Author: RadicalDiscipleship

The Story of How Humanity Fell in Love with Itself Once Again

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses3 Comments
Lyla JuneBy Lyla June Johnston (right), a Diné singer, writer, and activist specializing in intergenerational and inter-ethnic healing, as well as Indigenous philosophy. This essay is [re]posted with permission from her Facebook page.

I spend a lot of time honoring and calling upon my Native American ancestors. I am keenly aware that my father’s people hold a venerable medicine as well. He has ancestry from the Great Sacred Motherland of Europe.

I have been called a half breed. I have been called a mutt. Impure. I have been told my mixed blood is my bane. That I’m cursed to have an Indian for a mother and a cowboy for a father.

But one day, as I sat in the ceremonial house of my mother’s people, a wondrous revelation landed delicately inside of my soul. It sang within me a song I can still hear today. This song was woven from the voices of my European grandmothers and grandfathers. Their songs were made of love.
Continue reading “The Story of How Humanity Fell in Love with Itself Once Again” →

Wild Lectionary: Woven in the Depths

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
Womb_2_Kovil_BG
Womb 2 Kovil BG Photo Credit: Fillipov Ivo, Creative Commons

Epiphany, Year B
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

By Ragan Sutterfield

E. Stanley Jones once wrote that if there is an instinct in the human heart to conceal there is also a deeper instict to reveal” (Victory Through Surrender). And yet, our culture keeps from authentic disclosure. We are invited, instead, to a kind of performative exposure, a way of revealing that also hides. We want to be known and seen but we do not trust those who might see us. We are afraid of what might happen if we are known, fully, authentically. So we manufacture disclosure on Facebook, hoping that in the commiseration of comments or praise of likes we will achieve what we are afraid to risk through a real openness. It is disclosure at the surface rather than at the depths.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Woven in the Depths” →

What I Would Do and Say the Next Time

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, UncategorizedLeave a comment

AlexieFrom Sherman Alexie, “On The Amtrak From Boston to New York City:”

The white woman across the aisle from me says ‘Look,
look at all the history, that house
on the hill there is over two hundred years old, ‘
as she points out the window past me

into what she has been taught. I have learned
little more about American history during my few days
back East than what I expected and far less
of what we should all know of the tribal stories Continue reading “What I Would Do and Say the Next Time” →

Lost in Translation

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Uncategorized1 Comment

By Joyce Hollyday

Old womanThe woman on the phone, speaking heavily accented Spanish, introduced herself as Consuela to Rebecca, the coordinator and translator for our bilingual group Mujeres Unidas en Fe (Women United in Faith). Consuela said that she wanted to visit the group and offer a Medicaid presentation. Continue reading “Lost in Translation” →

Lead Us Home By Another Way

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Uncategorized7 Comments

Cambria RoadBy Lindsay Airey

Spirit who animates All Things,
help us to listen now.
May we abandon our many pursuits
keeping us ever-busy and never listening
to your gentle,
fierce proddings.

Guide us in the way(s) of life.
Help us release:
our addictions,
superiorities,
certainties,
white-knuckling, fear-suppressing
blame,
shame
and deep-seeded
hatreds.
May we find something more reliable
to keep us warm
these
long
winter nights. Continue reading “Lead Us Home By Another Way” →

Ella Baker’s Group-Centered Leadership

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race5 Comments
Ransby
Dr. Barbara Ransby at the Lannan Foundation’s In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom series in 2016 (PC: Dan Usner).

An excerpt from Dr. Barbara Ransby’s “Ella Taught Me: Shattering the Myth of the Leaderless Movement,” originally published at Colorlines.com: 

Those who romanticize the concept of leaderless movements often misleadingly deploy [Ella] Baker’s words, “Strong people don’t need [a] strong leader.” Baker delivered this message in various iterations over her fifty-year career working in the trenches of racial-justice struggles, but what she meant was specific and contextual. She was calling for people to disinvest from the notion of the messianic, charismatic leader who promises political salvation in exchange for deference. Baker also did not mean that movements would naturally emerge without collective analysis, serious strategizing, organizing, mobilizing, and consensus-building. Continue reading “Ella Baker’s Group-Centered Leadership” →

Epiphany: Manifesting the Bias of Heaven

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

MagiBy Ken Sehested

There are three versions of what Epiphany (“Manifestation”) is meant to commemorate in the church’s calendar. One of those traditions is to celebrate Jesus’ baptism on January 6. Another tradition links Epiphany Sunday with the birth of Jesus. Yet another tradition celebrates Epiphany as marking the arrival of the magi, of “We Three Kings” fame—the figures played in every Christmas play by children dressed in bathrobes. Yet the common element in each is the inauguration of a confrontation between God’s Only Begotten and those in seats of power. Continue reading “Epiphany: Manifesting the Bias of Heaven” →

Ratzlaff Reviews: The Pagan’s Apostle

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Vern RAnother short and sweet book review-summary from legendary pastor Vern Ratzlaff, posting up on the Canadian prairies, pouring his heart and mind into anti-imperial theology and soul-tending.  

Paul: the Pagans’ Apostle. Paula Fredriksen. Yale University Press, 2017.

Paul’s letters concentrate on two ancient worlds, one Jewish, one pagan. The first is incandescent with apocalyptic hopes, expecting G-d through his messiah to fulfill his ancient promises of redemption to Israel. The second teems with human and divine actors, with superhuman forces and hostile cosmic gods. Fredrikson clearly outlines Paul’s situation within the social/cultural content of gods and humans, pagans and Jews, cities, synagogues and competing Christ-following assemblies, with particular attention to Paul’s letter to the Roman church. Continue reading “Ratzlaff Reviews: The Pagan’s Apostle” →

Wild Lectionary: Metanoia and John – Transformation in Wilderness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Jan 7 photo.jpgBy Valarie Luna Serrels

Epiphany 1B
Mark 1:4-11

There’s a story in Greek mythology about Kairos, the young, swift god of opportunity, with wings on his feet. When he passes by you, it’s too late to grab hold of said opportunity. However, in the wake of Kairos’ fleeting journey, stands the sorrowful goddess Metanoia. She invites those passed by with opportunity for reflection, mourning, and space to make a decision. An urgent decision. Metanoia literally means change. A changed mind, heart, behavior, life. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Metanoia and John – Transformation in Wilderness” →

Shaming or Shading is Not Organizing

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire1 Comment

GarzaA social media [re]post from Oakland-based organizer and Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza (Dec 27, 2017):

I’ve been traveling the last two weeks, meeting people from many different places in the world. The number one question I’ve been asked—besides the questions about my hair, which we will definitely talk about later—is this:

What is your country doing about Trump?

And I have to be honest and say:
We have a resistance movement but it is very divided, and lacks a path to power.

And then I sit with the shame of that. I live in a country that does terrible things around the world. And those of us who know that lack a path to power.

So in 2018, my simple resolution is this: to work to contribute to building a movement that takes its work seriously and is clear about what the work is and what it is not. The work isn’t to like each other and be besties. The work is to do something about our country—for and with the oppressed people inside of it and for and with the people oppressed around the world—and that requires building a movement in the millions with people who may or may not have your same approach or even the same political line but certainly share the same interests.

That means the Left needs to learn from its errors and become a different Left that does the work of organizing. Shaming or shading is not organizing. In a nation with more than 323 million people, our movement cannot be comprised of a few thousand people who think the same way and feel good with each other. A path to power means taking power and building power. We can’t build power if we aren’t taking power, and power isn’t just about our feelings or what is in our minds.

So I’m making a resolution to take that mandate much more seriously. I hope others will join me, and I’m gonna work to make it so.