Lyndsey: Hi! Welcome back to Crumbling Empires, a show about living here and now in the midst of crumbling empires with realism and with hope. I’m here with Alicia Akins and we’re going to talk about her book, The Gift of the Outsider. Thank you so much for being here, Alicia.
Alicia: Thanks for having me, Lyndsey.
Lyndsey: I told you as soon as I heard several months ago that you were writing this book that I’ve been waiting for it for such a long time. I was so stoked to get to read it early and I’m so grateful for it. Yeah, so thank you for writing, thank you for sharing it with us and I just can’t tell you how excited I am. Just how much this topic matters to me and I think is weirdly overlooked.
Um, so I thought a lot, I thought about a lot of starting places for us. And what I ended up doing actually is writing down this list of words that you don’t really use, um, that I think this book applies to. Here’s my list. Okay. It’s like,
check your privilege,
microaggressions,
dominant culture,
savior complex,
violence of assimilation,
fragility. And so my I don’t think you necessarily, I don’t get the impression that you are shy of those concepts, but you don’t use those words. And so I wanted to start there and ask you how you think about the angle you approach this topic from, and perhaps how you think about using, why you chose to use the word outsider, where maybe in certain conversations we’re more used to using words like marginalized or oppressed.
Alicia: Yeah, that’s a great question. So actually a part of the reason that I didn’t use those words, which I don’t object to, or those phrases, which I don’t object to, is because I have noticed that those words feel maybe empowering to the people who use them, but less so for the people who hear them, who are on the receiving end. And so I wanted this book to do two things.
I wanted it to encourage people who were on the outside and marginalized. And I wanted it to challenge people who were on the inside and had different kinds of privilege. And I know that there are a lot of words that people who are on the inside and have privilege hear that immediately makes them stop listening. And I wanted to keep the lines of communication open.
It wasn’t a deliberate choice. I think this is just kind of how I talk to people about these things. But in the first chapter, I talk about this concept from C.S. Lewis when he’s talking about outsiders and insiders and about how at some point in everyone’s life, they will find themselves in a position where they want to move closer and closer to the inside. And so it was that kind of framework from CS Lewis and his inner ring kind of work that he’s already done that led me towards outsider language.
Lyndsey: Yeah. And there are so many ways that you list in your book that you have spent time as an outsider. They’re just so illustrative. And I really loved how you wove those together in this book that speaking to the outsider and to the insider because, and you acknowledge, we all live in both of those spaces, and we move in and out of them.
What are some of the, just a few, or however many you wanna talk about, like times and places in your life that you have experienced being an outsider?
Alicia: Yeah. Well, I feel like the most obvious one is a Black woman being both a woman and being Black. Those are often positions that are marginalized. I mean, the Black people are in the minority in the U.S. And so already there, I’m on the outside of that sort of racial demographic. Um, and women are often not the ones in power.
And so, um, in that sense, I’m an outsider, but I’ve spent five years of my adult life living abroad, um, in Asia. And so as an ex-pat, um, I was also an outsider to that culture and that country and the language that they spoke and the customs and things that they had. So that was one experience.
I’ve been an outsider religiously in terms of multiple occasions. I’m not saying that these two are as extreme, but living in Seattle and living in China where Christians are not the majority. In the case of China where not only is Christianity not the majority, but there’s government sanctions
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against the spread of Christianity and certain kinds of practices of Christianity. So in terms of being like a religious minority, I tend to travel in religiously conservative spaces, but I’m not politically conservative. And so that has often been a source of friction, trying to convince people, no, really, I love Jesus, like, I do. I promise you, I love Jesus. But then also convincing people who maybe I am more closely politically aligned with that like, no, really, I’m not crazy, you know. And so being in that space as well, I think those are some of the maybe more obvious or bigger ones.
Lyndsey: So I did have this question throughout reading the book, which in some ways you answer by say by the book itself is called The Gift of the Outsider. That’s a place that you have found to be very generative and spiritually alive for you. But there’s still this question the entire time with me: Why do you stay in some of these spaces? Do you think that there is a place where you are an insider or that you haven’t found yet?
Alicia: I don’t know. I feel equally outside everywhere for some reason or another. And I’ve talked with some friends of mine about this. They’re like, oh, why don’t you find a different church? Or why don’t you find this space? And I’m like, To be honest, I can’t think of a space where there wouldn’t be some element where I felt not at home. So I’m sort of equally not at home everywhere that I go.
But in terms of why I stay in some of these places, when I lived in China, I lived in China for three years after college. One of the things that I tried to do was realize that I was an ambassador for not just Americans there, but for Black people as well, since most Chinese people would have had relatively scarce interaction with Black people, just because there aren’t a ton of Black people in that part of the world. I got really good at being good humored and patient and– I don’t want to say accommodating, but I guess accommodating of people who were curious or who lacked the level of knowledge about people like me that would make me feel 100% comfortable engaging them.
And that’s something that as a part of my day job, I get to talk to people who are preparing to go abroad and sometimes talk with people of color and say, here’s what you can expect, but here’s how your mindset can help you be successful in those spaces. And so I do feel like that helped build a muscle for me. And continuing to approach those situations. And I wouldn’t say that I was treated poorly, but I was definitely treated differently in a way that made me comfortable with being uncomfortable, that made me
okay with having to answer the same questions over and over again with different groups of people.
And so I feel like in a way coming back to the States, I’ve still been in situations where that has been required, even though I’ve been back in my home country. And I don’t know where I would go where I wouldn’t have some amount of explaining of myself to do some element of the culture that I don’t completely understand. And so I feel like I don’t feel called anywhere else. And so why not be helpful where I am?
Lyndsey: Yeah, yeah. That’s really helpful for me to hear. And I think maybe a lot of listeners that, I think for a lot of us, there was a space that felt like home, especially perhaps religiously. And there’s been a lot of coming to terms on my part with the fact that that space is not going to ever exist again. And it’s kind of strange to be like, I don’t know, like church sick or community sick for something that like, isn’t going to return.
Alicia: Um, yeah, it’s, it’s definitely a strange and sometimes unsettling place to be in. But I just, when I think about all of the spaces I could be, I’m like, where will this not? Where am I disclaimer free and totally comfortable? And I can’t think of a place.
Lyndsey: Yeah. Well, I’ve also had the experience, well, kind of more and more sadly, where something appears at first glance to be to cast itself as this thing that I think I’ve been searching for. And often, for a while, it was these spaces where people did know all these words that I listed at the beginning of this conversation. And then the gap between knowing the words and practicing the practices and being in the relationships became really evident really quickly.
And I actually, so that is what I like find so very precious about your book, is that you are talking about the spiritual practice of actually doing this thing, where so many spaces and people want to talk about on this high level what it means to be in community across difference. And you’re talking about how we actually do it and do it with God.
One example of that was when, I mean, I think we could talk, maybe we will talk this whole time about your chapter on discomfort.
Alicia: One of my favorites.
Lyndsey: Yes. And I think such a rich conversation to be had there. And one of these really simple practices that I’ve realized a lot of people aren’t just don’t have like the muscle you’re talking about is when you said, “How often do you wonder about who the least comfortable person in the room is? And how could you charge their comfort to your account?”
That is just such a simple question that I think it takes a lot of practice to do that. What are some examples of where you see people doing that? Or not? What do you think gets in the way of doing that as well?
Alicia: One example that comes to mind is sometimes after racially charged incidents of violence, police brutality occurs towards black people. It is like, all of the white people come out with their questions and they they want to know like, “what can I learn? How can I know more? Tell me more about this. Tell me more about that. What are the resources?” Like it’s like class time, you know, class is in session. And I once had a friend who was like Alicia, a white guy who was like, “Alicia, send people to me. And if you just need to rest, like, I will take the questions for you. And I will help like, yeah, I’ll help take them for you. Or like, I, I am a person that you can come to when things like that happen. If you’re feeling overwhelmed.”
because I think people do think like, Oh, you know, Alicia’s really helpful. This is a time where we can get answers from her. And I think he saw that. So he was like, “I will be the one to be overwhelmed instead of you in this particular situation.”
So that’s one that I think of. Sometimes it could just be like as simple as you show up at church and you see someone who’s new sitting on one side and you see your friends on the other and it would be much more comfortable and maybe immediately gratifying for you to go and catch up with your friends who you haven’t seen. But instead you decide to have awkward conversation with the visitors, you know, and like stand there and think about what can we talk about? Maybe you’re not the best conversationalist, but you see that there’s people who are alone. And so that’s like one kind of way that you can…
Those people are, I don’t know, maybe they’re comfortable, but if they are new, they’re feeling some kind of way. At least every time I’ve been new somewhere, I feel some kind of way about it. Is anyone going to come talk to me? I shouldn’t have come early. What is this experience going to be like? And so you help share, or not even share, but reduce some of their anxiety about what’s about to happen rather than just going and catching up with your friends.
And so I think to your second question about what keeps us from sort of charging other people’s discomfort to our account. I think one thing is just being focused on ourselves. So often we go through the day to day tasks of our lives, thinking about ourselves and not thinking about who the other people are we’re engaging, not thinking about the way our words are impacting them, not thinking about the days that they’ve had, not thinking about the baggage that they’re bringing or the assumptions that they might have. We’re thinking about our assumptions and the days that we’ve had and all of those things.
Which makes sense because those are the ones that are most immediate and the ones that we know about. But I think taking some time to sort of step back from certain situations and really sort of take a read of the room or take a read of the people we’re engaging. And even just assume the worst and the best way. Assume that they’ve had a bad day. Assume that, you know, they’re bringing baggage that you can’t understand, as my boss likes to say, “assume positive intent.”
But like just thinking about who you’re interacting with, I think is one thing. And then I think a second thing is what I talk about in the chapter is people don’t like to be uncomfortable. And I have been thinking more and more recently about building muscles, partially because I’ve been exercising more but I’ve also been doing language, starting language classes. And I just keep thinking back to like, if you don’t do something regularly, it’s not gonna be something you regularly do. And the need to, maybe it’s baby steps and often that’s it for me. It’s like, I’m still using the five pound weights, even though I’m very far from the big, you know, weights that I would like to be using. If I don’t use the five pound weights, I’m not gonna get to the bigger ones. And so sort of figuring out what the five pound weights are in terms of your own level of discomfort and what you can handle now. And then just gradually pushing yourself further and further into things that are a little bit less comfortable.
But I think people are just like, oh, discomfort, I’m out, you know, like, I don’t like this. So being, not being short-sighted about how discomfort muscle grows and being aware and actively thinking about other people I think are helpful.
Lyndsey: Yeah, I guess you don’t like, you know, give a lot of advice in this direction, but would you encourage people to like, if they feel like they spend a lot of time being an insider, seeking out spaces that are comfortable as one does. Would you encourage people to also seek out a space to be an outsider?
Alicia: Absolutely. I think I do make that recommendation in the book to intentionally put yourself in positions where you are the outsider. I think that that is incredibly valuable. And I say that anecdotally, because the way I’ve grown in my comfort with being an outsider is because I’ve intentionally put myself in places.
There’s one place in the book where I talk about choosing the least diverse least like me small group to join after my very comfortable small group of people who are like minded and I shared common interests with disbanded. I was like, I’m going to go to this group of people who couldn’t be less like me, and I’m going to build friendships there. And I think that that is valuable for anyone to do, not just me. I mean, like, to be honest, I probably at that point in my life didn’t need that extra experience of being around people who weren’t like me since that’s been my entire existence. But I think that that is an example of the kind of deliberate choice that people can make to engage people who are unlike them to help them grow in this area.
Lyndsey: Yeah, I have. I’ve I’ve seen this over and over and I and myself. Where? I think people people want to ask, I think I’ve often had people ask me, like, how do you do this thing? How do you have this conversation? How do you sit with this person? And they’re asking me how I how I make it not awkward. And the answer is like, “It’s awkward.” And I, the more awkwardness you just live with, the more, the less of a like catastrophe it feels like. Like humanity is awkward and that’s like a great thing about it.
Alicia: Awkwardness is not the end of the world. Yeah.
Lyndsey: You were talking about the prophets as outsiders at one point, as these voices railing often against the status quo that we’re generally not listened to, generally not welcome, which I hope that your thoughts are welcome, but I felt a very strong prophetic sense from your chapter about suffering.
To be honest, I was like, at first I was like, where is this going? Cause you were talking about Christians being persecuted. And I was like, I don’t know if, you know, having to deal with pluralism is the same as being persecuted, which is not what you were saying.
Alicia: That chapter was really hard. Yeah. Find the right balance because I was like, somebody who’s not persecuted is gonna come in and be like, oh, I’m being persecuted. And that’s like always the challenge.
Lyndsey: Well, and then I also realized I think maybe you were kind of trying to like walk gently into this topic of suffering because the later in the chapter you said “We Americans are the Walmart of Christianity.” Our faith is cheap and not that great. And we think that we think we’re, I don’t know, the Nordstrom or whatever.
Alicia: Yeah, some high-end store.
Lyndsey: And nobody wants what we’ve got. And so I really wanted more from you on that. And I think, how do we get from like, baby stepping into discomfort into this, the actual giving up of ourselves that you’re talking about when we talk about suffering and giving something up for Christ in our lives. Something that’s really costly.
Alicia: Yeah. So to go back to the exercise and language learning example that I shared before, when you said, how do you get from baby steps to like giving up your life? There is a sense in which we have in each day unlimited opportunities to die for ourselves or die to ourselves and choose to live for other people or to put it another way to honor others above ourselves, to seek the peace and prosperity of others before we seek it for ourselves.
Um, in the daily work emails that I send to people, I can try and score points, which I often do, uh, as per my previous email, you know, or I can decide to just like take a hit and respond with kindness. And so I feel like each day does present us with opportunities for practice that we might not realize or practice. Um, if we think that the small inglorious sort of victories that we yield to others are insignificant or are not worth making, then we won’t see ourselves as having as many opportunities to improve. Like it doesn’t take a huge–sacrificing ourselves doesn’t have to be huge, but it won’t be huge if it doesn’t start little.
I guess that kind of goes back to what I was saying before, but I think another thing that’s really helpful in this way or in this process is to do this in community and to have trusted people who are on this journey with you who you can fail with, and people who are on this journey with you who will let you fail.
And in the beginning, when you asked about why stay, I think I’m a person that other people can fail in these ways around. And I think it’s important to have those kinds of people around. People aren’t going to cut you off if you say the wrong thing when you’re trying to figure out how to be an ally or how to be supportive. They might say like, I don’t have the bandwidth for this conversation in this exact moment, but they aren’t like, “I can’t talk to you because the way you’re behaving is antithetical to my beliefs.”
And so I think the community that you’re a part of can really help shape and determine your ability to grow in making sacrifices for other people. And honestly, the kind of suffering that some people go through, the only way they get to it is because the suffering has presented itself to them in their life. Like, people don’t think that they can get through cancer until they get cancer. People don’t necessarily think that they can get through infertility or miscarriages until they are faced with one.
And so I think in a sense, when those really hard and trying things happen, is when you discover whether or not you’re able to do them well. And then when you face them, looking back and being able to see, oh, you know, when I think about the things that God has done in my life, or done in other people’s lives, done in my friends’ lives, done in my family’s lives, I can bear this in community well.
And I know that some people only have negative things in their own life to look back at. They look back on their life and they see disappointment and failure and failure from the people that they would expect to be on this journey with them. And they don’t have past experience with a church that has been the kind of church that moves people in this direction. And to those people, I would say find community wherever you can. It might not look, everyone’s community that’s helpful for them in welcoming the outsider might look different.
Lyndsey: Yeah. Yeah, that is super, super helpful because lots of reasons, but when we talk about giving up something of ourselves that also you go back several times to, like that requires so much discernment. And so we do, we can’t even start to really do that in a healthy or effective way if we don’t have some sort of discernment community around us as well.
Yeah, I think in some ways there’s like, times when I am really uncomfortable with language of loss of self. And then there’s other times when I use it. But we talk about letting go of the ego. Like, that’s kind of the same exact language.
And I’ve been really, like my entire life, one thing that has stayed really constant in my love for Jesus and my tenacity of staying with Christianity has been like a certain sense of adventure. And I feel that with you too. I hear that in your writing and in your speaking and your language learning and having gotten to know you a little bit before, I think a lot about the songs we sing and or used to sing about like–spirit–whatever the song is: spirit send me on the water and what’s that song? “Lead me where my trust is without borders” Where is that actually playing out in our lives? It has to be where we stand to lose something.
Alicia: Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s, you’re absolutely right. And I do think that this giving of ourselves or however you would put it, like the example that we have in Christ is something that is costly. And there’s a small book that is my favorite Christian book. It might be, by small, I mean like, it might be 20 pages, 30 pages, and each page only has one sentence on it. It’s like my kind of book. But each of the sentences starts with “if.” It’s by Amy Carmichael, and it’s just like a darling book.
But one of them says, “if I forget that the path of the cross leads to the cross and not to a bed of roses, I have, I do not understand covenant love,” or something like that. But the point about the way of the cross actually leading to the cross, I need that reminder often. And it’s not like a, let me torture myself. But I do think that there is a sense that the cross isn’t all bad. When we are led to the cross, that is like the fruit of Christ’s work in us.
And there, if I had to choose a life where I could see fruit that Christ was being formed in me in some way, that I was being shaped in the same manner as He is, versus one where I just look like me all day, every day, with no evidence besides the words that come out of my mouth that I have any kind of relationship or understanding of God and Jesus–then I would choose the one where it’s obvious who I’m following, you know?
Lyndsey: Yeah. And that, when I think about crumbling empires, I think I often talk about things in a slightly weird way, because I just start from an understanding that death, things die and Jesus, like Jesus brings us to a place where that’s not the worst thing that can happen. Or, and where, like you say, in the book, where what we’re relying on is not this, these systems and structures that seem so all-encompassing and all powerful. I think you talk about this suffering and this, like Jesus-formed, cross-shaped life a lot in the book.
But speaking of adventure, actually, and just the many places you could have taken this, I’m curious how you actually chose the chapter titles, like the gifts you chose to specifically talk about, because there are so many more gifts of outsiders.
Alicia: I should have asked you before I did the outline. Because I could have used some more, like I could definitely. I was thinking about, to be honest, a lot of, I started working, well, I started working in earnest on this book when conversations were happening, like publicly on Twitter and in other places about diversity initiatives in the US and things that were getting shot down, like different kinds of programming, like we can’t talk about this anymore in certain places in the states.
But also when there was a lot of discussion about Christian nationalism, and I was just going on Twitter every day and seeing the kinds of things that those people were elevating as good and right and was just kind of reacting strongly against those. Like, oh, you’re afraid that Christianity will become a minority religion in this country? and you claim that like the church in a country where Christians are free to do whatever they want to do is the strongest church? Well, have you heard about these Christians in this other place where they’re the minority and they’re like, like run laps around us in terms of their faith and perseverance?
Or it’s often the case where people who are healthy, you know, like at the end of the pandemic or depending on whether or not you think the pandemic is still here, towards the end, when things were opening back up and sort of the church was going back to prioritizing healthy people and their ability to gather together and sort of forgetting about people who were immunocompromised or had other health issues that required that they not rejoin. I thought about those people.
I thought about I myself as a single person who’s… Maybe 10 years ago, it was like me and my friends and we were all single and it was great because people get married later and now everybody’s married except for me. I used to be like, being single is not that bad. People who lived in the suburbs were always complaining about it. I was like, “Just move to the city where everyone’s single!” Now I get it in a way. It’s not that–
I still am like, okay, being single, but I miss my friends. And I’ve noticed that the world kind of revolves around people being married and people having kids. And the way that people think about the contribution single people have to make to the church, I think needs correction.
And so the way that I came up with the list was kind of like, who do I think a lot of people in the church are, what are the values that the church is starting off with, or the assumptions that it’s making? That if you’re healthy, if you’re married, if you’re in power, if you have money, if you’re comfortable, if you have freedom, if you sort of– I don’t know how to fit justice into that piece, because justice is one of the chapters, but like keeping quiet about injustice, I guess, like not making okay, in that way. That these are the ways to a healthy, vibrant church and me being like, no, I that’s not, there’s no causal relationship between those two.
And in fact, some of the very things that you prize could be doing more harm to you as a church than you think.
Lyndsey: Yeah, I actually had another piece I wanted to read that is exactly about that from The Gift of the Outsider. You wrote:
“In the church of the insider, everyone assumes their concerns are universal, exhaustive and paramount. Fringe concerns, when they do arise, are not addressed, as they do not have the critical mass worth expending the effort to find a solution.” We also could have talked for 45 minutes about that. “Cultural references are assumed to be meaningful to all.” You described some other ways– “the status quo is sacred, groupthink is worshipped over shalom, and challenges to it are viewed as threats, not opportunities. Such a church is plagued by the paradox of people not seeing themselves because they only see themselves.”
I think we could frame that and put it on the wall of every board, church board meeting room. You know, the ultimate insiders. Like if this is not at the top of your mind in every meeting, then this is going to be your default, you know?
Alicia: Yeah.
Lyndsey: And so I’m so grateful for your voice in all of these spaces. I know a ton of my readers and listeners are gonna really be so grateful for your chapter on chronic illness and disability. And-
Alicia: Thank you for your voice in that space. I’ve learned so much from you. Like, honestly, I started having chronic health issues like back in 2019, so not that long ago. But when I was thinking about like, how do I handle this and faith? And I was like, I know someone who deals with this and I’m gonna go find the things that she has said. So you’ve been very helpful for me in that space as well.
Lyndsey: Oh, that’s so wonderful to hear. Cause we, you know, we just put things out there and they go away.
Alicia: Like half of your Instagram posts like bookmarked.
Lyndsey: Oh my gosh. Wow. Well, my final question is usually, how do you define hope and where are you finding it these days?
Alicia: How I define hope. This is maybe not going to be the best answer that anyone has ever given, but hope is,
Uh, let’s see,
A time-bound effort to believe the promises of Christ. And by time-bound, I mean at some point we won’t need it because the promises will be completely there and true and staring us in the face. And we won’t need to hope for anything. So hope is something that we use to get through our days here, not something that we will need when we encounter Christ face to face.
And I think some of the ways that I’ve been seeing, finding hope recently, are, so I’m in a leadership position at my church and the first couple of years I was convinced that there were things I needed to do to improve the church. And if my initiatives didn’t happen, then everybody’s screwed, you know, like I am so important and the things that I want to do are so important. And I went on sabbatical and while I was gone, things started to happen. Since I’ve been back from sabbatical, it’s been really encouraging to see.
Not just that they’re happening, but that the Lord did them without me, which is kind of a strange thing to say that you find hope in that, but like God’s love for his church is bigger than my love for his church. And I’m encouraged that he will, in his time and in his way, bring beauty to the church in the ways that it’s needed.
Lyndsey: Yeah, there is that trust. There’s not a way to build it other than to experience things like that. Thank you again for being here. I’m so grateful for your book. It’s coming out on September 5th, The Gift of the Outsider by Alicia Akins. It’s a gift itself. So are you, Alicia.
Alicia: Thank you. Thanks, Lyndsey.
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