Podcast: Rev. Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church
Rev. Curry on the searing, powerful, counterculture love that can change the world.
In this electrifying conversation, Rabbi Rami talks with the Most Rev.
Michael Curry. He is the presiding bishop and primate of the
Episcopal Church and the first African-American person in that role. (If
you are not already familiar with his name, you may remember him
delivering the stirring sermon about love at the wedding of Prince Harry
and Meghan Markle.)
Rabbi Rami and Bishop Curry discuss “crazy Christians” and why he means that as a good thing. It takes courage to go against a social norm, Curry points out, and he uses the example of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who chose to help with the abolition movement when she could have had a life of leisure.
They also discuss his new book, Love is the Way, and how Jesus has over the millennia been turned into a meeker and milder version of the radical figure he may have actually been at the time. He was founding a nonviolent movement, true, but he was challenging the status quo.
“I think it would have been lovingly unsettling to be around Jesus,” says Curry.
“The way of love calls out injustice. I grew up hearing the language of love within the context of the civil rights movement,” explains Curry. “That is how I learned. I cannot conceive of love as simply sweet and sentimental. Sure, I am married and have my anniversary on my calendar. But love is bigger than that. ... You were made to receive love and to give it, even if it calls for sacrifice. It is whole-making. This is how we were intended to live, and this is why it has such positive energy.”
Especially in these dark times, he says, we must reclaim this love, make that choice, and reclaim the light.
Do not miss listening to this amazing conversation between Rabbi Rami and Bishop Curry.
Our review of Bishop Curry’s book in the September/October 2020 issue of Spirituality & Health.
Click to read the full transcript of this episode.
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