EDS at Union

Flint Water Crisis Podcast

For this episode of EDS at Union NOW, Dean Kelly Brown Douglas speaks with the Rev. Dan Scheid, Rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in downtown Flint, Michigan. They discuss the Flint water crisis, how the community has worked together, and the Episcopal Church's response.

The EDS at Union Spring Community Read is Anna Clark’s riveting book, The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy.In this book, Flint is an example of a much broader story of American urban tragedy, and it is a story of poverty, race, and toxic environmental injustices that we all must learn as we seek to become effective community leaders.

Discussion Questions:

  • The water crisis in Flint, MI made headlines for a few months, but has not had the same media impact for the past few years. What are ways that your context has crises that everyone paid attention to when they began, but have become the new normal, and so are largely ignored by those not directly involved?
  • How do you see wealth, race and power playing a role in the Flint crisis?
  • Reverend Scheid says that it is easier to become engaged when “everyone” is upset, but it takes a lot of courage to be engaged in a crisis before everyone is rallying for change. Are there places where you can be brave and be engaged in something that needs to be brought to the attention of many?
  • Dean Kelly asked the Reverend Scheid how he understood race to have played an effect on how and when the water crisis gained more attention. Do you see situations where you are that are directly or indirectly affected by race or histories of racial segregation?
  • Reverend Scheid often talks about the difference between being inconvenienced versus being devastated by a crisis. What are crises that inconvenience you? Have you ever been devastated by a crisis?
  • The question that Dean Douglas poses to the Reverent Scheid about the Jesus Movement is relevant to us all. Paraphrasing that for your own situation: Where is Jesus moving where you are? Are you (and your Church) moving with him?

Questions developed by Maryann Philbrook, candidate for Master of Divinity at EDS at Union.