 I'm Karl Stothman, Director of Library Services at AMBS. Our library and bookstore team has traditionally hosted book signings for new books related to AMBS. Since we couldn't do that in person, we decided to do it on Zoom instead. Today, it's our pleasure to have with us Dr. Sarah Wanger-Shank, author of the new book, Tongue Tied, Learning the Lost Art of Talking About Faith, Harold Press 2021. Sarah Wanger-Shank is a theologian, preacher, and the author of six books. She served as president here at AMBS for almost 10 years, where her blog, Practicing Reconciliation, was lauded as a steady and deeply theological resource in anxious and polarized times. Shank earned degrees from Eastern Menai University, Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. For nine years, she and her husband, Gerald Shank, served as students and teachers in the former Yugoslavia, and she has served on the faculty and administration of Eastern Menai Seminary. Hello, Sarah. I wonder if you could please tell us a bit of the story of how this book came to be and what your writing process was like. Greetings, Carl, and everyone listening in. So happy to be invited into this AMBS library bookstore event to talk about Tuntai. Let's hope I'm not Tuntai in the process. But I, yes, a bit of the story about how this book came to be, I sort of, looking back a bit into my personal history and then the more recent events, as a young adult, I was a very sort of private reserved person who found it challenging to speak up verbally. And I really found my voice through writing. And one of the first big adventures in writing was my first book called, and then there were three and owed to parenthood in, oh, I'm not gonna remember the date right now. It was in the early 80s. And that grew out of an article that I wrote, liberated to be a mother. I am a daughter of the women's liberation movement. And much of what that movement was concerned about was that women find voices outside the home, meaningful work, standing. And here I was a mother and experiencing a lot of learning as a mother. And so my writing voice was in trying to reframe, sort of a narrative reframing of the meaning of liberation. And it evolved into this book project. And that has led to sort of many more projects that involve reflection on the meaning of words and how we use words. And the next book was, Why Not Celebrate? How we use words to communicate about faith in daily down-to-earth ways. Along with practices, I am a practical theologian. And so my entire adult life really has been involved in trying to find words, ways to communicate, ways to embody faith that are authentic and bring true with who we really are. And that this particular book grew out of an invitation from acquisitions editor, Valerie Weaver-Zerker at Harold Press. She's moved on to Fortress Press, but she invited a proposal. She'd seen a column I did on a concern that we're losing our ability to talk meaningfully about faith. And in the AMBS window, she saw that column and said, would you like to write about this creative book proposal? Well, I was very intrigued by the idea, said I didn't have time, but a year later as I was approaching retirement, suddenly I was alive to this possibility and checked back with her, she was still open to proposals. So I sent that to her and she gave good feedback. I got good feedback from AMBS's David Kramer. And to my surprise, Harold Press offered me a contract based on that book proposal and extended chapter outline. I really enjoyed the big picture mapping of what this might include. And then in retirement was able to dive in, do significant research, write individual chapters, seek broad feedback after I had a first draft, much of which came from wise persons at AMBS, family members and others, significantly revised. And then here we have the final draft, which didn't take a lot of further work after Harold Press received it. So that's in a nutshell, sort of the long history and then the more recent prompts from Valerie and good feedback from a whole circle of wise people. Great, thank you so much. I think that leads right into the next question that I had, which is something about the experiences that prepared you for writing the book specifically, how your service as president at AMBS during a polarized time. How did that inform your understanding of the need for reclaiming this lost art? Yes, well, I was involved at AMBS when I wrote the proposal, where a community where talk about faith happens every day in deeply profoundly meaningful ways. AMBS is a community where, there was a lot of freedom and joy and breaking words open and examining their sort of multivalent, many layered meanings. And I had that community as my base when I went out and met many diverse people who come from all over. And my way of approaching things was to listen deeply, to meet people where they are, to hear what we had in common, what is it you care about? Sometimes I heard from people who were very concerned about what AMBS was teaching or about things in general and used words like biblical authority, AMBS is too political, caring about mission, evangelism, who are the evangelicals? What does it mean in herency? You know, these kinds of words were bandied about. And my challenge was to listen to where people were coming from. What was behind the words? How do we open them? How do I reframe things so that we can find common ground, find what it is we share in faith? How do we find a language that names what is at the heart of what motivates people and invites their loyalty and trust? Yeah, thank you. That's difficult work. And thank you for accompanying us at AMBS through that time. And I know your book talks in detail about this, so I don't want to do too many spoilers here, but I wonder if you can briefly speak to some of the factors that have caused Christian communities, maybe beyond AMBS, to lose this art of speaking about faith. Well, it is, yeah, that's a big part of it. Part of where I go early in the book, the first third of the book or so is to try to examine what it is that makes us reluctant to talk about faith. Now, there are so many complex reasons and it's nuanced differently for everyone, but I try to tease out some of those things that I'm in touch with that make it hard to talk about faith. Some of it is because faith talk seems so out of touch with reality. It has a sort of virtual reality to it, an artificiality with a kind of pious denier that doesn't connect with real moral issues of our day, like racism, sexism, climate change, political and church polarization. That's so we want nothing to do with it because it's unreal, it's artificial. I think another reason is because God is really incomprehensible in many ways God is beyond understanding. So how are we to talk about someone who in many respects is unknowable and who are we to, you know, deign to say something about God when there's so much mystery and unknown. Another reason is because much talk about God has been hurtful, hateful, hypocritical and judgmental. So again, we want nothing to do with it. God words have been used in damaging ways. And another reason is because often God talk is like a package deal. It's, you know, there is a doctrine of how you talk about God. There are prescribed ways, right and wrong ways. And don't you dare suggest otherwise or, you know, ask too many questions, wondering questions because God is, I mean, is holy and other. And so, you know, I think one of the biggest or most pervasive reasons is something because we haven't heard faith talk modeled very well. We haven't heard friends or family members talk about God in ways that feel trustworthy, that are down to earth, that are embodied, that are honest about, you know, what we don't know as well as what we think we know as, you know, we've come to believe. So those are some of the reasons I think we found it hard to talk about faith, talk about God. Yeah, that really resonates for me. So I appreciate that little nugget of what's in the book. And yeah, I think another direction I wanted to explore a little bit is that you talked here about modeling of family and friends and so forth. And your book talks about some of your family and friends and the ways that they've accompanied you on this journey. I'm wondering how your own family sustained and challenged you as you wrote and as you prepared for this. Yeah, well, family is a huge part of my story. I, you know, grew up in a family that was rich with language and stories and poetry and scripture. And so I felt sustained by that family history, that family experience as a child and into adulthood. That serves as a kind of seedbed for where I went. And then in the more immediate timeframe, you know, I am retired, I have grandchildren coming by a lot, grandchildren are here a lot. And I think about how does one sort of personify and talk about faith and God and the wonder of the beautiful world. So they provide sort of everyday opportunities to reflect on why this matters for their life and flourishing. My family, my husband in particular so provided support for me, space to be alone, to reflect, to do the reading and deep reflection that's needed. And family also were among those who provided great feedback to me. They know me, you can't get away with much with family. And so, you know, the level of transparency and engagement that they offered me was a great gift. Great. Yeah, I'm inspired by that narrative around family and what it can be. And so, one of my kind of wonderings as I worked through the book was that a kind of powerful part of your own ministry has been truth telling. And this comes out in various ways in the book. But speaking personally, I'm someone who resists truth because I want everyone to just be happy. And that's sometimes behind my reluctance to speak truthfully about faith in context where people might disagree with me. And so I can kind of be like the perfect evangelical when I'm with fundamentalists and the perfect enough stick when I'm with atheists, but not tell that story convincingly and truthfully. I'm wondering how someone like me might move beyond the desire to please others and speak that truth. Wow. Oh, yes, truth telling, Carl, how do we do it? How do we, you know, I think I certainly have grown in my ability over the years as I've become more confident in my own voice and where I stand. There is a great deal of that, you know, maturation and maturing in finding one's footing and where one can stand with some measure of confidence and humility. Becoming more humble is a big part of the aging process. And as I think I say in the book, I love the definition of humility that I got from feminist theologian, Rosemary Radford, Ruther, who said in class one day, humility is, you know, not being down on yourself for, you know, giving in, but it's about realistic self knowledge. And, you know, I find in truth telling that there is a great deal of self examination that happens, what do I know, what don't I know, where have I, where can I improve in how I give a clear transparent response to my regrets, my failures, along with what I have learned and what I am confident about and what I have seen and heard and would love to tell you about. So one of, I had an interview, oh, several weeks ago with a talk show host based in Arizona called The God Show. Apparently it's an institution in Arizona. And one of the questions he said was, well, you know, what if you, in addition to, you know, around the table, you never talk about sex, politics and religion because it'll turn into a pie fight. He says, well, okay. So you're being also sort of nice and polite about things. One of your grandson came home and said, you know, my teacher is really, is a Hindu and talking, you know, very, very attractive ways about the Hindu faith. And I'm rather drawn to what it means to be a Hindu. And how would you respond to your grandson whom you love so dearly? I said, well, you know, this goes to one of my first principles. First listen, listen, tell me, dear grandson, what is it that you're drawn to? Tell me your experience and what it is that attracts you. And then, you know, in humility saying, you know, this is my experience. This is how God has come near to me in Jesus Christ. May I, you know, having preface me, I tell you about, you know, my own experience. And so learning to both listen deeply and appreciate where the other is coming from. What is it, what are the, what is motivating? What are the fears? What is captured the imagination? And then going to what allowing, you know, what has captured my loyalty, captured my faith, my trust. So that's sort of a long answer, but there is the wisdom, the maturation, the humility that comes from age that frees one certainly has freed me to say, this has been my experience. This is what I have learned. This is what I regret and what I now see and being authentic and honest, transparent with that in a way that is full of conviction and love and the authority that comes with experience backed up by the wisdom tradition, drawing on the wells of scripture, all of that, become a part of what one can offer in those moments of honest sharing. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And I think all of us are on a journey of learning these things, some of us newer at it than others. And so thank you for being a teacher along the way. Another question here, taking this in a slightly different direction is kind of what, how current events, things like COVID-19 and systemic racism that we're really coming to the fore as you wrote this book, how that shaped your understandings in your book project even. Yeah, great question. I think in certainly writing this project, when these things, writing this book while these, some of these things were blowing up in very explicit, painful ways, helped me reflect more deeply on how language is used to create systems of oppression, racism, doctrine of discovery, colonial forms of mission. You know, I'm very familiar from experience of how Swiss, German, ethnic, Mennonite enclaves, you know, their bishops had powerful ways to use language to control and to silence, to marginalize, to privilege some voices over other voices. And certainly much of what was done and intended was, was, was for good, but had the adverse effect of marginalizing and silencing. So I've seen how words control for good and words can be used to speak prophetically, to counter the dominant narratives with alternative, liberative, justice-oriented narratives. One of my chapters focuses on fortifying words needed in hard times. We need words, so we're not merely tossed to and fro as Paul says in Ephesians, blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery and craftiness in deceitful scheming. What is the alternative to being manipulated by conspiracy theorists, hate-filled, scare-mongers, racists? Well, it is to learn to speak the truth in love. And certainly the hard times, pandemic times, times when these terrible, deep, deep, enduring systemic wrongs in our nation need people fortified with words to speak the truth in love. Amen. Well, that's a great place to transition here to our audience and some of the questions that you all have for Sarah about her book. And so you can put your questions in the Q and A. And we'll attend to them right away. While you all are thinking about what you might want to say, I have a real brief question, hopefully, for Sarah, which is who do you hope will read this book and what impact do you hope it will have on the church and beyond? Well, of course, I hope that everyone will read it. But primarily, you know, leaders, pastors, book discussion groups, small groups, Sunday school groups, people from a more evangelical background, from so-called progressive circles. I hope we can, in a variety of book groups, Sunday school groups, adult study groups, around our tables in our living rooms, in our church gathering rooms, get in touch with what makes us reluctant because many of the reasons are different for different people and then begin to invite each other to be more upfront about what it is, you know, we wonder about God, about God has disappointed us. How have we felt disillusioned? How have we sensed God show up? Where have we seen God at work? How can we give each other, I mean, yeah, in these small group gatherings, create the space to be explorers together in naming how we see God at work, or miss or wish God would show up? Thank you. I hope the same thing. After having been through the book myself and gotten a taste of it, I want to talk about it with people. So if some of you want to be a part of a small group with me, maybe we can do that. Yeah, I like this vision of people sharing their experiences around this and learning together about how to talk about faith. I think maybe people are feeling a little bit shy and that's okay. If you haven't gotten questions in, oh, we do have a question. Let me go ahead and ask you, how significant is the practice of leadership contributing to our inability to speak about faith? So yeah, what is the role of leadership in all of this? Yes, I think this goes back to my comment about, we haven't seen it modeled perhaps as much as would be helpful. I think leadership can invite the conversation in general, around the book's themes and invite people to speak There's a great illustration I use in the book, drawing on, oh, what is your name? This is the time of day. Just remember forgetting right now, the author, Lilian Daniel, Pastor, the United Church of Christ congregation, she said our congregation, she writes about how they decided to have the practice to experiment with and engage with the practice of testimony. And the definition for testimony was to talk about some experience of the week in the congregations open like time and not omit God. And she said that sounds like a strange caveat for a church and yet she said in her congregation it was challenging to bring God into the frame or who knows, all the reasons that perhaps some of which I identified. And she said, so this was a practice that, I mean, she is a leader, obviously a leader who invited a particular kind of engagement by her congregation in the practice of public testimony that includes God in the frame. And people, people rose to it and it spilled over into conversations over coffee and in the fellowship room where there was more and more engagement around how folks were experiencing God in the everyday. So leadership, I think helps to create, I mean it's hugely important in creating space for people that invites people to name their hunches about God, their experience of the transcendent, their surprises, their wanderings, their disappointments and questions. Leadership is key to making it safe for people to do that. And to modeling how that can be done authentically, transparently, honestly. Thank you. We have questions just popping in here. So I think I'm going to go to a question about have you learned to talk differently about God in retirement than as an administrator? Oh, well, what a question. I think retirement, I mean, sort of when you're not representing a community like AMBS, you might be a little more free to speak your mind. Not that I wasn't honest in my role as president, but I needed to think of the whole community I was representing, which any professional does, who's representing an institution. So now I'm an ordinary person, a retiree, and don't have all of that responsibility to represent a broader community other than the body of Christ. So I am always hoping to speak as someone who seeks to be Christ-like and to speak honestly, but not feeling the responsibility to speak in a way that reflects the mission of an institution, honestly. I don't know if that's where the question was going, but there is greater freedom in retirement simply to represent oneself and one's own perspective on things. I like the answer. Okay. Another question here. Given our contemporary society and given the various ways the biblical writers talk about salvation, have you come across some new metaphors to articulate our faith? The various ways that we talk about salvation, new metaphors to represent our faith? Yeah, articulate our faith. Well, I think metaphors is what it's all about. Metaphors are powerful ways to frame ideas. I can talk about authors that have been helpful to me. New metaphors, you know, I think about trees a whole lot. My love for trees is elevated exceedingly by walking among so many and my husband and I did a walk of our two-acre place to map the trees and discovered some 261 trees, 136 of which he has planted and there are 40 varieties of trees. So I think a lot about biblical metaphors that, you know, relate to trees. Trees planted by the stream. Trees that provide fruit and shelter and host life. And in that sort of way of thinking, the Robin Wall Kimmerer and her braiding sweetgrass is a book that I think was a paradigm shifting book for me. I couldn't say right offhand what particular metaphor she uses, but it invites us to listen much more to the natural world. And, you know, as people of faith, we know the biblical invitation to hear the trees clapping their hands and the rocks crying out. So salvation is a much more whole kind of thing than has sometimes been communicated to us about a salvation that is all about transporting us to another world. There's a salvation that has to do with all of creation and living in harmony and ways that honor the creator and celebrate and exalt the creator of this beautiful earth, which we want to share in the process of saving for the salvation of all species. So we are getting close to our time for our prize drawing. I think we'll take one more question and then transition into that. But for those of you who have questions who haven't been answered yet, we will have some more time for further questions and answers with Sarah after we do our prize drawing. So, yeah, we'll take the time we need to continue this conversation. So, a question here. Are there settings where we can unlearn our tongue tidiness? What do you suggest for learning something new? Settings where we can unlearn our tongue tidiness. You know, I go back to saying where we're at. What is it that ties your tongue in the settings where you normally live and work and mingle? Those are the settings that you can begin. They are your normal daily settings. How do you listen? How does one invite questions? How does one invite questions that bring people into wandering and identifying wanderings about God and disappointments? So, those settings, I think, how do you learn to not omit God when you use Lily and Daniel's invitation? Not to bring God in as an add-on, but to somehow out of your own aliveness to God, not omit God when you delight in the food, delight in some life-giving event, delight in the presence of someone you love, delight in your work. Those are the settings where we can start by not omitting God. To go deeper, I think we can form table groups, small groups, book study groups, where we explore the reluctances and give each other permission in a safe space to become more, more honest, more open. Great. Thank you so much. I think we'll go over to Brandon for a prize drawing from the AMBS bookstore. Brandon, are you ready for that? Carl, you're mute. A question here. How do we reconcile talking about our faith and postmodern thinking, things like relativism? How does that dialogue happen, that reconciliation between faith and postmodern thinking? Good question. I think postmodernity helped us see that all of the truth that we're able to grasp is perspectival. It's from how we see it. It's our own take on truth. That doesn't mean truth isn't truth, but as we speak of it, it is from our perspective. And so, yeah, this goes back to what I said about humility. Humility has to do with saying, this is true as I understand it, but it is not only true as I understand it. Here is the wisdom of the generations that is articulated in the tradition. And here is the wisdom of the scriptures that are open for us by these interpreters. Relativism is, you know, this being tossed about by every wind of doctrine. That is the wisdom of the generations by every wind of doctrine. And that, you know, is not rooted and grounded necessarily in a living tradition, in an experience, an engagement with scripture that is well informed, that pays attention to context and to the best interpreters out there. So, yes, all of what we say must be premised by this is my best understanding of things. But let me tell you again, the others who I draw on and listen to that help to reinforce and undergird and elaborate on what I have seen and come to believe. So we are not entirely at sea, but we can't dig in and say, this, I've got it, absolutely certain. No, no, that has been, that has been detrimental in a big way. The need for certainty and a dogma and a kind of take on what truth is. Thank you. This next question is from someone who knows you well. Indeed, being able to use words and to talk about faith is important, and I am one who values words a lot too, given that I grew up in your family. But is there a place for those who are willing to give it words can equally be of value? Living one's faith is incredibly important. And thank you for the question. I'm guessing this is my sister Betty, who is the first prize winner. May have missed other family members on the wheel. Living one's faith gives real resonance and the words are used. But living one's faith does not go far enough. We would not know the story of Jesus if there was only a lived kind of embodied thing going on. There have been many, many people who have told the story, who have interpreted the story, who have explained the story, who have talked about why this makes all the difference in the world about our understanding of who God is and how God is at work in the world. So, yes, we are vulnerable to all the manipulators out there, the scaremongers, the conspiracy theorists, every wind of doctrine that is floating around there. If we cannot articulate and talk about what it is, we believe and know about Jesus the Christ, who showed us who God is. Yeah, it doesn't go far enough, the embodiment, but the reverse is true. If you talk about Jesus and don't line up body, spirit, and mind with integrity to map in a resonant way with what you say, then that also doesn't work. We want to be people of integrity, heart, soul, mind, body in line with the good news of Jesus Christ. Thank you. Another question here. That's come in. Previous books you've written include written liturgy and prayers. What do you think is the role of writing down words about God, either for personal or corporate use? Yes, writing down words of God about God. I had to write before I could speak. I would tell you every time I speak I live with tremendous regret about everything I didn't say as well as it should have been said. That I somehow misrepresented the goodness, beauty, and wonder of God. Or misrepresented the beauty of this or that interpretation of God. I don't think I've ever thought about writing. I'm more tired at writing because I could be more precise. I think often writing can include nuance and poetry and texture. It can become something in the liturgy that we repeat over and over again. It sinks deeper and deeper into our mind. You hear them differently and more deeply each time you listen. Writing also doesn't allow one to say things that bring the body. When I'm talking with you now I'm using my hands and my eyes. You can hear whether I'm stressed or whether I'm able to laugh. There is a more full body way that when we speak in person, there is a resonance and authenticity that can ring true in a way that written words you may not hear or associate with the person who is speaking them. There is a coming together of person and word in person. Writing words on a page come to have a life of their own. They can be very disconnected from bodily practices, bodily embodiment of what those words are. They can be misused in terrible ways because they are disconnected from the body life of a living, breathing community. They can be misused in terrible ways. They can be misused in terrible ways. They can be misused in terrible ways. They can be misused in terrible ways. Those are for both possibility and good and for misuse and abuse. Both ways. Thank you so much. We are almost at our time here. a copy for a friend or a church group, Brandon is going to drop a link into the chat for where you can buy the book if you don't have one already. So we, yeah, we want you to spread the word and hopefully lots of people will be energized by this work that Sarah has started. And a reminder to the folks that won prizes to hang on for us a bit here. I think we could take one really, really quick question before we have to sign off if anyone has one. Okay, well, I think we've attended to a lot of substantive questions. And so I think we can call this enough as well. A question that came in, housekeeping kind of question, are you having a book signing somewhere because we would like to actually have that embodied signature of the book, is that possible? Yeah, not that I'm aware of, you know, some virtual events but there's something in September with Virginia Menonite Conference that's planned. I imagine there'll be some book signings there, but I don't know for sure. So far it's been virtual events. But thank you for asking and thank you for this opportunity, Carl, Brandon, everyone who's helped to make it happen, you know, the talking about faith is all about learning to share wisdom with each other about how to live the good life, how to flourish as human beings and by so doing honoring our creator. So thank you all for listening in and spread the good word about this book and I hope you form circles of conversation around the book and let me know questions or feedback or suggestions. Going forward, I welcome your counsel, your wisdom. Thank you so much, Sarah. It's been such a pleasure talking with you about the book and yeah, I'm looking forward to keeping that conversation alive. So yeah, thanks to everyone who came and this was a beautiful time of conversation.