15. "Building Bridges Between Cultures" with Rasool Berry

When two worlds, cultures, or concepts collide, what happens? Often, there’s a sense of conflict. But what if, instead of facing these collisions with conflict, we met them with a willingness to understand? In this episode of Where Ya From?, Rasool Berry shares his own story of faith, culture, and identity. Listen as we discuss his experience of growing up in Philly and going to boarding school, his feelings of rejection and realizations of forgiveness, and how authors like Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, and Malcolm X inspired his identity and journey of faith.

Guest Bio

Rasool Berry’s name (meaning “messenger” in Arabic) reflects who he is and what he is passionate about: impacting young adults through translating spiritual truths from Scripture into the language and ethos of our time. Rasool serves as teaching pastor at The Bridge Church in Brooklyn, New York, and he is also the director of partnerships and content development with Our Daily Bread Ministries. Rasool graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in Africana studies and sociology. He is committed to helping people live out a biblical framework for social justice. He hosted the travel documentary series In Pursuit of Jesus, where he journeyed across five continents exploring what he can learn about Jesus through others. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Tamica, and their daughter Ire’Ana, and he hosts the Where Ya From? podcast.

Notes and Quotes:

• “Because of civil rights activists, Martin Luther King Jr. actually came to the school to call for its desegregation. It was finally desegregated, and so I ended up going and enrolling as a fourth grader in a boarding school in North Philly.”
• “Very early on, I was an outsider. And that really shaped a lot of who I became as a person because nothing came easy. I wasn’t athletic. I wasn’t cool. I was not smooth at that point. And there was nothing about me that drew people to me. And so I found myself on the outside looking in, and that was tough. But it was also something that over time kind of caused me to be more observant about people and curious about people because I was kind of observing a lot.”
• “I decided to just confess to the other girl that I had cheated. I was searching and trying to find a sense of how I could even, not just be the lowest piece of scum on her face of the planet, I guess. I didn’t want to live with the secret anymore. So I just confessed, fully expecting to get another well deserved tirade about how bad I was. And she said, ‘I forgive you.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ And she was like, ‘I forgive you.’ And I said, ‘Why?’ I had no frame of reference for it. And she said, ‘Well, Jesus has forgiven me for everything that I’ve done. So I don’t think I should hold this against you.’”
• “Sometimes there’s this tendency to just say, ‘Oh, we should just forgive everything and forget.’ And it’s like, well, forgiveness is a huge part, but there’s also, ‘We need to speak the truth.’”

Links Mentioned In Show: 

• Leave us a review here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/where-ya-from-podcast/id1581145346
• In Pursuit of Jesus: Available now on YouTube at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPOUA7GLxXIGkFacDNE39s62HJ43Mcojr 
• Follow Where Ya From? Podcast on Instagram: @whereyafrompodcast
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