Today we are continuing our miniseries on the Antioch Podcast on Antiracist Spiritual Practices – the same Christian disciplines that Christians have been practicing for over two millennia, with an Antiracism focus. Biblical Antiracism swings the camera of our awareness to examine how sin-filled humans use their power to create systems and policies which many times bring about racial inequities and injustice. These systemic injustices make it hard for all peoples to flourish, which is not in keeping with God’s plan for humanity. These spiritual practices accomplish three things:

1.) These spiritual practices heighten our individual and corporate awareness to perceive and recognize individual and systemic sins that lead to inequity and injustice – including racial inequities and race-based injustices.
2.) These spiritual disciplines prepare us for action because as it says in the book of James chapter 2:17 -faith without actions is dead.
3.) These spiritual disciplines make room for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit, who stretches and guides us as we walk by faith. We remember that it was the Holy Spirit who called the church out of a Jewish monoculture to a worldwide faith reaching all peoples and cultures of the Roman world… a phenomenon which continues to this day. Without the work of the Spirit, there would be no multiethnic church – as our sinful human nature is to be self-centered, stay in our own groups, and hoard whatever resources and power we have to serve our own interests.

So today, we continue with a discussion of the antiracist spiritual practice of self-care. Jesus routinely would take time away from ministry to recharge – often in solitary places. This practice of self-care is the topic of our discussion today because racism takes a toll on anyone who is working to recover from the damage of overt racism and microaggressions, decolonize their mind, have equitable relationships, and reform systems and institutions to be more inclusive places where all God’s people can live and thrive.

Let’s go now and listen to this conversation.