Theology in the Raw - A Longing to Belong: Reflections on Race, Identity, and What it Means to Be the Body of Christ: Dr. Michelle Lee-Barnewall

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

Dr. Michelle Lee-Barnewall (Ph.D. Notre Dame) is an award-winning author of Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian and Surprised by the Parables. Her most recent book is A Longing to Belong: Reflections on Faith, Identity, and Race, which forms the backdrop to our conversation. She has served on the editorial board for the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Bulletin for Biblical Research and has been on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Biblical Research. When not writing or teaching, she loves to spend time with her three wonderful grandchildren. -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The next era of Logos is here. The world's most powerful Bible study platform is now more affordable than ever. I personally don't know where I would be without Logos. I literally use it almost every single day. It's become an essential part of my writing and research. So if you've always thought of Logos as out of reach, then you'll want to go to Logos.com forward slash theology to start your free trial and start digging deeper into the Bible today. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of theology in the raw. My guest today is the one and only Dr. Michelle Lee Barnwall, who was a graduate of Harvard University Talbot School of Theology. And she did her PhD, uh, in New Testament, uh, at Notre Dame university. She's the award winning author of neither complimentarian or egalitarian, an absolutely fascinating book. And also surprised by parables. Her most recent book is a longing to belong reflections on faith, identity, and race, which is the topic of

our conversation. Really, really enjoyed talking to Michelle again. She's been on the podcast before. Always just a great conversation partner, brilliant thinker, and her book is outstanding. So please welcome back to the show, the onely Dr. Michelle Lee Barnwell. Hey, Michelle, welcome back to Theology Realm. I'm excited to have this conversation. Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Okay. So I, when I think of Michelle, I just think of this, you know, top tier, a new Testament scholar Corinthians. You've done stuff on, you know, women and ministry, your book, neither

commentarian nor egalitarian is really fascinating. Love that book. But you recently wrote a book on race and identity. And I love how you opened the book where you talk about your upbringing as being a Korean, Korean girl in a small mining town in Minnesota where there was no other Korean people in that town. Can you take us back to that? What was your upbringing like in that small mining town in Minnesota? Yeah, well, definitely. We grew up in a small town, as I said, a mining town in northern Minnesota.

My family got there through various, I guess, various life events in that my parents are Korean immigrants. They came over to the country, to America in the 1950s. And my dad was a physician and it stood at various events. We ended up in this northern Minnesota mining town partly for job and other actual immigration related reasons. So as you mentioned, we were pretty much the only Asian family there, the only Korean family. In fact, pretty much the only minority family that was there.

My graduating class had 300 students. I was the only Asian and there were two black kids in my class and that's pretty much it. And so as far as growing up, there were a lot of challenges in that. Because as you imagine, when you're a kid, one of the main things you want to do is you want to fit in. And I definitely did not fit in.

I had a good group of friends. They accepted me. We had a great time. But it was kind of more in terms of the larger. When I went out into town, there was always a sense in which I would always be reminded that I was different. So you heard a lot of names, a lot of slurs. And I think for me, it was just kind of growing up with the sense of, you know, being different.

I just remember incidents like, you know, when I would just walk down the street, I developed this habit of when I saw someone coming towards me and if I didn't know who they were, they didn't know me, I would actually have to brace myself because often they would just say something to me, you know, some kind of racial slur going by. And so I just have to like brace myself because is this going to happen, you know, with this person? And so those are the kind of things that just sort of like daily life, you know, growing up.

And then there were just other things. I said, my friends are great overall. My class is really good. But sometimes things just kind of remind you that you are different. And then because, as I said, when you're growing up, you just, you want to fit in, you have this illusion that you fit in, and then something would happen,

it would just kind of remind me that I'm different because of the way I look. And of course that's not something you can change. And so I just kind of grew up with this mentality of one, I become a little bit obsessed with trying to fit in, but then also having the sense of I don't feel normal. I mean, it was, to me, it was a sense of not just feeling different, but not feeling normal.

There was a sense of like everyone else fits in, everyone else is kind of this normal human being. I just somehow don't qualify for that. So that was just some of these sort of deep thoughts that I had, you know, some of you are not even aware of until later, but that's some of the things that, yeah. I mean, that was basically my experience and my reaction growing up.

Did it produce, like, what did that do to you? Like, did you have a lot of shame? Did it make you fearful of others? Or did you not really think about it? Like, was that just not feeling normal? Was your normal. So you didn't really internalize it or yeah. How did you process it? Yeah. I mean, I think it's a kind of a combination of sometimes you don't think about it because you don't want to think about it. But at the same time, you can't help, but think about

it, because this impacts how you look at yourself and how you look at your relationships with other people. So yeah, I think that there was that shame there because you're wondering, it's like, why am I the only one who's not normal? Why is everyone else like this? And why am I the only one that is not like this? So there's the shame and feeling like I'm less than everyone else, because I don't have this quality that allows me to, you know, fit in with everyone else. And it's not just, it's something that was kind of triggered by the way I look, but of course, you know,

I think a kid, you internalize it into there was something wrong with me. And I think it also, yeah, so it impacted the way I looked at myself. I think it impacted also the way I relate to other people because you kind of have this sense of like, you know, since just walking down the street, will someone, you know, am I going to be accepted?

Am I going to be rejected? Is this, you know, person going to say something to me? And as you can see, that's just really not, not really a healthy way to grow up. Yeah. Let's fast forward. Another question, I guess, but like, did you process this with your parents,

or did you just keep it totally to yourself? I mostly kept it to myself. Unfortunately, in my family, we did not talk about these things. I think for my parents, they really, really wanted us to assimilate. So that was our focus in terms of how do you assimilate? Of course, you'd be like the other kids. We want you to be successful. We want you to do well in school.

So our focus was kind of on that. But it was later when my sister, I would talk mostly with my sister later about what happened, a little bit with my brothers, and then later a little bit with my parents. So it was something that later we would kind of talk about what happened. But unfortunately, during that time,

we all just internally by ourselves talk about what happened. But unfortunately, during that time, we all just internally by ourselves would process what happened. So something would happen to my sister. She wouldn't really talk about it with me or my parents. Something would happen to my brothers. They wouldn't talk about it. As I grew older, my dad would tell me some stories. My mom would tell me a little bit more about how she felt.

But yeah, growing up, unfortunately, it was not something that we talked about at the family. And I definitely do wish that we had. Yeah. Take us forward now to your teenage years and even college. Did you graduate high school in that town or did you move on somewhere else? And then when you started your higher education journey, what did that look like? Well, yeah, I basically lived in that town or did you move on somewhere else? And then when you started your higher education journey, what did that look like? Well, yeah, I basically lived in that town until I graduated from high school. And so that's part of like, when you grew up, this is your world. This is you think, you know, this is the whole world.

And pretty much what happened is when I went to college, I went, you know, to school out of state, I went to school on the East Coast. And it was there that I just discovered, wow, there's actually a lot of people who are like me. And it was just no longer unusual. I no longer felt like the only one. I no longer felt like I was the only one who was the only one who didn't fit in, who wasn't normal.

And so that was just, for me, a huge thing of just kind of realizing, you know, there are other people who are like me and just a sense of, you know, I can, you know, sort of being Asian is not this bad thing. It's not this negative thing. It's just kind of who I am. There are other people who are like me and then there are other people who are, they're different. There's a whole variety of people out there. Where'd you go to college again?

Your undergrad? I went to Harvard. Harvard. Okay. And then you did your PhD at Notre Dame, right? Yes. Okay, okay. So straight from Harvard to Notre Dame

or did you have a master's degree in between or? I got my master's at Talbot in between. Okay, so Harvard, Talbot, Notre Dame. As you got older and, cause you were a Christian the whole time, right? Like you guys were in church growing up? Well, we grew up more culturally Christian, going to church.

But I would say that I didn't accept Christ. I didn't really become a Christian until I was probably about 15 or 16. And then, of course, join a college group was really helpful for me. But for most of the time, I would not say that being a Christian, having a Christian world, be really impacted how I looked at myself and the world.

You're feeling of not belonging, like growing up, not feeling normal. As you got older and got involved in church, was that a different kind of environment or, or even in, in, in your church experience, did you feel like I still don't really fully belong here? You know, I think for me, um, as far as, you know, being a Christian in church environment, it generally has been a really good sense of belonging because I think for me, the idea of, you know, who I am is Christ is the overarching, you know, aspect, you know, in that, of course, you know, in college and other places, there is this question about what is the role of your racial identity?

How does it fit in? In college, there even was a sense of, we had this overall Christian fellowship group, but then there was sort of this Asian fellowship group. So sometimes there was a question, a little bit of tension, you know, with that. But as far as just like the overall, it's as far as, let's say, as an overall cultural issue, definitely not like it is today. But that was a question that did come up in college. For me, mostly it was being a part of this, just the general fellowship group was where I really, you know, got fed and that was generally my church home.

What about when you started to become, I guess, become a New Testament scholar, and now you're not just in the church, but now you're pursuing scholarship. As a female Korean woman, did you face any challenges specifically in your journey to become a scholar with regard to your race? Or is that not really an issue? I would say that it's not something that was an issue. At least not something that I noticed in this. There might have been some things,

but there's never a point where I just felt like, oh, become being Asian is a liability in that. I think actually in some ways there might be some advantages to doing that because you do stand out a bit more being a minority, being a woman. There might be some, I think there maybe could be some cultural differences, ways of acting or looking at things, but I really can't say that there's any one thing that could specifically say sort of like concrete, oh, this was a problem.

People didn't want to hire me because I was Asian. Probably if anything, there might be just be some, I think that happens in everything. You know what I mean? Maybe the ways we look at people and interact, but I can't say that I would point to anything and say that, yeah, that was specifically a problem, at least for me.

I mean, I think I've heard from other people, but I guess fortunately for me, it does not. I didn't get the impression that that was a real hindrance. Yeah, I have heard, especially female scholars who do work in more conservative spaces, which I would think that's even you've been in more evangelical conservative spaces, it seems like. And, but that is, so being a female scholar

that you haven't really at least felt any kind of disadvantage or any kind of like people looking down on you for being a female scholar in conservative spaces? You know, I think, honestly, I can say, I can't really point to things. And I'll say one of the benefits that I had was I had some, just early on in my career, I had some people

who were very helpful in that. I had senior New Testament scholars, male New Testament scholars who would come up and say, hey, can I help you or this? I like the work that you're doing. And that happened to me at Talbot. That happened to me outside of Talbot. And so I guess for me, and I would definitely say,

I have heard stories of women who have had really difficult times. And, but I'd say, I guess fortunate for me, I don't really feel like I have run into that. And I think partly because, however it happened there, I think there were some key people who really kind of early on, um, kind of reached out to me and said, how can I help you? And so that was very helpful.

And I would say also say that the environment at Talbot would vary, um, was very positive, um, very encouraging. I was actually the first female full-time, um, scholar and teacher professor in biblical studies at Talbot. Yes. And so I remember it was kind of a big thing, you know, in the sense that there were like discussions on campus and you know, is this okay for, you know, Talbot to do this? But again, I had, there was great leadership and there were, you know, great faculty who were very helpful in terms of wanting to make it a smooth transition for me.

And it was a very, very supportive environment. And so I feel very fortunate in that because I think my experience was actually different than from what I've heard from other women. Yeah. So even at like, how about ETS? Cause that's not, the way you described Talbot, that's not surprising from the, from my limited exposure to people at Talbot. I mean, I feel like I know like half the faculty. And I just, yeah, it's just among the faculty and my experience

is extremely humble and gracious and personal. And how about like, yeah. So I'm going to ETS tomorrow at the time of this recording. And I've talked to several female scholars, they get asked, oh, are you here with your husband? Or you haven't felt that too much there? Well, I will say that there are a couple of times in which I might've felt a couple of things at that ETS in that. But I think maybe the way I tend to be is, I don't know, maybe this is sort of a product by upbringing too. My MO tends to be I try to find my little group in that, and I kind of stick with my group in that. And so I've heard stories from other women

where they go to certain places and someone will say something or something will happen in that. And I guess for me, for ETS, I tend to stay with my little group, and we just kind of hang out and then we do this. But yeah, I mean, there are times in which I might have thought early on it, you know, ETS, I would hear something about, you know, oh, the male, you know, male faculty, they get asked to do this and that. And sometimes I feel like I didn't get, you know, asked to do that, you know, they'd say the connections that they would make. But I think that's why having some of those senior scholars come and just really say, hey, I want to help you. I felt like I was able to kind of focus on that and the positive in that. And so overall, I would say ETS has been a positive experience

for me. But I would probably say, and maybe this positive experience for me, but I would probably say, and maybe this is kind of part of the message too, about the people who really made an effort, took initiative to help me. And so I do feel like I owe a debt of gratitude to those people. So with the senior male scholars, when they're like, I want to help you, how can they, and I'll leave, I'm kind of asking it for myself, like, what want to help you, how can they, and I'll even like, I'm kind of asking for myself, like what is my role in this?

How can we do that without it coming off as like paternalizing, you know, or like just almost condescending as if, oh, you need me to help you. Cause it doesn't sound like you're taking it that way. Obviously they're not intending it that way, but could it feel that way or? You know, that's a really good question. And that's part of what I brought out.

I've been thinking about this. It comes out in my book, because if we're talking about race, we're talking about how do we live together, what do we do with these conflicts? And these are universal issues. If we're talking about race or gender, and I think part of what I think might be helpful for us is I think we have to give grace to one another. Because I think you're saying like here, you want to help someone, but you don't know if

this person really needs help and they're going to be so grateful if you kind of reach out to them. Or if they're going to feel like you're being patronizing or condescending saying like, oh, you need my help to do that. And so let's say you go to someone who, you know, because you want to be helpful, but you go to someone who might find the patronizing. Well, maybe there needs to be some grace in that

because, you know, we will make mistakes, you know, we will be limited. We don't know what's in, you know, everyone's heart. And so I think we have to be willing to, you know, I guess to try and realize that mistakes will be made and give grace, you know, to one another. So yeah, I mean, generally I didn't take it that way. It might be sometimes it's the way it's done because I think that I guess going back to ATS and there were some times where, you know, someone might say something and it did feel a little patronizing way. It was, it felt a little bit more like, good job, little girl.

And so even though they're trying to be helpful, but it felt a little patronizing where someone else would come up and say, wow, that was an amazing paper that you did. And that did not feel patronizing. So maybe part of it is on everyone's heart, what is my reason for doing this? What is my heart? And then for the other person is someone is trying hard and then making a mistake

to have grace in that. So yeah, I can't give you a perfect answer whether or not to do that, but I think that's a part of being human, right? We, you know, we do things we don't need to do. One thing, one problem I see with, in particular with, with white, let's see white men who maybe are plagued with like lots of white guilt, you know, or, or they are maybe very eager to like, yeah, reach out to, you know, people who are not white or not male.

And sometimes like, like for instance, I got an ETS or an academic conference, you know, they, and if, if they're sitting in on a paper that's presented by somebody who's female or racial minority, I feel like they are maybe more prone to not push back or be overly agreeing or whatever. And it's like, well, then you actually, you're actually kind of stripping this person of their agency and their intelligence if you take the kid's gloves off because they're a woman or because they're a racial minority. When if it was a white male presented a paper, you would actually challenge their argument

or play devil's advocate or really, you know. And so, yeah, I don't know. I could almost feel myself internally like gravitating toward that, like taking the kid's gloves off or going easier on this person. It's like, no, no, that's actually very racist and very sexist. Like, oh, this woman couldn't handle a really solid pushback or me challenging their arguments. No, they're just as brilliant as any male scholar.

That's the whole point. So why would I respond any differently? Do you ever experience that kind of like reverse where people are not like maybe more afraid to push back or challenge you or you know? I think so. I mean, part of it's like, maybe I'm not always sure, you know, when they're doing that right now.

But you know, if you talk about that dynamic that's there, and I think I'm glad that you brought it up because I think that it was something that's important for us to talk about because that, you know, wonderful if we're in that situation and we're concerned about how this is going to come across, and will I come across this way? Can I do this?

Will this person take it this way? Am I being the opposite happening in that regard? And I think about how we approach these issues, both in terms of race, gender, or whatever else might come up in that. And I think part of it is, the situation right now is we tend to look at individual situations. In this situation, can I push back?

Can I question this? And to me, I think one of the things we need to do is take a look overall in terms of that, because how can we kind of create an ethos of unity? And that's part of what, you know, I did my dissertation on 1 Corinthians 12. That's kind of how I got into, you know, the whole race issue. Cause you know, I wasn't attending,

I was not intending to write about this. You know, my dissertation was on the Greco-Roman philosophical background, to 1 Corinthians 12. It was just, that was definitely not on my radar, particularly at the New Testament. So I just want to do the stuff. But one of the things that I think in my research, what I kind of came across was the idea of,

as we create a context for these conversations, to me, when I look at 1 Corinthians 12, for Paul, the point is that we are a unity, okay? We are a body. We're not just like a body. That being united in the Spirit, being one, is who we are in this new creation. And yet, at the same time, our individual differences matter. For Paul, there's both Galatians 3.28, neither June or Greek.

At the same time, if you look at passages like Acts 15, you know, Romans 1, 16 to 17, you still very much have, you know, the distinctions between Jew and Greek. And so for Paul, what I see him doing is say, okay, here is what it is. In the new creation, you are all one. In the spirit, you are all one. But this oneness creates implications. The implications are you are still Jew and Greek, and now you are living together. So if you were to think about the situation of Jew and Greek, now together one body,

that would be a little bit awkward to say the least, right? Because the Jew and Greek are enemies, they hate one another, you have historical animosities. And now Paul says, you are one in Christ, you will be in this one church, you will love and respect one another. And they're probably thinking, well, here again, we have all these grudges against one another. You know, I've been, you know, since the time I was young, I've learned to hate, you know, the Gentiles. And so, they're not going to work it out right away. I mean, these are things that have to be worked out in the life of the Church.

And so, I think there is a sense in it, but the overriding thing is they're one. There is a commitment, hopefully, you know, to unity, to finding this oneness that is there. What does that look like when we're put together with our human frailties, our limitations? Just like, you know, if you said, well, I don't know if this person will really want me to help them or they find it condescending. Well, since you're not omniscient, you don't know.

So mistakes will happen. People will be hurt. How do we work this out in a context of Christian race? And so therefore, when I'm thinking about this, you know, when you're asking a question, you know, can I do this? You know, I don't know what to do, I want to do this. I think what becomes important for us is, are we understanding our corporate identity? You know, in this, do we see this commitment to one

another, realizing our human limitations, mistakes will happen? You know, mistakes will happen. There will be awkwardness, there might be someone being insulted, but in this community of people trying to be like Christ, how do we live this out? And I think we do have to have that context, otherwise we'll get stuck in, do I do this or do I not do this? How do I know? I don't know. Maybe it's just safer not to do anything. Yeah, that's so good. So you're, you're, I mean, your take on first Corinthians 12 and Galatians three and other unity passages that that seems so like spot on and almost obvious, yet, uh, you and I know, and other people might know that like, if you did your dissertation

on this, you have to come up with something originals or some kind of conclusion or some kind of research that hasn't been done before. So can you take us just a little bit deeper into your dissertation and what are, can you maybe briefly on a lay level summarize, like what is the scholarly options or conversations around the Greco-Roman view of the body that Paul's tapping into here and what was your unique, I guess, contribution to that conversation? Well, I guess when I looked at it in terms of the Hellenistic philosophy that was there, I looked primarily at the Stoics. And the Stoics idea that basically everything exists in corporeal form. Everything is a body.

And so they would look at Rome being a body, different kinds of groupings, our body, basically everything that exists is a body. And so they would look at roaming a body, different kinds of groupings, our body, basically everything that exists is a body. And what this does is it provides this kind of ontological unity to this. And there are implications for that. And what I did when I, and again, just let me know if you need more detail in any of us. And when we look at 1 Corinthians 12,

we tend to look at it, I've always heard it in terms of a functional way. Like you're a member of the body, so make sure that you value your spiritual gift and make sure you value so-and-so's spiritual gift because the body has to work together. Well, when I looked at what Paul was doing, because actually the other aspect of stoicism

that I looked at was first of all, they would identify something as a body. And again, this has ontological implications. It was important to see something as being inherently connected. And the second thing is after that, you draw your precepts. You know, after once you have your identity as a body, then you go into what you are supposed to do. So the way I looked at it, it's like, if I think that there are, if this framework is mindset is helpful for us to understand, you know, what Paul might be doing, of course, there are obvious differences between Paul and Stoicism, but this idea of principles and precepts, what Paul is doing in 1 Corinthians 12, he's not giving instruction. In other words, if you look at 1 Corinthians 12, there are no

imperative until you get to 12, 31. No, he'll say, the, the, I cannot say this. Right. Okay. But he doesn't say, I say this. Yeah. He doesn't say, ear say this. Okay. It's not until chapter really 14, where he gives the imperative where he says, you know, you know, the prophet should only speak two or three at a time, do only things for edification. So I look at this, I think what Paul, I think is doing is he takes a whole chapter to tell the Corinthians who they are. Okay. You are a body because you are a body. You do not disparage one another because you are a body. You value your place in the body because you are a body, you value your place in the body. Because you are a body, you are so connected that you will co-rejoice and co-suffer with one another.

Because you are a body, you have this sense of empathy with one another. This is who you are. He tops it off in 12.27 by saying, now you are the body of Christ. So for Paul, I see it as 12 is, take this chapter to internalize who you are. You are one in Christ. That means you're connected with this other part that is very important. That means your part is important. So internalize it. This is who you are.

You know, you will empathize with one another. You do things together. So now that you're a body and you realize you're one, we'll go to chapter 14, how do you operate your spiritual gifts? Well, well, you need to prophesy if it's going to help everyone, okay? Maybe don't emphasize tongues

because that only helps you, not other people. This is how you apply your identity. And so that's why when I'm thinking about this as we're talking about these other issues, that have we taken the time to internalize who we are, the fact that we're one, the fact that we're connected. And in terms of the other things I got from my dissertation, he goes into a little bit more

what it means that you're connected, what it means that other people belong to you. It should create this natural response to help one another as opposed to just instructions, now do this. Yeah. So in your dissertation, did you connect chapter 12 with chapter 14? Was chapter 14 part of your project as well? Yes. I focused mostly on 12, but then there were also, yeah, the connections with chapter 14, because it went to both sort of the ontology of what is the body of Christ, but then also what are the implications, because I looked at the Stoics, how this is kind of

their ethical method, to sort of identify what it means to be a body. And from there, then you look at what you do. So I identified both the ontology and then this ethical method. So that's part of the scholarly debate, whether Paul is resonating with the stoic kind of view of the body and you're arguing, yes, it's very similar. Okay. Well, how does your work relate to Dale Martin's work? I know he's done lots of stuff on the body in Corinthians, I think. I don't even, I'm not even, I've only spot read parts of it. So I don't even know what his kind of thesis is, but were you like arguing against him on some level or?

Well, there was one thing that he did that ended up being, that, that was, I think an important part of my dissertation. And what this has to do with, it's going a little bit farther in this, but it does have to do with chapter 14 and the gifts and all that. The idea of, and here's one of the big differences between Paul and the Stoics. So Martin talks about, he has this article in the chapter in his book where he talks about certain gifts were ranked higher than the others. Okay. So for example, times might be rated higher than or valued more than something like prophecy because tongues is seen as direct speech.

You know, it's sort of direct, it's a speech of angels. So therefore, you know, if you really value these spiritual gifts, you would want to speak in tongues as opposed to prophecy, which is being seen as mediated through the mind. Like tongues is sort of direct spirit. Yeah, prophecy is spirit, but it's mediated through the mind. It's seen as perhaps less valuable in that.

What Paul does is he has these cryptic statements, right? At the end of chapter 12, beginning of chapter 14, where he says, seek the greater gifts. Now, if you think about Paul, Paul's about humility, right? So, and if the Corinthians are kind of, you know, a very status oriented society, why in the world would Paul say, seek the greater gifts? It seems like he's just feeding that mentality.

Well, if you think about this, okay, Paul says that, okay, the, probably in that culture, times would be seen as more valuable rather than prophecy. But for Paul in chapter 14, he says what is actually more valuable is prophecy because it edifies everyone. Tongues is less valuable because it only edifies the self. What Paul has done, he has basically reversed the valuation of these gifts. What is valuable, what is most valuable is one that edifies everyone, not just the self. And so Paul is actually doing is he's calling the Corinthians,

it kind of like, I think, an ironic play, seek the greater gifts. Okay? So if you want the greater gift, you have to seek the more selfless gift. So he's playing off of the Corinthians own understanding, the greater gifts, and then he kind of turns it on its head, like Paul does elsewhere with these social kind of expectations. That's interesting. So in the culture, prophecy, because that was a thing that happened outside of Christianity, that was seen as not very highly esteemed prophecy, not as much as something like tongues? According to what Martin says, it was. I mean, I think that could be controversial in the sense that you have some things like in the Orca Delphi and you have,

prophecy does seem to be in a sense, very esteemed in antiquity, of course, because you are communicating with the gods. But I think what he says makes sense in this. And kind of like looking at Paul's, I think he really likes to use this irony and he really kind of likes to tweak people. Like, yeah, I want you to seek the greater gift. And then he kind of like pulls out his little card there and like, oh, if you really want the greater gift, this is what you're doing.

And to me, it does fit his method very well. And so, yeah, as I say, there could be controversy about it, but I think Martin has done a good job in kind of explaining some of the sociocultural implications about evaluating these gifts. I'm sorry, that was kind of a long detour of what we're originally talking about, but I've got like Michelle Lee Barnwell on the podcast

and you spent more time in Corinthians than, than most, most people I know. Hopefully I can't remember because it's been a long time ago. So when you first said, talk about like, Oh wait, what did I say? It's, I had to like go back. I remember it accurately. I turned in my dissertation in 2007 and I, I don't, I probably remember 10% of what I, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like you spent all this time and something and then you get so sick of it. You don't want to spend, at least for me, I was like, all right, I don't want to talk about Leviticus 18 five for a long

time. Um, don't ask me what it even says anymore. So one more question though. So with, I, you probably know why I'm asking this, but how should we understand prophecy is an, and there's, I guess, several questions here. My two main questions are, number one, did Paul expect everybody to prophesy, or was it a particular gift that only some have? And the second part of the question is, of course, you know where I'm going. Like, should we understand prophecy as somehow akin to preaching and teaching? Obviously, these are different words, didoskala or whatever, and caruso, and whatever prophecy is, profiteo. So, different words, different things, but

is there an overlap in the function here in your scholarly opinion? Well, this will probably be one where I'll essentially say that I haven't looked at this one in a long time. Okay. And one that I haven't looked at in a while. So I'll probably just give you a few sketchy, kind of like sketchy, like slim, you know, answers in that. My general sense is when you look at 1 Corinthians 12, he's just listing the gifts. And to me, he just looks at it in a very kind

of natural manner, saying, OK, here are some of the gifts. Here are some of the gifts that Warren Corrin, he lists. Prophecy among others. In some sense, I think it's a list geared towards the Corinthians, the gifts that were there, that were operating, that they like. But at the same time, it's certainly not a comprehensive list either. So it's an illustrative list. He's kind of illustrating,

okay, here are the gifts, here are some of the gifts. Because of the casual nature in which he lists it, with the other gifts that are there, whether it's administration or teaching or service, he does that in Romans as well, and other passages, you know, I mean, administration or teaching or, you know, our service, he does that in, you know, in Romans as well. And other passages, I would say that at least that part, he does seem to expect that, you know, it could be a very common gift. You know, it's not necessarily for a select few. So I would say that kind of lean towards that. Here are some of the things that the Holy Spirit does.

Now, when you get into other passages, like Ephesians, where He says God has put in the church apostles and prophets, I don't know. There, I think you might have more an argument that there could be something that's more distinct. Let's say if there's someone who prophesies a lot, maybe they do have the title of a prophet. I think it would probably lean more towards that. But yeah, I think probably this is about a bonus. Yeah, I would just, so then my impressions when I look at. It's so, I mean, you're kind of thinking out loud and trying to recall stuff.

That's totally fair. So you're saying you're leaning towards the view that we could make a distinction between the gift, like people who prophesy and people who are sort of, for lack of better term, in the office of a prophet, so to speak. Like not everybody who's prophesying in the Corinthian gathering is necessarily a prophet. It's not like they have like tons of prophets in the Corinthian church.

Yeah, I would say that, you know, maybe lean towards that. I think we could see that, that it's there, you could have sort of like a general, you know, as a Holy Spirit gives this, maybe it's something like, you know, teaching, you know, there are ways in which, you know, people can teach, they can teach in different contexts, teach in different ways. But there might be someone who's more recognized as being, you know, a teacher, you know, in that. So I'd probably say, I think, yeah, I think you could make an argument, you know, for that. Just looking at the texts and for me, particularly, I said, just kind of looking at the way Paul is using it, you know, here, you know, Ephesians, he seems to be kind of specific about this, you know, first Corinthians 12, he's just kind of saying here's for example, you know, here's what

the Holy spirit does in your congregation. So I'd say that I think would be support for that. Maybe not definitive, but yeah. This, I mean, if people are, I mean, this, this plays into the whole women and ministry or leadership conversation because you clearly have women, um, both prophesying and in a couple instances, uh, women are called prophets with, uh, is it Anna and Luke two, uh, you have hold up in the old Testament and others, um, Phillips daughters. I don't think they're called profits, right? But it is four daughters who prophesied, but it does seem to be kind of like that ongoing thing. But then in first Corinthians 14, I agree with your leaning here that, um, not

everybody who is prophesying occupied this kind of stable ongoing office as a prophet that's like on par with like John the Baptist or Moses or something, you know? Yeah. You know, I'm still, I'm still thinking through it. I, yeah, it's a, it's a really interesting piece of the, yeah. What would an administrative question, which by the way, I mean, I, your book, neither complimentary nor egalitarian is absolutely outstanding. Yeah. I don't know if you met the P the after it's been almost 10 years since you wrote that book. Do you, do people ask you a lot like, okay, Michelle, but where do you land? I mean, is that, do you get that a lot? Cause the book you did, you didn't,

that wasn't the point of the book. You were, you were trying to kind of point out pros and cons of each view. And maybe we're each one's kind of missing certain things. You know, I just thought it was, yeah, I thought it was a fascinating book. How it's been a well received though. Right? Yeah. It's actually been, we see better than I expected. I mean, it's one of those books where you put it out and I thought, am I going to just make everyone mad at me? Yeah. You'll make a bunch of friends or no friends. Right. And I think I did make some people mad at me, but actually the response has been very positive, you know, more positive than, you know, more positive, I get than I expected. And this, which makes me think that there's, you

know, a, maybe a fairly, you know, robust group of people there who are saying, it's like, well, we want to talk about this further. We feel limited by the conversation the way it is. So we would like to be able to maybe have a space to be able to think, are there other ways or additional ways to think about it without feeling like we have to come down one or the other. Because I think that if neither side,

which I believe has the whole truth on this, well, then I want to kind of know more. And in order to know more, sometimes I kind of have to hold onto something kind of loosely in order to entertain to consider something else. But sometimes that's a difficult place to be because it feels a little bit ambiguous or it seems like caught us solid.

But I think it's important for us to ask that. And so it's to me has been very encouraging just to talk with people and, you know, kind of get their ideas too. It's like, what do you think about this? And you know, how does it help or see people taking the ideas? Here's how we might apply it, you know, in our church. And that's a big part of, you know, what I wanted to do with the book was to start conversation. So it's like, you know was just like my book on race.

It's certainly not definitive. It's a bunch of reflections. And my hope is that people will just kind of think about this. And I love to hear people's responses to that, because people add to what I say, or they might challenge what I say. And that just helps me think more precisely. What I loved about your book on gender, I mean,

is it just felt so honest with the text, you know? And this is something that, and I definitely won't name names here, but when I read scholars who are either very, very passionate egalitarian or very passionate commentarian, I tend to be more suspicious of their ex Jesus. And, and that's not like, I've, I've, I've grown in my suspicions because when I look at the ex Jesus, it just seems either one sided or they didn't represent the other option in the best light, or they miss this counter argument, or they just seem to be, exegesis seems to be following behind their passion. And then I, it's such an important issue. So I, I don't fault people for that. But as I'm trying to figure out where I'm at, I just, I just, I, I'm, I'm craving just

very thorough, honest, almost, it's going to sound bad, but almost dispassionate exegesis, you know, like, yeah. And it's, it's in this conversation, it's, it's kind of hard to find. It's kind of hard to find some sometimes, um, with certain people that I'm reading. So anyway, all that to say, when I was reading your book, I was like, man, I just feel like that your ex, you're just, your interaction with the text was just so honest because you weren't, you weren't being driven by a certain conclusion you were trying to aim at. So I don't know, that was my favorite part about the book. Let's come back to your most recent book though, Long and To Belong. So we started off the

conversation with your upbringing in, what was the name of the town in Minnesota? I'm curious, just in case somebody listening to us from that town. It's Hibbing, Minnesota. Hibbing? It's Hibbing, H-I-B-B-I-N-G. Oh, Hibbing. Okay. In case you haven't heard of it, it is sometimes seen as the birthplace or the hometown of Bob Dylan. What?

And so if you're a Bob Dylan fan, yes. In fact, like every day when I would walk to school, like there was someone in my class and he lived in Bob Dylan's house. If you were to go to Hibbing today, I don't know if they still do that, but the people who own the house, they have like in their garage door, they have like this mural or something of Bob Dylan. They're a change that. So I don't know if they still do that, but yeah.

So anyway, that's the other, the claim to fame to my hometown and also the home of the world's second largest open pit iron ore mine. Just in case. Of course. Yeah. Been there several times. Just in case that's really important to you. Sorry kids, we're not going to Disneyland. We're going to see the second largest. Iron Ring, yeah. To the Iron Ring Interpretive Center. Yeah. All right. So yeah, your recent book, Long and To Be Long, Reflections on Faith,

Identity and Race, you said almost kind of like is distantly connected to your work on the body in First Corinthians 12. What are you hoping to, like, maybe give us a summary of the book. I mean, we talked about a little bit, you tell your story at the beginning, but what's this book about and what do you hope the reader gets from reading it? Well, yeah, in terms of the book, it's part memoir. It's sort of like part theological reflection. And in some ways, what I hope to do in the book is to, in some ways, like the gender books, broaden the conversation. I wrote the book because I thought that, you know, based on my research on body of Christ, I had a slightly different way of looking at the issue.

Right now, the issue really revolves around the idea of justice. But for me, it was the body of Christ. How do we relate to one another? What does it mean that we're connected to one another? What does it mean that we both have this really, we all, I think, have a very innate desire to belong? What does it mean for us all to belong together and ultimately to belong to God? And so I did a lot of it was kind of looking at through the lens of, for instance, 12 and

our corporate identity in this. And so I try to do this, you know, it's a reflective book. I try to, you know, as I mentioned, I try to kind of personalize it by talking about my own experience. But part of the purpose for doing that is one of the key theological concepts that are underlying the book is that we tend to either go in one of two directions that, you know, as we look at race, it's either we focus on the individual. So like my identity as being, you know, Asian or white white or black or whatever is very key to that.

This is my individual experience. Or we go in the other direction of, oh, we're all one in Christ and therefore race doesn't matter. Right. And for me, the concept underlying that is there's actually both and they live in tension with one another. We are both Galatians 3.28, neither Jew nor Greek. At the same time, we are, Paul does,

the New Testament does very much distinguish Jew and Greek. If you were to look at Acts 15, if you look at even Revelation 7, the continuation of the nations, the tribes and tongues, or Romans 11. And so I think what it is is there is this tension between in the spirit we are one, and yet we still live these

bodily existences and one of the things about the body is it makes us individuals. It makes us separate from one another whereas the spirit unites us. And I think as we're looking at this, we can go in one of two directions. We can either overemphasize the individual, my identity, my racial identity, my personal experiences are the key, but they don't think is correct to make it that way. Or we can go the other direction and say, oh, we're all one in Christ. There's neither junior Greek. Therefore, race doesn't matter. We just need to be colorblind.

And my thought is, well, actually they live in tension. And as with so much of the New Testament, the point is, how do we live, you know, as, you know, new creation people in an imperfect world where we are imperfect to be able to live as, you know, God has called us to live, you know, in this unity, in grace, in love, when we are imperfect and we are different. And so that's kind of sort of the underlying theme of this book. And what I try to do is just kind of And so that's kind of sort of the underlying theme of this book. And what I try to do is just kind of talk

about sort of different aspects of what it's like for me as an individual, what I think about corporate aspects, comparing it with the idea of family, bringing some of the conflicts that happen. Because we are human, our tendency to we do want to group ourselves. And then when we group ourselves, we also have this inherent desire to look down on another group, because that's just our natural human tendency and being aware of these tendencies and how might this

ultimately, you know, work out, you know, in the body. So that's kind of the idea. So again, it's not like a theological treatise. Here's point one, I moved to this. It's more like, let's think about this idea. Let's think about this idea. Let's think about this idea. If a church was to take your book, a leadership of your church, take your book and the concepts you talk about and integrate it into the life of the body, what would that look like? Like, what would be a 10 out of 10 where you're like, man, this church took what I was kind of exploring here then, and they integrated it in the church life. Like what would that look like on the ground?

Well, I might say it is with all my books too, you know, part of me is I like to reflect on these things and then like put them out there. And then I like churches to tell me, okay, what did you do? You know what I mean? Give me some ideas of what you did. But actually, just yesterday I was, you know, on a, you did. But actually, just yesterday, I was on a Zoom call with an organization that had done a reading group on my book. And it was just very helpful to talk with them about that and hearing, knowing what some of their previous conversations were.

Because a book is kind of divided up into a couple things. First of all, I kind of talk about the individual. Then I kind of talk about the corporate aspect. Then I kind of talk about the individual. Then I kind of talk about the corporate aspect. Then I kind of talk about the sort of body, spirit, tension, if you will. And then I kind of talk about conflicts and then kind of move on to what might be sort of a transcendent, overarching way of looking

at this. And I think as I look at that, one of the things that kind of came out was there's not really a formula for doing this. As you asked, you brought up the question of, if I go to ETS, can I ask this person, is it good for me to say I want to help them or is it bad to help them? What do these relationships look like?

What does identity look? How do we interact with one another? And I'll say one of the conclusions we came up with is that these have to be done in a context. As much as we like to have something in terms of specific steps, formulas, here's what we need to do, some of it is creating an environment, creating an ethos,

being willing to give grace to one another. Do we understand our corporate identity? Do we learn from each other? And that's something that talking with this reading group kind of made clear to me that they kind of came to a lot of these conclusions because they had talked about these over the course of five weeks. They had read the book, they had talked about it together. And you can kind of tell this reading group, they kind of had an understanding, you know, with one another. And I think that's something, it's not something where I can, you know, you can give instructions, you know, for that. But then I also think maybe that's a lot of

what our life together is too, right? Right. It's not formulaic. Like, there's no formula you can follow. It's an ethos, right? So a lot of it is, you know, how do we learn to be empathetic with one another? How do we learn to be critical with one another? Can we live in a certain type of tension and ambiguity, which we know we're still held together? You know, there's something that's holding us together, being one in Christ, being the family of God. But within that, we're still trying to, you know, live together and things are not perfect. But I also think that's kind of part of the Christian message too, isn't it? I mean, that's why we give grace to one another, because we realize that, you know, that we're not,

you know, there yet. But again, it's a difficult thing to, you know, live out and yeah. Do you find, I mean, in race, even if you say the word racial reconciliation, oftentimes people immediately think white, black, right? In the church. Do you find that the Asian American, white, black, Latino conversation gets kind of left out? I mean, I don't, most books I know that are written on race are typically thinking of kind of black and white,

which obviously there's a unique history there. So that's not at all a critique, but it just seems like the Asian American conversation can sometimes be left out. Have you felt that? I think so. As you said, I think it tends to be dominated, you know, maybe because of American history, you know, sort of like by sort of like black, white. I think maybe I

also find that it's, you know, the conversation comes in different areas, you know, so for example, you know, black, white is kind of obvious in terms of, you know, justice and things have happened. If you think about Hispanic, it tends to be ball run things such as like immigration, you know, Asian conversations. This recently came in terms of affirmative action and some of those issues. Some of it happens in that way. So yeah, I think in some ways it does.

But I think in terms of thinking about how do we talk about this, not only I think is race kind of overarching concept, but as I've been working on this, I've been realizing that there's so many similarities between sort of what I did on gender and what I did on race. Again, if we're going back to Galatians 3.28, there's a unity of, you know, of race and gender and, you know, class or, you know, social status in this regard. So I think that what we see happening is just it kind represents the universal human conflicts that we have. So universally, differences tend to lead to conflicts. You see that it's right from Genesis, right? The conflict between

Adam and Eve in the garden or Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel. As soon as people don't speak one language, they can't work together. And then rest of scripture is sort of the history of conflict. And so what I think is, as we think about this, there is maybe another tension between how much do we sort of focus on specifics, but at the same time, within this context, something that is universal. And so I see, you know, Galatians 3.28 is seen as, you know, sort of representing the three groups in antiquity that were seen as sort of the most separate from one another. So Galatians 3.28 is actually just very representative of the fact of like you were divided, you know, now you're united.

I think the purpose of Galatians 3.28 in that regard. So I think, you know, starting the conversation just from this universal aspect of, you know, why are humans divided? Why are we competitive with one another? Why do we feel this need to have hierarchies or something against one another? And then these are the things that manifest themselves in specific areas like race or gender or class or status. Yeah. No, that's super helpful. The intersection between race and gender is super interesting. And, and it's,

it's one that's embedded in the new. I mean, it's like, it is interesting that Paul on a few occasions seems to integrate them. Obviously Galatians three 28 is, is a big one. Um, I might want to come back to Galatians three 20. I know we're getting short on time here, but, um, I, I have a, a raw question and I, I don't know how to ask it, but I'll just, I'm just going to ask it. And, uh, I hope I'm asking it in a way that's helpful. Um, every ethnicity has its kind of stereotypes, right? It seems that like Asian Americans can have some, some

really positive stereotypes that, you know, uh, you're hardworking, you're very intelligent. I think even socioeconomically, I don't know if this is verified or not, but Asian Americans might even be higher than white people in America. Again, I think that's true. I would need to verify that. When you encounter positive stereotypes of being Asian American, is that good or not? Like, does that feel humanizing or is that in a subtle way, not helpful? Does that make sense? Is it okay even asking that? It's, it's something that I think many white people think, but they don't want to say out loud, but it's the all-general and I'm just going to roll with it.

Well, maybe what I'll do is I'll give you a very general answer in this part of my theological framework. Because I think the questions you're asking before are like, when we're talking about specific interaction, what do we do when we talk about how these come out in real life? Is this a good or bad thing? And I think one of the things is that we're thinking about, how do we look at things?

What's the overall overarching concept of this? Because? Sort of like, what's the over all overarching concept of this? Because a lot of times I feel like some things may depend on motive in this. It's not necessarily one thing is good or one thing is bad in that regard. And there's a couple of things that I think come to my mind when I think about these things.

And one is, again, race I think is a manifestation, or the difficulty we have with race, is just like a specific manifestation of a general human problem that we have. And so one of the human problems we have is simply that we are limited. We cannot know everything. And scientists have done these studies.

So for example, this idea of stereotypes, stereotypes are bad. We should not stereotype. Well, here's one thing I think to bring a little bit of complexity to this idea of stereotypes is a human brain is made in such a way that we do have to generalize and categorize. If we do not, we will be flooded with information and we cannot function. So when I go out in the wild, I have to know that that big black thing, okay?

That's lumbering towards me is a bear, okay? And that bear is not something I want to mess with, okay? I can't just look at every single creature and make an evaluation. In my mind, I have this general idea that big black things with shark claws lumbering towards me are bad. I want to avoid it.

So what happens is we generalize things. Some furry creatures, golden retrievers, are friendly. They're fine. Some furry creatures are bad. Now what we do is we make generalizations first. We individualize later. I am not going to mess with that bear I don't later I may find out that it's an escape the pet bear and he's super friendly Okay

That I'll do that later. Okay, but we always cut it. We have to function. Otherwise, you know, we've taken so much information Okay that that we cannot function. We have to do it in categories now Some of and some of our categories are correct,. Now, some of our categories are correct. Some of them are not correct. Some do not apply to the individual, like the very friendly bear, in that regard. But what we do is our minds have this process of, in a sense, moving from general to the individual in that regard.

So I think, depending on my context, it may be inevitable that I have to group people. Now, if we not think about race, I had a categorization when I grew up in the Midwest, everyone in California is a nut, right? They're all nuts. They all go barefoot and they spend all their time at their beach and they live on granola and kelp or whatever. And that's my stereotype,

right? And I go to California and I realize that they're not all like that. But I, before I lived in California, that's what I thought California was. Okay. And so we have this process. Now, when I go to California and I realize that like not everyone California is like that, one, do I change my idea? Because I have new information. And two, even before I had the idea, was that something that made me feel superior to them? And see, that's the thing. So maybe sort of human inevitable,

I have to make these generalizations. But the problems are, one, if I hang on to them, I refuse to see the individual. But two, if I use them to make myself feel better. I'm from the Midwest, I'm normal, I'm fine. Those people in California are nuts. Okay. So this is more innocuous example. So there are guys, they're talking about, so I talk about long answer, long general answer. It's super helpful. I love it. Okay. Yeah. In terms of the stereotypes, I think within that context, then maybe we can evaluate

more, is this a helpful, harmful stereotype? Maybe in some cases, yes. Maybe in some cases, no. But I think understanding that question within this larger understanding of who we are, what our fallibility is, helps us from moving to, I think sometimes as we're asking those questions, this is good, this is a bad stereotype,

is one thing that can cause, itself cause sort of conflict, separation. But I think within the larger context, it helps us understand it all within the context of, again, we're, you know, there are so much we can do, we're trying our best, you know, giving grace to one another. And yet realizing that there will be problems because we are different and you know, these things exist. That's, that's super helpful, Michelle. Well, I've taken you over an hour, but, uh, it was so good talking to you again, Michelle.

And I still need to send you my paper after this is done. We'll love it. You're reading it. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate it. Um, yeah. So your book, your recent book is a longing to belong Be Long Reflections on Faith, Identity and Race, would highly encourage. It's a very, I mean, don't let the fact that

Michelle's a scholar scare you away. This book is extremely readable and your ability to write memoir is really like not, most scholars can't do that and you do it extremely well. So it's a really engaging book and very thoughtful. So I encourage people to pick it up. Michelle, thanks so much for being a guest on theology in the raw. I really appreciate the conversation. Well, thanks. I really appreciate being here. It is great to be with you as always. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Hi I'm Haven and as long as I remember, I have had different curiosities and thoughts and ideas that I like to explore, usually with a girlfriend over a matcha latte.

But then when I had kids, I just didn't have the same time that I did before for the one-on-ones that I crave. So I started Haven the Podcast. It's a safe space for curiosity and conversation. And we talk about everything from relationships to parenting to friendships to even your view of yourself. And we don't have answers or solutions,

but I think the power is actually in the questions. So I'd love for you to join me, Haven, the podcast. Hey friends, Rachel Grohl here from the Hearing Jesus podcast. Do you ever wonder if you're truly hearing from God? Are you tired of trying to figure it all out on your own? The Hearing Jesus podcast is here to help you live out your faith every single day and together we will break down these walls by digging deeply into God's Word in a way that you can really understand it. If this sounds

like the kind of journey you want to go on, please join us on the Hearing Jesus podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.