Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker

Do we, as a society, truly think that every child can succeed in school? Nicole Baker Fulgham, president and founder of The Expectations Project, talks with Amy Julia about the societal expectations for children in schools, the inequity within public education, and how to mobilize the church to work towards education reform.SHOW NOTES:Nicole Baker Fulgham (PhD, UCLA) is the president and founder of The Expectations Project and author of Educating All God’s Children and Schools in Crisis. Follow Nicole:Twitter: @nicolebfulghamConnect with The Expectations Project: Website: expectations.orgResources for advocacy and serviceFacebook: @TheExpectationsProjectInstagram: @hopeforstudentsTwitter: @expectproject“My faith pushes me on the issues of justice and equity and serving those who have the least.”“I believe as a Christian that God doesn’t differentiate academic potential between black and brown and white and Asian and rich and poor kids...Being in the classroom didn’t take away my firm belief in that. I just had to figure out: how do we collectively get there?”“How do we fix the system so that we can support teachers differently, support schools and families differently, so that we can unleash that God-given potential in every kid?”“Do we, as a society, truly think that every child can achieve? And when I say every I mean every. The child whose parents are incarcerated. The child who is homeless. The child who just immigrated here and is six years old and has to learn English first. The child whose family is struggling economically…I’m not sure that we deep down believe that about everybody….If we did, we would be investing in kids differently in our country.”“We always want to support individuals, but we also have to look at not just the educational system that’s impacting them—institutional racism, all those things—but also those other systems outside of school.”On the Podcast:The Expectations Project Teach for AmericaPenny’s diagnosis of Down syndromeThank 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 11. 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! 

What is normal? Normie, a coming-of-age film about a young woman with Down syndrome, examines this question. Today, Annemarie Carrigan, the lead cast member of Normie, and Kurt Neale, the director and producer of the film, talk with Amy Julia about the illusions and reality of “normal,” the truth that all humans are broken and beloved, and how the creation of Normie changed how they viewed themselves and others.SHOW NOTES:Stream Normie from October 20-31, 2020: Go to amyjuliabecker.com and subscribe to receive monthly updates. You’ll receive an email with a link to watch Normie through Vimeo-on-Demand. (Be sure to check your spam folder if you don’t see the email in your inbox!)Follow on social media: Twitter: @normiefilm, @amcarrigan560Normie Film: normiefilm.com“Normie is about the illusion of normal and the beauty of love through the lens of Down syndrome.” - Annemarie“[I hope that] People would flip the lens, so to speak, and look at themselves and not simply observe Annemarie being honest but people would be drawn into evaluation of themselves.” - Kurt“Our world is such a mess. We’re screaming out that your identity is relative to your performance. That is a tragic lie...I find value in that I am created and loved by God, and I can also love others.” - Kurt“I am loved. I am not normal. And I am just who I am. And I’m proud of that.” - Annemarie“I am loved by God. That’s a fact. I don’t know how to explain how I feel loved by God because it’s unfathomable to think that God loves me and believes in me. It’s his word against mine.” - Annemarie“Could it possibly be true that I’m far more loved than I ever dreamed possible? And that I can really love others through my own limitedness and brokenness?” - KurtOn the Podcast:Stream Normie from October 20-31, 2020: Go to amyjuliabecker.com and subscribe to receive monthly updates. You’ll receive an email with a link to watch Normie through Vimeo-on-Demand. (Be sure to check your spam folder if you don’t see the email in your inbox!)Gilmore GirlsGod is love. (1 John 4:7-21)David ZahlJosh WhiteTotal solar eclipseKatie AndersonThank 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 10. 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! 

How does “the built world”—the chairs, rooms, and streets that guide our bodies every day— implicitly ascribe worth to human beings? How does the built world welcome or exclude individuals in public space? Sara Hendren, author of “What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World,” talks with Amy Julia about disability and the built world, how disability is fundamental to our common humanity, and reimagining the built world in a way that gives dignity and worth to all human beings.SHOW NOTES:Sara Hendren is an artist, design researcher, professor at Olin College of Engineering, and the author of “What Can a Body Do?” Connect with Sara:Twitter: @ablerismsarahendren.com/“The world built of stairs, the world built of sidewalks with no curb cuts—all of those things bear out a very tacit presumption about who’s going to be in public space.”“We enter our lives acutely dependent on other people. We often exit our lives also in a period of dependence. And in between we traffic in and out of experiences of needing one another. Within our own mythology about how we don’t need people very much or our sense of autonomy and independence, we know that what makes us flourish is connection.”“I have a body that has needs. We share that.”“How do I want to be treated if I’m even a little bit different than I am now? The way that I treat folks who are currently acutely vulnerable is the logic by which I will be treated. We owe it to each other to be a little more imaginative than we are, and it doesn’t take an overhaul of the world. An editing of a lot of what we have already makes all the difference.”On the Podcast:“What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World” by Sara HendrenRosemary Garland-ThomsonGallaudet UniversitySigning StarbucksBrenda BrueggemannSharon SnyderErik Carter 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 (a little out of order) about chapter 11. 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! 

Mortality is often connected to fear, so how does embracing mortality provide hope to individuals and communities? Professor Todd Billings, author of “The End of the Christian Life: How Embracing Our Mortality Frees Us to Truly Live,” talks with Amy Julia about lamenting and embracing mortality, the potential for mortality to exacerbate divisions or create connections, and how the presence of God brings freedom from our slavery to the fear of death.SHOW NOTES:Dr. J. Todd Billings is a professor at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, MI. An ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America, he received his M.Div. from Fuller Seminary and his Th.D. from Harvard. Connect further with Todd:Twitter: @jtoddbillingsFacebook: @jtoddbillingsauthorhttps://jtoddbillings.com/“Whether you are young or old…our mortality matters for all of us in how we relate and connect to one another.”“A tremendous gift of the church is that it’s one of the few places in our cultural moment where young children and middle-aged people and dying older people can come together and be part of a community.”“In Christian circles, I sometimes get the idea that we shouldn’t be afraid of death at all. I don’t think that’s either biblical teaching or likely to happen. It sets up this ideal that makes people shameful when they grieve deeply.”“Of course we should have a certain fear of death. But when fear of death is on the throne, then self-protection becomes the central priority...we pull in rather than reaching out in compassion.”“This same presence of God that we’ve been aching for from the pit and in our whole pilgrimage—this one centered in Jesus—that presence will be the wide and spacious land, so to speak, of our rejoicing and dwelling in rest.”ON THE PODCAST:The End of the Christian LifePenelope Ayers (Amy Julia’s memoir about caring for her mother-in-law)Scripture: Psalm 27, Jonah, Matthew 27:46, Hebrews 2:15, 2 Corinthians 4“Rejoicing in Lament” by BillingsCheck back at https://breakingground.us/ for a new article by Amy Julia coming out in OctoberTerror management theory “The Denial of Death” by Ernest BeckerGeorge Floyd’s deathZoom video callThank 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 9. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

What is privilege? What is it not? How does privilege cause harm? In this bonus episode, Amy Julia describes her working definition of privilege, the ways that privilege leads to unjust social divisions and disparities, and how we can participate in healing from the harm of privilegeSHOW NOTES:“Privilege is a set of unearned social advantages that lead to unjust social divisions and disparities.”“Privilege is not a guarantee of an easy life and it’s not an accusation of an easy life.”“As unearned social advantages lead to unjust social divisions, we find ourselves participating in injustice.”“Privilege harms everyone. The ways we are cut off from one another and from the full expression of human diversity is not only unjust but it is also harmful, and I, for one, want to be a part of healing.”“Healing comes from the overflow of the love of God at work in and through God’s people—not just the love of God, but the love of God that is expressed in acts of mercy, of kindness, and of justice.”ON THE PODCAST:Penny’s diagnosisPodcast guests to date: David Bailey, Micha Boyett, Patricia Raybon, Natasha Sistrunk Robinson, Jemar Tisby, Cara Meredith, Subira Gordon, Marlena Graves, Niro Feliciano, Esau McCaulley, Dominique Gilliard, Paul MillerStudies: names on job applications; wage gaps; bias in sportsCollege admissions scandalBlog Post: The Spiritual Problem of Racism Calls for a Spiritual SolutionAudiobook: “Head, Heart, Hands”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 taking a break from our typical podcast episodes and guests to talk about the topic of privilege. 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! 

How does the pattern of Jesus’ life reshape privilege, wealth, and community? Paul Miller, author of “J-Curve: Dying and Rising with Jesus in Everyday Life,” talks with Amy Julia about the J-curve and how this daily dying and rising with Christ can create communities where the potential divisions of wealth and privilege are reshaped by love.SHOW NOTES:Paul Miller is Executive Director of seeJesus, a global discipleship mission, which he founded in 1999 to help Christians and non-Christians alike “see Jesus.” His books include “J-Curve” and the instant bestseller “A Praying Life.” Follow him on Twitter at @_paulemiller.“The normal Christian life looks like the path of Jesus’ life—from life down into death and then from death up into resurrection and glorification. That pattern of Jesus’ life is the template for whole sections of my life, pieces of my day, my relationships, and it’s a very liberating grid. It has hope in it and gives meaning.”“We don’t understand how critical our dying is to the creation of an inclusive community.”“If I begin to live this J-curve, I become a community-creation machine. Everywhere I go I’m creating community.”“The antidote to all of the problems of the power of money is love.”“One of the aspects of evil is that it bends you to seeing that evil is the final word. And that leads to cynicism. You begin to see evil everywhere, and that in itself is evil because it leads to a cynical spirit where you begin to doubt even the good. That’s a disease of our age—an age of cynicism...Paul clearly looks at life through a resurrection lens and tells us to do so as well. What’s right and true and lovely? Be looking for those things. You’re hunting for the good.”On the Podcast:Is God Anti-racist? articleScripture: Sharing in Christ’s suffering (Philippians 1:29, Philippians 3:10), 2 Corinthians 1, James 2:1-6, John 9, John 4:1-42, John 14, John 11:45-52, I Timothy 6, Colossians 3:1-17, Philippians 1, God of all comfort benediction, Fruit of the Spirit“The Sun Does Shine” by Anthony Ray HintonFrancis of AssisiMartin Luther“Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. TolkienIgnatian Consolation and DesolationPenny’s diagnosisWay MakerPerson of Jesus studyThank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.White Picket FencesWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

What would it mean for the criminal justice system to be unjust? And if it is, what should Christians do about it? Dominique Gilliard, author of “Rethinking Incarceration,” talks with Amy Julia about the history of injustice in this system, reimagining justice, punishment, and reconciliation in light of the gospel, and practical ways the church can love people who have been incarcerated.SHOW NOTES:Dominique DuBois Gilliard is the Director of Racial Righteousness and Reconciliation for the Love Mercy Do Justice (LMDJ) initiative of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). His book “Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice that Restores” won the 2018 Book of the Year Award for InterVarsity Press.Follow LMDJ on social mediaTwitterFacebookInstagramYouTube“Restorative justice says that for justice to be made manifest, there has to be a tangible pathway toward restoration for not only the person who has suffered from the offense but also the person who has caused the offense.”“Do we really believe the things that we proclaim in our congregational spaces, and, if so, how does that inform how we vote, how we live, how we engage in the world at large?”“Nobody is beyond redemption....the Spirit who has the ability to bring life out of death has the ability to bring restoration out of people who have caused offenses.”“When we understand that privilege is something for us to steward, then that liberates us from feeling immobilized by it. It liberates us from actually denying it. We can affirm privilege is real and that we have a responsibility to steward it in a way that furthers the kingdom and loves our neighbor.”On the Podcast:“The New Jim Crow” by Michelle AlexanderShooting of Kathryn JohnstonEqual Justice InitiativePrison FellowshipSeason 3 of SerialChicago’s Million Dollar BlocksOld Testament gleaning laws“Compassionate Justice” by Christopher MarshallBryan Stevenson and Equal Justice Initiative67% of white evangelicals support the death penaltyInterview with Bryan Stevenson about “Just Mercy”Psalm 139:23-24Resources from Dominique: What We Can Do powerpoint and Follow-Up Resources pdfThank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.White Picket Fences, Season 3 oWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

The Black church has a gift for American Christianity. Are we all willing to receive it? New Testament scholar Esau McCaulley, author of “Reading While Black,” talks with Amy Julia about Black biblical interpretation, distorted views of the gospel, the importance of identity within a Christian’s story, and the Black church’s commitment to both the theological tenets of Christianity and advocating for justice.SHOW NOTES:Esau McCaulley (PhD, St. Andrews), author of “Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope,” a priest in the Anglican Church in North America, and a contributing writer for The New York Times. He is also the host of The Disrupters podcast. His publications include Sharing in the Son's Inheritance and numerous articles in outlets such as Christianity Today, The Witness, and The Washington Post. Connect with him online:esaumccaulley.comTwitter: @esaumccaulley“There’s a whole story in the Bible of God liberating an entire people who are enslaved. This goes to the front of God’s resume. He says it over and over and over again, 'I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.'”“The very practice of going to the Bible and asking God to meet us there is an exercise of hope.""Look to the Black church in America. It has a long history of advocacy for justice along with remaining in the great tradition of things Christians will always believe."“If our ethnicity is eschatological, if we go into the new creation as black and brown and white people, if we all come into the kingdom as our ethnic selves, then God is glorified in the salvation of each of us and each part of who we are. My blackness is not immaterial to the story of my life. I can’t tell the story of my life and what God has done in my life without talking about what it means to be Black and Christian.”On the Podcast:Articles/Essays in The New York TimesScripture: Genesis 48, Exodus 12:37-38, I Timothy 6:1-2, Genesis 1:26-28, Luke 20:4, Sermon on the Mount, Revelation, John 9“Deacon King Kong” by James McBride“The Cross and the Lynching Tree” by James ConeThe New York Times: The Bloody Fourth Day of ChristmasPenny’s diagnosis of Down syndromeThank 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 7. 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! 

In an achievement-oriented culture, how do we risk vulnerability in order to move toward personal and racial healing? Cognitive therapist Niro Feliciano talks with Amy Julia about the complexities of privilege, race and identity, affluence and anxiety, and the hurt and the hope found within communities of faith.SHOW NOTES:Niro Feliciano is a certified cognitive therapist and co-founder of a multi-specialty mental health group in Connecticut where she treats anxiety in adults and adolescents. Connect with Niro: nirofeliciano.com, her All Things Life podcast, @niro_feliciano on Instagram, and Niro Feliciano, The Incidental Therapist on Facebook.“Race is a part of my identity and it is so much a part of my relationships.”“Affluence contributes to...anxiety and depression.”“Identity and value is so linked to accomplishment.”“Starting in the home, we have to validate our families and our kids for who they are and not what they do. We can’t constantly be focused on the achievement.”“I am sure about Jesus. When we say Christianity and the Church has not always been inclusive, my feeling is—Jesus always has been.”“Be compassionate towards yourself. Forgive yourself.”On the Podcast:Podcast episodes with Niro: Super Bowl episode and White Picket Fences episodeNiro’s podcast: All Things Life“The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” by James Weldon Johnson“Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race” by Beverly Tatum“Caste: The Origins of Discontents” by Isabel WilkersonNiro’s blog post on ridgefieldmom.comThank 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 7. 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! 

Fear often inhabits both wealth and poverty. How does viewing money and self-sacrifice through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus bring freedom and joy? Writer and speaker Marlena Graves, author of The Way Up Is Down: Becoming Yourself by Forgetting Yourself, talks with Amy Julia about wealth, poverty, faith, and the freedom that comes from being filled up with God’s love.SHOW NOTESMarlena Graves received her M.Div. from Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, New York and is pursuing her Ph.D. in American Culture Studies as she researches the influence American culture has on Evangelicals’ view of immigration, race, and poverty. Connect with Marlena: marlenagraves.com; @marlena.graves on Instagram, @marlena.propergraves on Facebook, and @MarlenaGraves on Twitter.“Money can’t buy happiness or joy or peace. We can use money that God has given us for God’s ways, but to think that [money by itself] is going to satisfy—it really doesn’t.”“The way of Jesus is to use whatever God has given us and whatever station of life we are in for God’s Kingdom.”“The only way I can love people, love my neighbor, is if I am in tune and paying attention to God.”“Prayer is putting your gaze upon God.”On the Podcast:Scripture: Amos 5:24; James 5:1-6; Matthew 13; Matthew 19:24; Luke 5:27–32; Luke 19:1-10; Luke 9:51-56; Mark 9:35; Matthew 25Rich MullinsPope FrancisPenny’s diagnosis of Down syndromeThank 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 chapters 6 and 7. 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!