Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker

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 We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks 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 We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks 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: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks 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: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks 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.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks 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: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

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: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks 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 amyjuliabeckerWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks 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: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks 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 We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!