Disarming Romans: Rethinking Power, Empire, and Faith through a Hermeneutic of Sorrow - w/ Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh

Voxology

Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2019

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How seeing the book of Romans through the lens of justice, grief, and empire can radically reshape our faith and community. In their compelling conversation with Mike, Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat discuss their book "Romans Disarmed," a subversive and creative take on Paul’s epistle that blends biblical exegesis with lament, narrative fiction, and political reflection.

Through an intentional hermeneutic of sorrow, Walsh and Keesmaat challenge listeners to reimagine salvation, justice, and discipleship not as abstract theological constructs, but as embodied, communal realities shaped in resistance to empire. Drawing from their real-life experience building an intentional Christian community on a permaculture farm in Canada—and a deep-seated commitment to the marginalized—they unravel the ways Romans has been weaponized in political and theological battles, and propose a reading that centers liberation, justice, and the radical love of Jesus.

Key Takeaways:
• Reclaiming Romans from Empire and Individualism – How Paul’s epistle, long used to justify nationalist or exclusionary theology, actually challenges imperial power and promotes a justice-shaped gospel.
• Scripture as Resistance – Recovering the communal, narrative, and justice-rooted dimensions of the Bible beyond doctrinal proof-texting and theological systems.
• A Hermeneutic of Sorrow – How entering scripture through places of grief, like the loss of a friend or systemic injustice, can activate faithful, compassionate readings.
• Salvation as Communal Liberation – Moving beyond personal piety to understand salvation as holistic freedom—economic, social, and relational—for the oppressed.
• Sexuality and the Roman World – Interrogating Romans 1 in its historical context, including how Paul's concerns about exploitative systems differ from modern ideas around orientation.
• Lament as Theological Praxis – The importance of grief, creation care, and embodied life in shaping a Christian ethic worthy of Jesus.

Guest Highlights:
Brian Walsh & Sylvia Keesmaat – Scholars and activists, authors of "Colossians Remixed" and "Romans Disarmed." They live on a permaculture farm, model intentional community, and call for the church to rediscover its prophetic imagination and justice-first mission in a post-Christendom age.

Resources Mentioned:
• Romans Disarmed by Brian Walsh & Sylvia Keesmaat – Buy the book
• Colossians Remixed – Link
• Tim Gombis on Hermeneutics – Past Voxology episode
• The Patient Ferment of the Early Church by Alan Kreider
• School of Prophets (NT Wright View of Scripture) – Ongoing thought partnership mentioned by Sylvia

Join us as we wrestle with how to reimagine Christianity free from empire, full of justice, and radically shaped by the love of Jesus. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and follow us on social media for more conversations that matter.

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Music in this episode by Timothy John Stafford
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As always, we encourage and would love discussion as we pursue. Feel free to email in questions to [email protected], and to engage the conversation on Facebook and Instagram.

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Music in this episode by Timothy John Stafford

Instagram & Twitter: @GoneTimothy

Transcript

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0:00.0	Everybody, welcome to the Vox Podcast.
0:12.0	Bonnie and Mike and Tim all have gathered virtually to introduce a really interesting interview.
0:21.5	We had, okay, so first let me intro of the book.
0:27.2	The book we're discussed in today is a book called Romans Disarmed.
0:32.1	And it's written by two scholars, Brian Walsh and Sylvia Kismat.
0:37.0	And they are, they wrote a book years and years and years ago called Colossians
0:42.9	Remixed was one of the coolest commentaries I've ever read because it blended like
0:48.1	fictional characters and, I mean, it just had all the, it had several different genres in
0:53.8	the book to make kind of the point about how subversive Colossians is to Empire.
0:59.2	So I was super stoked when I saw that they had a book coming out.
1:02.8	They live, it's so funny, they're married and they live on a farm, a permaculture farm, two hours outside of Toronto. They don't have cell phones.
1:15.4	I mean, and it's really, and they get into, like in the book, they really get into like,
1:20.9	why. I mean, it's unbelievable. But all that is to say, we had, we had a very poor connection,
1:32.2	and they drop out a couple of times, but there's still like good stuff here.
1:39.1	So we're going to, you know, Tim's done his best to clean it up, but we're still going to, with apologies, release it.
1:43.0	And then Bonnie had a great idea. Last episode we talked about, hey, how we do interviews and should we ever disagree or whatever.
1:49.0	And Bonnie had a great idea out of that.
1:51.0	Bonnie, why don't you go ahead and share that?
1:53.4	Yeah, I thought it would be a good idea to do a shorter intro and then listen to the interview and then come, us three, come back on for like an outro and sort of discuss
2:03.7	what was said on the interview because I think like you said we want to model listening when we have
2:09.5	the guests on we want to we want to be generous towards them and let them have their best stuff
2:13.5	but we also want to show that like we're being thoughtful about these ideas and sort of
	...

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