SoulWork: Bridging Faith Formation and Antiracism

Pauline Eichten and Laura Park, Beloved Community Staff Team

How do faith formation and our work of antiracism and multiculturalism intersect? How do we build practices that bridge between the two? The SoulWork gathering on September 25 offered a double helix model to help participants consider those questions. You’ll be hearing more in the weeks to come about how to use this model in your groups and ministry teams, but for now, here are a few things that came out of the SoulWork session. 

The image above was created in real time during the conversation between Rev. KP Hong and Alfonso Wenker of Team Dynamics that opened the session — how do the practices of faith formation and antiracism/multiculturalism interact and bond together? Take some time to let your eye wander among these amazing images and ideas.
Two particularly interesting ideas from a conversation between KP and Alfonso:

• Co-Evolution and Relationship: Co-evolution in biology refers to the way species influence each other in relationship. For example, some flowers have evolved particular colors to attract certain types of hummingbirds. As humans we too evolve in “relationships of mutual transformation,” writes adrienne maree brown. A faith community is one place where we can develop and strengthen these relationships.
• Practice: We develop our intercultural capacity through practice. Alfonso noted that our Ends invite us into a practice of “noticing.” We are all actors inside a racialized system and need to be mindful of race at all times. “We are either deconstructing the hierarchy of human value or we’re reinforcing it,” said Alfonso. Practice helps us build the capacity and complexity to achieve our goal of dismantling dominant culture. We’ll share videos in the weeks ahead with these and many other key ideas.

The model that shows the intersection of faith formation and antiracism/multicultural work is a basic double helix structure (below). Ready to start your work of building practice on both sides of this helix? Email Laura Park laura@unityunitarian.org for a version that will structure that work for you.

The Beloved Community Staff Team looks forward to working with groups and ministry teams to build practice on both sides of the double helix in the weeks ahead. 
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Credit: Graphic recording by Angelique McAlpine of Drawing Impact. Visit their website: www.drawingimpact.com.