In this conversation co-hosted by Dr. Rose Madrid Swetman and Jenni Wong Clayville, Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil reflects on her personal journey into ministry, the challenges faced by women of color in predominantly white church spaces, and the importance of trailblazing for future generations.
Be sure to check out Dr. Brenda’s latest book, Empowered to Repair: Becoming People Who Mend Broken Systems and Heal Our Communities.
In each episode, we ask our guests to highlight an organization that is doing good work in the world. Dr. Brenda gives a shout out to Christians for Biblical Equality, an international organization working to educate, advocate, and liberate women and men from Christian patriarchy. You can learn more about their work at: https://www.cbeinternational.org/
Listener resources:
- If you are a woman in ministry seeking a space for support, growth, and transformation for yourself or for your team, we invite you to participate in one of our cohort programs, called a Circle. Learn more and join the wait list for our new Resilience Circles for Women here.
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About Our Guest:
When you hear the name Brenda Salter McNeil, three words immediately come to mind: Passionate, Powerful and Prophetic. She is a woman of God who is gifted as a teacher and preacher and is a leader in the international movement for peace and reconciliation. Her mission is to inspire, equip and empower emerging Christian leaders to be practitioners of reconciliation in their various spheres of influence. She is an Associate Professor of reconciliation studies in the School of Theology at Seattle Pacific University, where she also directs the Reconciliation Studies program.
She also serves on the pastoral staff of Quest Church in Seattle, WA. Dr. Brenda is recognized internationally as one of the foremost leaders of reconciliation and was featured as one of the 50 most influential women to watch by Christianity Today. She is the author of Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0, A Credible Witness: Reflections on Power, Evangelism and Race (2008), The Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Social Change (2005), coauthored with Rick Richardson, and her newest book Becoming Brave: Finding the Courage to Pursue Racial Justice Now.
Episode Transcript
Rose: When you hear the name Brenda Salter McNeil, three words immediately come to mind, passionate, powerful, and prophetic. She’s a woman of God who is a gifted as a teacher and preacher and is a leader in the international movement for peace and reconciliation. Her mission is to inspire, equip, and empower emerging Christian leaders to be practitioners of reconciliation in their various spheres of influence. She’s an associate professor of reconciliation studies in the school of theology at Seattle Pacific University where she also directs the reconciliation studies program. She also serves on the pastoral staff of Quest Church in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Brenda is recognized internationally as one of the foremost leaders of reconciliation and was featured as one of the 50 most influential women to watch by Christianity Today. She’s the author of Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0, a credible witness, reflections on power, evangelism, and Race, the Heart of Racial Justice, how Soul Change leads to a social Change. Co-authored with Rick Richardson and her newest book Becoming Brave, finding the Courage to Pursue Racial Justice Now. Dr. Brenda, welcome. Jenni and I are so looking forward to this conversation, so thank you for being with us.
Brenda: It’s my pleasure, really. Thank you.
Rose: Before we get into your story and women in ministry and all that, let’s talk about your book. So here’s what I’ve read and all of you can see that I think there’s some pretty important information in this book that I did not want to lose, and now I have to go back through an anecdote. But anyway, let’s talk about it because I think that this book for practitioners, I mean, listen, we are living in a time of such conflict everywhere, the need for reconciliation right now. I mean, we’re in an election year where there’s wars, all of the world. It seems like the world is just so on fire. And so the need for the people of God to step forward to say, wait, we have something to offer. And when I read this book, I just thought this needs to be in the hands of every pastor, every church, congregations doing this work because we are called to this, we’re to have a ministry of reconciliation, right? Yes. So I would just love for you to talk about your work and in any way you want to talk about and tell us about your work.
Brenda: Yeah, well, thank you so much. I’d say this, we do need reconciliation, but why I wrote this book is because, and why I’ve been, you say I’ve got this international reputation. I’ve just been doing it so long healing. I’ve been at this work in some form for probably 40 years. And so to be, I started out kind of trying to figure it out and it was bringing people together. But what I’ve discovered is that in the Christian context, reconciliation has been reduced to a relational concept. And that’s been a problem. And so initially it was around diversity, inclusion, multi-ethnicity, equity between men and women and those kinds of things. And it should include that, but it never got to the level of what you just described. We’re living in a world on fire and making friends with others, eating different foods, singing songs in different languages that’s not going to heal or repair what’s happening in the world around us. And that’s why this book became urgent for me. Christians are being seen as the Kumbaya Club and young people, the generation that is in colleges and universities and seminaries who are graduating into a world on fire. They’re asking us for relevance. They’re basically saying, we don’t want to hear anymore stuff about coming together and going into a diverse church. We’re asking you how do we do this? What does it look like to actually address the issues that are happening around us? And so reparations and reconciliation in my mind, needed to be married and clearly spoken of as two sides of the same coin.
Rose: I love this so much because honestly what you just described, the book is full of practical tools that are actionable. So it’s not just theoretical. It’s like you give step by step for ways for people to do this work. And often I think that’s what happens, what you just said when we talk about we want diversity in our churches, and so that means we’re going to have more people of color on the worship team or we’re going to whatever. But no, this book, and I have to say based on the story of Nehemiah, brilliant, it’s so great just the principles that you brought from Nehemiah, but I’ll have to tell you, at one point I was thinking, oh my gosh, this is like Isaiah 58, the whole repair being repairs, rebuilding the things that were so, but the Nehemiah story just encapsulates all of that, Dr. Brenda. And I mean, the whole idea for me when I’m reading this book, I kept thinking this book is giving us a roadmap, your first book, but it is kind of a roadmap of how we can organize. So somebody like me, I’ve often thought because I didn’t do studies in organizing that is so important right now. And so the way that you bring step-by-step through organizing and how we use our skills, our resources, the long-term work, looking at the long-term work, and then also how we avoid burnout while we’re doing this work. Do you want to speak to that?
Brenda: Yeah. All I know for sure is that it is hard work, and I’m a practitioner, and so the goal was to try to give people tools not to think about it, but to actually know, so what is it that we’re supposed to do?
Rose: Well, it’s a piece of gold is what I would say for anyone that is really wanting to be present to what God is doing in this world and in our communities now. And that gives so many resources of how we can organize, how we can best use our resources for this work.
Brenda: As women, and I know Jenni’s going to talk to me a bit about some of those things. Maybe this is a good place to pivot to say this as mothers, I’m a mother of two young adults. I adore them. I think they’re wonderful human beings, and I’m very, very proud of who they are. They are a part of a growing group in this generation who has lost confidence in the church. Not that they don’t love God, it’s not that they don’t pursue spirituality, but the church is not the place they go to seek that anymore. And that concerns me. So I’m saying to every woman or man listening to this, we’re losing a generation. We’re losing a generation for the church because they’ve seen so much passivity, lack of engagement right now, the political season we’re in, where the church is condoning behavior and a posture making all kinds of scriptural excuses for just plain abhorrent behavior that anybody else would never be able to do, and somehow to justify getting whatever Christians feel they want to have happen in the political spirit. They have made excuses and condoned behavior that 10 years ago in my experience, would never have been allowed. And so I think they see the hypocrisy where we talk about a God of justice, a God of reconciliation, a God of truth, a God who says that the truth will make you free. And then a growing number of Christians keep making excuses for a person who never tells the truth. We got a problem here. We got a problem.
Jenni: We preach about a God who loves us and sees us and knows us, and yet we as Christians, as the Western Church, we are telling large groups of marginalized people that God doesn’t see them and God doesn’t love them. And whether we mean to or not, the church is saying that. And so our kids, yeah, I have kids that are teenagers, same thing. And their friends want nothing to do with the church. They love Jesus. They want nothing to do with the church. And that is so sad. So yeah, I hear you. Absolutely.
Brenda: Exactly. That’s where the urgency came from me. You’ve read it, Rose, in the very beginning. I say I’m writing because I care about this generation. I believe that they have a unique role to play, but we’ve got to help to inform them. And that’s what motivated me to say so much truth and to be so practical and to tell them, you are right, something should get repaired. And it is based on Isaiah 58. We are supposed to be the repairers of the breach, the restorers of streets to dwell in. We are supposed to be those people. And when I saw that in Isaiah, and that’s why I went to Nehemiah, because Isaiah tells us what we’re called to, Nehemiah gave me a context to show me how to do that.
Rose: Yes, yes. Absolutely.
Jenni: It’s so good. I think for our listeners, not everybody knows who you are, Dr. Benda, if you could just share a little bit about your story and how you came into ministry. I’d love to hear that. Yeah.
Brenda: The Cliff Notes version is that I became a Christian when I was 19 at Rutgers University. I was a speech pathology major. I graduated with a degree in speech pathology, and I practiced as a speech therapist for a few years in the public system where I grew up in New Jersey. During that time, I started working with kids, and I remember once I was doing a language assessment with a young African-American little boy, and I showed him a picture of four different types of food. And as the speech therapist, I had one word on my side, I said the word, it was wiener. He picked something, but it wasn’t a hot dog. It wasn’t that. And I don’t know why, but as a Black woman, I just looked at that little boy and I just instantly said, instead of wiener, I said, hot dog. And he instantly pointed to the right picture. And I had this kind of moment that said, we are classifying children as being learning disabled.
Jenni: Right. So good. Yeah. Yeah.
Brenda: And it’s not that little boy doesn’t understand that concept. He just doesn’t use that word. And these standardized tests are based on white dominant culture. And I was just thorough. I began, I think, so I started preaching early and I was preaching. I grew up in a Pentecostal church, so I was preaching and that was fine, but that experience with that little boy caused me to want to go into ministry and be trained to do it well. And that’s what took me to Fuller Theological Seminary so that I could begin to marry my concern for the benefit and the goodness of people like that little boy, and to start to try to have the language for it, the theology for it. And that led me to a ministry of reconciliation. As I mentioned, I became a Christian at college, and when I went to groups like with no shade whatsoever, but when I went to things like InterVarsity, when I went to Campus Crusade, it was mostly just all white students. And when I walked in, I didn’t feel, again, I grew up in the Pentecostal church, so I just didn’t feel like I belonged. And so when I got to Fuller, I did my degree, my MDiv in theology, and before I could graduate, I had to do an internship. And my internship was at Occidental College, and the chaplain basically said, you could do anything you want. Now, when I went to seminary, women in ministry was the hot topic. It was a big deal. And I thought that I was going to go to Oxy and work with the women students, and I would have done that gladly. The chaplain said to me, do anything you want to do. So I walk into chapel not knowing that the chaplain had become a Christian. Listen at that. The chaplain had become a Christian. So basically he had a PhD in religion. He took the job to get a position as a religion professor, and the chaplain thing came along with the religious professor job. And so he hadn’t had a transformative experience at that level. He was intellectually aware of Christianity, but he hadn’t made some conversion. So the students started praying for him. The students were InterVarsity students. He converts to Christianity and gives his heart to Christ, but he’s a new believer. So when I get there, he tells me I can do anything I want. And I don’t realize that because he’s a new believer. Chapel is actually InterVarsity. They’re married together. So I walk into a room of 200 college students coming to Chapel. That’s a lot. There was only 1200 students on that campus. And when I walk in, I look at these students, I’m think this chapel is filled, but there were only two students of color in that whole room. There was a Latino brother named Elias. And Elias had grown up in a working class farm farming community, and he didn’t want to be seen as Mexican anymore. So he kind of became an Oxy guy and kind of took his nationality or his racial identity. He kind of put it aside. And there was an African-American guy. His name was Ed. He was dating a woman. Her name is Susie, she’s white. And he came because Susie was there. And that caused, and here’s the wrap up of my story of how I got called to the work of reconciliation. I never saw it coming, but that day I stood in the back of that chapel and I had this profound feeling of confusion. What is it about race that seems to be something we never make any progress on. It’s like I’m in a time where from when I was in college, now all these years later, I’m coming to work with students on a college campus. And it looks exactly the way it looked when I went into that first Bible study thing and was the only Black girl in that room. What’s up with that?
Jenni: And I want to dive deeper into that too, because as a woman of color as well, I come from immigrant parents. And so my immigrant parents, we came from a church that I don’t necessarily fit in anymore either. And I currently work at a predominantly white church. We’re very diverse. I would not necessarily say that we’re multicultural, but we are diverse. It’s a lot of assimilation going on. But for you as a woman of color, what are some of the challenges that you have gone through and challenges that you still see for women of color in ministry today?
Brenda: Wow, what a great question. I’d love to hear your thoughts too, because I think we adapt and we learn. So I think one of the things is people invite you to speak because they feel you’re going to be good at what you do, but also safe that you’re not going to be too aggressive, you’re not going to be too all of the things that people might fear because it’s a weird dynamic to be invited to speak, and you want to honor your audience. So you see the catch 22. Yes. The very fact that we get invited is because people have seen us do something, read something and feels like we could bring our cultural self. But that is right. That, but is the thing. It’s almost like work, walking a tight rope and trying to figure out how far is too far, how much is too much while still trying to hold onto my integrity and my authenticity and my ethnic identity. You want me to bring that? So maybe if people are listening, I’d say, I think the new question I’ve asked, but this comes with time. So anyone who feels like they’re in that stage, that is a stage of becoming more known and speaking in different venues, and I appreciate that. But there comes a stage as we get older and we begin to ask questions on whose terms you’d like me to come, I’ll consider that, but on whose terms
Jenni: That is so good for a season, I said no to a lot of things. I felt like I was asked to fill a quota. And I will say that I had talked to, this is an incredible man in Barna. His name is Joe Jensen, and he’s an ally and he’s an encourager, and he just said that as women of color, we just need to show up. He has four daughters that look like me because he’s mixed. So there’s a little bit of showing up so that you are paving the way, but how do you balance that tension of the assimilation and then the code switching and also showing up fully as yourself, the way that God has created you to be so you’re not just a quota, but also there’s some trailblazing going on and we’re not there yet. And so as someone like you who is leading the way in this and figuring it out firsthand, this really does matter in this conversation. So thank you for that. I mean, I personally choose to stay in a white church for all intents and purposes because there’s so many in between. We call those that they’re in a liminal space. And so you’re not an immigrant, but you’re also not white culture. Where do you belong? And so what does that look like as the image of God so well created in the image of God as we are? What does it mean as a minority woman to take up space, the space that God gave you to take up? So yeah, I mean, I don’t have it figured out either. That’s why this conversation is so important. We love hearing from you,
Brenda: And what you just said is very important is to know that even if the whole system doesn’t change in the ways that we want, I hear you saying, I am where I am with intention. I know what I’m here for. And that same with me, even if, and I would do whatever it is I was doing, but our bodies do work, our presence is extremely helpful, and it opens the possibility. And I think the opportunity for us to have conversations with people, maybe not from the pulpit all the time, but in ways that we’re helping to influence people who are really trying to figure it out and we become the conduit or the bridge into their sense of identity, their sense of ownership, their sense of agency. I think women who see us do what we do, they basically, for some people, I’m the first Black woman, the first woman, they’re like, yo. And then they start feeling I could do that. And I come out of there and I feel like we are like fans. We’re fanning the flame in them because just seeing us embodied, being boldly, prophetically,, authentically ourselves, something in those women, in that audience, after they saw six men on the platform and then we show up, It’s almost like I see myself. Oh my goodness, I see myself. I could do that. Rose, say something. I see you. I would love to hear what you
Rose: No, I have so many thoughts right now. I mean, Jenni used the word trailblazer, and I’m thinking for many of us women in ministry, I know in my denomination, I was one of the first pioneer women to be recognized. I was the first women to be ordained in my denomination. And we had a lot of churches that were still under the Complementarian theology. I became a regional leader over 50 churches. All of them were led by males. And I did that for 10 years. And so I think that we get put in places where you are asked, the Lord invites us to pioneer, or maybe he even commands it. I don’t know how we want to look at that, right? But being the one and only sometimes is really how have the two of you been in places where you really were the one and only? How many tables have I sat at where I was the only woman at that table? I’m just saying, and for you all, you have not only the only woman, but also a woman of color. And so how have you been able to navigate that? And did it ever get to you like, yeah?
Brenda: I’ll say this. Jenni answered the question about being the only one. I’m rarely the only one, and sometimes might be the only speaker, but I see women in other contexts and that kind of stuff. But the thing, here’s what I want to say to us in this particular conversation. One of the worst experiences I ever had at a conference was from a woman, and it was at a women’s conference, you hear me? So before we throw being the only one under the bus, let me tell you, I spoke at a women’s conference and I thought, you know how sometimes you preach your heart out and you feel like you have just killed this thing? You have just, and I was like, I was feeling the glory cloud. And so I learned to travel with someone else for all kinds of reasons, probably as a woman. So I made sure I always had someone with me. Usually it was somebody who could have flexible schedule, who could travel with me. It just felt really important to go two by two. Jesus sent the disciples two by two. It was helpful to have someone there to not just assist me, but to pray for me, watch over me, all of that kind of stuff. Know that my integrity is my integrity. So someone says, well, we saw her. No, no, you didn’t because this world is weird. Agreed. So my little armor bearer person and I were walking down from the platform and I was going toward the outside lobby area where I was selling books, and I was going to sign books out there. Believe it or not, I saw a white woman kind of chasing up to catch up with me, it appeared, right? And I thought she was coming to say, thank you for your sermon. That was really, really dah, dah. Now, the sermon I preached was on the book of Esther, and I simply said that sometimes leaders are right under our noses and we don’t recognize that they’re there. And off the cuff said, I was at Occidental College as a chaplain, and for a year, Barack Obama was a student at that college. He was, see, yes, that’s all I said. A little skinny freshman guy was at that college. And who would’ve thought that that boy would’ve become the President of the United States?
Jenni: Right, exactly.
Brenda: I thought that was a great analogy of the Esthers that we don’t see, right? Well, you all listening to this podcast, let me tell you what this white woman did, and I want you to know I was through, I get out to the lobby, she runs up to me and she says, why did you say that? Why did you say that? Why did you say Barack Obama? And then she said, why didn’t you say? And she called. She said, why didn’t you say Sarah Palin? And you know what? She caught me so off guard. I said, she didn’t go to that school. Why would I say I had no idea? And then she just started yelling. Betsy, the person, the woman who was with me was at the book table. She saw what was happening. She got up, she came and put her body between me and that woman. But the reason I tell you all that story, Betsy, my assistant, was the only person who came to my rescue. All those women,
Jenni: Everybody else watching
Brenda: You watched that thing. And I thought to myself, how have people invited me to come speak at your conference? You let this woman accost your speaker, and none of y’all have any protocol about calling this woman into question. I close this story by telling you I later learned that that woman was on the board of that organization that invited me, and I asked the president to make a public apology from the stage for that type of behavior. So as women of color, I think they’re white women, and I mean this, but I don’t say it with malice. Must watch the dominant culture sense of entitlement that makes you think that you get to call people into question as if they must account to you. And I don’t allow that to happen to me ever.
Jenni: We have to do the work. And also as women, can we be for each other? Maybe she had a valid question at this point. I don’t even know what the question is, but could she not have pulled you to the side and asked, Hey, help me understand this. Instead of, and just making it a public scene that is crazy
Brenda: Because she thought she had authority over me. Something in her dominant culture brain made her think that she gets to decide what’s normal. So when you said to me, when you speak, those kinds of contexts are important for women to vet their bodies being in because our bodies are doing work and people perceive our bodies in ways that they think they can either challenge or correct. So I have a doctorate degree, and there are people who come up, well, lemme explain something. And I feel like,
Jenni: No, thank you on that. It’s interesting you say this too, because clearly this is a polarizing thing. Women think if you are at the table already, there’s no space for me. It’s a lie. There’s room for all of us, right? That’s right. We’re on a practical level for you. In the midst of all of this polarization in the work that you’re doing and in injustice work and the practices in all of this, it is a nonstop thing. So what keeps you in this work and what keeps you from feeling hopelessness and despair?
Brenda: Yeah, thank you. That’s a good question. I think two things. So you can tell I’m a person who likes stories. My daughter’s name is Mia. I love her. She’s a warrior woman and she’s a justice oriented person. And so she was talking with some friends and they were talking about how they didn’t really like the church and they were talking about all the things that they didn’t like, what have you. And Mia, my daughter, spoke up and said, and she told me this, and I’m not sure I’ll ever forget it, but she said, mom, I told her, she said, I agree with you. And she said, but you know what? My mom is a minister and my mom loves God. And I thought, oh, yes, I do. I do love God. So growing up in that little Pentecostal church, I can tell you that what has happened is that I love God. I really am not putting on a show. I don’t know who I would be without God. And so Christianity for me is not just a religion I joined. I gave my life to Christ. And that’s what gives me hope. I feel God, I love God. God, I believe God is at work. I believe that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond anything who can ask, think or imagine. So when you ask me what keeps me going, my faith, it’s not because of what I see. It’s not because of what I can do. I believe God. Now, sometimes I’m with Dr. King, I may not see it with you, but I believe, I do believe that the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. And I do believe that every tribe and every nation and every ethnic group will gather around the throne of God, and I’m working toward that. So I think the image that comes to mind is like a kid, a little girl that goes out on the stage and she’s five years old and she says her speech and then she curtsies and then goes off the stage. I think each of us get our moment to be on stage. This is mine. I think we should take it as seriously as we can. And then I think when we’ve done what God called to do, we curtsy our parents clap like they are crazy, and we exit the stage. So what keeps me going, first of all, is my faith. I believe God has called me to do this, and I want to be faithful to what I believe God has called me to do. I think the second thing is that I do it in community. I go to Quest Church and I have people in my life who are also pursuing the work of reconciliation. And I believe, like I said earlier, I don’t believe anybody’s supposed to do this alone. And so I think we’re supposed to be for it with each other so that when somebody else gets tired, they feel like, I got you. I got you. Take a rest. I got you. And so I have people for whom I’m in community, and they watch for me. They pray for me. We strategize, we talk about it, all of that. So do it in community. Whoever’s listening to me, don’t be a long ranger. Do it in community. We need each other for strength. And then I think the last reason that I do it that keeps me going is I really do feel called to the generation coming behind me. I love them. I like their spark. I love their snarkiness. I like their questions. I like their passion. And so maybe because I became a Christian as a college student, I love college students. I really do. And I believe that every major revival that’s happened in this country and around the world has happened with that age demographic. And so they keep me going. They say, no justice, no peace. I’m with ’em. So that’s how come there’s this on the cover with the fist in the air. I’m trying to say, I’m trying to say to them, I hear you. I understand you. We do need to be dealing with these issues and we do need to move past this relational stuff. We do have to have a different conversation. And we are called to repair. So they motivate me, they inspire me, and that’s what keeps me going.
Rose: I love it. Okay, so this is what I just heard. I’m going to just recap because one of the things that we’ve been doing at the school through our Lily grants is researching burnout in clergy leaders, people doing the hard work out in the world, followers of Jesus doing it. And some of the streams of resilience have come from what you said people, you have to have people. You cannot do this work alone. So who are the people? People, probably the most important thing is who are the people, the practices of prayer when you’re just all the different practices that we might do in order to be able to do the work that we’re invited to do. And then you said purpose. You said two purposes like the work, but then the generation behind us, the younger generation right now, I mean, if that is not a compelling invitation of our creator for this time and this context of where we are, especially in America, so so important. So you just nailed all of the research that we have said, this is what you need to do to do this work. So
Brenda: Thank you,
Rose: Brenda. Is there anything else you want to say about the work about being a woman of color in the ministry? Any encouraging words you want to send out to our listeners before we go?
Brenda: Well, thank you is my first word. I really have enjoyed this conversation. It feels authentic, it feels true, and I’m very, very, very grateful and thankful for the opportunity to have had this conversation with you. I’m very grateful that you read my book and found it helpful. So thank you. Really. I feel a part of the sisterhood, and that feels really, really good. And so to my sisters and to those listening, I guess I just would say to you that I believe that women around the world, I am thinking about a movie. I saw a documentary called Pray the Devil Back to Hell. And it’s about, yeah, that’s a title. Okay. It was in Africa, and I want to say Rwanda, but I’m not exactly sure. But it was where women were wanting their children to be brought back, and people were debating it and talking about it. And women basically rose up and said, we are going to stop this until you negotiate and work for peace, and we’re going to pray the devil back to hell. You’re going to stop taking our children. We’re going to stop losing our kids to war. You’re going to stop it. You’re going to stop taking away our girls. And those women dressed in white dresses, and they met at the market and they were there relentlessly. I guess I tell you that story and the image came to my mind because it says that as women, oftentimes not just in the United States, but around the world, our instincts perhaps are for the communal wellbeing, not just for our individual flourishing. There’s something that says we must find a way to come together. We must find a way for the sake of our future, for the sake of our children, for the sake of those who can’t speak. We will nurture and care and defend and fight for. I believe women are more powerful and more well, not more powerful than we may know. And so I call us all to access. Our sisterhood are linking of our arms, our capacity to pray the devil back to hell and to say, we are not going to tolerate this. We’re not going to condone this. We’re not going to play the games of climbing the corporate ladder just to be seen. We want healing and wholeness, and we’ll stop at nothing else on.
Rose: Yes. Yes. Amen. Amen. Well, as we land this plane, let’s say this, we are very grateful for the time you’re spending with us, and we want to end by giving you a space to shout out to an organization that you see doing good work. We will make a donation to them and encourage other listeners to donate as well. We’ll put it in the episode notes. So is there an organization you’d like to shout out about.
Brenda: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Because we’re talking about women Christians for Biblical Equality, CBE. Oh, okay. Yes, Jenni, when you talked about Ray Baki being OG, he’s been in the game a long time. Makes sense. I used to be on the board of Christians for Biblical equality, and it’s a resource for gender equity. There’s a library and an online access to articles. So as women, perhaps we want to promote and support that organization. Mimi Hadad is the president, and it’s been in existence a really long time.
Rose: Dr. Brenda, thank you so much for being with us. Such an enjoyable and important conversation.
Brenda: Thank you. It’s been my pleasure.
