This Good Word, Episode 230 | What the Faith? with Allison Del Fium & Ashten Wickham
Allison Del Fium was born out of wedlock to two teenagers who struggled with addiction. Though she was raised by loving and stable grandparents, who kept her from the discourse, no amount of shelter could completely keep her out of the crossfire. As she entered young adulthood, Allison developed a deep yearning to unpack her childhood. Though it wasn’t until an unlikely friendship with a devout follower of Judaism did she begin to truly understand how important faith was to understanding identity and finding ultimate peace with the past. That friendship sparked a passion to learn about religion: combining history, science, and culture to look critically at how spiritually impacts our daily lives. Ultimately finding Christianity as her faith identity, Allison has spent the last few years advocating for better interfaith dialogue and a more holistic approach to finding the “spiritual”. It’s been through these interfaith discussions that Allison’s found reconciliation within her own life. She hopes What The Faith can do the same for others.
Ashten Wickham was born a Jehovah's Witness. During that time, he experienced losing family and friends due to sickness, often made worse by the JW law of not taking blood. During this time, while his family tried to stay as devout to their faith as possible, they were dealing with a broken mother, depression, and a father doing his best to maintain peace in his house. At the age of 21, he was disfellowshipped, shunned by his community and family and left with just a few belongings. After this, Ashten found his spirituality in art and the beauty of the diverse people he could now come to know. Currently, Ashten is a Co-Founder of What the Faith attempting to bring people together rather than tear them apart.
We live in a multi-faith society which often results in misinformation, ignorance, disagreements, hate speech, violence, and even wars (sometimes between people of the same belief system - yikes). But when you break it down, we're all asking the same question: "what the f*** are we doing here?"
What The Faithaims to help people answer this question for themselves.
We’re a community more interested in the journey than the destination. We’re a community more passionate about conversation than conversion. We’re a community more driven by empathy than by division. So, is there any way we can find commonality amongst utter chaos? Can we acknowledge a reality different from our own? Can we embrace curiosity over certainty? Can we celebrate empathy? What The Faith is a place to unpack these questions.
You can find out more about What the Faith by checking out their website and listening to the podcast. You can also follow them on Instagram and Facebook.
