Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker

Erin and David Leaverton sold their house, loaded their three, young children into an RV, and traveled the country for a year. Their family’s journey is part of the documentary The Reunited States. Erin Leaverton talks with Amy Julia about their search for what divides our nation, the false hierarchy of human value, and the durable power of God’s love to heal division.SHOW NOTES:Erin Leaverton is a wife, a mom to three children, an interior designer, and a blogger. Her family’s “life-altering adventure, traveling across America by RV for one year to learn about why the fabric of our nation is fraying” is part of The Reunited States documentary. Connect with Erin online:Website: erinleaverton.comFacebook: @erineleavertonInstagram: @erinleavertonPinterest: @erineleavertonWebsite: undividednation.usOn the Podcast: The Reunited States of America: How We Can Bridge the Partisan Divide by Mark GerzonDocumentary: The Reunited States, presented by Van Jones and Meghan McCainSusan Bro, Steven Olikara, and Greg OrmanUndivided Nation“[Our divisions are] rooted in our belief in a false hierarchy of human value...you can’t measure human life. It’s infinite.”“We bear the image of an eternal God. That’s incredible. Each one of us. It’s infinitely beautiful and infinitely valuable.” “The things that I will look for to define my own value is the exact same set of principles I’ll apply on every other person.”“We do have permission to mourn things that we discover. And we need to. I think that that’s healthy. But we can’t stay there. We have to move through it.”“Dr. King said, ‘Love is the most durable power in the world.’ And when I heard that quote, what I literally saw was like an actual structure to hold the weight of disagreement. And I think agreement is what we’re building on right now. And it’s so cheap and so flimsy. It cannot hold any dissonance, whereas love can.”“Respect is earned over time. Honor is something we can give freely, just like love. Everyone is deserving of honor because everyone bears God’s image. Even if they’re committing atrocities—and I know this is a hard thing to say, a hard thing to believe—but even in the act of committing horrible atrocities, no human being is outside the realm of redemption and honor.”Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book Head, Heart, Hands, which accompanies White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCES that are designed to help you respond to the harm of privilege and join in the work of We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

Can acknowledging the wounds of white evangelicalism actually bring healing? Kristin Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne, talks with Amy Julia about the harm of militant masculinity and Christian nationalism found within white evangelicalism and the hope for healing by exposing and addressing those wounds.SHOW NOTES:Kristin Kobes Du Mez is professor of History and Gender Studies at Calvin University and the author of Jesus and John Wayne. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame, and her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. Connect with Kristin online:Website: kristindumez.comFacebook: @kkdumezTwitter: @kkdumezOn the Podcast:Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du MezLuke 6:6-10“The closer I looked, the more I saw John Wayne popping up in very unexpected places as the icon of American masculinity and Christian masculinity.”“We have seen this before. We have seen this so many times before—evangelicals finding reasons to support abusers of power, to support men who they thought would protect the faith, protect Christianity—and at great costs to women, to children, and to their communities.”“It doesn’t take a lot always to slip from metaphorical battles to actual battles.”“How did we get to where we are now? There were many choices, active choices, that individuals made at different junctures, often for the purpose of enhancing their own power, and we can start to see how all of this came together...Then we are freer to ask, “Is this where we want to be? Is this how evangelicals—how Christians—ought to engage our neighbors?”“What is the Good News? And what should that look like? And how much should it actually entail building walls and drawing stark divisions and excluding people from our communities?”Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book Head, Heart, Hands, which accompanies White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCES that are designed to help you respond to the harm of privilege and join in the work of healing. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

How do spiritual practices equip us to participate in God’s healing work in the world? Rich Villodas, pastor and author of The Deeply Formed Life, talks with Amy Julia about social divisions, the relationship between inner spiritual formation and outward actions, and God’s healing work within individuals and communities.SHOW NOTES:“Rich Villodas  is the Brooklyn-born lead pastor of New Life Fellowship, a large, multiracial church with more than seventy-five countries represented in Elmhurst, Queens.” Connect with Rich online:Website: richvillodas.comFacebook: @rvillodasInstagram: @richvillodasTwitter: @richvillodasOn the Podcast:The Deeply Formed Life by Rich VillodasThe Message: Eugene Peterson’s Bible translationLuke 3-4Thomas Keating, Henri Nouwen, and Jean VanierFamily Systems TheorySexual Character by Marva DawnLiving Gently in a Violent World by Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier“It’s quite liberating—it’s very difficult at first—but it’s quite liberating when you realize, ‘I’m not a human doing, I’m a human being. I can take an extra nap. Or I can delight in or cultivate things that bring me joy.’”“Contemplative prayer for me has been the most important element for how I think about race, how I think about the interior life, how I think about justice...the goal is to be present with God so that I can be present with myself and then be present with my neighbor. For me, contemplative prayer serves as the foundation to be present with those who are difficult to love, to be present with those I disagree with.”“The agony of prayer is that I don’t see fruit in the moment. And I need to be okay with that.”“Who are you allowing to speak into your life? What are the stories you’re opening yourself to? Even in the books that we read, the music that we listen to,  the stories that we come across, I think that moving close to someone isn’t necessarily a physical proximity. Sometimes it’s an emotional proximity. Sometimes it’s narrative proximity—trying to understand someone’s story.”“How Christians can participate in the renewal of the world—we can see people as enemies to be conquered or see wounds that need to be healed. And that’s hard. That’s a cruciform way of living. It’s painful. It’s slow.”___Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book Head, Heart, Hands, which accompanies White Picket Fences. Check out free We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

Can God truly heal, redeem, and transform brokenness? Katherine Wolf, coauthor of Suffer Strong and cofounder of Hope Heals, talks with Amy Julia about the reality of disability and pain, redefining brokenness and healing, and the game-changing nature of community. (Keep scrolling for book giveaway!)“Katherine Wolf miraculously survived a catastrophic stroke caused by a congenital brain defect she never knew she had. After a sixteen-hour brain surgery, forty days in the ICU, a year in neuro rehab, and eleven operations, she continues her recovery to this day.” Katherine and her husband, Jay, are the authors of Suffer Strong and Hope Heals and the founders of Hope Heals and Hope Heals Camp.Connect with Katherine online:Website: hopeheals.comInstagram: @hopehealsFacebook: @hopehealsTwitter: @hopehealsOn the Podcast:Wolfs’ books: Suffer Strong  and Hope HealsHope Heals CampJohn SwintonPenny’s diagnosis“The Lord has really used what was terrible, tragic brokenness and transformed that into something really beautiful. We love our story of redemption.”“It’s not a rejection of the body that we’re in. It’s a deeper understanding of the body we’re in and how it can enable us to see truths about God differently than if it were ‘normal.’”“Community is a game-changer for healing.”“True community isn’t trying to be outcome changers. They’re not trying to pray away your pain. They’re just with you in it… True community isn’t trying to stamp a Jesus sticker on your pain because it’s so much bigger than something a sticker could do…I need the truth of Jesus but not yet. In this moment, I need you to cry with me and feel the loss with me and let it be shocking to you.”“God has equipped me in these years of suffering.”“The communal, almost instant, embracing of each other [at camp] has everything to do with the fact that living the ‘American dream’ is no longer available to these families, so they’re not concerned with it anymore. They’re on the other end of the spectrum where they actually are wanting to disrupt the lie that joy only comes in a pain-free life. They are banding together to proclaim that we’re not going to worship the idol of a pain-free life. It’s not available. That’s not our story. But there’s still joy in this story."BOOK GIVEAWAYTo enter for your chance to win a copy of Suffer Strong, simply share this podcast episode on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and be sure to tag me when you share it!___Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

Liuan Huska, author of Hurting Yet Whole, talks with Amy Julia about chronic illness and pain, experiencing wholeness while living in suffering, and the relationship between community and healing for both the individual and society. (scroll to the end for book giveaway details!)A freelance writer and speaker, Liuan focuses on topics of embodiment and spirituality. Her writing, on everything from chronic pain to evangelical fertility trends, appears in publications including Christianity Today and The Christian Century. She lives with her husband and their three little boys in the Chicago area.Connect with Liuan online: Website: liuanhuska.comFacebook: @LiuanHuskaAuthorTwitter: @LiuanHuskaOn the Podcast: Hurting Yet Whole by Liuan HuskaNY Times article: Americans, Stop Being Ashamed of WeaknessAdam: God’s Beloved by Henry Nouwen“For people with disabilities, so much of the suffering that happens has to do with how they do or don’t fit into society’s definitions and ideas of what’s a good life and a productive life and a meaningful life. That also plays into chronic illness.”“When I first started having pain and I couldn’t be in my body in ways that were joyful and life-giving...being in my body felt like a death sentence...To me being whole meant going out on bike rides and dancing and backpacking around the world, and suddenly I didn’t have those avenues for flourishing in the world. My body is part of me, so how do I reconnect with my body?” “We don’t have to be perfect to be whole. How is my body still good? Can I find purpose in the imperfection? What does it mean to be present in my body? And what does it mean to experience God’s purpose and goodness as I am, being able to accept that this is the reality that I’ve been given…I can choose to live as I am, as the body that I am, without needing to wish myself back to a previous state of what I thought was normal.”“We can promote the health of communities and groups of people as a whole by starting to pull back those layers of systemic issues.”BOOK GIVEAWAYTo enter to win a copy of Hurting Yet Whole, complete Steps 1 & 2:⁠⁠1. Go to your favorite podcast platform and rate or review the Love Is Stronger Than Fear with Amy Julia Becker podcast ⁠2. Then let Amy Julia know you've completed Step 1 by contacting her via messages on her Instagram or Facebook or via her contact page on her website—amyjuliabecker.com/contact/  ⁠The book winner will be randomly selected on Monday, February 1, 2021.⁠___Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book Head, Heart, Hands, which accompanies White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

How do we fight racism? Is there reason to hope when history reveals the continuity of racism’s tactics and its multifaceted exploitation? Historian and author Jemar Tisby talks with Amy Julia about racial identity, Black Lives Matter, laboring for racial justice, and reasons to hope for racial healing.Jemar Tisby is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Color of Compromise, and the newly released book How to Fight Racism. He is the president and co-founder of The Witness: A Black Christian Collective and co-host of the podcast Pass The Mic. Connect with Jemar online: Website: jemartisby.comFacebook: @JemarTisby1Twitter: @JemarTisbyInstagram: @jemartisbyOn the Podcast:Jemar’s books: The Color of Compromise and How to Fight RacismAmy Julia’s article in Christianity Today: Should Christians Support Reparations for African Americans?Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair by Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson“All racial justice is in some sense relational. And I especially mean when we have to cross different boundaries—race, ethnicity, culture—so that people don’t simply become the other or the enemy, but human beings, image-bearers of God and how that affects the way we treat other people, the way we love our neighbors, the way we maneuver in the world. But I recognize that oftentimes we leave it at relationships…”“I want to highlight the continuity in tactics. And so the folks that are invested in the racist status quo, whether consciously or unconsciously, one of the main tactics they use is labeling people…and what labeling does, it means I can put you in a box, put you on a shelf, and ignore you, ignore what you’re saying…The labels change over time. You still have the 'Marxist,' 'Communist' labels being thrown around, but now it’s much more frequent that you’ll hear one of two things—either Critical Race Theorist or socialist.”“I just don’t think you’re having a serious conversation about racial justice unless at some point you’re talking about money.”“Through the Bible, it’s never the case that as you’re pursuing justice things get easier or you see results immediately. Sometimes you labor for a lifetime, and the fruit of your work is seen in the next generation, which on the one hand can be discouraging, but on the other, it means that none of our work is wasted.”“It’s not just about the world changing outside of us. It’s about changing us too—that as we pursue justice, as we endure persecution for righteousness’ sake, it’s changing who we are. It refines our character to be more like Jesus.”__Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book Head, Heart, HandsWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

Love is stronger than fear. I first wrote those words on the heels of Donald Trump’s election back in 2016, and they became a truth I returned to again and again in the social tumult of the past four years. They also became the title of my podcast, and I’m excited to announce that Season 4 of Love Is Stronger Than Fear starts today! It’s a short episode today, an introduction to the season ahead, including guests like Jemar Tisby, Liuan Huska, and Katherine Wolf who will help me consider how to live in love instead of fear in the midst of personal pain and social division. This season, we’re looking at the themes of my e-book Head, Heart, Hands. We’ll be talking about the way we can learn, relate, and respond with action to the brokenness in our own lives and our culture when it comes to race, class, disability, and other dividing lines within our culture.So if you are already a subscriber, you should see this new episode in your podcast feed today. If you aren’t, I invite you to go to wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe right now. For all of you, please let other people know about Love Is Stronger Than Fear. We are on a mission to help people believe that we can make a difference. We can heal. We can proclaim that hope and love and joy and justice win. This podcast is just one small part of a larger healing work that we are all invited into. I hope you’ll join us in the conversation. And I hope you’ll put the conversation into action in this broken world because you too have come to believe that love is stronger than fear. Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book Head, Heart, Hands, which accompanies White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCES that are designed to help you respond to the harm of privilege and join in the work of healing. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

Do we want to get well? Within the reality of the harm of privilege and ongoing division, Amy Julia concludes this season of the podcast by examining how healing begins when love is our home. She provides solutions of hope and reconciliation that begin and end with, and flow from, the abundant love of God. (Plus a sneak peek into Season 4 of Love is Stronger Than Fear!)SHOW NOTES:“If we just tackle these problems [of division] with policies, if we just tackle them with to-do steps and practices, we’re going to scratch the surface. But if we get down to that spiritual level, if we call upon God—the God of love, the God of judgment, the God who names evil but also gives us a way to deal with evil, the God who gives us a way to love, to hope, to heal—we can find healing.”“Any spiritual solution, any work of reconciliation and healing, any repentance, any confession, any loving of our enemies, it begins and it ends, and it is in the middle, motivated by love.”“When we turn away from ourselves—away from the allure of tribalism, away from the temptation of self-justification—and turn toward Love, we begin to construct a vision of the future formed and shaped by hope, by the possibilities of unexpected connections, of mutual blessing, of a world made right. Do we want to get well?”  -White Picket FencesOn the Podcast:Request your copy of my Advent e-book: Prepare Him Room: Reflections on What Happens When God Shows UpWhite Picket FencesGeorge Floyd’s deathPrevious episodes of Season 3 of this podcastThe Atlantic article by Ta-Nehisi CoatesGuest podcast with Niro Feliciano: “How Do We Heal a Church Divided”Reconciling All Things by Emmanuel Katongole and Chris RiseWhite Picket Fences companion resourcesThank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences, and today I am talking about chapter 14. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

The presidential election does not change the church’s assignment. David Bailey, the executive director of Arrabon, talks with Amy Julia about the practices of reconciling communities, the divisions that result from misplaced hope in political power, and the foretaste of God’s kingdom that comes through loving our enemies.SHOW NOTES:David Bailey is the executive director of Arrabon, a ministry that helps churches become reconciling communities. Arrabon also includes Urban Doxology,  ministry that writes the soundtrack of reconciliation in a racially diverse and gentrifying neighborhood. Connect online:Websites: arrabon.com; urbandoxology.comInstagram: @davidmbailey; @wearearrabon; @urbandoxologyFacebook: @thedavidmbailey; @wearearrabon; @urbandoxologyTwitter: @davidmbailey; @wearearrabon; @UrbanDoxologyOn the Podcast:“[In Acts] the church was birthed within a multiethnic, socioeconomically diverse space. The miracle of that day and time was the fact that they were experiencing unity and diversity instead of unity through assimilation.”“We live in a day and time where we treat one another as enemies...We talk to each other violently. We listen to each other in ways to pounce on one another. And as Christians, we’re called to love God. We’re called to love our neighbor. We’re called to love our enemy. Not in a theoretical sense. Our invitation is to engage in sacrificial love for our enemy.”“A reconciling community is a group of people linked by a common purpose and a rhythm of life together that acknowledges the depths of brokenness in the world in our world and actively receives the invitation from God to heal the brokenness of our world holistically from the inside out."“The world gets the church, and we are to be a foretaste of the kingdom that is to come.”Sign up for Arrabon’s newsletterPodcast’s 1st episode with David BaileyUrban Doxology: Rest for the WearyScripture: Acts 2; Genesis 1:26; Micah 6:8; Ephesians 1:13-14Books by Robert P. Jones: The End of White Christian America and White Too LongBooks by Carl Ellis Jr: Free at Last?: The Gospel in the African-American Experience and Going GlobalFrederick DouglassThank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.White Picket Fences, We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

As Americans vote in national and local elections, is there hope for power, politics, and privilege to foster human flourishing? Andy Crouch, author of Strong and Weak, talks with Amy Julia about the paradox of authority and vulnerability, how political leaders can use power and risk for the good of humanity, the distinction between blessing and privilege, and pragmatic ways to contribute to human flourishing.Show Notes:Andy Crouch is partner for theology and culture at Praxis, an organization that works as a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship. His two most recent books—2017's The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place and 2016's Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing—build on the vision of faith, culture, and the image of God.Follow Andy online:Website: andy-crouch.comTwitter: @ahc“Authority is the capacity for meaningful action. Vulnerability is the exposure to meaningful risk.”“Most of the benefits we enjoy come from a tangled legacy of past exercises of power, some of which were highly creative and beneficial and beautiful, and others of which were forceful, coercive, and violent.”“Things that are called blessing in the Bible often happen at a moment of tremendous vulnerability. Blessing happens in the midst of vulnerability and unto vulnerability.”“The ultimate risk is love.”ON THE PODCAST:Andy’s books: The Tech-Wise Family, Strong and Weak, Playing God, and Culture MakingPraxis podcastStrong and Weak quadrantBible passages: Luke 12:13-21; Genesis 49; Genesis 27; Genesis 32:22-32; Matthew 4:18-20; Matthew 5:1-12Podcast interview with Sara HendrenMy Tech-Wise Life: Growing Up and Making Choices in a World of Devices by Amy Crouch and Andy CrouchBreaking Ground article (coming soon)Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences, and today we are talking about chapter 12. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening!