As I heard this message, I nodded my head and felt in my heart that Tisby was correct in starting with this story. I agreed that we all create a culture together, and only together can our society change. Those who are White in America, however, have more power and voice and benefit most when nothing changes. Tisby鈥檚 call is for all Americans to and societal structures that are harmful for all of us: White, Brown, Black, other, in-between, out of the norm, first generation, twelfth generation, etc. We as Americans have to do the work in our bodies, as well as our minds, if we are to heal our collective harm, our embodied hurt, and our lingering traumas. I can acknowledge this, yet I still find it difficult to move outside of what Resmaa Menekem has termed, 鈥渨hite-body supremacy.鈥� As he contends in his book, :

Social activism is necessary for changing the world in positive ways. But if our collective body is to fully heal from the trauma of white-body supremacy, we must create cultural shifts as well. White-body supremacy is already a part of American culture鈥攊n the norms we follow, the assumptions we make, the language we speak, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. This is the case no matter the color of our skin. This means we must create new expressions of culture that call out, reject, and undermine white-body supremacy.

This won鈥檛 be quick or easy鈥攂ut there is no other way.

, there is only the long path of reform, restructuring, and relearning our systems of being the United States of American. For this to happen, however, we have to feel the shift and change in our bones. New laws may be written and enacted, but until the hearts, minds, and bodies of Americans feel that all humans are truly created equal, we will remain ensnared in white-body supremacy.

If this claim about the necessity of bodily feeling and bodily healing is true, then the classrooms of predominately White institutions (PRI), such as 天美视频, present a challenge. Our students of color have always been attuned to the daily reality of white-body supremacy, but since the deaths of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and Michael Brown in 2014, our students of color have become even more hyper-attuned to the news and the realities of living in a non-white body in the United States. As a White professor, my body has not caught up to the level of anxiety and terror that our students feel on a daily basis, but I can create spaces of safety and agency. I can research and read more theologians of color. I can make my reading lists and lectures more diverse and multifaceted. As Jennifer Harvey, author of , said in a recent Wabash webinar, 鈥淏rown and Black Students Matter!,鈥� not only do White professors have an obligation to challenge the status quo around race in America, but we are guilty of 鈥減edagogical negligence鈥� if we do not work to change the dynamics in our classrooms and on our campuses.

If this kind of change is to happen, then I have to acknowledge my own lack of bodily attunement to the terror in my own body. If I am to love and teach well, then I have to learn to love my story and my body more, with brutal honesty. Also, until I can own my own White fragility and desire to be 鈥渨oke鈥� (which is a word I think no White person should claim), I have to stop and apologize to my students for not having the capacity to know viscerally their daily reality. I understand now that this apology is not just to our students of color but to all of our students. To re-create a more equitable society, .

An equitable classroom requires more mutuality and agency for every student so that we can work together to teach rather than indoctrinate, to grow our minds together rather than to mimic or repeat what was given to us. With this in mind, I will commit to decentering the white-body supremacy of the theologies in which I have been educated and formed. For this to happen, I need to do as much work on my whiteness as I do to create more diverse syllabi and classroom experiences. I believe our theology will be more robust and life-giving because of this work. Our call is not into self-hate but into a redeeming and liberating love. This is why our school鈥檚 mission is to train students toward and for the sake of loving God, neighbor, and self. I commit myself once more to this task.

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My answer is both simple and complicated.

The simple answer is that I think that studying at the intersection of theology and trauma is a generative place to re-imagine redemption, reconciliation, and healing. The more complicated answer is that trauma (in its multifarious forms) lingers and manifests in unpredictable ways in the brain, body, and relationships. This can be extremely problematic for one鈥檚 neat and tidy theological system.

Systematic theologians attempt to make sense of life by isolating and working on particular questions and issues. This process requires abstraction of life into theory. This theory then helps to refocus one鈥檚 focus or approach to real life questions, yet it can be difficult to get back to application (or practice) in the everyday if reflective space is not purposefully given or sought out.

Unfortunately, theology can sometimes leave us in our heads, while ignoring the realities of life.

Trauma, on the other hand, requires a practical application. It connects us to real life, often because we have personal experience. Trauma causes humans, in general, to reevaluate how one makes sense of the world. This reevaluation is inherently religious, regardless of one鈥檚 creed or faith, because it frames how one makes meaning out of the crazy chaos of life. We can tell stories, make movies, write books, and reframe our stories of trauma and sorrow, but the reality is that one鈥檚 brain, body, and community most likely will never function well or be the same again.

Trauma blurs all of our categories. It requires something of our neat and tidy abstractions because it breaks in and intrudes on the daily. Trauma turns our linear existence into chaotic and sometimes surrealist perceptions of life.

In short, trauma holds us accountable to the embodied reality of human existence. Pat answers ring hollow in the light of trauma. It requires new questions, nuanced approaches, improvised responses, and a 鈥渘ew imaginary鈥� (as Grace Janzten says). If we are to respond well to the challenge of trauma, then we have to reevaluate our core theological commitments and practices. I believe that this improvisational stance toward life, faith, and healing (we could even say faith, hope, and love) is the core theological task for today鈥檚 world.

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Dr. Newby has composed two large-scale works based on the life and writings of Dr. Martin Luther King; selections from his oratorio, Montage for Martin, were performed at a candlelight service commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. King鈥檚 death at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC earlier this year.

Chelle: Tell us about your compositional methodology. Did some of the music that you sang in the Detroit public schools influence your choice to become a musician and composer?

Stephen: I think it was not only the public-school system, but it was the church. I also came from a musical family. My mother was a singer. She was supposed to sing opera, with a four-octave range. My mother was beautiful. I remember that I loved my mother. I had a love for music from my parents. They really instilled it in me. I didn鈥檛 know I wanted to become a composer, I thought I wanted to become a lawyer. In high school, I remember telling Bill Wiggins, my band teacher, that I was going to become a lawyer, and he looked at me and he laughed, he laughed so hard. He said, 鈥淩ight! You are going to be a musician. That鈥檚 what you are going to be, Newby.鈥� I looked at him and said, 鈥淲hat do you mean?鈥� But I was playing trombone, piano, I was playing in my daddy鈥檚 church, and I was picking up saxophone and flute. I was always curious. I couldn鈥檛 land on one single instrument. I was fascinated and intrigued by instruments. I was fascinated by creating and making up songs. I was a songwriter before I was a composer. They are connected, but there is a difference. So, I really started in high school, but my serious career as a composer started after I finished my undergraduate degree in music education and flute performance at Madonna University.

Chelle: When did you start to bring the elements of jazz together with your compositional style?

Stephen: It was already there鈥攁nd that鈥檚 what the problem was. I was trying to find a degree program that would allow me to write and to express. The only place I could find was the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where I got by master鈥檚 degree in jazz composition and arranging. I studied gospel music and gospel music history with Horace Clarence Boyer. I was able to express myself. [鈥 Fredrick Tillis, an African American composer who is still alive today, about 83 or 84, he was a mentor of my teacher, he said 鈥淲rite, write what you hear. Bring all of that in and write!鈥� The master鈥檚 degree in jazz composition and arranging allowed me the freedom to bring my voice into the mix. Nobody slapped my hand and told me that I had to be like that person over there. My teachers allowed me to expand my musical canon by importing my sound and bringing in other influences as I heard them. I studied Western European music during my master鈥檚 degree, but that鈥檚 when my compositional style really started. Then when I went to the University of Michigan and submitted my portfolio, they wondered, 鈥淲hat in the world do we do with this? We don鈥檛 have a Quincy Jones on our faculty to teach guys like this. What are we going to do?鈥� And then, the late Dr. Rae Linda Brown said, 鈥淣o, you gotta bring these guys in.鈥� It was me and William Banfield at the time, though I arrived a year earlier. They took a chance and Bill Balcombe and Bill Albright, Leslie Basset, Fred Lerdahl, George Wilson, and Michael Daugherty. They worked with us, and voila, I learned how to create this hybrid music. I consider myself an Americanist.

Chelle: What motivated you to turn to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. when you were working on the music for your PhD dissertation? It is amazing that a piece that was written for a PhD has had a long life and has been performed a number of times.

Stephen: It is interesting that you ask that question, because I was thinking at the time about longevity, about what really matters. I know for a fact that my faith tied into it. At the time I was writing, words really mattered and I used Christian Scripture. It was important for me to wrestle with the words while I was being creative, so I would write a sacred music. Now, MLK [鈥 I already knew that other African American composers had put their spin on King and reflected on his words and writings. And I made the decision to use his work because these words are important. 鈥淗atred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that.鈥� 鈥淓very man is somebody鈥檚 somebody, because they are a child of God.鈥� I got a compilation that Coretta Scott had created from the words of her late husband. And I thought, 鈥淚f these words are important to Coretta, they鈥檝e gotta be important, so I better pay attention to them.鈥� I followed the woman author who compiled and gathered works from her husband, that was my instinct. The entire composition is entitled, 鈥淟et thy mercy be upon us,鈥� which is based on Ps. 33. It was based on this hymn that I wrote. I then created this octatonic scale, a kind of 8 pitched and atonal collection, and created this symphony based on Martin Luther King. The words of King were important. When I thought about what was important and had longevity, I didn鈥檛 think about if I wanted to write something that would last. Instead I realized that King鈥檚 words were important, they had longevity, so I wanted to take a look at the writings through my compositional process. The words today still resonate. They are apropos today. I will listen to King鈥檚 sermons today and think, 鈥淗ow did you know what happened last week in the news?鈥�

Chelle: We are in a moment, again, aren鈥檛 we? The questions that are being asked today address the deep places that we have ignored as a country. We think we have healed, we think that we鈥檝e moved beyond, but the truth is that we鈥檝e just looked away. In this moment, we are starting to ask, what else can we do?

Stephen: I think, what else can we do? We have to be together. We have to just be together, to be at the table. [Recently], I was on Orcas Island conducting a gospel workshop with people out there, and the average age of the folks I was working with had to be about 65 or 68. A woman who was from Mississippi said, 鈥淵ou know, Dr. Newby, I didn鈥檛 know how to deal with the Jim Crow laws at the time and I still feel guilty because I didn鈥檛 know what to do.鈥� And I thought to myself, 鈥淲ow! Just to confess that, just to say that, to release that is healing.鈥� It is part of the story. And I had never heard an older white woman tell me that before. I had told her that my mother was from Mississippi and she鈥檚 all, 鈥淥h you鈥檙e from Mississippi, what part of Mississippi?鈥� And that is how the conversation got started. There was a common place of geography. So when I鈥檓 working with this population that has this history with blacks, that is an opportunity to restore, reconcile, redeem. There are a lot of 鈥淩鈥� words going on here. To remember, to react, to respond, and to make something positive. Our singing together helps us to remember. [鈥 It helps us to figure out how to press forward.

Chelle: In trauma studies, both personal and cultural trauma, theorists talk about how there is explicit memory鈥娾�斺�妛hat we think of a story鈥娾�斺�奱nd then there is implicit memory鈥娾�斺�妛hich is emotional and bodily memory. This is why I think we need to turn to the arts, especially music, because they can excavate and shape this emotional memory, they excavate the places that are hidden within us. The arts then have the capacity to realign us with one another, especially when we sing together.

Stephen: Yes, it does. [鈥 I remember my mother, after they shot Martin Luther King. My mother was standing there in front of the ironing board, ironing my father鈥檚 shirts. I said, 鈥淢ama, what鈥檚 wrong, what鈥檚 wrong?鈥� She said, 鈥淭hey killed him, they killed him. They killed him.鈥� And I knew who it was, she didn鈥檛 say the name, but I knew. I remember because later I wanted to go outside and play and she said, 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 go outside, there are tanks on the streets. You can鈥檛 go outside, baby, I鈥檓 sorry.鈥� I remember some things that my mother said, there is a lot from my childhood that is blocked, I can鈥檛 remember it, because I think it was just so devastating, so traumatic.

Chelle: Can you talk a little about the upcoming performances of your work?

Stephen: What鈥檚 being performed are excerpts from my Oratorio on Dr. Martin Luther King, Montage for Martin. Inspired by the late Ja Jahanness, the genius behind the concept for Montage for Martin.

Chelle: What brings you to these words, what brings you back to this inspiration?

Stephen: It鈥檚 just truth. His words need to be articulated again and again. Look, Martin was a prophet, a 20th century prophet. Billy Graham was a 20th century evangelist. The sovereign Lord drops people into humanity that do certain things for a certain time. We know that the words of King are rich, they are right. Like many prophets and prophetesses, they are God鈥檚 mouthpiece. King knew he was a vessel, he wasn鈥檛 the end of it. That鈥檚 why he said, 鈥淚鈥檓 not afraid to die. Longevity has its place, but I鈥檓 not concerned with that right now.鈥� He was so in the moment. It鈥檚 that type of passion and focus that inspires all of us, to be present and know what it means to have hope and to live out justice.

Chelle: James Cone turns to the spirituals and the blues, and he also turns to the narrative of the life of King as, what I would call, theological text. By returning to King鈥檚 words over and over you are, in essence, doing the same thing through your music.

Stephen: Absolutely. There鈥檚 Christian Scripture [鈥 there is theological text. When I look at the words of King, as a composer, thinking back at what I鈥檝e done in the past, what you are hearing is a hermeneutical artistic task. I鈥檓 interpreting what he said. And so, to exegete the words of King, and to be enlivened with it. To try to make sense of this idea of what is at stake if we do not pay attention to these words today. I think that is why I keep returning to that text.

Chelle: Any last words?

Stephen: Let鈥檚 pay attention to what we are singing and to what happens when we don鈥檛 sing together.

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I don’t think my youth pastors or youth workers meant to shame me and my body when I was in my early teens, but it happened. They had all the best intentions, but I entered my young adulthood with an overriding sense that my bodily desires were a problem to be prayed away rather than an opportunity to become spiritually mature. I was taught that spirituality and my emerging sexuality were at odds with one another.

If I were to be generous and understanding, I would say that the youth workers at my Baptist church were just trying to help me navigate the stormy hormonal seas of adolescence. In a more critical mode, I would say that I was never actually taught about my own desire, but was instead told how to behave in the light of a more masculine experience of desire. It was instilled into me that my body was dangerous to the spiritual life of men, therefore I should hide my body, learn to say “no” to male advances, and thus help to contain male desire.

At youth group gatherings, it was not unusual to hear something along the lines of, “well, boys will be boys, but guys, if a girl lets you do what you want to do, then she is not worth your time.” I really wish I was making this last line up, but I heard it in so many guises throughout the years that this message is too loud to ignore.

I was also told that women really didn’t want sex. Now that I’m on this side of marriage and sexuality, it makes me wonder what would have happened if the matriarchs of the church had framed the conversation from an honest feminine perspective instead of by the male youth leaders, who were barely older than me at the time. The one thing I know is that through this messaging, my own, more feminine desires were ignored, shamed, and stifled. I was taught that my desires were “not male” and thus were not important; or maybe even non-existent.

Through this messaging, my own, more feminine desires were ignored, shamed, and stifled.

When I looked to popular media, I learned that feminine sexuality was either prudish and something to be conquered (e.g., Sandy in Grease) or, in contrast, amazingly voracious and “available” like a pornographic male fantasy (e.g., Revenge of the Nerds, Sixteen Candles, and any other of the other popular teeny bopper movies I watched in the ’80s. Fast Times at Ridgemont High was a little different because it actually called out some of the lies and harm of the “fantasy” of teenage sexuality, though I didn’t really understand the subtle brilliance of this critique until I was older).

Wherever I looked, inside or outside the church, the complex and nuanced story of maturing into a feminine body was scarce or non-existent. Popular culture seemed to say “get over it,” while the church preached “just don’t do it.” There was no guidance as to how one could develop into a spiritual yet sexual being.

Some of the confusion about how to talk about sex and bodies in the Christian tradition comes from a dualistic interpretation of 1 Corinthians 6:18-20; that is, that “spiritual” is nonmaterial and thus good, and “flesh” is material and thus bad:

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (NIV)

This passage has often been used as a wedge between the “spiritual” life and the “fleshly” life, as if our bodily selves are not to be included in our spirituality. Or, even worse, our fleshly selves are at war with our spiritual selves. The consequence is that, in my youth, I believed I was a bifurcated being and was never sure what to do with the messiness of my embodied existence. I was embarrassed by my desires and passions and was not sure what to do with my body when I went to church. It was as if I was burdened, rather than blessed, with my very fleshiness and hunger for life and love. And yet, this passage actually teaches that this very fleshiness is where the Spirit of the Lord chooses to dwell. How could I have missed that? (For more on this passage, listen to this chapel talk: )

In Listening to the Spirit in the Text, biblical scholar Gordon Fee argues that Paul’s intention in 1 Corinthians is not to downgrade the body or to establish some kind of hierarchy for “spiritual” persons (see pp. 33-47). Instead, he is admonishing the Corinthians to claim their identity as persons of the Spirit. To be spiritual is not to belong to some sort of exclusive club or society but to be in relationship to the Holy Spirit, to which all manner of persons are welcome and invited. Moreover, the Spirit is the builder of relationships. If we are Spirit people (those who belong to the Spirit), then we are shaped spiritually by our relationships with one another and with God. In other words, the “shape” of one’s spirituality consists of one’s practice of engaging with God, with other people, and with all of creation. We are, then, defined by the vitality of our relationships.

We are shaped spiritually by our relationships with one another and with God.

I wish that my youth leaders had talked more about the goodness of my desire for deep and healthy relationship, and that the shape of my friendships as a teenager provided a window into the well-being of my future sexual life. I also wish they had connected my sexuality to life in the Spirit. 2 Timothy 1:7 is helpful here: “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.” If only I had known when I was 16 that the Spirit would give me power to choose the good in my relationships, make me less timid in my search for love, and enliven and discipline my desire. If my body is truly the temple of the Holy Spirit, then my sexuality is an opportunity for spiritual formation rather than an aspect of my life to be shamed and hidden. Desire and sexuality are not impediments to the spiritual life but, instead, the very means by which God draws us closer.

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