Episode Details

🎙️ 5. Rev. Katie Nakamura-Rengers (Episcopal) – Standing in Awe: Faith Beyond Certainty

In this deeply grounding episode of The Sacred Slope, Alexis Rice is joined by Reverend Katie Nakamura-Rengers (@katienakamurarengers)—an Episcopal priest, musician, and bridge-builder whose ministry invites us to slow down, release certainty, and rediscover faith rooted in presence and relationship. Reverend Katie was recommended to The Sacred Slope by Reverend Joseph Yoo (@joseph.yoo), and you will know why once you listen. 

In a moment when Christianity is often pressured to be louder, faster, and more confident, this conversation offers a counter-witness: awe. Drawing from Anglican and Anglo-Catholic traditions, Reverend Katie reflects on how liturgy, silence, music, and embodied worship form us not through rigid rules, but through mystery and relational love.

Alexis and Katie explore why Jesus resists moral “protocols,” how God is encountered in the space between people—especially where power shifts—and why faith doesn’t require having all the answers to be deeply alive.

✨ In this conversation, we explore:
• Why faith doesn’t need certainty to be faithful
• How stillness and silence shape us in a distracted age
• Why rules exist for people—not people for rules
• Finding God in the space between us
• What embodied, sensory worship offers deconstructing Christians
• Why awe is a spiritual practice, not an intellectual failure

🕊️ Reverend Katie closes the episode with a prayer for listeners who may not have been prayed over in a long time—especially those who feel spiritually tender, tired, or unseen.

💛 A note to our listeners:
If this episode helped you breathe or loosen your grip on certainty, please share it with someone who may need that permission right now. Following, rating, and reviewing the podcast helps The Sacred Slope continue reaching those seeking faith grounded in love, not fear.

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About The Sacred Slope
Where the slippery slope becomes sacred ground.
For the spiritually tender—raised in or rooted in Christianity.
Come explore our global, diverse, inclusive Christian faith, deconstruction, and spiritual identity in a rapidly changing world. Through conversations with clergy, scholars, and cultural voices, the show creates space for people navigating faith after certainty, church harm, or political co-option of religion.

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