Morally Coherent & Socially Irresistible

On May 8, 2017May 4, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Excerpted from Michael Eric-Dyson’s “Abraham, Isaac and Us,” reposted from OnBeing.org:

The only meaningful interpretation of transcendence we might propose is to strip the term of its philosophical and theological orthodoxy and offer instead a more forceful definition. Truth can be described as transcendent if it illumines the time and place of its emergence as well as other places and periods. Truth’s transcendence is not pegged to its authoritative reflection of an unchanging reality that everyone would agree on if they had access to it. Truth happens when we recognize the expression of a compelling and irrefutable description of reality. Truth is not irrefutable because it appeals to ideals that escape the fingerprints of time and reason. Truth is irrefutable because it is morally coherent and socially irresistible. Continue reading “Morally Coherent & Socially Irresistible” →

Place-Based Resurrection

On May 7, 2017December 19, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

By Dr. James Perkinson (right), a sermon on Luke 24:13-35

I want to begin with a word of prayer before we jump into the gospel for today, but to facilitate that, first—a story about prayer and some necessary preliminaries. I have a half-Filipino poet friend in Detroit who tells of his first experiences of the Lord’s prayer, while growing up. Whenever he heard “Our Father who art in Heaven,” his five-year-old vernacular ears could not compute “art” as anything other than what happened when you put paint on paper, so his five year-old mind supplied a little slurred “n” in there, and what he actually thought he heard was “Our Father, who aren’t in heaven.” And it rattled him; he couldn’t figure it out; he says he kept thinking, “Well, where is he then?” If not there, then where? But he gradually came to hear it as a positive affirmation: a God who “aren’t” in heaven, because that God’s “place” is really right here, with us. A deep intuition, I would say, for all—what I would call place-based confession. Continue reading “Place-Based Resurrection” →

What they need

On May 6, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Give people what they need: food, medicine, clean air, pure water, trees and grass, pleasant homes to live in, some hours of work, more hours of leisure. Don’t ask who deserves it. Every human being deserves it.
― Howard Zinn, Marx in Soho: A Play on History

Learning from Laughter and the Trees: Even Donald Trump

On May 5, 2017September 6, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized3 Comments

photo(1) By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

We were sitting in the car and I had somehow managed to have NPR on rather than some song about trains on repeat. I have to start being careful, because Isaac is listening and understanding what he is hearing. I don’t remember the context, but on the radio it says “She loves people.”

“Mommy, it said she loves people.” Continue reading “Learning from Laughter and the Trees: Even Donald Trump” →

Wild Lectionary: Good Shepherd

On May 4, 2017May 3, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Good Shepherd Sunday
Acts 2:42-47 • Psalm 23 • 1 Peter 2:19-25 • John 10:1-10
By Noel Moules

A shepherd is a wilderness figure. Distinctive, as they move across the horizon line, while at the same time blending and flowing with and within their surrounding landscape. Always an outsider in terms of mainstream society, yet across the story of human cultures their mystique has left an imprint out of all proportion to their actual power and influence.

Biblically, the concept of the ‘shepherd’ presents a multitude of possible perspectives we might explore, even within the confines of our chosen lectionary passages. However, as a Christian animist I want to focus on a theme of central importance to me, that of ‘relationship’. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Good Shepherd” →

Always Vigilant

On May 3, 2017May 3, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

audre From Audre Lorde’s “Learning from the 60’s,” a talk delivered at Malcolm X weekend, Harvard University, February 1982:

Revolution is not a one-time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make a genuine change in established, outgrown responses; for instance, it is learning to address each other’s difference with respect. Continue reading “Always Vigilant” →

Sermon: Sacred Stones

On May 2, 2017May 2, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Katerina Friesen^,Rooted and Grounded Conference^,Chapel Message, April 21, 2017

At one time, the confluence of two powerful rivers churned with such energy that they created smooth, spherical stones. The Lakota people named one of these rivers the “Stone-Make-For-Themselves River,” (‘Íŋyaŋwakağapi Wakpá) because of the round stones the river formed, which they call Iŋyaŋ Wakháŋagapi Othí. Sacred Stones. These stones are used in prayer and ceremony, and are seen as enspirited, part of all our relations, like the river, plants and animals. Continue reading “Sermon: Sacred Stones” →

A Knowledge Gap

On May 1, 2017April 23, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race1 Comment

From Christina Gregg in an article entitled “Bryan Stevenson: America’s failure to deal with history of slavery and Jim Crow has manifested” reposted from AOL.com:

As a white nationalist says President Trump incited him to shove a black female protester at a campaign rally last March, a new museum in Montgomery, Alabama aims to advance truth and reconciliation while addressing the often unspoken reality of racial horror in America.

Burning black people alive, hanging them, mutilating their bodies — the graphic history of U.S. racial violence is a shameful and difficult thing to confront, says Equal Justice Initiative founder and executive director Bryan Stevenson, adding racially-driven hatred present today is “a manifestation of our failure to deal effectively” with that past. Continue reading “A Knowledge Gap” →

A Dissident

On April 30, 2017April 21, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Havel From Vaclav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless, quoted by Chris Hedges in his always challenging column (“The Price of Resistance“) earlier this month:

You do not become a ‘dissident’ just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society. … The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public. He offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin—and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.