What Are We Missing about God: A Conversation with Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, thanks for joining us here on this episode of Thinking Christian. I am joined by Grace G. Sun Kim, who is the professor of theology at Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana, and also the host of the Madang podcast on and you can find that wherever you find podcasts, you know, the normal sort of thing. But she's also author of a new book, a relatively new book, When God Became White. And so we're going to be talking a lot about this book in the podcast, Why God Became White, and just exploring some of the implications of how really whiteness and Western civilization have shaped the perception of Jesus and religion. And I'm really excited to have you on the program. Grace, welcome. Thank you so much, James, for having me. It's great to be on your podcast. And thank you so much for reading my book and glad to be here to talk about it. Yeah, absolutely. I will say just to, you know, sort of kick us off a little bit. You know, I got to the last chapter and you started talking about the Korean concept of Han, which I hope we'll get to within the podcast, but it reminded me of a book I'd read sometimes some years earlier, The Wounded Heart of God. And that was also around the Korean concept or the Asian concept of Han. And I just really appreciated that section of your book very much. I think it gave some real concrete examples of the way that Korean culture could actually enhance the way we think about God, the way we think about Bible and theology and worship and, and all of those different things. So we'll get there, but I just wanted to sort of open with that, that I have a deep appreciation for that, that work and very much was happy to see that included. It was a lot of fun to have sort of that recollection of that concept. Yeah, well, thank you so much. Yeah. That was, Dr. Andrew Sung Park's book. Yes. People refer to his for the concept of Han and since then I've written about it in many of my books too. So thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's start out, you know, this book, When God Became White, you talk a lot about this concept of whiteness. And so I thought maybe the way we could sort of enter this idea is distinguishing between, which you do well in your book, race and ethnicity. And I'm wondering if you could talk about that a little bit. Okay, I think that's a great question because I begin the book by saying everything is connected to race. Yeah. So I felt even my whole life experience of being an immigrant in Canada and then later on in the U.S., I feel that race is such an important concept within the U.S. and around the world and how it is used by people who are in power. So, you know, there is a difference between race and ethnicity. So race is, you know, it's not based on biology, but created to keep certain people in place and others in power. So it's a concept that was created mainly by Europeans in the 16th century. And it has been used to keep one different groups inferior and other groups superior. So we have to keep that in mind as we're talking about race and that it is this kind of socially constructed concept for keeping power, people, certain people powerless and other people powerful. So that is what race is. And ethnicity is this kind of larger group of categories such as one's heritage, one's language, one's culture, one's customs and religion. So you're looking at all of that to talk about certain ethnicity. So these are like kind of categories or kind of one's identity to help us differentiate between different groups of people. While as race is a constructed concept, which many people feel that it is biological, but it's not. So I think that then leads into this whole notion of racism because people here in the U.S. and around the world think that race is something tied to biology. So in this, in the understanding that white people are smarter, are brighter, are better people than other groups of people. So that's the kind of like the key distinction between race and ethnicity. And we should keep that in mind because sometimes we just use it interchangeably in our kind of everyday dialogue and people get a little confused. But ethnicity is these larger groups of categories and religion can be added to that too. Would you say that, you know, as I've kind of read some of your work and tried to understand it, would you say that ethnicity is, you know, you're saying it's the broader category, but as we, as we think about ethnicity, is biology tied in there? I don't want to put biology into this either because these are kind of constructed categories as well as biology sounds so scientific. And, you know, it's like, that's it. But these are just characteristics of different people. So my ethnicity as an Asian American woman, you know, I speak Korean, you know, Asia, we have different religions, so that will be part of it. So there are these other descriptions and our cultures are different and our customs are all different. You know, I, I, because I'm an immigrant, I get a, you know, I, I live in in between two cultures all the time. And to navigate between the two cultures, sometimes it's really difficult because you become neither there or neither here. You don't get accepted in Asia and you don't get accepted here either. So I don't want to tie in biology to this because it sounds too scientific then. And, you know, ethnicity is also fluid. So we have to keep that in mind. So, yeah, if we bracket biology out and then, so if I understand kind of what you're saying, that, that there's be a difference between the way that, and don't let me put words in your mouth, please, but I'm trying to, I'm trying to wrestle with this. So race is something that would be imposed on you almost like maybe we might say a stereotypical Korean stereotype or an Asian stereotype versus something like ethnicity, which is a little bit more developed out of lived experience and historicity. Is that a fair way to say that? Yeah. And ethnicity, there is no, you know, we don't put power, we don't tie power and superiority too much when we're talking about one's ethnicity. Because we're just talking about languages, although, you know, we, I think the Western people think the English is the most superior language, but we try not to put that in. But with the category of race, which is socially constructed, as I said, in the 16th century, it was really to put one group of people and it's the white people over against other people of color. And we have to recognize that this notion of race is very fluid. It was a needed concept, especially during enslavement and during indentured workers to kind of put one group of superior over another because during the enslavement time, the white people thought, Oh, we'll just use categories of Christian and non-Christian. So Christians are the good people, white slaveholders. Well, the non-Christians are the enslaved, the Africans, but then many of them converted to Christianity. So you needed different categories to differentiate who is more powerful and who is better. So you bring in the notion of race and, you know, create black people and create white people. And, you know, many Africans would say they never thought of themselves as black until they left Africa because you're just kind of born that way. And then the notion of white people is very fluid too. There were certain groups of white Europeans who were never considered white. And then now kind of they're all kind of put together. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. 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through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Yeah, there. But, you know, the Saxons and other groups, you know, some were superior white people while others were not and Irish were not considered white for a long time either. So those, you know, keeping that in mind and how then racism comes into play to subordinate and to oppress groups of people is very, very important to see it how it's being played out in society. So my book tries to explain this, but it's a hard concept. And for white people, and you being white, I'm assuming you're white, you look white. I am, yes. Yeah. Yeah. The notion. Yeah, their own identity of being a white people is not something that people have to, white people have to think about. So because it's like that's who human beings are, right? Because white is the best. While the rest of us are kind of notion of where we belong in the race category, how the powerful have put us in. We have to think about it all the time. You know, that's why black African Americans talk about black while driving black while, you know, outside mowing the lawn, because that your racial identity is everything because you have to be careful as you're driving, as you're walking outside. And that will be for other racialized groups, too. And, you know, we can get into the term of racialization because, you know, racialization means the process of becoming black or becoming, yeah. I'm interested, can you know, you sort of define whiteness in terms of class and country and gender and sexuality. So all of these things. And even though, you know, to your point, I am a white male, I can remember, you know, being labeled white trash growing up, right? That class aspect of who I was, was very evident in the town that I grew up in, right? At least during certain times in my life. But then when I went to college, all that could sort of slough off. Like, I didn't have to be identified as the poor country kid. Right? I could be whoever I wanted to be. And I think there's a visibility to race, to the way we identify race, certainly to ethnicity and gender, right, that preclude that sort of sloughing off. So where I could remake myself more easily, let's say, you know, I could lean into being relatively intelligent, right? And, you know, not having to worry about the socioeconomic class I came up in. I'm wondering how that tension plays itself out for somebody who doesn't, who looks different, who can't, who can't hide those aspects of themselves that might be socially disadvantageous. Yeah, I think your example is great because, you know, you being in the country and considered white trash, that's a term that you use. And then you can kind of take that off when you go into different kind of contexts and communities. And so in college, you were able to, that is a very good example of this notion of race and whiteness. Because whiteness is this cultural space that white people can be part of and it has this political power and privilege and with a goal to keep people of color subordinated and oppressed. So people like me who are people of color, and that's a term also, it's heavy loaded because we're all very colorful people. And, you know, in Canada, where I grew up, we didn't use the term people of color. So when I immigrated here to the U.S. in 2004, overnight, I became a woman of color. So understanding how these categories all work, but whatever category it is to use to describe me, a person of color or Asian American, I can't take that off. It's very difficult to, well, as you were able to because you are in this fluid kind of this upper class, this powerful class who, because of this socially construct notion of whiteness, which puts people like me subordinated, you're able to kind of survive and flourish in these different communities that you are able to kind of move around in. So, yeah, I don't know if that helps answer your question towards me. No, it really doesn't. I think that, you know, there are going to be some people who are listening to this conversation, and I'm sure you get this a lot, that whiteness feels like a really difficult language to use. Yeah. But I would just say, I mean, I can remember my first supervisor at one point coming in and giving me an impromptu performance evaluation and telling me that I was getting by on my good looks and charm and feeling really confused at the time. But as I sort of navigated the organization that I was in for, you know, across the years, I realized he was probably right, that I looked the part enough that people were willing to put up with my oddities, right, and in order to allow me to advance. Whereas if I had to look differently, right, I wouldn't have made it as far. Now, ultimately, I think some of my oddities became transparent in and of themselves, right? And so there's a level of that that sort of, you can't hide forever, right? But at first glance, I really did look the part. And I think he had something like nailed that I was just missing at the time. And I think that that's something that we need to sort of wrestle with. And I appreciate your book because part of what you do is wrestle with that, is that there is this sense in which the immediately visible elements that we encounter, and again, don't let me put words in your mouth, but the immediately visible elements that we encounter tend to prejudice us toward like as opposed to unlike. And that's sort of, I don't know, as an insider, I suppose, to whiteness, that's sort of how I understand it. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, go ahead, please. Yeah, so, you know, actually, when I first submitted the book, the books behind me, When God Became White, the title that I submitted, it was whiteness because I like one or two word book titles. It's easier for me to remember. But the publisher said everybody's writing on whiteness, so they won't know. So it's not just theologians or church people, you know, sociologists and historians, you know, people all over the spectrum are now using the term whiteness to describe what is happening to help people understand how, you know, the powerful determine who has the privilege of being white. As I said earlier, the fluid concept. So who are you going to embrace and allow to be white? We know the group keeps getting larger and larger of who gets to be white, and we see that being played out on the national global scene too. When we're talking about wars raging around and how we have this preference for white people, they are still the good people, so we're going to support them. And the darker skin, brown or black, are bad people, so we're not going to support them. It's okay to bomb them. So we see this happening at the national scale too, global scale, sorry. So I think we really have to wrestle with this concept of race and ethnicity and whiteness to really make sense of what is happening in our society and the white privilege that goes with being white. That's all under the umbrella of whiteness. And you just gave your example. You know, you got away with good looks and charm. But I think if you were a black man, maybe not so much. But because you're white and you have this white privilege, I think it's important to name it. And so, you know, I'm a professor and many professors of color have been saying over and over again, we have to work so much harder than our white colleagues to get any recognition. And it continues to happen. And it'll be also the same with women too. Women have to work harder.

To get equal pay or the same kind of recognition. So, you know, all these things are intertwined. And one of my earlier books that I co-wrote with Susan Shaw is Intersectional Theology, that these points of oppression, you know, whether it be economic, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, all those intersect and they continue to work against people of color and then women. So Black women being at the bottom of the hierarchy. So, yeah, we have to understand how these things are working and keeping certain people in these different categories of subordination and oppression. Yeah, it's inter, I mean, I think the notion of intersectionality, at least as Kimberly Crenshaw, as I've understood it, one of the things that I've found helpful about it is to help describe my own experience. So as somebody coming into sort of an evangelical world, having no particular pedigree, you know, my parents are not bigwigs in the evangelical community. I went pretty standard as far as my education went. I'm not a great networker. And so I didn't make a ton of friends, you know? And so, you know, as sort of this weird insider outsider, it was interesting to watch the dynamics and how they played out. And I would say, you know, the elements of class that come into intersectionality, I find really helpful just to understand my own experience with it. And I think, you know, as I've sort of interacted with my wife at various points, recognizing the ways that my own embodiment of the world, the stories that I tell myself, sort of help me understand what's going on. There was one instance where we were walking in Chicago, and it was about 10 30 at night. And my wife made the comment. She's like, it's nice to have you with me because I would never do this alone. I never even thought about it. It's like, it's 10 30 at night. It's, I feel like going for a walk. I'm going to go for a walk. And it just gives you this picture of the difference sort of embodiment that someone who's 6'2", 220 versus someone who's, you know, 5'4", 110, you know, has in the world. And so I've really appreciated that understanding of intersectionality. I think it's gotten a little bit of a bad rap, honestly. And, and I think more people should sort of grapple with it, not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yeah, I think you said it right, right there. So I think it's an important concept when we're dealing with whiteness and race and ethnicity. And, you know, in the book, I kind of touch on it too, because all my books, I build up on the previous books that I've written. So, you know, this notion of intersectionality is so important for all of us kind of living today to grapple with how these forms of injustice work. And so when you're dealing with gender justice, you're also dealing with climate injustice and racial injustice and economic injustice and ableism, all of that. So I think it's important. And thank you for sharing your story as a big white man, you know, you don't have to think about it, while as many of us have to think about it all the time, whether it's our gender or our ethnicity. Yeah, it's been very eye-opening. My wife's great. She's professionally successful, and so she's a chief pharmacy officer of a large hospital system. And so in many ways, she's, you know, in the eyes of the world, more successful than I am. And so it's always eye-opening to sort of interact in physical situations with her, because there is such an interesting disparity between the two of us. But I think it just underscores a lot of what you say in the book, that there is this interesting inequality and a difference in embodiment, maybe is the best way to say it. I'm not sure. I'd sort of defer to you on that. But the way I've always thought about it is this difference of embodiment that keeps us from telling our own story, as opposed to being subsumed under somebody else's story. Is that a fair way to... Well, yeah. So many of us are silenced. And, you know, before the interview, you said you read my book Invisible. So Asian American women have been silenced in both the Asian American culture, the Asian culture, and then this North American culture. So it's important for us to move away from this being silenced and voicing our voices and our concerns. It's not easy, and I try my best, you know, through my writing or my speaking or being invited on your podcast and other podcasts. But it's important to hear these different voices because if you don't listen, we're not going to grow. We're not going to develop deeper, especially if you are Christians kind of on this theological journey or faith journey. We really need to expand our understanding of who God is. We can't be this faith of our five-year-old. You know, everything else in our life, we grow. We try to mature. We try to develop our muscles. And we try to get an education to be someone, kind of lead a meaningful life. But our faith, we need to continue to wrestle with and grow in our faith. And we can do that by listening to these voices that have traditionally been silenced. So women, you know, we only kind of came out to kind of write and think and influence the church about 1960s with the feminist movement. So it's only been 50, 60 years. It hasn't been long. So to listen to women's voices and immigrant voices, refugee voices, African, Latin American, Asian, that's important because, you know, you began the podcast about the word han. Then you learn different concepts and words to help you understand who God is and understand each other. So I think it's important to give platforms for the silent voices and to hear the different voices, the diverse voices. Let's pivot since you brought up Han. Let's pivot there because I think the four words that you use, the end of this book, are sort of fantastic. I was obviously familiar with Han, as I mentioned, The Wounded Heart of God. I think it's a fantastic book. Really loved that book. And it did give me a different conception of sin. I think it ultimately pushed me toward a notion of structural evil that I might not have noticed otherwise. And then you talk about, and just correct my pronunciation of these, Uri, is that Uri? All right. Jong, and Chi. It looks like Jong, but it's Jong. And then Chi. And I think, yeah, I have a buddy who works a lot in South Sudan, and he talks about their notion of Ubuntu Goi. And Ubuntu is this sort of thinking of the other as opposed to thinking of yourself first. And when I read your concepts of Uri and Jong, I was immediately taken over to Ubuntu Goi. Like, how is it that we take each other into account in the way that we think about what we're going to do and how we're going to act? So maybe just talk about those two, you know, and give our listeners a little bit of a taste of what's in the book. Yeah, so I'll give the two, and then they can read the rest in the book when God becomes. And I actually, you know, it was this theology of visibility that I developed in the book Invisible. So it's more fully developed there. So if people want to read this, these four concepts, Uri, Jong, Han, and Uri, they can go to Invisible and read that. In this book, I think it tied in so nicely with, you know, moving away from this white male God that the church had kept reaching to us and telling us over and over again. So as you mentioned, the Uri and Jong, very similar to the African concept of Ubuntu, this awareness, this, you know, we are because we belong in this community, which is what, you know, Christianity is about, you know, at the core. Because, you know, the people asked Jesus, you know, there's so many laws and rules for us to obey. We can't keep track. Just tell us what we're supposed to do. And Jesus said, okay, the two most important are to love God and to love your neighbor. You know, it wasn't about loving yourself so much, while as the Western world, it's all about self-love. You know, you got to love yourself, love yourself. I'm not saying don't love yourself, but, you know, loving yourself, but also because many cultures around the world, the individual isn't that important. It's the community that's important. I am because of my community. So, you know, Africans think that way. South Americans and Asians.

I think that way. I think it's kind of like the Western world and the Western philosophy, you know, I think, therefore I am, that's so embedded that me and I individual is like so prominent, and then that gets filtered into Christianity somehow, which is strange because when you get to the original, you know, the biblical narrative and the language and what Jesus was saying in the Gospels, it is really the community that's so important. He's always with disciples or with people, you know, he sometimes goes out by himself to rest and to pray, but he is with people, and I think that's a good thing that... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up, and many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Even though I want to run away from people too, because sometimes that's the bulk of the problem in our own lives, we still live in this society. We're not going to be able to survive as an island to ourselves. We have to get along with people. We have to be able to love our neighbors and treat them with respect, especially those who are so different from us. And I go actually a lot in deep detail in another older book called Embracing the Other. It's not an older, older book, but it's an older, more recent, not so recent. I think maybe 2015 or 16 it came out with Erdman's Publishing House. So Embracing the Other where we really need to reach out and embrace those who are different from us. So URI is a Korean concept meaning ourness, and Chong is this kind of connected love. So just to say briefly about URI, it's this concept that is prevalent within Korean language and of Asia too, where the I is not that important. So in a sentence, we rarely use the word I. We don't have to say, I'm going to the store. We can just say going to the store and not using I and everybody would know that I'm going to the store. So you don't really need the word I so much, while in the English language, you use I all the time, like pronouns are so important and I, I, and everything is me and I in our sentences and my or mine. So in the Korean language, we don't say I so much. If we're going to say anything, we say our. So we don't say our, my church. We would say our church. We don't say my mother. We would say our mother, even if you're the only child. So it's this ourness, which really is helpful in our Christian kind of faith journey, that this, if we can get along with everybody, then that would end wars and enslavement and colonialism and indenturement, you know, because we are to love our neighbors. We are to love God. And, you know, there are the two sides of the same coin. So we wouldn't engage in war. We wouldn't go and kill people, et cetera. So I think embracing this ourness, understanding that it is really us and our can really change the course of Christianity. So I hope people will read more in depth to get the ourness, URIness in the book. And the other concept of Chong, you know, within Christianity, we have so many love words. So agape, philia, and eros, and then we just use love and other words. So we know in different languages, like Eskimos and Native Americans, they use so many, like hundreds of words for the concept of snow because there's so many different types of snow. It really shows you the importance of snow for Eskimos. You know, they lived, you know, with snow and they're able to survive in snow and snowstorms and different types of snow. So you have different words. So if Christians, we are to live in love and to share love, love God and our neighbors, then the more words that we have to talk about love, the better off we are able to love and live in love. So Chong is this kind of sticky love, this connected love between people. And it can be between living things and even objects too. So when you stick your hand in a jar of honey, it becomes really sticky and it becomes inseparable. Like you can kind of rub it off and it's really hard to get the honey off. So that's what kind of love that we want to experience. So a love between a husband and wife or friends or people in our neighbors, in our neighborhoods, the sticky love that you can't run away from, this love that we want to have with God. And God says, you know, nothing will separate us from the love of God. So I think that is trying to help us to get a deeper sense of what love is, this connected, this ongoing love. So even if you have a huge argument with a friend, Chong will bring you back. It's not going to be the end of the relationship. This Chong will bounce you back and bring you back together. So it's a really helpful concept, especially when our society is so broken and, you know, racism is tearing communities apart, killing certain communities and disadvantaging certain communities. We really want to focus on love. And so Chong becomes a great term for us to think about this other dimension of love. And that will go in with the Han, which we don't have time to go into detail. Well, let me, so I think as I, as I finished reading up your book, I've done a lot of reflecting on this issue because I think, you know, your call to sort of reflect on whiteness and try to understand the various ways in which whiteness has sort of forged my theological understanding is really helpful. And I think it's a, an important call. And sort of the way I've thought through it, I've done a lot of work on ideologies. And so one of the things that, you know, the one of the ways I sort of tend to define ideology is it's something that claims to be more complete than it actually is. And, you know, so I'm sort of working with that operating concept as I'm reading through your book and I get to the end and I'm looking at Han, Ri, Jeong, and Chi. And I'm saying, this is where my world expands, right? The idea that, you know, you mentioned Moltmann in your book and his work on the Holy Spirit, and that that tends to be sort of an authorized treatment or a legitimate treatment within Western theology. And then I read your work on Chi and I think to myself, you know, Chi, we often sort of relegate to this sort of abject spiritualism that's associated with martial arts or Bruce Lee or something like that. But your treatment of it, it just sort of, I thought it rang true. And so you sit back and you say, yeah, this is one of those holes in the ideology of the West that needs to be supplemented by the ideology of the East, this understanding of Chi that's coming in. It's a really crucial concept. And I know we're not going to have time to talk about all of this, but I mean, I think even, you know, what you said about Jeong, like that stickiness, the idea of honey that's keeping you together despite tensions and frustrations and what have you, that's not necessarily a Western notion. And so I just love the way that your book opens up for me new ideas about how maybe I've put God in a box. And how is it that we open up that box and allow a lot of other voices to come in and say, no, I think this way of understanding God really does supplement everything else that's going on. And it corrects a lot of the errors that we've seen throughout the history of the church. And so I don't know what you think of that, but that's just sort of where my, my, my mind went as I was reading your book and I'd be interested in just having you kind of close because I know we're coming up on time. Maybe what impact do you want your book to have on people? How, how do you want the church to respond to what you're writing? Well, I hope people get a lot from the, from the book. You know, you can read it as an individual or in a Bible group.

Group or some study group because there are questions at the end for each chapter for people to think about more and to explore. But I really want people to be challenged with their own bias and notion of themselves, the church, and who God is. How we view God impacts how we live, how we treat one another, how we create laws in the legislation. It's really, you would think it doesn't impact, but it does. It impacts how we treat the foreigner, the immigrant. So I want people to be challenged by their notions of who God is, the metaphors and the language and the words that they use, because no one has met God, no one has seen God, but to many Christians, it's still a white male God up there. And so you have to question that. My book challenges that. So I hope people will be challenged and seek the richness that's already in Scripture and within our traditions too. So we're finite human beings. The God we worship is infinite, so we will never know the fullness of God. So we seek and use different words and concepts from other cultures, other languages to help us to get a more deep and meaningful way of understanding who God is. And as you said, the concept of Chi, people in the West associating with martial arts or wholeness, our body thing with acupuncture or Reiki or Tai Chi, Qigong, all those things, you can bring in to how we understand who the Holy Spirit and who God is too. So I think I'm hoping that the book will challenge people in the church or those who left the church to reimagine who God is and rethink. And it will challenge how they live. So thank you so much for having me. And I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope many of your listeners will be able to read When God Became White. Yeah, absolutely. And I would just say, you know, the folks who are listening, you know, I'm a white guy. I've got theological training. This book was challenging to me in a number of different areas. And I tried to remain open to what Grace was saying. And I think it was absolutely worth it. So my encouragement would be just to pick up When God Became White, give it a good read, and really start to rethink the ways that maybe you are keeping God at bay by not opening yourself up to some of these other concepts and some of these other ideas governed obviously by, you know, the Bible as the final authority for life and faith. But recognizing that we're limited beings with limited perspective and that we need the voices of others to fill in the gaps of what we're missing. And so I just really appreciate your work. I appreciate your book. I love, like I said, those four concepts that you provide in the end. But I think the book overall really is challenging and helpful and reframed my thinking in some really important ways. So I appreciate your writing and I appreciate being on today. So thanks a lot, Grace, for joining me. Oh, thank you so much for having me, James. It was such a pleasure to share the book. And thank you so much for reading it so carefully. And I appreciate all the questions. And I believe you're doing a book giveaway for your podcast or your website. So I hope people have a chance to win. And if you don't win, at least go and get one or read it at the library. That's right. We will have the book giveaway. So check out the show notes for the book giveaway, as well as a 20 percent discount coupon. If you don't win the book, you can buy it for 20 percent off. And all those links and all the links to get in touch with and follow Grace G. Sun Kim will be in the show notes. So thanks, everybody, for joining us. Thanks, Grace, for being here. And we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. In a world where relationships are easily broken and often discarded, the Rebuilding Us Marriage podcast is your lighthouse, guiding the way to hope, restoration, and transformation in Christ. I'm your host and marriage coach, Dana Shea. Join me as we discuss the necessary tools for rebuilding marriages from adversity, betrayal, and disconnection. It's time to reignite love as we rebuild marriages from the ground up. Listen to the Rebuilding Us Marriage podcast on lifeaudio.com or wherever you get your podcasts.