Episode 8: Grace or Violence with Charrise Barron
february 23, 2021
Charles Vogl welcomes Charrise Barron who shares experiences and lessons about the meaning of grace. She touches on how extending grace plays a part in making freedom work.
Charrise Barron is an assistant professor of Africana Studies and Music at Brown University. Her research, writing, and presentations explore African American religion, music, culture, and history.
After she earned her Bachelor of Arts cum laude in computer science from Harvard University, Dr. Barron worked around the world as a Senior Business Systems Analyst for Mars, Inc., the company that makes M&M’s and Snickers candy.
Later she earned a Master of Divinity from Yale summa cum laude and a PhD from Harvard University in African and African American studies, with a specialty in ethnomusicology. She is now an assistant professor of Africana Studies and Music at Brown University and a performing faculty member supporting Brown University’s Rites and Reason Theatre. Her research, writing, and presentations explore topics in African American religion, music, culture, and history.
She served as pastor of The Black Church at Yale, a student-run campus church founded in the early 1970s by black Yale students and alumni. She also now serves as a minister at Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Artistically she writes and performs gospel music.
SHARED WISDOM:
WISDOM #1 Extend the grace you want to receive.
Unity and Reconciliation can't happen without grace.
WISDOM #2 Forgive early and often.
It's still true that forgiveness helps the forgiver more than the person forgiving.
WISDOM #3
Academic spaces are supposed to support freedom of thought. They don’t really. We need the freedom to make mistakes. We can't have that freedom without grace.
WISDOM #4 We must see others as not an enemy.
Students come in with judgments about people and the way the world works. It's hard to have a conversation that can persuade if we're not able to extend grace.
CONNECT WITH CHARRISE: LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Website
Until next time, take it slower than you think you should.