It’s been five months since I launched my newsletter, and I am deeply thankful for each and every one of you who has followed my writing since. I pray that my writing continues to edify you and helps you imagine what belonging might look like in our deeply fractured world.
Yes, I believe that our world is fractured. I think it’s evident in my writing that I’m not scared to talk about difficult topics (racism, misogyny, politics, mental health, pornography, among others). Shattered into pieces, many people across the world continue to ponder the question of belonging — indeed, what does belonging look like in this fractured world?
As a Christian, I believe in the typical “Sunday School” answer: that everything begins with Jesus Christ. Following theologians like Karl Barth and Friedrich Schleiermacher, how we think of Jesus is crucial to our belonging to one another. It is to proclaim the reality that Jesus is the Redeemer of all creation, and the Holy Mediator who unites our bodies unto his own. Being the source of all peace and unity, Christ is therefore the “center” of our belonging together, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer lectured in 1933.
But this premise is also rightfully complicated by theologians like Jürgen Moltmann, James Cone, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Willie James Jennings, and Norman Wirzba — all of whom question what it means for Christ to be our center when the structures of racism, patriarchy, militarism, colonialism, and climate change disrupt human relationships and segregate us from each other. Indeed, for these theologians, what does belonging in Christ truly look like amid all these sociopolitical conditions?
For my newsletter, my aim is to reflect on these important questions and hopefully provide a way forward to think critically and constructively about the challenges we are facing today. Like the aforementioned theologians, I want to wrestle with the question of what it means for Jesus to be the “center” of what we do and who we are and how we belong to one another, especially as it relates to a world that, I believe, is deeply fractured — but never far from healing.
I am thankful for the past five months of writing for this newsletter, and the consistent growth of readership that I’ve experienced. Thank you, all, for engaging with me on these challenging topics, and wrestling with my writing as I have sought to explore through this newsletter how to answer the question of belonging.
I am excited for more as we journey through these topics and themes. I hope you join me on this journey, and I pray that it helps you imagine what belonging could truly be.
Reading:
Race: A Theological Account by J. Kameron Carter (Oxford University Press)
The Colonial Zeitgeist Perpetuated in Photographic Language: A Study in Memory Formation by Christine Pelliccio (Moody Bible Institute)
Watching:
Severance (Apple TV+)
Listening:
This Is Why by Paramore
Takin’ It Back by Meghan Trainor
Fearless by Taylor Swift
well said, dear friend. i’m here for the process !