From Church to Clinic: Addressing Health Disparities in Black Women

TJ Blackwell: 00:00:24

Hebrew 13:1 3. In the Christian standard Bible say, let brotherly love continue.

Don't neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this, some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it. Remember the prisoners as though you were in prison with them, and the mistreated as though you yourselves were suffering bodily.

In this section of Scripture, the author just finished explaining the importance of Jesus as the Christ, then went on to explain how we should receive the kingdom that Jesus brought, stating that this kingdom cannot be shaken. After this pericope, the author will go on to explain the consistency of Christ. Professor Wylan D.

Wilson, how do you think the command to love for one another and to care for others mentioned here factors into these other messages of Christ's consistency and his unshakable kingdom?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:01:12

Yes. Thank you for so for me, I'm looking at this notion of the consistency of Christ is reason why we can be fully committed to the way of Christ.

One of the most important things that marks Christ's consistency is the fact of Christ entering our situation. Christ's identity as Emmanuel, as God with us.

This incarnational nature of Christ that is spoken of in Hebrew 13, it speaks to how important it is that we ourselves imitate Christ in how we treat others. This loving and showing hospitality, remembering the suffering as if it were our own.

You know, this understanding of Christ, how he continually enters into our situations of suffering, of pain, of hurt. This demonstrates the love and care that we should strive for with one another.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:24

Yeah, good stuff, Good stuff. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Whole Church Podcast, one of your favorite Church Unity podcasts, probably more than likely.

I'm one of your hosts, Joshua Knoll. My job is to do one thing, one thing only. So I'll be hopping off after this. I'm here to introduce the one, the legendary, the.

The one after whom all rivers are named. Figure that one out. Tiberius Juan TJ Blackwell. How's it going?

TJ Blackwell: 00:02:54

Good, Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:55

I am also here with a fantastic guest today. It's gonna be a intellectually challenging episode. I would say really excited for this one. We have a Professor Wylan D. Wilson.

She's an assistant professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School, where she teaches womanist bioethics. She's the author of Economic Ethics and the Black Church, as well as Womanist bioethics, social justice, spirituality, and Black women's health.

Thank you so much for joining us. It's great to have you.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:03:25

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:28

Oh, yeah, thank you. Thank you.

TJ Blackwell: 00:03:30

And if you are listening to this now, you should probably check out The Onazel podcast Network website links below. It's our network. Check us out. Check our friends out. You know, legally friends, at least you can get the merch on our store to support the show.

It's cool. It's understated. It's comfy. It's nice.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:51

Yeah, that's true. I think it's comfy anyway. Usually I wear it, but I have places to go after this and I need something warm.

But anyway, I have a favorite form of unity that we always start the show off with. Professor Wilson. It's the perfect sacrament of unity, because you can't be in any kind of discord when you're being as silly as I like to be.

So we're gonna start this off with a silly question, tj, and I'll answer first. If you could have Sebastian the Crab from Little Mermaid do a cover of any of your favorite songs, which would you most like to hear him cover?

So it doesn't have to be your all time favorite. It has to be a favorite that you would like to hear Sebastian cover.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:04:37

Yes. I tell you, I'm gonna choose Proud Mary with the passing of Tina Turner. I am a Tina Turner fan, and with her passing, it's been in the news a lot.

A lot of her songs have been being played. And I know, I love both the original by Credence Clearwater Revival. That one is also, you know, one that just makes me move and enjoy.

But there's just something about the way Tina performs Proud Mary. So I would love to hear Sebastian just to see, you know, his take on that.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:17

Yeah, I dig it. I take it. All right, T.J. did you want to go first or did you. You want me to go?

TJ Blackwell: 00:05:25

You should go.

Joshua Noel: 00:05:27

I had a hard time with this one because most of my favorite songs are my favorites because of people's voices. A little bit of the lyrics too. But, like, I don't know, I don't want to hear something too meaningful being sung by Sebastian. It just seems wrong.

So I'm actually just gonna go with something probably absurd. I want to hear Sebastian do. I can't remember the name of the song exactly, but it's that Johnny Cash song where he's like, why I wear black.

I want to hear that. I just think it would be great. And, you know, I just classify all Johnny Cash songs as one of my favorites. I think that's fine. Yeah.

Tj, how you answering this one?

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:10

This is a really hard question.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:12

I thought so too, actually. I didn't mean it to be what I wrote. It but the more I thought about it, I was like, this is rough.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:19

This is a really, really hard question. I'm gonna go with, like, Lancelot Fleetwood Mech. I think that would be hilarious.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:30

That was smashing.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:31

Landslide.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:06:32

Nice.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:33

I concur.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:34

Yeah. There's so many answers. There's so many answers.

Joshua Noel: 00:06:38

Yeah.

My all time favorite song is Home, but it's just like this existential song of like, looking into the stars, wondering if anything's looking back at you. And I'm like, I just actually don't want to hear Sebastian do that. That sounds bad.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:51

Yeah, it's just. I don't know. Do I want to hear Sebastian do Kanye West?

Joshua Noel: 00:06:55

Probably not.

TJ Blackwell: 00:06:56

Probably not. But beyond that, one thing that we found to engender Christian unity is to hear one another's story. So, Wylan D.

Wilson, would you mind sharing the elevator pitch version of your faith journey with us and how you got to be so passionate about bioethics and the church?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:07:16

Yeah. Yeah. So my. My story actually begins way back in the 70s, right? I'm a child of the 70s, and I grew up going to a very small rural.

Is a church that was out in the rural area. I'm from northern Florida, the part of Florida that is culturally southern.

And the church that I went to was a rural, tiny, black Southern Baptist church. And that is where I got my beginnings as a Christian. That is where I became baptized, rooted in the faith and really grounded in.

In the Word through Sunday school and those amazing church mothers and deacons and whatnot.

But also that was a place where I heard a lot of stories from family members because it was a family church that was common for a lot of rural churches back then. Whole families would go to the church. So I heard lots of stories from family members, but then also from folks from the community as well.

It was a African American community, and it was part of what was then the Florida. It was called the Florida Black Belt.

And the Black Belt, it describes what used to be an area that had dark, rich soils that supported the slave economy, but after enslavement and then just were areas with high poverty, high unemployment, you know, stagnant economies and whatnot. So I. All these stories about folks encountering the health care system, and they were pretty.

Some were just really tough stories about feeling unseen, unheard, feeling a lack of being cared for. And those stories of just these horrible experiences that these African American folks had in the healthcare system, those shaped.

Really stuck with me and shaped my desire to continue in bioethics. Right. To continue looking at this Notion of care versus cure and how underserved populations experience the healthcare system.

Joshua Noel: 00:09:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A good chunk of my childhood was spent in northern Florida. Tallahassee, actually. Yeah, yeah. No, it's really cool.

It takes me back a little bit though, because I'm.

I always get like, have to pause a little bit because, you know, growing up as a straight CIS white male, you don't hear a lot of those kind of takes and you're like, oh, that's right. There was a whole other world happening right where I was at.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:10:12

Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:10:13

So that's challenging.

But before we get into some of the other challenging, deeper stuff, so we received a media kit whenever we were talking to your, you know, PR person, all that trying to get you on the show. And they had some suggesting questions, and one of them really matched the energy of our show.

So we were just going to like, pull that directly out and throw it at you. Because I love the way the questions worded here.

If hospitals, churches and communities all got into a room to discuss healthcare reform, who's getting into an argument first and what snacks would you bring to keep the peace? I love this question.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:10:48

It is a great question.

And I tell you so I would say if, say hospital, churches and communities in the same room to talk about health care reform, I think that the folks that would get in an argument first would definitely be the hospitals and folks in the community. Because I'm thinking of community broadly. Right.

So it's full of folks from different ethnic backgrounds, racial backgrounds, different classes, some from rural, some from urban, some from suburban. So it's just mix of folks. Right. And so definitely, I think it would be hospitals and community folk. But then there'd be a surprise in there.

I think at the same time, you'd have community folk arguing with one another about health care reform because there are so many different ways that people understand what health care reform should look like, whose responsibility is to pay for it. You know, just so many. Yeah, there's so many things to argue about there. But what I would do, my snack, the snack that I bring to keep the peace.

I think you already are thinking about ice cream. I'm gonna tell you the reason why. There is a science behind why ice cream makes us happy. Right. It's the sweetness.

It triggers those, you know, the release of the dopamine. Right. That great hormone with. Has to do with pleasure reward associated with. It's also associated with the endorphins. Right.

The body's natural pain killer. The nostalgic kind of connection that we get. When we eat ice cream, that helps produce the happiness hormone of serotonin. I mean, come on.

Ice cream it is.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:43

Oh, yeah, of course. You know, you gotta be careful who picks the flavors because at least some people get mad at me when I pick mint.

TJ Blackwell: 00:12:50

They're wrong.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:12:52

As long as it's not mint chocolate chip.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:54

Oh, no, that's the best kind.

TJ Blackwell: 00:12:55

No, you gotta. You just gotta go simple. You gotta. It's chocolate and strawberry and everybody likes those. And maybe vanilla.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:03

Yeah, everybody likes those. See? But if it's just me. Butter pecan mint chocolate chip. I love butter.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:13:10

Sea salt caramel pecan. So.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:11

Yes, or sea salt caramel's good too.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:13:14

But don't we digress, you all for the lactose intolerant, we need a non dairy option.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:19

Yeah, they don't like those free ice creams those Breyers does. It's right next to the car, the low carb.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:13:24

Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, that, that.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:27

I actually worked in frozen for a while, so I know really random things when it comes to frozen and dairy stuff.

TJ Blackwell: 00:13:35

That's great.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:36

But the chocolate, you know, when I'm on Jeopardy, that's gonna come in handy.

TJ Blackwell: 00:13:39

Chocolate does a similar thing to ice cream. So you get chocolate ice cream does both.

Joshua Noel: 00:13:43

True.

TJ Blackwell: 00:13:44

Yeah. But what a robust answer. So we are going to get.

You explain a couple of things for our audience, namely womanist theology and black liberation theology. So could you break those down for us real quick?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:14:00

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:14:00

So that we can ask more questions about them?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:14:03

Sounds great. Sounds great.

So womanist theology, basically, it's a response to the way that mainstream theology left some voices and experience experiences marginalized. And it has. It focuses on black and other women of color. And black liberation theology is the same in terms of being a response. Right.

To how mainstream theology left out some of the voices and experiences of folks, but it actually makes the case that God is on the side of racially and economically subjugated people.

TJ Blackwell: 00:14:45

Yeah. So how did the two work together in today's time and culture?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:14:52

Yeah. Yeah. So I would say one of the things that's really significant and central to womanist theology is this ethic of love. Right. And this notion of love.

And it's agape love is central. And love is central to the definition of womanism. Right. A love that embraces everyone, all people. So womanism, it may start with.

It uses black women's experience and women of color's experience as a starting point for looking at folks experiences of God. Right. But it truly is all inclusive and embraces everyone.

And so Womanist theology, the way it works together with Black liberation theology is that it helps expand it. Right. It gives this beautiful, expansive nature where it does include.

It doesn't just have the perspective of black men, because that's historically the criticism of black liberation theology, but it expands. Expands it to the care of all of humanity, inclusion of all people. Yeah, right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:16:11

So in your book Womanist Bioethics, Social Justice, Spirituality, and Black Women's Health, you argue that mainstream bioethics often privileges white male perspectives. Could you share a specific example of how this exclusion impacts healthcare outcomes for black women?

What you do in the book, but for us here, you know, sure.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:16:34

Great, great. I would love to. So a big way that it does that is if we look at health disparities, right?

And health disparities are these preventable differences in health outcomes among groups. And it's measured by the occurrence and predominance of disease and adverse health conditions.

And so we have this issue of health disparities, and we have examples of that. More than half of African American women 20 years and older have hypertension.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for African American women, and they're more likely than white women to be diagnosed with diabetes.

So the fact that black women are understudied group in health care and suffer from a lack of access to quality health care, these are ways that this does show up. Right.

And what's important is that if you think about the central source for Christian ethics, broadly, there are several sources of Christian ethics, Right? So scripture, definitely experience, and some depending on your denomination, some folks say tradition. But if we really look at just experience.

Experience, right. It's hard to understand the plight of others without understanding their. Their lived experience. So.

So that's why womanist bioethics is really important, because it really does help us to. To kind of, you know, go a bit deeper and look into another experience of folks in our country.

Joshua Noel: 00:18:19

Yeah, yeah, no, that's good stuff. I actually cheated a little bit and added some questions last night, and I stole them. So on the way. We are on the way to the movies.

I'm with my wife and her friend. And, you know, my wife works in the medical field and her friends actually kind of works in politics a little bit.

So I was like, hey, this is a perfect time to just. What would you guys want to know from someone who, you know, women is biowabics?

You know, so we got a couple questions where they gave me that we're going to steal.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:18:49

All right, all right.

Joshua Noel: 00:18:50

Full transparency. One, though, that they they asked, how do you address the issues?

Women's pains typically gets taken less seriously by doctors on average, whenever you just do, like a normal doctor's visit.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:19:03

Yeah, that is real. So I'll start by saying this is such a problem that the CDC started a campaign called Hear Her.

And that campaign, now, it is specific to maternal health. Right. Broadly. And it's trying to. They're. They're trying to do work in helping women and clinicians, you know, really helping folks to.

To take what women say seriously when they are talking about their bodies. Right. And so. So, yeah, this is a very. A real problem. So it's something that. That we. We all need to have a hand in. Right. Because.

Because I think it definitely goes. It goes to these deeper issues of how we perceive women broadly in our culture. Right. And even in our theology.

It's interesting to listen to some of my women students here and they'll tell me, you know, I grew up in a tradition where women were supposed to be seen and not heard. I grew up in a tradition where women really had a lot of constraints on them. And so I understand that. For me, I look at this as.

Yeah, so what we see happening in the clinical setting of women not being listened to, I think it really does go deeper, and it really is a part of a deeper cultural issue that's really hard to get at.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:51

Right, yeah, yeah.

We've talked before with people who have how, like, this whole idea of, like, women not being able to be ministers, and it's like, you go to the early church and it's like, well, that just wasn't always a thing.

And one thing I found interesting, more recently, you hear a lot about, like, Ignatius and some of his more like contemplative practices that he would talk about. And now I'm reading Julian of Norwich more and I'm like, she kind of talks about the same stuff, but better. Like, she says it better.

And I'm like, why have I never heard this?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:21:20

So it's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's deep. It's like, it is really deeply ingrained. Yeah. In our. In our culture. I do realize that.

TJ Blackwell: 00:21:32

Yeah, yeah.

And it's really present, like, I've heard so many times from different women that I know just like, yeah, no, Doc doesn't really take you seriously if you say, oh, this hurts, this hurts. And it's a menstrual symptom. They're just like, oh, don't worry about it. It's normal. That happens all the time.

And it, you know, there Are conditions that go untreated, like endometriosis, that doctors either won't take seriously and you'll never even be. It goes undiagnosed, and it leads to serious problems because they are serious problems.

But how would you address those issues, be addressed by our medical system? Is it as simple as having more female doctors or like banning men from the field of gynecology? Or what do we do? I've heard that a lot.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:22:16

That's interesting. Well, it's interesting. So I. Yeah, I wouldn't ban men from the field of gynecology because I tell you, I've had a couple of good male doctors.

I think it really. Part of the solution is in the training. Right. How we train doctors and how they're mentored.

Because if you look at the field of medicine, this, the whole, you know, when you do your residency and, you know, you're. You're being mentored by. By another physician when you're. When you're a student.

And I think that that is one of the areas where things really can go awry or really can go well. Right. Because you can have that a mentor who has really does this beautiful kind of formation, or you can have someone who is going to continue to.

In a way that does harm right. To patients.

And so formation, the mentoring, the training, even in the educational part, like in medical school, which the medical school curriculum does not have any space for anything extra. Right, we understand that.

Joshua Noel: 00:23:41

But.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:23:41

Yeah, but formation is really important. And I think that's just one of the ways to. To get at it. Right. Is through that.

TJ Blackwell: 00:23:49

Yeah.

I know there are some organizations that try to combat that by requiring that you, like, continue education and maybe retake certifications every few years. But not everywhere does that.

And even when they do that, sometimes people who are in their old ways just kind of stick to the old way and click through, you know, dot through their test just so they can keep doing their job.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:24:12

That's right. That's right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:24:13

There are tempting in a lot of cases, but is that being updated holistically? Like, are we with the intention to improve it or are we just updating it because we changed the spelling of a word?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:24:25

You know, I hear you. No, I totally hear you on that. Yeah. And that's one of the. And that is. That's.

That's really one of the problems a lot of times, because we have almost this kind of mechanical way that we look at the body, you know, as a machine and within medicine particularly.

And so instead of really taking time in the medical profession to really, you know, look at things like virtues and, you know, how do we form virtues in clinicians? Right. That kind of thing sometimes is often missing and to our detriment as a society to families and patients.

Because here we have, at Duke Divinity, we have the theology, Medicine and culture program. And it's really a powerful program because we do take the time to talk about things like virtues and moral formation for clinicians throughout the.

Their career, you know, not just at the beginning, not just in training, but even, you know, as they progress. And so things like that, I think, are really helpful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:46

And, you know, that might mean the answer to my next question is going to be the same answer.

But, you know, there are studies that show that black women suffer more like an alarmingly higher rate of birth mortalities than women of other ethnicities, usually due to just how doctors kind of, you know, assumptions that doctors come with, I guess. But why do you think this kind of thing happens and how do we address this as a culture?

Is it just go back to that ethics question, or is there something more that maybe needs to be done?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:26:18

Yeah, so that's one of the things that I really take a little bit of time in the book to kind of trace this history of black women's bodies, but particularly the devaluation of black women's bodies throughout history. So beginning. Beginning with enslavement. So black women, of course, all black. Black enslaved persons were counted as property, Right.

They were not considered human. And so as the medical field, as medicine is getting underway and physicians are being trained in this context, right.

Of a population of folks who are not counted as human. And the way hospitals were first established, they were literally training grounds for physicians.

They're not these bastions of modern ethics where we're concerned with ethics and care that they are now. But they were really for just the training and experimentation.

And so as these folks who were looked at as just property were used in medical experiments, in the training that continued, that kind of understanding of them carried over. Right.

So once you get out of medical school, you still have these folks whose bodies have been devalued, whose bodies are looked at as, you know, in service of white bodies. Right. So J. Marion Sims is a good example who was. He's considered the father of gynecology, and he did experimentations on enslaved African women.

And so the. And they call them the mothers of gynecology. Betsy, Anarcha and Lucy are the three names that they have of some of those women.

But, yeah, so that devaluation continued to carry Over. Because the one thing that changes very slowly with humans are our perceptions of others. Right. And the stories that we tell of others.

And so even after enslavement ended, you still had medical experimentation on these black bodies that were devalued. So I think if we really look at it through history, some of that even continues. You'd be really surprised. Sometimes I am surprised.

Talking with some of the current medical students of the things they still hear about the differences in black people, like black folks don't feel pain like white folks. I mean, it's really kind of. It's kind of scary. Right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:29:38

That's a real thing people say, by the way.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:29:39

Yeah, yeah. But these people, specifically women, they carry over.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:45

Yeah, thankfully.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:29:46

Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:47

Which is.

TJ Blackwell: 00:29:47

That is. That's the most absurd part about the issue, which is real.

And people don't realize that or refuse to accept it because they're hearing that it's an issue from just women that they know, and they're learning something different from the people who are supposed to know these things. So they dismiss it.

Joshua Noel: 00:30:07

Because along those lines, I. Remembering back, this might be just really specific and random, but, like, during the peak of the COVID pandemic.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:30:16

Yes.

Joshua Noel: 00:30:16

I remember hearing something about how because of.

I'm trying to think of the right wording here, those who are, you know, financial discrepancies against different kinds of, you know, people, groups and areas, it ended up correlating as such, where it ended up where a lot more people who are black ended up not receiving the same kind of care. And then instead of addressing that, a lot of what I've heard in churches and stuff that I was around was, well, how can a virus be racist?

Well, that's. That's not what they were saying, but that's like. That's what people were hearing. Why is it that kind of disconnect? Why does that happen?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:30:53

Yeah, and I think it really does go back to. To this notion of, you know, experience. Right. This. It's. It's. And to me, experience is directly tied to proximity.

Trying to understand the experience of others and how. How, you know, they are being affected every day, day in and day out, by their class, race, ethnicity.

I think that is really important because if we're not. If we don't have proximity to folk, Right. That really. It keeps us disconnected. And I look at there.

There are some studies that actually do a deep dive in the correlation between people's zip code and, you know, health disparities that may be prevalent with. With them. And because a lot of our Unfortunately, a lot of our neighborhoods are still really segregated.

And particularly, you know, I look here in the south, and we were looking here, even in just, you know, North Carolina, just in Durham, the amount of segregation is. It's insane. And by zip code, we can just see the disparities in health outcomes.

And so because we are so disconnected, I think that really is what does us in. We don't have proximity. We don't really take time even to, you know, kind of try to try to get into someone else's space. That makes us uncomfortable.

Right. Like, I'm really trying in my life. I'm trying to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Right. Because that's what proximity means. Right.

It means being uncomfortable trying to get to know somebody else and, you know, what life is like for them. So. So, yes, I think that's. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:05

So your book outlines the roles of hospitals, churches and communities in improving health care for black women.

And do you know of, like, can you share examples of a successful collaboration or initiative that embodies these principles like the one you're in right now?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:33:22

Right. Yeah. So I'm really excited about.

So, because of, you know, because of this book, the research that I've been doing for my book, I was able to apply for funding, and I got funding to do a research project where we actually, as a research team, we were able to go out and look at black churches and bioethics. So we did interviews with pastors, with church members, and it was really wonderful to understand how folks were thinking about.

We focused on black maternal health, and we were trying to understand how folks are thinking about this issue. How is this issue addressed within the faith community?

And what can faith communities do, Right, to be supportive of mamas and babies, the survival of mamas and babies. And so one of the things that we're going to do in our research, we have this notion of accompaniment. And I know that's not usually done.

We don't think like that in the academy. But I think that in order for us to really and truly be serious about making change, we really do have to sometimes think outside of the box. Right.

Kind of go against the grain. And so we're trying to accompany churches on this journey. So we're going to do a four black maternal health and black church forum.

And so we're bringing together folks from churches, so pastors, members, we're bringing together clinicians. We've been asking gynecologists and primary care providers. We want everybody in the room. We're bringing together birth workers. So doulas midwives.

We want everybody in the room because in order for us to really strategize on how to facilitate the survival and flourishing of mamas and babies, we need everybody in the room, right? So that's what we're doing. So we're doing that at the end of this month.

And then later this spring, we're already planning for another forum which is going to be looking at policies, you know, policy measures and how congregations and individuals in the community can also inform themselves about out policies and push for, for helpful policies. So, so, yeah, so that's, that's one of the things we're doing here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:51

Awesome. Awesome, man.

Well, I know you mentioned how they're working together some, you know, across the church, hospitals, all getting all the people in the room for these panels, but I want to focus in a little bit on specifically the church. You may know the main goal of our show is to help listeners and leaders in the church to help better pursue and engender Christian unity.

So what practical ways do you think the church could better be uniting together across like racial and denominational splits? All the different divides already exist in the church?

How can we unite better together in our efforts specifically to pursue health care system reforms that would benefit everybody?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:36:31

Yeah, that I think is. This is key. And one of the things I think that we would need to really focus on and hone in on is this notion of awareness, right?

Education and awareness. That's one reason why I wrote the book, right?

So that people can have something to help guide them as they're trying to look at a lot of times where we have problems in front of us. Like, hey, where do I even start on trying to figure, figure this thing out, right?

So really coming together, working toward meeting awareness to these issues of health disparity. But then also, and that's part of that is, you know, educating ourselves about the experience of others.

We can really understand what others are experiencing. But I think the most important thing is faith communities can provide opportunities for connection. I think that's something that is.

It's so taken for granted, just the need for us to connect to one another, to hear one another's stories. That's one of the reasons why I have, I have quite a number of stories in the book because there is some.

Something about hearing another person's story that just sometimes it can be even life changing. Right. There are some stories that I have heard from people, I am telling you the truth, just have changed me forever. Right.

And so, yes, these communities can provide that Opportunity for folks to just come together. There's real power in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:38:23

So what do you think we would see change if everyone in the church pursued a greater bioethic and united our efforts like you want?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:38:31

I think that one of the things that we really would see is. I think we would. I think we could see a reduction in health disparities. Right. And I think that's the road to combating these disparities. It's.

Well, one road, Right? There are many roads, but I think this really could be one road to that.

Joshua Noel: 00:38:54

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:38:55

So where do people go to get your book? Wellness, bioethics, Social justice, Spirituality, and Black Women's Health. I'm sure it's on Amazon, but is there anywhere specific we should go?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:39:06

You can also go to my website. It's y LindWilson.com.

TJ Blackwell: 00:39:15

All right, so head over to Y. Lind Wilson. Pick that up. It's. It's pretty good. But before we start to end the show, we do what we like to call a God moment.

And that's where we just bring up where we've seen God in our lives recently, Whether that be a blessing challenge, a moment of worship, whatever it may be. I always make Josh go first because that gives the rest of us plenty of time to think. So, Josh, do you have a God moment for us this week?

Joshua Noel: 00:39:43

Yeah, we, you know, we're in the midst of a move, and things keep getting change or pushback or sudden, you know, this has to happen, and then we have to do this or. Oh, all of a sudden, actually, you need this document, and you have to get it in a day. You know, it's like just constant craziness and chaoticness.

And I guess the challenge is to remember where I have my peace, because there's not a lot of peace right now.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:40:08

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:40:10

Yeah, I'll go next. But for me, the God moment is usually kind of small. I guess this one, they're all kind of small, really. We're talking about God.

But I was reminded, and this has been a while. I just never mentioned it on the show, but I was reminded that no man is an island, including me.

You know, I was in a spot, I needed to borrow a little money, which hasn't happened since I was jobless because I was, like, 15. So getting that reminder was, you know, I'm no better than everyone else. I'm a person. No person exists without their community.

We can't all do it alone. And God was there because I had the help that I needed. So that was something for me. Dr. Wilson, do you have a guy moment?

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:41:03

I do. This was a wild. This past week was a wild week. My daughter came home with some kind of allergic reaction and she's like this healthy kid. Right?

That's the thing about having healthy kids. When something does happen, you're like, right, so we did panic. We did panic.

But thanks be to God, it was just like, you know, hives, like a stress response. And we are still trying to figure out what she's allergic to, but. But thank God she's okay. You know, like, it's. That's the best thing.

That's the best feeling a parent can have, is that you find out, hey, this kid's okay and they're gonna be okay. Yeah. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:41:47

So if you like the show, please consider sharing it with a friend. Share with your enemies. Share with your cousins. We love the cousin angle. Cousins gotta. Gotta do it.

Joshua Noel: 00:41:58

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:41:58

Especially rate the show. Especially the cousins. Rate the show. We prefer rating reviewing on Podchaser or Apple Podcasts and Spotify. They have their own little system.

But podchaser is great. Boost the algorithm a lot. I think they pay Google a lot of money to take what they say seriously. So.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:13

Yeah, good pots too. We just forget to write that down.

TJ Blackwell: 00:42:16

Yeah, good. Pods and Pod Chaser. Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:20

Yeah. Also, we have other shows in the network that aren't just this one, surprisingly so.

If you check out the Amazon Podcast network, there's a link to the website down below. You can get a Kung Fu pizza party. Do you want a Brandon I to give you high flying action and wisdom one slice at a time in 30 minutes or less?

Check that out. It's great. You know, Christian actually does let nothing move you if you want some more Bible. And TJ and I are on systematic ecology together too. So.

TJ Blackwell: 00:42:47

Pop culture, those other guys. Except Brent.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:49

Yeah, and like 11 more. But yeah, it's fine. It's like a rotating host. It's. It's fun. Check it out if you want.

TJ Blackwell: 00:42:58

Yeah. We hope you enjoyed it, though. Coming up, we're going to be interviewing Jonathan Foster, the author of Indigo, the Color of Grief.

After that, we're going to be talking with Kate Blewett about her involvement with the Porter's Gate Collective, a music group that creates modern hymns that could be used in various church traditions, from Catholic to Pentecostal and beyond. And then we're going to be interviewing Pastor Matt Thrifey. Thrifey. I'm not sure how to say his name. Does that make me a bad host? A little bit.

The author of follow genuine discipleship in the modern age, whom Jay Patty actually got us connected with. If you know us, you know Jay Patty is a good friend of ours. And finally, at the end of season, season one, Francis Chan will be on the show.

Professor Wylin D. Wilson: 00:43:38

What?

TJ Blackwell: 00:43:39

If season one ever ends, Francis Chan will.

Joshua Noel: 00:43:41

He doesn't know about it, so season one probably won't end. It's fine, though. Yep.