The Fellowship of Heretics

On June 18, 2015June 25, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

We are a community of faith, rooted in justice and peacemaking, guided by the Holy Spirit to express God’s unbiased love for all of creation by providing a Christian framework for social righteousness in the Southeast.
The statement of purpose written by the Mercy Junction community

Compelling Christian community is percolating down South in Chattanooga at the Mercy Junction Justice & Peace Center. They are recruiting 100 radical disciples by September 1 for their Fellowship of Heretics. See details below copied from their Facebook Events Page.
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The “Fellowship of Heretics” is a community of good-hearted rabble-rousers, rebels, malcontents, radicals and other cool people supporting the Justice and Peace Center by being card-carrying heretics. This is our first membership drive for the “Fellowship of Heretics” and we’re aiming to grow the Fellowship to 100 members by Sept. 1. Continue reading “The Fellowship of Heretics” →

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

On June 17, 2015June 25, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

By Peggy McIntosh, associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women

I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions. Continue reading “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” →

Learning from Laughter: Sabbath Economics Support Group for Parents

On June 16, 2015May 31, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Sabbath EconomicsLeave a comment

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

“But one of the greatest gifts we feel she can receive is a life in this community: we want her to know and feel the love of people who are alive, who don’t give a damn about money and who are willing to do with their lives what they think God is asking” – Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Sabbath Economics Support Group for Parents” →

The Untouchables

On June 15, 2015June 8, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

From Cuban artist Erik Ravelo: photographs of children crucified by their oppressors. The first image refers to pedophilia in the Vatican. The second to child sexual abuse in tourism in Thailand, and the third to the war in Syria. The fourth image refers to the trafficking of organs on the black market, where most of the victims are children from poor countries; the fifth refers to the widespread access of weapons in the U.S. And finally, the sixth image refers to obesity and the fast food industry.

Repentance & Resistance

On June 14, 2015June 8, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Ched Myers (right, at La Posada Sin Fronteras in December 2013) on the importance of repentance and resistance in the lives of radical Christian disciples–from Binding The Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (1988).

Repentance is not only the conversion of the heart, but a concrete process of turning away from empire, its distractions and seductions, its hubris and iniquity.

Resistance is shaking off the powerful sedation of a society that rewards ignorance and trivializes everything political, in order to discern and take concrete stands in our historical moment, and to find meaningful ways to impede imperial progress.

Telling our History

On June 13, 2015June 12, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

“History is not the past. It is the stories we tell about the past. How we tell these stories – triumphantly or self-critically, metaphysically or dialectally – has a lot to do with whether we cut short or advance our evolution as human beings.”

– Grace Boggs

Prophecy, Pedagogy and Permaculture

On June 12, 2015June 12, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Theological Animation1 Comment

By Tim Nafziger, co-founder of Young Anabaptist Radicals residing in Southern California’s Ventura River Watershed

8 years ago, I showed “What a Way to Go” to my family. I hope they would, as the movie tag line says, come to grips “with Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot and the demise of the American lifestyle.”

Halfway through the movie my sister walked out. It wasn’t so much that she was opposed to the message of the movie. She just couldn’t take how relentlessly depressing it was. Continue reading “Prophecy, Pedagogy and Permaculture” →

Sowing Hope

On June 11, 2015July 28, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Doing the work at the Abundant Table Farm Project in Santa Paula, CA.

By Ched Myers, for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost (Mark 4:26-34)

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 week the lectionary gives us the last third of Jesus’ parables sermon (hopping over the famous parable of the Sower and its allegorical interpretation, Mk 4:2-23). This section begins with a sober warning:

And he said to them, “Take heed what you hear: ‘The measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to him who has will more be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away’.” (Mk 4:24-25)
Continue reading “Sowing Hope” →

A Post Evangelical Pilgrimage, Part III

On June 10, 2015June 10, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire3 Comments

Christian Peacemaker Teammate Art Gish in Hebron in 2003 standing in front of an Israeli tank to try to stop it destroying a market in the Old City (AP Photo).

We mislead ourselves and others when we try to play down the extremity of the Christian vocation and the total demands it makes.
John Main

*This is the final post in a three-part series exploring more compelling ways to follow Jesus.

During the summer of 2013, Lindsay and I took a 75-day, 12,000-mile road trip. We simply wanted to meet people whose lives of faith were compelling. We wanted to get a taste test of what some might call “Movement Christianity” or “Radical Discipleship” (radical in Latin means “roots”), a particular strand of faith and action that goes all the way back to the roots of Judeo-Christian faith: Moses’ contemplative meeting with the Divine at the burning bush and his ensuing confrontation with the beastly bastards of Egyptian Empire, calling the underdogs out of enslavement and into a whole new Way of being.
Continue reading “A Post Evangelical Pilgrimage, Part III” →

Kansas City Here We Come: The Pink Mennos Dis-Cover Diversity

On June 9, 2015June 3, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

To achieve healing and hope for the Mennonite Church through the inclusion and welcome of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) individuals and their supporters.
Pink Menno Vision Statement

Originally posted on the Pink Menno website:

At the Mennonite Church USA (MCUSA) bi-annual convention (in Kansas City, MO), Pink Menno will convene a symposium focused on intersectionality. “On the Way: Dis-Covering Diversity” will be held in Pink Menno’s hospitality space in Room 2504B of the convention center, right around the corner from the Grand Ballroom on Level 2.
Continue reading “Kansas City Here We Come: The Pink Mennos Dis-Cover Diversity” →