Author: RadicalDiscipleship

Working Out Our Salvation in the Wake of Charleston

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charlestonBy Lindsay Airey, LMFT

In the wake of the Emmanuel A.M.E. massacre, it’s hard not to succumb to the dueling poles of cynicism or despair, grandiosity or silencing shame. It is so easy to feel powerless and hopeless in the face of widespread white denial. Or exasperated and enraged at a grandiose white culture that wants to dismiss this as “not a race issue.” It’s about mental illness, they say. Or easy access to guns.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for gun control. And, as a licensed marriage & family therapist, I most certainly want policies and practices in American culture that lead to more compassionate, empathic & constructive understandings of and responses to mental illness. Taking refuge in culture war issues in the face of the horrific slaughter in Charleston, however, only pours more emotional salt in the gaping wound of a people who, around every corner in American history, has had to deal with the deadly consequences of white denial in all its subtle, and not so subtle, forms. Continue reading “Working Out Our Salvation in the Wake of Charleston” →

“TALE OF TWO WOMEN”: The Priority of the Marginalized

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation3 Comments

Jairus DaughterBy Ched Myers, for the 5th Sunday of Pentecost (Mk 5:21-43) Note: This is an ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B, 2015. In Mark’s tale of the Gerasene Demoniac (Mk 5:1-20), Jesus brings dramatic liberation to a man “occupied” by the spirit of Legion (i.e. Roman imperialism) on the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee. Frustratingly, this powerful story is again deftly avoided by the Revised Common Lectionary (but you can read my comments on it here in “Sea-Changes: Re-Imagining Exodus Liberation as an ‘Exorcism’ of Imperial Militarism” in Challenging Empire: God, Faithfulness and Resistance, edited by Naim Ateek et al, Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center). Jesus then returns across the sea to “Jewish” territory (5:21), where the next episode dramatizes how the poor were given priority in the ministry of Jesus. Mark 5:22-43 is yet another example of “sandwich-construction,” which wraps a story within a story in order to compel the reader to interrelate the two. The setting of the first half of this narrative sequence seems to be the “crowd” itself (5:21,24,27,31). Jesus is approached by a synagogue ruler who appeals on behalf of his daughter, who he believes to be “at the point of death” (5:23). Jesus departs with him on this mission, and we fully expect this transaction will be completed. On his way, however, Jesus is hemmed in by the crowds (5:24). The narrative focus suddenly zooms in upon a woman whose condition Mark describes in great detail (5:25f) with a series of descriptive clauses: Continue reading ““TALE OF TWO WOMEN”: The Priority of the Marginalized” →

100 Years of Grace

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Grace lee boggsHappy 100th Birthday this weekend to Grace Lee Boggs: activist, author, animator of Life. To celebrate: a word of inspiration from her book The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century (2011):

When you read Marx (or Jesus) this way, you come to see that real wealth is not material wealth and real poverty is not just the lack of food, shelter, and clothing. Real poverty is the belief that the purpose of life is acquiring wealth and owning things. Real wealth is not the possession of property but the recognition that our deepest need, as human beings, is to keep developing our natural and acquired powers to relate to other human beings.

From Vern’s Empire Subverting Library

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vern ratzlaff
Since September 11, 2001, however, we can no longer rest comfortably with such domesticated pictures of Jesus. We can no longer ignore the impact of Western imperialism on subordinated peoples and the ways in which peoples whose lives have been invaded sometimes react. The “coincidental” historical analogy is too disquieting, that is, that the Roman Empire had come to control the ancient Middle East, including Galilee and Judea, where Jesus operated.
Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder
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The legendary Vern Ratzlaff (above), Canadian Mennonite pastor and professor, was sporting his 5-inch beard long before practically every American white guy under 35 started growing theirs. Vern is spending free time at his outpost in Saskatoon reading dense anti-imperial theology and writing concise summaries for the rest of us. Here is a recent submission on an earlier work of Richard Horsley’s entitled Jesus and the Spiral of Violence (1993)–more important than ever:

Horsley summarizes the political and social times of Jesus and Jesus’ reactions to these, especially the role of violence in Palestine during Jesus’ time. The reality of violence extends well beyond the direct, personal and physical; there is also psychological or spiritual violence, acts that impair other persons’ dignity or integrity…. To make (people) live on a subhuman level against their will, to constrain them in such a way that they have no hope of escaping their condition, is an unjust exercise of force (p 21,22).
Continue reading “From Vern’s Empire Subverting Library” →

Blackberry Economy: Meditation on Luke 12:15-21

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Warrenville Kitchen 391By Denise Griebler

I’m thinking about the poor rich farmer in Luke’s gospel.  12th chapter, verses 15- 21.  Greed and idolatry.  The parable offers a back way in to the economy of grace by means of bad example.  Sometimes they just nail you.

There are so many ways to fall into greediness.  It’s not just about money.  Or possessions.  Or position.  Or control.   But it is always about economy.  I wonder if we can contemplate lilies?  Can we trust grace?  Can we participate in jubilee and resurrection?
Continue reading “Blackberry Economy: Meditation on Luke 12:15-21” →

Dylann Roof & Our Myth

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race1 Comment

DylanThe finger points at us. If we actually do want the country to behave differently towards peoples of color here and abroad—it is “we,” who are white and content, who must change and do so radically. Anything less than the equivalent of real reparations and real political confrontation in the streets is simply more of the same.
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By Jim Perkinson, long-time activist and educator from inner city Detroit & the author of White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity (2004)

One of the great fears of white people in the early 19th century was that if slaves were given any quarter at all, whites would rapidly be enslaved by blacks. So much as one moment of unpunished black response to white domination—even as seemingly minor as merely looking the master in the eyes—would mean, in short order, that the tables would be turned. Thus the “necessary” brutality of the peculiar institution (portrayed, for even Hollywood audiences, in the recent filmic depiction, “Twelve Years a Slave”).
Continue reading “Dylann Roof & Our Myth” →

The Contemplative

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Joan ChittisterFrom Benedictine nun Joan Chittister:

It is not what others think of us; it is what we think of others that singles the contemplative out in a crowd. Our role in life is not to convert others. It’s not even to influence them. It certainly is not to impress them. Our goal in life is to convert ourselves from the pernicious agenda that is the self to an awareness of God’s goodness present in the other.

A Storm Blowing From Paradise…

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Watershed Discipleship2 Comments
Pope Francis delivers his speech in St. Peter's square at the Vatican during his weekly general audience Wednesday, June 26, 2013.(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis delivers his speech in St. Peter’s square at the Vatican during his weekly general audience Wednesday, June 26, 2013.(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

By Ched Myers (4 Pentecost: MK 4:35-41)

Note: This is an ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B, 2015.

This Sunday’s gospel text is the poignant story of Jesus and his disciples caught in a storm at sea, which threatens to drown them. It is a profound, archetypal scenario that Mark narrates twice (again in 6:45-52). Because today is the day that Pope Francis’ historic encyclical on climate crisis is being published, I will focus on how this appeal addresses the storm that is Climate Catastrophe. A month from now I will return to Mark’s sea stories for Pentecost 8 (on which day the Lectionary inexplicably hops over the second boat journey in its piecemeal gospel selection, which we’ll rectify!). Continue reading “A Storm Blowing From Paradise…” →