S3E01 Transcript: Leviticus 18:22

Ellie Brigida: Welcome to Sweetbitter, where we explore the queer history of the Bible and Christianity. We're your hosts, Ellie Brigida...

Leesa Charlotte: ...and Leesa Charlotte.

EB: This episode we're talking about the Clobber passages.

LC: But before we get into that, let's bring in our resident Christian, Alyse. Welcome, Alyse.

Alyse Knorr: Hello.

EB: Hi, Alyse. What verse do you have for us today?

AK: Well, I have not a super fun verse, because it is one of the Clobber passages that condemns homosexuality in the Bible, since we're gonna be examining them and debunking them today. So I have Leviticus 18:22. And it sounds like this in the New International Version translation: "Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable." In some translations, it says that it's an "abomination," which is where you get that word, that the "God hates fags" people throw around so much. And again, those are translations, people have chosen that word to put in there.

LC: But then, okay, but like that just says, I mean, does that mean everybody should be having sex with women? I mean, you could interpret that. Are we all supposed to be having sex with women? I mean, if you want.

EB: Yeah, I think it says, "Man shall not," right?

AK: In the New International Version, it literally just says, "Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman," like it assumes who the audience is.

LC: Maybe this is what God is after. Maybe we're just not supposed to be having sex with men at all.

EB: I like that interpretation.

AK: Exactly. It's all about the context. And that's what this episode is about, it's about how it's all, all, all about the context. So like Leviticus, for example, is the third book of the Old Testament, it's also the third book of the Jewish Torah. And it's sort of like the book of laws, like Moses telling the Israelites what laws they needed to follow, like instructions around ritual and legal and moral practices and like, ways to avoid sins and impurities. So things like not eating the shellfish and–like how to clean certain discharges from the body or like, what to do when someone's on their period, or like, how to prepare the tabernacle for this feast. Like, it's very, very, very specific. Don't mix this type of linen with the others. So they're very, very, very picky rules in Leviticus. Okay, so the Clobber passages, people call them Clobber passages, there's like six of them in the Bible that say homosexuality is bad, either directly, like Leviticus, or not so directly, and really open up for interpretation, like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I want to hear from a couple of our sources about this particular passage first. So first, you'll hear from Ruby Almeida. She's an LGBT rights campaigner and lecturer, she's a Catholic, an Indian, and a member of the LGBT community is how she identifies. Here's Ruby.

Ruby Almeida: You get that all the time, you know, what I called the Clobber passages, you know, there's Leviticus and then there's this and there's that. And there's probably so little in the Bible, that somehow they kind of enhanced that and magnify it, you know, to the point where it's–we are an abomination. And really, when you look at those texts, and I'm not a theologian, you know, really, just a practice, my faith. But I've been to many talks where real, learned people have looked at the scriptures and say, you cannot interpret what's being said in modern day language, because you have to understand the roots of those words, what they meant at the time, and what the culture was like to understand what it's making reference to. And Leviticus is a really good example, you know, "Man should not sleep with man as he does with woman." And so what it's talking about is, is about men not sleeping around. This is not saying, man who should not sleep with man as he does with his wife, talking about woman. So woman being a prostitute, so don't sleep around is what it's saying. So it's all those words that you know, it may seem really nuanced, but when you look at it, in terms of what it meant in those days, it has a completely different meaning. So when you look at all that history and the nuance of what was going on, then you know that the story is very different. And, you know, for me, you know, read the Bible, years ago when I was young, you know, I keep searching, keep searching for something, anything that Christ said that was derogatory or demeaning. Or, you know, against anybody who was marginalized. And he never did, all he ever did was welcome and embrace the outsider, you know, the outcast, the fallen woman, the whatever, the whatever, you know, he welcomed them all. So, where this idea has come from that, you know, the marginalized, and we are the marginalized, you know, are an abomination is just beyond me, you know. And for me, you know, the Bible was written by men, people, men, okay, but it was their interpretation–and fine, that's actually fine. But when people come along, and then really, you know, reclaim it and rewrite it for their own ends, you know, with a weaponized Bible, I think that's such an injustice to Christ, and his good works. It is.

AK: So one of the big misconceptions about the Bible in general is that the whole Bible is just packed full of passages like Leviticus 18:22 that we just read, like that it's just one big book of Leviticus 18:22. And that's not true. So we have another guest here that can speak to that a little bit. This is the Reverend Jakob Hero-Shaw, who is the senior pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Tampa. So here's Reverend Hero-Shaw.

Reverend Jakob Hero-Shaw: Of the 36,000 or however many passages there are, there's like six that people use to say that homosexuality is wrong. And each of those, when you do a real, you know, in churchy words or in seminary words, we call it "exegetical work," and when you do exegesis into the text, it's–each of these you can see different ways that they aren't talking about the thing that in our modern lens it's talking about. So the overview of it, I'd say, like when people need that elevator speech of like, what does it mean wrong? Basically, what we understand in sexuality and gender today is so different from biblical time. Like they can't be talking about it like, because the entire way that people identified within their bodies and how relationships worked and identity worked–that was so vastly different from what we are doing. I don't just mean we LGBTQ folks. I mean, like, just human beings today versus back then. And there's not really a framework, it's like, you know, well Jesus never said anything, you know, in these six passages that get used against LGBTQ folks, like, none of those come from Jesus. So there's that piece of it, but we don't even need that excuse, if you want to call it that. It's more like, let's just think about the totally different framework. Jesus didn't talk about cars, right. But there are things about how we interact in traffic with one another that we could learn from Jesus, right? Because you take kind of the idea of it, right? So you don't want to be slamming into people and causing them to flip over and get injured or killed. Not because Jesus didn't, you know, not because Jesus said, "Don't drive this way," but because of the overarching message about caring about one another. And all of these conservative preacher folks who quote Leviticus and then leave church and go and have their post-church, you know, shrimp fry, or whatever, and they're also, you know, or go eat that cheeseburger. It's like, well, are we listening to Leviticus?

EB: I am so happy that we're doing this for our first episode, because I do find that this is like, the most common thing that comes up when, like you're in debate with–I don't usually try to debate people anymore about this. But like, I feel like when I was younger, you'd be like debating with someone who was very Christian, who would be talking about these verses. And I liked that Jakob is talking about, you know, we can interpret these differently in a modern context. And also that there's not that many of them. Like there's only six.

LC: Yeah, like six out of 36,000. Like, I don't know what percentage that is, but it's very small. I'm not gonna do the math right now, but I'm guessing it's .00-something.

EB: That makes me feel good, I think too, like talking through this season, with all of the people who have like reclaimed their faith or decided to, like reinterpret these things. I think it's very empowering. So I'm excited to see where that goes. Thank you, Alyse.

AK: Thanks, y'all.

EB: We will be back after a quick break.

LC: And we're back. So let's dig deeper and hear from Reverend Florentino Cordova. After a career in the US Army and marriage to a woman, Reverend Tino came out. He was in a gay bar one night when his journey toward ordination began with an LGBT reverend who came up to him with a small bag.

Reverend Florentino Cordova: I just took it home with me, put it in my drawer, I didn't even open it. I did not open it. And something was gnawing at me to open that sack. And so about two weeks after that, I opened up the sack. And inside was a condom, lubricant, and a booklet, they had put a booklet, and I opened it up and it says, "God loves you, even if you are homosexual," and then all the Clobber scriptures, they would put all the Clobber scriptures on there and it says, "This is false teaching," on and on and on. And then at the end, it says, "Come join us and be part of our family at Emmanuel Community Church, Metropolitan Community Church." And I didn't go I said, this is really weird. And I went out of curiosity, and I took my sons. My sons weren't even with me at that time. There were five and three. And I walked in and it's like, okay, I'm not at a gay bar. But there's women hugging women. There's men hugging, and they're worshiping what looks like to be the same God that I did as a Catholic, and they're serving communion and they're inviting me to communion.

EB: Alright, I'm going to jump in here really quickly to explain what MCC is. MCC is an LGBT-affirming Protestant denomination founded in 1968, specifically by and for the queer community. Reverend Tino went back to school and got a BA in religious studies, and then decided to continue his religious education.

RFC: I didn't go to seminary. I didn't go to religious schools to become a pastor. That was far beyond my radar. I went to school to answer one question, "Am I really going to hell for being gay?" That was the only thing I wanted answered.

AK: And what did you find?

RFC: That what I was taught was wrong, was incorrect. I've learned more about the patriarchal system within the Catholic Church, within the Hispanic family. I learned the false teachings of the Church. And what drew me to become a pastor is, I need to be the wall for the next generation. I need to make sure that the next generation does not get hurt, by religion, by church, by spirituality. As part of a social justice issue, I refuse to stand by while the church continues to do harm. There is no word in Greek or Hebrew that translates to homosexuality. It is an invented word. And it was invented in mid-1850s, by a German scientist. The word homosexuality and heterosexuality was for the purpose of science, never intended for religious purposes. And so the church took on that word, and inserted it into Bible. So when you see the Bibles today, where it has homosexuality, someone purposely inserted that word. Again, back to proof-texting. See, I have proof that says proof. I have proof right here in the Bible, that the Bible is against homosexuality.

LC: Oh my goodness, are you telling me that people read into things to fit their own agenda? I would never, I would never believe that to be true. How people have not at all changed.

EB: Surprise, surprise, especially the church, and that's why we're talking about this this season. I'd also like to insert a little bit of an explanation here of what Reverend Tino is saying. So Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, and the couple of Clobber passages in the Bible are really just either intentional mistranslations imposed by homophobes during the 20th century, like the Reverend Tino mentioned, or just old relics of their ancient historical context or authors.

LC: Here's the Reverend Deon Johnson with more on this. Reverend Johnson is the 11th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri.

Reverend Deon Johnson: So there are seven passages exactly and I could probably give you a biblical rundown of each passage and debunk every–but I'm not going to, that would take way too long. But I will pick out two that are I would say the top two which would be the, you know, Leviticus passage that says, "A man laying with a man is an abomination." That is often held up. And yet what's not held up is that two sentences later, shellfish and mixed crops and polyester are all put in the same category. And one of the things that often gets lost in all of these seven passages is this wonderful German word called "Sitz im Leben." Which translated–it's a biblical way of understanding, which means place and time, its context, we take the context of the Bible out and somehow try to apply a modern understanding. And that doesn't work, it can't work. We're looking at a different culture, a different context, a different set of experiences that have brought them to that place. We also have to look at how these passages are translated, because you're translating a set of words with a set of cultural meanings that have a different cultural understanding and a different cultural experience. For instance, you know, there's some places that translate the Roman passage into "homosexual." Well, if you look at the history of the English language, the word homosexual is not something that comes into being until the 1800s. So, you know, we are reading our own experiences back into the biblical text. Lastly, and I'll end with this one is, you know, I look to see–what did Jesus say about this? Nothing. Jesus constantly said to us, we must be with those who are on the margins, we must be with those who are oppressed, we must be with those who have been pushed to the side. And for a long time in our society, LGBTQIA+ people have been pushed to the side. Guess where the church should be standing. Guess whose voice the church should be speaking for. It's always those who have been on the margins, there will always be somebody on the margins, which means the church needs to get it right.

EB: I love Reverend Deon's interpretation of all of this, especially as someone who I mean, we've talked in our previous episode about, like, feeling like being a Christian who really just believes in the teachings of Jesus–be kind, love one another, love your neighbor, like that I feel like is the most important and beautiful part of Christianity, that I wish more people would focus on. So I love that.

LC: Yeah, it's always been wild to me that people choose to focus on hate and control when, as a, you know, non-Christian observer, all that I see when I like, look at the Bible or have interacted, is that it's supposed to be about love. And like my, you know, one of my favorite musicals is Jesus Christ Superstar, you know? We're the people on the margins of society.

EB: Yes. Which, I mean, that is what Jesus did. So I'm sure we will dive more into that as the season goes through. That's going to be a common thread throughout the season. We also have a bit more from Reverend Jeanelle Ablola, who has more to say on historical context, followed by the Reverend Altagracia Perez-Bullard.

Reverend Jeanelle Ablola: Yeah, I mean, the Bible is, it is written in a patriarchal system, a patriarchal society. That's the result of feudal and slave socio-economic systems at that time. It was a time of conqueror, it was a time of exile. So I read it more as patriarchal versus it being about homophobic and transphobic, you know, not that they're separate. But I feel like there's a little bit of nuance there, when we're looking at it as a patriarchal text. Our context is totally different than the one in which the text is written. So for us to use our terms, our understandings of queer and trans folks onto that context is difficult, if not impossible. And there's also like historical knowledge that ancient Hebrew cultures, like many pre-colonial cultures, were able to hold multiplicity of gender, multiplicity of roles, multiplicity of expression, you know.

Reverend Altagracia Perez-Bullard: You know, there's those toxic passages in the Bible, and there's no apologizing for it, really. So it's not about an apologetics, but it is about, like explaining what the Bible is, right? So if we think of the Bible as a library, instead of as one book, that begins to like–oh, it's a library, okay. So there's a lot of different books written at different times, by different people trying to share their experience of God in their lives and in the lives of their community, and very clearly a God that acts in history. And I think depending on the church, right, so it is–every denomination has a particular way of talking about Scripture. And I'm grateful that in my denomination, we talk about the Bible and the Holy Scriptures as containing everything necessary for salvation. And that is, I believe that to be true. Like there you find words of wisdom, there you find God acting on behalf of the oppressed, there you find calls into relationship, you know, God calling people into relationship. But it is people inspired by their relationship with God to share the Word of God as they have received it. And they received it at a particular time and at a particular place, in particular culture at a particular–so yeah, if you receive the Word of God, this wonderful, amazing thing, and you are in a patriarchal culture that you think is the way things are supposed to be, then the way you're going to express it and explain it, it's gonna have all those kind of like trappings or be shaped in a way–the only way you could express something is the way you understand it. And so, you know, in patriarchal cultures, it gets expressed in a very patriarchal way. But all over the Scripture, there are places where it's clear that God is like, okay, your ways are not my ways, your thoughts are not my thoughts, you know, like, we're doing the best we can to share the immensity of what God is with one another through history. And I feel like scripture shares that with us, through the historic journey of the Hebrew people, and then, of the people that become Christians. But it's laden with all these things that are cultural, I mean, it is a sacred word of God. It is also a cultural artifact. It was also written in a particular time. And so studying scripture means being aware of that as you read, and not thinking it's oppressive, people cannot be thinking it's a science book. And it's not any of those things. It's the narrative. It's a sacred narrative of people journey with this God. So I'm grateful that in my tradition, right, like to say that it contains everything necessary for salvation is not saying that it's inerrant, it doesn't mean that it doesn't have errors. And that some people do read it more literally. Some people read it totally as the poetry and art of a people that is describing something sacred and holy, you know, that's a big, that's a big window, like in those interpretations.

LC: So again, emphasizing that the Bible is a very messy book, or a collection of books. For instance, the idea of Adam and Eve and how some conservative churches use this Genesis creation story as a way to stay rooted in heterosexual binary-based gender and sexuality norms. But the creation story sort of has all kinds of problems when you start looking at it more closely. As Father Tino pointed out to us.

RFC: When you start asking questions of, if God made Adam and Eve, and then they had sons, where did their wives come from?

AK: It gets confusing.

RFC: Right? Because if you go to the Levitical law, they couldn't have married their sisters, because that's against Levitical law.

EB: Here's Brian Murphy, one of the cofounders of queertheology.com, and the Queer Theology podcast, who offered us a totally new and really beautiful way of understanding the Adam and Eve Genesis story.

Brian G. Murphy: So on the Equality Ride, we were visiting these conservative Christian colleges and universities, and I think instinctually my first impulse was to like argue with them about Leviticus or Romans or First Corinthians like Sodom and Gomorrah and sort of like, here's why all those you know–we've all heard the Clobber passages. Here's why those were actually wrong. I had a three hour conversation with like a Baptist seminarian in North Carolina, like, oh my god, like it didn't go anywhere, right. And so I was–we were going to speak at Seattle Pacific, my friend and I, and we were trying to–we knew the general topic was like gender and Genesis. And I think we had, like thrown it out there at some point. But like no one had ever asked for us to do that. And so we're like, what are we going to? What are we going to talk about? And like, what we've been talking, we can't go in there and be like, this is why it's Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve, is wrong, right? And so we sort of like broke down what is the story of Genesis like trying to tell us, and then also sort of calling into conversation, like what is the like biological reality of sex and gender. And I thought we were like putting this together, I was reflecting on like, my experiences of queerness. And I remembered that when I was 18, I had just come out, and I was dating this guy then. And our parents lived, like, I don't know, like half a mile away from each other. And in between his parents’ house and my parents’ house was a national park in Maryland. And so he had a dog and I had a dog, and we would go like, meet up and walk our dogs together. And he was out to his parents, and I was not yet out to my parents. But so we would like, go walk our dogs and like, sort of, like, lose ourselves in the forest. Then, and, you know, it was 2004. And so like, the world was still like a hostile place, you could get gay married in like Massachusetts. And that was it. There like weren't any mainstream Christian denominations that were LGBTQ-affirming, he was Jewish. And so they're reformed Judaism was–it had come a lot further at the time. So his parents were quite accepting. But this park sort of like, became our oasis where we could just sort of like, let our guards down, we didn't have to worry about someone harassing us or like what do our parents think. And I remember one time we were leaving the park and we sort of like got to the edge of the park. And there was like, this bird that flew was like flying back and forth. And something about the bird, just sort of like freely going back and forth, made me sort of like, pay attention to the boundary. And I was like, really aware of the fact that we were like, leaving this place. And that, like my guard was coming back up, like now we could be seen. And so it very much felt like we were leaving our sanctuary, really that we were leaving Eden, right, that we were like leaving this like safe and good place and going out into a hostile world. And I remember like, I was holding his hand at the time, and I sort of like looked down at his hand. And I was like, oh my God, like bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Like this is the helper who was suitable for me, like we are made for each other. And we were teenagers who were both recently out, who had, you know, varying levels of support in our families. And we, I think, could imagine a future where like, we could be with a man and it could be good and holy in sort of like this world that was so hostile to us. And I remember I texted him when sort of like a marriage became the law of the land nationwide in the United States, at least for now, and said, like, I'm just like, so glad that we had each other all those years ago, when like a day like today was like a glimmer of a dream of a lifetime away. Like we sort of like caught a little glimpse of eternity in this moment. And that for me, that opened up the story of like, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and creation. And I like saw that in a whole new way and understood myself in this relationship in a whole new way. And so that was like really meaningful for me. And then I like finished telling the story to, like, fast forward, I'm like telling this story to, I don't know, standing room of 400-some Seattle Pacific conservative Christian, anti-gay policy on the books, students and like, kids are crying. There's a standing ovation. And at all of the other schools, up until this point, the questions had been kind of hostile. Sort of like nitpicking at this, at that, like what the argument was, or what about this or what about that? In response to this, it was like, tell me more, like, tell me more about that. Tell me more about you. Tell me more about your experiences. How can we support queer people here and I think like the administration was like, was caught off guard by like, the ways in which like stories have the power to move people and so I think that story not only like changed how I saw myself and my relationship with men and my queerness, but it also sort of like, circumvented people's defenses to argue arguments about LGBTQ people. A bunch of students at Seattle Pacific University came together, like that day, the next day to just form an unofficial LGBTQ student group that now all these years later is recognized by the university. The university still has, like some wonky policies, but they have a page on their official school website about scholarships for LGBTQ students. The group is like recognized and received some funding and so like, it was sort of like, you know, proof of concept that you don't have to start with the Clobber passages, but if you like, skip over that and go straight to quoting the Bible, you can have like tremendous impact on people who are not even allies yet. And so I think that was both like meaningful for me as like a spiritual practice to reflect on that story, but also an instructor for me as an activist and an educator as to like how change happens.

LC: That's very beautiful. And also, Adam and Eve, man, I just, it makes no sense.

EB: No, Adam and Steve.

LC: Yeah, of course. Adam and Steve.

EB: Adam and Steve, and Adam and Brian, I love it. It is a very beautiful story. And I love to–I mean, I think, in general, like, one of the best ways for us to, like, heal and understand each other is not to like, argue about Bible verses, but to just share, like stories that share our humanity. Like, the fact that Brian shared the story, and then Seattle Pacific University formed an LGBTQ student group because of it, I think is like–that's far more powerful than like, just trying to say like, "Oh, these Bible verses suck," like, no, actually, we're all humans, we all love. We all have our own experiences with other humans. And like, because we're gay doesn't make us less holy. I just think it's beautiful.

LC: I just think, yeah, a lot of times, it's about knowing somebody, like, I feel like people have a lot of hatred towards things they don't understand. And the more that they get to interact with people like Brian, that they have a different perspective on the issue. So Brian helped us remember this, that reframing the Bible isn't just about debunking the Clobber passages, it's about finding the goodness and beauty in yourself, which thankfully, he did at a young age.

BGM: For me, my understanding of my queerness has always been rooted in a sense of goodness, which I think is surprising given that I grew up in a church that was not affirming of LGBTQ people. I heard not a lot of messages about the perils of homosexuality, but there was at least a few times at church where it was mentioned that homosexuality was a sin. And I grew up, you know, in the 90s, in the 2000s, where even being queer in secular culture was, at best, something that was weird, and at worst, something that was sick or perverted or disgusting. But as I started to recognize the queerness within myself, I just had this sense of–I've heard that homosexuality is a sin, but that just doesn't seem right to me. Surely that was a mistake, I'm going to look it up in my Bible, because this just doesn't seem–I think that they've gotten it wrong. And so I remember like, looking at homosexuality in the index of my teen study Bible, and there was like, you know, a few little pages that were actually you know, little liner notes in the teen study Bible, not actual verses. And the first one was talking about how like, it was like commentary on Leviticus that was like, sex with animals is wrong, sex with relatives is wrong, gay sex is wrong, like sees this when I was 10, and I was like, well, that's weird. Like, maybe the next one will be okay. Like, even confronted with this, like jarringly homophobic interpretation of the Bible, I was like, "Well, the next one, like the next one must, surely somewhere in here, there's going to be some like indication," 'cause I just had this, like, intrinsic sense that, like, God created me and God loves me, and I'm good and sort of like, this capacity for love and connection and commitment must be good. And also, my straight friends are allowed to kiss people and have sex with people like, I also had space for like–I think it was easier for me to come to grips with love and romance being good, as opposed to like sex. But I think that sort of felt like the, I don't know, like the bridge to also like, I think like sex and intimacy can be good as sort of physical manifestations of this care I feel like I sort of fell for my one of my friends in high school. And I remember, like, I want to be known by you and to take care of you and to be seen by you and like to love you. But I also want to embody that by holding your hand or like pressing our bodies against each other or like whatever it might be. And so somehow, despite all odds, like my core has always been a source of goodness and joy, and like Shay was saying, community.

EB: The fact is that queer people have always been central to Christianity. Here's the Reverend Naomi Washington-Leapheart with more on this.

Reverend Naomi Washington-Leapheart: I actually do think that the world of the biblical text contains, because it contains human beings, contains human beings that we could probably use the word, the description, "queer" to describe them. Now it's anachronistic to try to use our words to describe people then, but I'm just talking about people who–James Baldwin has a lovely quote, "You have to go the way your blood beats, go the way your blood beats." Somebody had asked him what advice he would have for you know, young ga black boys coming up or something like that. And he says this lovely…so you probably  had people who were going to weigh their blood beat, then? Absolutely, absolutely. So, yes, I believe that queer and trans and non-binary folks have always been part of the human community. I think church does this weird thing where people are both hypervisible and invisible at the same time, right. Like we've all heard stories of, "Yeah, we know, he was, you know, we think he's special, or we think she's, you know," so like, clearly people see, but whether they will confer power, whether they will surrender space, whether they will celebrate our joys and cry when we have sorrow. That's the piece that renders us invisible. So we can both be the choir director, and be absolutely left out when people are talking about family or love, or, and so I think it's high time for us to say, this institution, when all this works, belongs to us, too. Because we've always been here. And we've been running things, yep. And we've been shaping the faith, too, yep. I wish we could go back in history and tell those folks, "It's okay. The water is good. Come on out. Come on in." Right? What if so many of our religious ancestors could have been free? It's a beautiful thought. And it's tragic. So yeah, I think that we've always been around, we've always been here.

LC: And that is exactly what we'll do on our next episode–learn about the lives of some queer and trans monks from all the way back in the Middle Ages.

EB: Until then, here's a taste of what's to come on Sweetbitter.

RDJ: And so I was really trying to sort of flesh out in this article some of the ways in which we have evidence of queer life in the Middle Ages that has oftentimes been ignored or just sort of overlooked because it oftentimes appears in sort of scraps and fragments of historical texts and other forms of evidence.

LC: Thanks for listening to Sweetbitter. Our second episode is out on March 20.

EB: If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review us. It really helps, especially written reviews on Apple and Spotify.

LC: Like any church, we also have an offering plate. We can't pass it down the pew, but you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com/sweetbitter. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts.

EB: Sweetbitter is an independent production by me, Ellie Brigida, Alyse Knorr, and Leesa Charlotte. Our assistant producer is Thea Smith. Our audio engineers are Cora Cicala and Ana López Reyes, and our artwork is by Istela Illustrated.

LC: Thank you to our guests this week, Ruby Almeida, Reverend Jakob Hero-Shaw, Reverend Florentino Cordova, Reverend Jeanelle Ablola, Reverend Altagracia Perez-Bullard, Brian Murphy, Reverend Naomi Washington-Leapheart, and Reverend Deon Johnson. You can read more about our guests and where to find them on our website.

EB: You can find us on Instagram and Bluesky at @sweetbitterpod, or contact us on our website, sweetbitterpodcast.com. See you in two weeks!

LC: Bye!