By TERRY TANG Associated Press

Brandi Brown has yet to find a Black church near her Southern California home that feels right for her. So when she wants to talk about God, she relies on someone over a thousand miles (1,600 kilometers) away.

Like her, Ellen Lo Hoffman, who lives just outside Seattle and is Chinese American, is a progressive Christian. They have known each other through a Christian fellowship for six years. But for the past three years, Hoffman has supported Brown, a former minister, through monthly virtual chats.

“How Black women and how women of color experience God is different than how other people experience God,” said Brown, who is Black. “If I imagine myself, like, sitting on a bench trying to talk to God, Ellen is there too — to sit on the bench with me and point out observations and allow me to interpret things that I’m experiencing.”

For some Christian progressives, the lack of acknowledgement by their churches or ministries of the 2020 racial reckoning was the final push to go elsewhere. Some women of color have been disappointed and upset by evangelical Christian churches — both predominantly white and multiracial — whose leaders failed to openly decry racism or homophobia. Traditional pastors and other leaders often see congregants’ concerns through a patriarchal lens, leaving many feeling dismissed or overlooked. Still, others said they felt alienated by evangelical supporters of former President Donald Trump, with whom they disagree on politics.

Ellen Lo Hoffman, the co-founder of Soul Reparations, a nonprofit providing free spiritual support to women, poses for a portrait at her home Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Bothell, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Many are now finding solace and reaffirming their faith on their own terms through what they call “spiritual directors,” who are not necessarily priests, pastors, counselors or therapists, but can help others explore thoughts about God or broader concepts around a higher power.

With nearly 24 years of ministry leadership experience, Hoffman has been a self-employed spiritual director for the past seven years. The 2014 death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer was a pivotal moment for her. She gathered staff members of color, as the associate regional director of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, in a discussion.

Hoffman came away vowing to be a better ally.

So when the murder of George Floyd and anti-Asian hate crimes soon dominated national conversation, Hoffman wanted to do more than march in protests and facilitate bystander training. She said she noticed that a lot of people of color needed “care in the midst of racial trauma.” So with her husband, she created Soul Reparations, a nonprofit providing free spiritual support to women.

“With the people that I was already meeting with, the impact of the racial trauma in 2020 was constantly coming up,” Hoffman said. “And then the people who were reaching out looking for a spiritual director was all women of color looking for spaces to process.”

The sessions are intimate one-on-one chats in person or over Zoom. It’s the client who drives the conversation. Often, there’s no Bible talk or preaching from Hoffman. The discussions can be more philosophical.

“Simply allowing them to tell their story, giving them space to share their pain — is really healing for them and it restores a sense of identity,” Hoffman said. Churches, religious leaders and officials don’t get to “have the last word” on how women choose to express their Christianity.

She has since recruited seven other women of color to serve as directors. In total, they have helped more than 200 women, including queer women, over the past three years. The demand hasn’t waned. Recently, Hoffman had to close a 60-person waitlist.

That number doesn’t surprise Jessica Chen, of Los Angeles, who virtually meets with Hoffman monthly.

“I do see this kind of movement of women of color who’ve left kind of the traditional church environment to create these spaces for other women of color,” Chen said. “So, sort of reimagining what community can look like for women of color, I think that’s very much needed.”

Related Articles

Former Holy Angels employee sues school and archdiocese for alleged discrimination

Q&A: Minnesota’s first Humanistic rabbi on God, justice and human responsibility 

Q&A: Suzanne Kelly, new CEO of Minnesota Council of Churches, wants to build a faith community ‘that makes people feel whole’

Kamala Harris: A Baptist with a Jewish husband and a faith that traces back to MLK and Gandhi

Hamline University settles lawsuit over showing of Prophet Muhammad in art history class

Only in the last few years did Chen consider she might be limiting herself by only hearing male pastors who have a specific perspective that’s been “universalized,” she said. While her last church was diverse and multigenerational, she felt like she wasn’t growing as a person.

“I want to hear from Black women, Asian women, Indigenous folks … queer folks. What has your faith experience been and how can I learn from your experiences as well?” Chen said. “And I think that makes our understanding and relationship with God or spirituality a lot richer.”

In 2020, Rebekah James Lovett, of Chicago, tried to broach the subject of social justice with her evangelical pastor. She stayed up till 4 a.m. crafting a written plea to him. The pastor met with her but she came away feeling like he was simply placating her.

Raised in Christianity by Indian immigrant parents, she said she came to a realization, “I can’t ever go back” to white, male-dominated churches that don’t consider other viewpoints.

She felt liberated — but also a bit rudderless. Then she heard Hoffman speak on a podcast, “Reclaiming My Theology.”

“The idea of going to a woman who also is pastorally trained was interesting to me,” Lovett said. “Christianity as we’ve been sold it is built on this sense of certainty that somebody has the answer and you just have to look to the Bible and it’s all right there. Whereas for Ellen, there’s this invitation to wonder. That was never there before.”

After adding her name to the waitlist, Lovett became a regular client of Hoffman’s in fall 2021.

Hoffman’s rates for spiritual direction range from $85-$100 per session — or, in some cases, are free. Her paying clients, or “directees,” don’t seem to mind. They liken it to a regular check-up or therapy session.

“I do feel like it is a wellness practice as well as a spiritual practice. It’s something that keeps me centered,” Brown said. “I’m not trying to reach a goal. My only desire is to, deepen my personal relationship with God.”

Many have left churches across the U.S. over the past few decades. Around 30% of Americans identify as “the nones” or people with no organized religion affiliation, according to a 2023 AP-NORC poll. They include atheists, agnostics and people who are “nothing in particular.”

The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, who last year became the first woman and woman of color elected general minister and president of the socially liberal United Church of Christ, agrees churches are often patriarchal. They “continue to be exclusive and bring narratives of hatred, diminishing the human spirit and decrying people’s humanity,” she said. While UCC congregations have become more racially and ethnically diverse, Thompson wants to see that diversity reflected at the top as well.

“We continue to include the voices of all in the leadership — as best we can — paying attention to those whose presence and voices have been historically underrepresented in the life of the UCC,” Thompson said in an email.

Spiritual direction has actually reinvigorated Brown to not give up on looking for a church.

“I’m excited about joining a church that talks about justice, that cares about LGBTQ+ people,” Brown said. “I want to be a part of a community.”

By TED ANTHONY AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination “on behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth.” America, Barack Obama thundered, “is ready for a better story.” JD Vance insisted that the Biden administration “is not the end of our story,” and Donald Trump called on fellow Republicans to “write our own thrilling chapter of the American story.”

“This week,” comedian and former Obama administration speechwriter Jon Lovett said Thursday on NBC, “has been about a story.”

In the discourse of American politics, this kind of talk from both sides is unsurprising — fitting, even. Because in the campaign season of 2024, just as in the fabric of American culture at large, the notion of “story” is everywhere.

This year’s political conventions were, like so many of their kind, curated collections of elaborate stories carefully spun to accomplish one goal — getting elected. But lurking behind them was a pitched, high-stakes battle over how to frame the biggest story of all — the one about America that, as Harris put it, should be “the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.”

The American story — an unlikely one, filled with twists that sometimes feel, as so many enjoy saying, “just like a movie” — sits at the nucleus of American culture for a unique reason.

Americans live in one of the only societies that was built not upon hundreds of years of common culture but upon stories themselves — “the shining city upon the hill,” “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” “all men are created equal.” Even memorable ad campaigns — “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet” — are part of this. In some ways, the United States — not coincidentally, the place where the frontier myth, Hollywood and Madison Avenue were all born — willed itself into existence and significance by iterating and reiterating its story as it went.

The campaigns understand that. So they are putting forward to voters two varying — starkly opposite, some might say — versions of the American story.

How the two parties are using stories

From the Republicans comes one flavor of story: an insistence that to “make America great again” in the future we must fight to reinvigorate traditional values and reclaim the moral fiber and stoutheartedness of generations past. In his convention speech last month, Trump invoked three separate conflicts — the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and World War II — in summoning American history’s glories.

To reinforce its vision, the GOP deployed the likes of musician Kid Rock, celebrity wrestler Hulk Hogan and Lee Greenwood singing “God Bless the USA.” Trump genuflected to the firefighting gear of Corey Comperatore, who had been killed in an assassination attempt on the candidate days earlier. Vance spoke of “villains” and offered up the Appalachian coming-of-age story he told in “Hillbilly Elegy.”

The Republicans, as they often do, leaned into military storylines, bringing forth families of slain servicemen to critique President Joe Biden’s “weak” leadership. And they made all efforts to manage their constituencies. Vance’s wife, Usha, who is of Indian descent, lauded him as “a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy” — a classic American trope — while underscoring that he respected her vegetarian diet and had learned how to cook Indian food for her mother.

“What could I say that hasn’t already been said before?” she said, introducing Vance. “After all, the man was already the subject of a Ron Howard movie.”

And the Democrats? Their convention last week focused on a new and different future full of “joy” and free of what Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called “Trump’s politics of darkness.” It was an implied “Star Wars” metaphor if there ever was one.

Related Articles

Landlords cry foul as more states seal eviction records

Ready or not, election season in the US starts soon. The first ballots will go out in just two weeks

At least 5 Secret Service agents have been placed on modified duty after Trump assassination attempt

With conventions over, a 10-week sprint to the White House begins

Anti-Trump Republicans at DNC offer tips on approaching swing voters

It was hard to miss that the Democrats were not only coalescing around the multiracial, multicultural nation that Harris personifies but at the same time methodically trying to reclaim the plainspoken slivers of the American story that have rested in Republican hands in recent years.

The flag was everywhere, as was the notion of freedom. Tim Walz entered to the tune of John Mellencamp’s “Small Town,” an ode to the vision of America that Republicans usually trumpet. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota expounded upon the regular-guy traits that Walz embodies — someone who can change a car light, a hunter, a “dad in plaid.”

The former geography teacher’s football-coach history was mined as well, with beefy guys in Mankato West Scarlets jerseys fanning out across the stage to the marching-band strains of “The Halls of Montezuma.” They even enlisted a former GOP member of Congress to reinforce all the imagery by saying the quiet part loud.

“I want to let my fellow Republicans in on the secret: The Democrats are as patriotic as us,” said Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican critical of Trump.

Bringing it all together

Watching the videos and testimonials at both conventions, one storytelling technique stood tall: what journalists call “character-driven” tales. Whether it’s advocating for abortion rights or warning about mass illegal immigration or channeling anger about inflation, “regular” Americans became the narrative building blocks for national concerns.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson put it this way about the DNC in her Substack, “Letters from an American,” this past week: “The many stories in which ordinary Americans rise from adversity through hard work, decency, and service to others implicitly conflates those individual struggles with the struggles of the United States itself.”

In the past generation, the tools of storytelling have become more democratic. We are all publishers now — on X, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Truth Social. And we are all storytellers, telling mini versions of the American story in whatever ways we wish. Perspectives that have been long silenced and suppressed are making their way into the light.

Putting aside questions of truth and misinformation for a moment, how can a unifying American story be summoned when hundreds of millions of people are now able to tell it differently and from their own vantage points? Democratization is beneficial, but it can also be chaotic and hard to understand.

“A people who cannot stand together cannot stand at all,” poet Amanda Gorman said in her remarks at the DNC. But with so many stories to sort through, is unity more difficult than ever? Is there even a single, unifying “American story” at all? Should there be?

In the end, that’s why this election is about storytelling more than ever. Because the loudest, most persuasive tale — told slickly with the industrial-strength communications tools of the 21st century — will likely win the day.

In the meantime, the attempts to commandeer and amplify versions of that story will continue to Election Day and beyond. As long as there is an American nation, there will be millions of people trying to tell us what it means — desperately, angrily, optimistically, compellingly. Stories are a powerful weapon, and a potent metaphor as well. As Walz said about leaving Trump and Vance behind: “I’m ready to turn the page.”

Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, has been writing about American culture and politics for 35 years. Follow him at https://x.com/anthonyted