The Disrupters: Faith Changing Culture

“I’m gonna stop suppressing myself … and lying to myself, or at least lying to you for the sake of peace and reconciliation. At this point, I’m just gonna need to be real.” Mental Health Expert Dr. Peace Amadi, PsyD, is a Professor, Speaker, Coach, and TV Host. She is also the author of Why Do I Feel Like This? Understand Your Difficult Emotions and Find Grace to Move Through which hit #1 on Amazon’s New Releases in Mental Health during its launch. She merges clinical insight and faith to encourage readers to listen to the hidden messages of their emotions. According to Amadi, she's seen firsthand that this isn't something that comes naturally to many in the church. Through the use of “spiritual platitudes” like “just let go and Let God,” “just forgive,” and “just don’t worry about it,” many in the church are “cutting off our ability to get exactly what we need in that moment; we literally cannot heal when we bypass our emotions.” In this episode, Peace shares wisdom on how to keep it real with our feelings and one another.Learn more about The Disrupters Podcast here.SPECIAL OFFER | Effective Jan. 1st, 2024, all promo codes/opportunities mentioned in this episode are expired. Please use the code IVPOD25 at ivpress.com for 25% off your order.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

"Ultimately, my career could go up, it could go down. But, it doesn't necessarily have any bearing with what's actually important in life." Gene Luen Yang has been making comics and graphic novels since the fifth grade, and by any measure, he's been a massive success. He wrote and drew ‘American Born Chinese,’ the first graphic novel to be nominated for a national book award, now slated for adaptation as a live-action Disney+ series. He writes for DC and Marvel and he’s won the McArthur Genius Award. It would be hard to argue with the success Yang has been experiencing. And yet, Gene says, "There was, at times, happiness about stuff, but it always felt like it was muted or limited." While some of his humble tendencies are cultural, in a very real sense they're also deeply rooted in faith. In this episode of The Disrupters, Yang explores how his upbringing and his faith give him perspective.Learn more about The Disrupters Podcast here.SPECIAL OFFER | Effective Jan. 1st, 2024, all promo codes/opportunities mentioned in this episode are expired. Please use the code IVPOD25 at ivpress.com for 25% off your order.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Esau McCaulley discusses the new season of The Disrupters, coming December 2nd, with our new host, Nancy Wang Yuen, sociologist, pop culture expert and a professor at Biola University.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

"I've always had this radical approach to engaging lost people." Apologist Lisa Fields is the founder of the Jude 3 Project, a ministry dedicated to helping Christians know what they believe and why they believe it. From growing up in the black church to attending seminary, Lisa has learned to engage in the hard questions for the sake of the Gospel. In this last episode of season 2 of the Disrupters, Esau McCaulley and Lisa Fields discuss today's faith doubts and questions, disruption in academic spaces, and the state of evangelism in our current cultural climate.Listen to The Every Voice Now Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you steam your favorite podcasts.SPECIAL OFFER | Effective Jan. 1st, 2024, all promo codes/opportunities mentioned in this episode are expired. Please use the code IVPOD25 at ivpress.com for 25% off your order.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Co-founder of Christ and Pop Culture Alan Noble believes deeply in the importance of learning how to interact and engage with the culture around us. "We need to talk. We need to have strong communities. We need to have these kind of conversations." Between imperfect mediums and political conflict, Noble explains how distortion and division often run rampant. In this episode of the Disrupters, Esau McCaulley and Alan noble talk truth and technology, postmodern attitudes, and the theologies of power that dominate the church today.SPECIAL OFFER | Effective Jan. 1st, 2024, all promo codes/opportunities mentioned in this episode are expired. Please use the code IVPOD25 at ivpress.com for 25% off Noble's book Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

We're taking a break this week, but in the meantime, we thought we'd share some of our favorite episodes of The Disrupters and look back on what they meant to us.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

"I've honestly learned that nobody is owed the sound of my voice." As the daughter of someone with a significant presence in evangelical circles, author and teacher Jasmine Holmes is familiar with assumptions made about who she is—but she doesn't fit into a mold. In this episode of the Disrupters, Esau McCaulley and Jasmine Holmes dive into stereotypes of race and political ideologies, black womanhood, and the fearless pursuit of God's unique callings on our lives.SPECIAL OFFER | Effective Jan. 1st, 2024, all promo codes/opportunities mentioned in this episode are expired. Please use the code IVPOD25 at ivpress.com for 25% off Holmes's book Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

From fighting stereotypes to redefining isolating spaces, Asian American author Chandra Crane is an expert at disruption. But that doesn't mean it's easy—coming from a multiethnic and multicultural background, she's had to work to complicate oversimplified conversations. "It's actually a blessing to complicate things...It breaks up this conversation which assumes that everybody is either completely privileged or completely oppressed. So I think it pushes back on that and reminds us that we all have pain that needs to be healed and needs to be cared for." In this episode of the Disrupters, Esau McCaulley and Chandra Crane discuss multiethnic identity formation, overlooked stories, and helping to build bridges—without becoming one. SPECIAL OFFER | Effective Jan. 1st, 2024, all promo codes/opportunities mentioned in this episode are expired. Please use the code IVPOD25 at ivpress.com for 25% off Crane's book Mixed Blessing: Embracing the Fullness of Your Multiethnic Identity.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

"There's no end to my learning and growing." From missionary kid in Venezuela to pastor in Chicago, David Swanson's eyes were gradually opened to injustice in his communities. As the white pastor of New Community Covenant Church on the South Side of the city and author of Rediscipling the White Church: From Cheap Diversity to True Solidarity, Swanson has humbly plunged into the multiracial spaces God has called him to. While it would be easy wash his hands of the tension, pain, and criticism that comes with the work of racial reconciliation, he won't: "What do I want to go back to majority white spaces for? What would I want to go be deeply embedded in white evangelicalism for? It's nowhere nearly as good as this is!" In this episode of the Disrupters, Esau McCaulley and David Swanson discuss the tough work and incredible blessings behind shepherding a church body in a multiracial community.SPECIAL OFFER | Effective Jan. 1st, 2024, all promo codes/opportunities mentioned in this episode are expired. Please use the code IVPOD25 at ivpress.com for 25% off your order.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

"I was already an extremely empathetic person, but this took it to a new level." Since writer and activist Taylor Schumann, author of forthcoming title ‘When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough: A Shooting Survivor’s Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence,’ was shot as a social worker in 2013 during a school shooting, she's had to stand up for herself and others who find themselves victims of gun violence. Coming from conservative small-town Virginia, it wasn't easy to become an activist for gun reform—but for Schumann, it's all about her faith. "For me, being more like Jesus is opposing things that are not in line with his vision for us as people on earth—and I cannot picture Jesus walking on the earth carrying an AR-15 down the street." In this episode of the Disrupters, Taylor Schumann and Esau McCaulley discuss the continuing trauma, difficult church spaces, and racial tensions surrounding gun violence.SPECIAL OFFER | Effective Jan. 1st, 2024, all promo codes/opportunities mentioned in this episode are expired. Please use the code IVPOD25 at ivpress.com for 25% off your order.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands