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LOUISVILLE — Continuing a series on reconciliation, the “Leading Theologically” podcast hosted by the Rev. Bill Davis of the Presbyterian Foundation features Adrian Miller, a soul food scholar and two-time winner of the James Beard Award who’s served for more than a decade as executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches. Listen to their 29-minute conversation here.
Miller refers to himself as a “recovering lawyer” who served in the Clinton White House in the One America Initiative.
“I knew there needed to be racial reconciliation work in the church, and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” he said of his work with Colorado churches. “I just didn’t think it would be this hard. I thought having a shared faith tradition would create enough common ground to start having these conversations, but man, it is just really tough. There are people who have a worldview they’ve settled into and they do not want it disturbed purposefully or even accidentally.”
Early on in his work with churches in the Mile High State, Miller came up with idea of holding an interracial church potluck. Sit down with someone you don’t know, he urged the 200 or so people who showed up, and “just talk, and after that, maybe find a way your respective churches can start to get into dialogue and build relationships.”
Ahead of the event, Black pastors told him they were skeptical. “They said, ‘Adrian, these white churches don’t want to do this work,’” Miller said. “‘They just want us to come on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and preach a sermon so they can pat themselves on the back and feel good about themselves.’”
Miller told those pastors he thought the public’s outrage over the killings of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Gardner and Sandra Bland had “created a space maybe to talk about what’s going on.” A half-dozen Black congregations and a like number of white congregations showed up for the potluck.
“I checked with one of the [white] pastors about a month later,” Miller said. “She said, ‘We’ve been doing some things with the Black church, but my congregants are asking me, Why are we still doing things with this Black church?’ which fed directly into what the Black pastors were saying.”
“It’s really hard right now. I’m seeing how the body of Christ is broken by race and other things,” Miller told Davis. “The work of repair and restoration is really tough.”
Miller cited “a lot of fatigue in people of color, being in a position where they have to educate and be guides — so much so that I have met several who have said, ‘I’m through. I just don’t want to do this anymore,’ which I understand, but it’s heartbreaking because I just don’t see how this work can happen unless you have people from a marginalized perspective involved in these conversations.”
“I don’t know why, but God has given me the grace and the patience to be in conversations and hear wicked stuff from white people and stay in that space. I consider this a form of ministry, so I’m still going to do this work,” Miller said. “I don’t know how much longer, but I have the energy right now.”
“Just take that first step,” he said he advises people of faith. “It doesn’t always have to be that person of color taking the first step.”
The other challenge, he said, is “you’ve got cynicism and anger from people of color, and on the other side you’ve got fear of not wanting to be in a space where you’re the bad person, or you’ll say something that makes people really upset and unravel any progress that’s been made. We’ve got those two things that are clashing and really harming the ability to do this work.”
Davis asked the man known as “the soul food scholar” how the practice of sharing meals together can help cultivate a spirit of reconciliation.
“The key ingredient is the food has to be good. Nobody wants to get around a table of nasty stuff,” Miller replied. “I think the key here is first setting the table. … Just get to the table people who are willing, and then build out from there.”
“When you’re sitting down at a table, you can’t help but recognize the humanity of the people at that table. I that’s why during the civil rights movement, those dining spaces were being integrated,” Miller said. “I tell people cooking is an act of love. When somebody makes something to nourish you, they’re saying in a way they care about your survival. They’re saying they love you. Even if the food is straight nasty, the act of cooking is still meaningful, because somebody’s at least trying.”
“It’s not only eating together, but intentionally cooking the food of the marginalized group to build relationships, then pairing together people of differing perspectives as art of that journey,” he said. It’s a plan Miller hasn’t “fleshed out yet, but it’s coming soon.”
Through such apps as Timeleft, where people sign up to have dinner with strangers, “I am seeing a lot of creativity and innovation in terms of getting us together,” Miller said. “I think people are recognizing the isolation, that things right now are wrong in our society and there are enough people of goodwill out there, but for whatever reason they’re not showing up.”
“I think the challenge for all of us of goodwill who want to build s shared multiracial society is to create those avenues to connect.”
Decades ago, Miller worked in the Clinton White House on the One America Initiative, which published a list of 10 things every American should do to promote racial reconciliation. Davis asked Miller about three of the 10:
Make a commitment to become informed about people from other races and cultures.
Make a point to raise your concerns about comments or actions that appear prejudicial, even if you are not the targets of these actions.
Visit other areas of the city, region or country that allow you to experience parts of other cultures, beyond their food.
“I think going to a place and just witnessing the lived experience of other people in that microcosm helps us to understand,” Miller told Davis. “You start to see that you have no clue what’s going on in a place until you go to that place” and “start talking to people and see how power is disseminated in a place and operates in a place. It’s eye-opening.”
It was more than 30 years ago that Miller and his team compiled the list. Davis asked: “What would yourself today say to yourself 30 years ago about this work of reconciliation?”
“I would say, ‘Hey, you’re not going to accomplish as much as you had hoped, but the journey is still worth it, because those things you do accomplish are meaningful,’” Miller said. One example: About a decade after publishing his book “Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time,” “I came to find someone read the chapter on greens and then started a green festival in San Diego, inspired by my book. There are seeds that we plant in the way that we live our lives, in the way we interact with others, that sprout in some ways seen and in many ways unseen.”
“I think I would tell myself still do the work, because it’s God’s work and it’s meaningful, and in many ways despite the disappointments, it has been fun. I feel very blessed to be able to connect to people through food,” he said.
When asked the question with which Davis ends each conversation — “What’s the best thing you’ve heard lately?” — Miller said his answer might “sound really strange,” because he’s currently researching for a book on African American street food vendors. The Library of Congress recorded some of their street cries. “You are transported back to this place so you can know what it’s like to be in a place like New Orleans, Charleston or Savannah, and hear these African Americans rhyming and singing to get your attention to get you to buy something. That’s really cool,” Miller said. “I’m a big history buff, and this is at the intersection of history and food — all kinds of cool stuff.”
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