Justice Worriers podcast

Just a short message to suggest you might like to donate your money or time to help people escaping from Afghanistan to settle in to our local area. To donate money, go to: https://www.runnymede.gov.uk/news/article/33/appeal-launched-as-borough-prepares-to-welcome-first-afghan-families To volunteer your time, go to: https://www.runnymede.gov.uk/news/article/39/volunteer-to-support-afghan-refugee-f...

Andy, Jörg and Leah struggle with whether forgiveness is a useful idea when talking about race. Surely the right response to the sins of the past involves some kind of forgiveness, but how can it be anything other than a demand on people who have been hurt to invalidate their own experience? What would it look like for repentance and power reversals to lead to a forgiveness that is more than an em...

Andy, Jörg and Leah discuss their own identity, and in particular, unusually, how their racial background affects their sense of identity. Is there a healthy way "white" people can understand their background, without descending into self-hatred? Where does the word "white" come from in this context, and is the idea of "whiteness" a useful way to view the world? The White Privilege Checklist menti...

Andy, Leah and Jörg face up to the parts of the Bible that seem racist, and discuss how we can see a universal message as well as very concerning themes. Can we really describe ourselves as a "chosen nation", or do we need to move on from that idea? Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter , Facebook ,  LinkedIn , or YouTube . Subscribe a...

Andy, Leah and Jörg try to wrestle with how we could be a fully accepting community that is also a challenging movement, with a message of freedom and change. To do this they reflect on their interviews with a variety of people and their experience of belonging in life and church. Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter , Facebook ,  Lin...

Andy, Jörg and Leah are joined by Keith, who describes his experience growing up as part of a strict Pentecostal community in East London, and moving outside: seeing different forms of Christianity, living his own life as a gay man, and reflecting on the experience of being Black in Britain. Keith is a breathtaking poet, author and playwright. His latest book is Selah , published by Burning Eye Bo...

Andy, Leah, and Jörg try an experiment: praying together by discussing the awful violence happening in Ethiopia and working together to work out how to pray about it. This involves the usual doubt and self-contradiction, time to listen to some lamentation from the bible and a time of silence, leading to the creation of a spoken prayer that is as raw and honest as they can manage. Here's the prayer...

Andy, Jörg and Leah discuss their honest reactions to talk of spiritual warfare and the ideas of a magical alternative world, and try to find a way to acknowledge the reality of dark and light forces in our world, and to understand how our prayers interact with them. The Bible Project podcast we mentioned a couple of times is God Episode 3: Spiritual Warfare . The Rob Bell podcast Leah mentioned i...

Andy, Leah and Jörg begin a conversation about prayer by asking whether God actually does things in the world. If so, how can it make sense? Does God need us to remind him to do good things? Why doesn't he help people in serious need? How can we ask for help with our trivial problems when people are suffering terrible hardship? Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for Justice...

Andy, Jörg and Leah talk to Michael, who describes a normal Surrey upbringing, how he feels his race affects people's reactions to him, and surprising places where he felt like an outsider, and an insider. Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter , Facebook ,  LinkedIn , or YouTube . Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts , YouTube , Spo...

Andy, Leah and Jörg wrestle with the ideas around heaven that have dominated evangelical consciousness: who is in and who is out? How can we imagine a God who keeps some people out, and what would it mean for people to write themselves out of God's story? Does people's intrinsic value change based on what they do? How does what we believe about who is included affect the way we treat others? As we...

Leah, Jörg and Andy talk about what happens when we die, and how it affects how we think and behave now. Will we carry on as if nothing happened? If not, if we are changed, are we even the same person? Should we see resurrection as a metaphor that comforts us in the face of death? Can we accept death, letting go of our life and invest in something mysterious? What example did Jesus set, and what d...

Andy, Leah and Jörg discuss heaven: is it a magical computer in the sky that we get copied into when we die? What did Jesus mean when he said heaven is here? Is heaven a different place or a renewed version of this place? If we see heaven differently will that affect how to act towards each other? Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter...

Andy Leah and Jörg talk to Andy about his experience of different classes and cultures in church, what he really needed from church when life was hard, and joining in with what Jesus is doing. Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter , Facebook ,  LinkedIn , or YouTube . Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts , YouTube , Spotify , Stitch...

Inspired by last episode's conversation with Esther about living with a "song" of Jesus' approval over our lives, Andy Leah and Jörg talk about how being saved was never about being copied into a magic computer in the sky after you die, and how this story of God making all things new transforms how we see other people and our world. Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for Ju...

Starts with an intro from the Justice Worriers, but the main event is Everybody Now: We've caused a turning point in the Earth's natural history. Everybody Now is a podcast about what it means to be human on the threshold of a global climate emergency, in a time of systemic injustice and runaway pandemics. Scientists, activists, farmers, poets, and theologians talk bravely and frankly about how ou...

  Andy, Jörg and Leah talk to Esther, who hears a song of Jesus's approval even when other voices clamour to overwhelm her.  She describes her journey of salvation through acceptance to repentance and being home, and discusses the forgiveness she is able to live out through her understanding of the fall. Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , T...

Responding to last episode's conversation with Lizi, Andy, Leah and Jörg discuss sin: is sin a problem that God needs to solve? Does sin stain us indelibly with filth, or is it a gift that helps us imagine a better world? Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter , Facebook ,  LinkedIn , or YouTube . Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts...

Andy, Jörg and Leah talk to Lizi, who lived across two different worlds. She describes how she found herself cared for, but also asked to change to belong. Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter , Facebook ,  LinkedIn , or YouTube . Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts , YouTube , Spotify , Stitcher, tunein, SoundCloud , Tumblr or go...

Are we totally disillusioned with God, or with Christianity?  Andy, Leah and Jörg explain why they are still around and trying to be involved; what gives them hope and helps them believe there is good news to be shared. Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter , Facebook ,  LinkedIn , or YouTube . Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts ,...

Are we proud of our country?  Are we proud of our "citizenship" as Christians?  Andy, Leah and Jörg discuss our discomfort with those ideas, resisting separation between outsiders and insiders, and how to understand a sense of belonging. Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter , Facebook ,  LinkedIn , or YouTube . Subscribe and rate us o...

  Andy, Leah and Jörg explore an uncomfortable feeling that the Bible on the surface encourages keeping quiet and not resisting the authorities, whereas understood more deeply Jesus seemed to demonstrate defiant subversion of the values of society.  How do we understand a message of non-violence without being complicit in the violence inflicted by oppressive and unfair structures? Contact us on ju...

It's quite simple, right?  You should help people.  In the second part of the "what does Christian justice look like" series, Andy, Leah and Jörg make it much more complicated than that, managing to worry from many different angles about hypocrisy, being patronising and assumptions about who needs helping in the first place.  They look for an alternative vision for what helping and being helped ca...

Should we quietly get on with life, or make a noise about things that are wrong?  Is there any point speaking up?  Does the Bible tell us not to challenge leadership?  Andy, Leah and Jörg share the sense of futility and the sense of necessity of talking about justice and injustice in the world. Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter , F...

Near the beginning of COVID-19 lockdown, Andy, Leah and Jörg discuss our response to fear for our lives and loved ones, and how we as Christians can understand crisis, and its disproportionate impact on different people. Contact us on justiceworriers@artificialworlds.net or look for JusticeWorriers on Mastodon , Twitter , Facebook ,  LinkedIn , or YouTube . Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts...