Author: RadicalDiscipleship

Frank Talk with Ruby Sales

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

ruby-salesSome highlights from Krista Tippett’s recent interview with Ruby Sales: 

I think that one of the things that theologies must have is hindsight, insight, and foresight. That is complete sight.

—————-

I really think that one of the things that we’ve got to deal with is that how is it that we develop a theology or theologies in a 21st-century capitalist technocracy where only a few lives matter? How do we raise people up from disposability to essentiality? Continue reading “Frank Talk with Ruby Sales” →

Why Did Jesus Weep: Because #BlackLivesMatter Too?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

keith-mageeBy Keith Magee, Director, Social Justice Institute and Scholar in Residence at Elie Wiesel Center, Boston University

For the last four visible years America has endured, once again, the polarizing effects of racism and injustice. Yet, instead of the perpetrators wearing white sheets and lynching African Americans with coral ropes as they did decades prior, they now wear blue uniforms and use issued firearms. The loss of Trayvon, Eric, Tamir, Sandra, Freddie, Korryn, Alton, Terence, Keith, and all of the others we name, came not because their assassins feared them, but because they believed these lives didn’t matter. Secretly, I’ve wept at my core when I hear the news that they have taken another life. Even when I’m driving my car, with my two-year-old Zayden, I pray that our lives will matter. Continue reading “Why Did Jesus Weep: Because #BlackLivesMatter Too?” →

Racists Anonymous

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

raEvery Wednesday, Trinity United Church of Christ in Concord, North Carolina hosts a Racists Anonymous (RA) meeting.  Here are their Racists Anonymous 12 Steps of Recovery:

1. I have come to admit that I am powerless over my addiction to racism in ways I am unable to recognize fully, let alone manage.

2. I believe that only a power greater than me can restore me in my humanness to the non-racist creature as God designed me to be. Continue reading “Racists Anonymous” →

Real Estate, Oil Pipelines & The Kingdom of God?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

enbridgeAn Open Letter To The Diocese of Hamilton, ON

Dear folks at the Diocese,

Thanks for all the good work you do to keep the name of Jesus alive and well. It’s important that we are reminded, in word and action, that the essence of Jesus’s life was to love one another. As far as I can tell, that love means one thing, perhaps two: a sacrifice that leads to joy, a reminder that the goods of the world belong to the poor, first of all. Bearing these little thoughts in mind, it is interesting to note that there seems to be a large discrepancy at work in the workings of the Diocese. While, with one hand, it clothes the poor, as G-d clothed Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden, and feeds the hungry, as G-d fed the prophet, Elijah, by way of a raven, it, with the other, denudes and starves them both. I speak, specifically, of two actions. Continue reading “Real Estate, Oil Pipelines & The Kingdom of God?” →

Reflection on arrest at DC Air Show

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, UncategorizedLeave a comment

airsho.jpgBy Steve Williams-Baggarly, Norfolk Catholic Worker

The annual Air Show at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach is the Navy’s largest open house in North America. Some quarter of a million people attend it over three days, and this year it hosted some very special guests—all 6500 fifth graders in Virginia Beach Public Schools. All were students in the school system’s STEM program (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and were invited to the base on the first day, otherwise closed to the public, for interactive science displays along with their own private Air Show. Continue reading “Reflection on arrest at DC Air Show” →

Beyond Christian Duty Into the Way of Jesus

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

treeBy Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

Many vivid images are squeezed into this week’s Gospel passage from Luke (17.5-10), including one of the oddest in all the gospels: a tree being “planted” in the sea. Understanding this puzzling passage is even more challenging because the lectionary cuts it out of context. We need to start by taking a step back to listen to what’s going on at this point in Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. Continue reading “Beyond Christian Duty Into the Way of Jesus” →

When The Carnival Came to the Twin Cities

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting Empire1 Comment

maestroBy Tommy Airey (all photos from Tim Nafziger)

Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left.
Victor Hugo

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The past two weekends, Redeemer Lutheran Church in North Minneapolis showcased the Carnival de Resistance, a traveling arts carnival and ceremonial theater company performing at the intersection of ecological justice and radical theology. These performers converged upon the Twin Cities during the month of September, migrating from the four corners of North America to reclaim and reframe the biblical prophetic tradition. They combined their standard four productions into two: “Rooted Wind” and “Burning River” (playing on Friday and Saturday on consecutive weekends). But the bulk of their month-long residency was devoted to uplifting projects and voices that are indigenous to this watershed, the mostly white crew consistently passing the baton to Native American leaders, people of color and women, those well-acquainted with the kind of grief and passionate resistance that it will take to create and construct Something sustainable in a culture well-adept at fooling itself into thinking America ever was great.   Continue reading “When The Carnival Came to the Twin Cities” →

Sacred Earth Camp – growing young leaders

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
4-kinder-morgan-protest
Getting ready for the Speak Out in protest of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline, August 11

By Sui-Taa-Kii, Danielle Black. Re-posted from http://www.vancouver.anglican.ca.

Oki, my name is Sui-Taa-Kii, or “Rain Woman” from Treaty 7, or more respectfully, Blackfoot Territory, where we refer to ourselves as Niitsitapi, or “Original people.” I am an advocate for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and have spent the last year traveling across Turtle Island talking about intergenerational trauma and the power of creative resilience. In July, I was commissioned onto the Primate’s Youth and Elder Council, dedicated to making sure the Anglican Church of Canada abides by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. My heart and my ancestors guide me on this journey to decolonization. Continue reading “Sacred Earth Camp – growing young leaders” →

Let’s Talk

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

jyarlandBy Jyarland Daniels, CEO/Founder of Harriet Speaks: Strategies and Communications for Racial Equity, an open letter to Bookies co-owner Marko Jerant, originally posted at Michigan Chronicle:

When I first heard there had been a shooting of yet another unarmed Black man, this time in Tulsa, Oklahoma I did something that I normally don’t do: I watched the video being shared in my Facebook newsfeed. Nothing prepared me for what I saw; a stranded motorist, walking slowly away from an officer and toward his car, with his hands up was in an instant hit with a taser and then fatally shot. His body fell to the ground where he was left unattended, receiving no immediate medical attention. His blood spilled to the ground while police arranged to divert traffic and a voice in a helicopter above, only able to see the fallen man’s blackness, proclaimed this father of four, “…looks like a bad dude” and “might be on something.” Continue reading “Let’s Talk” →