would your days look like? How would you provide for your children?
Tensie Hernandez and Dennis Apel decided almost thirty years ago to wager their lives on those words of Jesus. They left Los Angeles with just $300 to their names, drove up the coast of California, and found themselves led to Guadalupe, a town of 8,000 people, mostly undocumented farm workers. “The Spirit just kept opening doors,” said Tensie. Those doors led to creating a Catholic Worker house of hospitality called Beatitude House, as well as a free medical clinic, a food distribution center, and a clothing distribution program. Doors also opened to parenting two children and decades of monthly non-violent resistance or “vigils” outside the gates of the nearby Vandenburg Air Force Base. That led to a four-month prison sentence for Dennis, and a supreme court case.
How did their call unfold? What have been the blessings and challenges of raising kids while living a life of voluntary poverty?1 Reflecting on nearly three decades in Guadalupe, what are they most proud of? What have they learned about drawing on the wisdom of Dorothy Day without making an idol of her or the Catholic Worker model? What is their advice for others feeling drawn to create similar communities?
I talked about these questions and more with Dennis and Tensie. Having made that wager thirty years ago, I was struck by Dennis and Tensie’s gratitude and sense of abundance. I hope your heart will be touched, too.
Helpful Links
If you want to support Tensie and Dennis’ work, you can write a check to “Beatitude House” and mail it to Beatitude House Catholic Worker, 267 Campodonico Ave, Guadalupe, CA 93434. If you want to receive their newsletter, drop me a note in the Substack comments with your email address (or through my website contact page) and I’ll pass along your info to them.
Read more about Dennis’ decades of nonviolent resistance at the Vandenburg Airforce Base and the ensuing Supreme Court case
Listen here to Tensie share more on the “Coffee With Catholic Workers” podcast about her call to be a Catholic Worker and the ministry at Beatitudes House
Listen here to “Worker Kids”, including Dennis and Tensie’s daughter Rozelle, share about their experiences growing up in Catholic Worker communities. You can hear parents reflect on raising kids in community in part two of the episode
In this podcast Dennis talks about the inspiration of Ched Myers’ writing. Here is a link to Ched’s books, articles, classes, and blog.
How do you respond when you feel called to center your life around an ancient rhythm of prayer, and care for the land? The obvious option is to become a Benedictine monk or nun. But what if you also feel called to marriage and raising children?
Seven years ago Lisa and Mark Kutolowski created Metanoia Vermont in Strafford, Vermont to live out these multiple calls. (In full disclosure, I am a friend of Mark and Lisa’s and a former board member of Metanoia). On a few dozen acres they welcome guests and interns, and seek themselves, to “live the Way of Christ through prayer, work, and study in relationship with the land.”1 This means raising livestock, growing a garden, tending a woodlot, caring for children, and, in between all that, praying six times a day (see their typical daily schedule).
What led them to create Metanoia? How are they up to something beyond, in Lisa’s words, “doing monasticism poorly with kids running around”? How have their young children enhanced the community’s prayer life? What have been the blessings and challenges of the ministry on their marriage? What are the “shadows” of Metanoia, the temptations and dangers of a life of prayer and work on a Vermont hill farm? How do they think about wealth and poverty and their choices around money? At the cost of inclusion, what have been the benefits of creating a community that is not interfaith, but specifically rooted in the Roman Catholic tradition? As they reflect during their sabbatical after the start up chapter of Metanoia, what are their hopes for the next chapter? I talked about these questions and more with Mark and Lisa this past week.
Helpful Links
Learn more about Metanoia, including how to visit, at the Metanoia Vermont website.
The Metanoia ministry relies on donations. You can donate here.
You can read Mark’s regular reflections from the homestead and ministry on Substack. His Ash Wednesday Post, “The Gift of Ashes”, reflects on the “task of living into something good, true, and beautiful in an age of upheaval, dislocation and loss.”
Lisa mentions the work of Sister Mary Margaret Funk as helping her think about money and possessions.
Mark and Lisa refer to the “Liturgy of the Hours”, the daily prayer of the church. Specifically they mention the services of “lauds” and “vespers”, morning and evening prayer respectively. Read more about this ancient rhythm of prayer here.
How do you grow in faith, hope and love and also confront the suffering and injustice in the world? Fumi Tosu, longtime Catholic Worker and founder of one of the newest houses of hospitality, Dandelion House in Portland, Oregon, has written about the “liturgy of hope” that he has found in the rhythm of the life of a Catholic Worker: “chop, cook, serve, then walk, pray, protest.”
Helpful Links
Go to duncanhilton.net for an archive of podcasts and newsletters, info about joining online prayer groups, and to make a donation.
I spoke with Steve Haynes this week about the question at the heart of the book. Can church be more like AA? How exactly? Or, is it a fool’s errand to try to make church more like AA based on the structural differences between the two groups: anonymous membership versus public membership; and paid, professional leadership versus non-professional, decentralized leadership? Haynes is professor of religious studies at Rhodes College, and theologian-in-residence at Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He has authored several other books, including The Battle for Bonhoeffer: Debating Discipleship in the Age of Trump and The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation.
In our conversation we talk about: Steve’s own journey in recovery and how it changed his views on church culture; exactly what aspects of 12 step fellowships churches seek to emulate and how they have failed and succeeded; pastors’ centralized leadership as the “kiss of death” to efforts to incorporate twelve-step culture into churches; race, class, and gender dynamics underlying the question motivating the book; and what a longing for church to be more like AA and other 12-step fellowships says about this moment in the life of the church
One thing that stands out to me after speaking with Steve is how he senses that the 12-step movement gives people a taste of what first century Christian fellowship may have been like. Frank Buchman, one of the Christians who influenced the development of AA wrote, “the age of miracles has returned.” What if the age of miracles really has returned? What if it dawned in 12-step meetings in church basements and now the challenge isn’t just to let the light into the sanctuary, but for people to carry that light inwardly and let it guide the formation of new Christian communities?
Helpful Links:
Steve’s book is Why Can’t Church Be More Like an AA Meeting?
In the course of talking about 12-step and politics we also discuss his books, The Battle for Bonhoeffer: Debating Discipleship in the Age of Trump and The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation
Haynes recommends reading about the history of Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group. “A.A. grew in part out of The Oxford Group, a Christian group founded by a Lutheran minister named Frank Buchman around the year 1919. The first group was loosely called ‘A First Century Christian Fellowship’ and the Oxford Group name was later attached to the fellowship due to coincidental affiliation with Oxford, England. The Oxford Group enjoyed wide popularity and success, particularly in the 1930’s.2
Haynes mentions Sam Shoemaker, an Episcopal priest at Calvary Church in New York and member of the Oxford Group who influenced Bill Wilson as he was developing the steps.
Haynes talks about how Celebrate Recovery is a widespread program among conservative Christians to integrate 12-step spirituality and Christian teaching (He also talks about how it abandons some of the important 12-step traditions).
Haynes mentions our meeting this past spring at a conference. That event was hosted by the Recovery Ministries of the Episcopal Church. I recommend their gatherings and resources for anyone who wants to commune with and learn from Christians in recovery. Here is info about their weekly All 12-Step Meeting.
You can listen to Haynes talk more about his book and the theology and history of AA, in an interview with Father Bill W. on the Spiritual and Religious Podcast
What would a Christian community look like that took seriously working for justice, the wisdom and practices of the Christian tradition, and the insights of contemporary psychology? How could it draw on the marks of New Monasticism and the latest technology to create a community of people, dispersed across time zones? How could it form and support people to takes vows to: 1) a New Monastic rhythm of life, 2) ongoing conversion of life 3) hearing and responding to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor? What would be the right mix of online and in person gathering? Who would pay the bills? How would success be measured? How would the dispersed community support and train members to seed local projects and communities?
I know others who have pondered these questions. Fr. Adam Bucko - Episcopal priest, spiritual activist, author, and Director of the Center for Spiritual Imagination at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, NY - has wrestled with these questions in reality as cofounder of the Community of the Incarnation, a dispersed New Monastic community based out of the Center for Spiritual Imagination .
For more background on this podcast go to: https://duncanhilton.substack.com/
Helpful links related to our discussion:
· Adam’s most recent book: Let Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation
· An overview of the marks of New Monasticism and Adam’s book about the topic, The New Monasticism
· The Center for Spiritual Imagination is the center which Adam directs. The New Monasticism page at the Center provides more details and contact information to learn about joining the formation which Adam describes in the podcast.
· Upcoming public events at the Center
· Guided audio meditations and written directions for the prayers which Adam discusses
· For more on the collective Dark Night of the Soul, see Chapter 9 of Let Heartbreak Be Your Guide. You can also listen to an interview here with Andrew Harvey, one of Adam’s mentors, about the topic.
· Background about Liberation theology, including theologians Leonardo Boff and Gustavo Gutierrez
· CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education)
· The Contemplative Outreach website has information about Fr. Thomas Keating and the method of prayer, Centering Prayer, which he championed and which Adam discusses.
The prayer/poem which Adam closes the interview with is “Dream Me God” by Dorothy Soelle
Duncan talks to the eminent theologian about a prayer of his that “contains everything he’s about”; what he loves about church even while being a critic of it; teaching Sunday school to teenagers; and the gap between his thinking about the costs of discipleship and his own life comfortable life as a retired professor; and God calling the church to be “leaner and meaner.”
Duncan interviews Paul Engler, co-founder of the Center for the Working Poor, author of This is an Uprising, and co-founder of the Momentum training institute to equip young leaders to launch new movements. Momentum has trained thousands of people, and launched many movements, most famously Sunrise, a movement to stop the climate crisis.
They talk about Paul's lessons from the failures of his community, key concepts in launching movements and communities, and Paul's thoughts about starting a new institute for faith-based initiatives.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Here are links to many of the authors and books which Paul references:
Permaculturist and ecovillage pioneer Starhawk’s website and her book The Empowerment Manual
Momentum is the “training institute and community of organizers” which Paul co-founded with Carlos Saavedra. Here is their overview of frontloading and movement ecology
Ivan Marovic, Serbian organizer in the Otpor movement
Rory McEntee, Adam Bucko, and the Center for Spiritual Imagination
The Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, Fr. Thomas Keating, James Finley, Matthew Fox
Fr. Richard Rohr’s writing on the cosmic egg
A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit
Books by Joanna Macy
Camphill communities
Duncan shares why he's called to create to create this podcast and its focus - interviewing theologians, clergy, and lay people who are creating new Christian communities.
The script, including references, can be found at https://duncanhilton.substack.com/
Fr. Bill Sheehan - longtime teacher of Welcoming Prayer and Centering Prayer and student of Fr. Thomas Keating - offers a 11-minute introduction to the Welcoming Prayer. You can learn more about the Welcoming Prayer at https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/
Fr. Bill Sheehan - longtime teacher of Welcoming Prayer and Centering Prayer and student of Fr. Thomas Keating - leads a 13-minute guided meditation on the Welcoming Prayer. You can learn more about the Welcoming Prayer at https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/
