Refaat Alareer. Palestinian professor and writer. Assassinated by the state of Israel. Rest in Power.
Category: Biography as Theology
Say Anew to this Festering World
By Ken Sehested, in honor of Rev. Cindy Weber
My friend Cindy Weber, pastor of Jeff Street Baptist at Liberty in Louisville, Ky., retired last month. Tomorrow, 1 October 2023, her congregation is celebrating her ministry.
She was initially called to serve as associate pastor (1984-1991) and then as pastor (1991-present). The congregation was expelled by the (Southern Baptist) Long Run Baptist Association when Cindy was called as pastor (because she was female).
The congregation’s history traces its roots back to a ministry to the city’s “derelicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, and homeless in 1881.” In the early ‘40s, Clarence Jordan, who would later co-found Koinonia Farm in Georgia, played a role in supporting the mission.
To Maintain the Existing Power Structure
An excerpt from a recent Democracy Now interview with Jonathan Eig, the author of the new book King: A Life.
I think it’s really important for us to acknowledge that our heroes have flaws, and if we expect our heroes to be perfect, nobody will ever rise to the occasion. Nobody will even try.
And King was deeply flawed. As you mentioned, he attempted suicide twice as a teenager, jumping from a second-story window of his home when he was upset about, first, an injury suffered by his grandmother and then, later, by her death. And when he won the Nobel Peace Prize, he was hospitalized at the time for what he called anxiety, but for what Coretta described as depression. He was hospitalized numerous times throughout his life because the pressure had just gotten to him so badly.
Continue reading “To Maintain the Existing Power Structure”Under a Deadline
Today, we celebrate the life of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg (1931-2023), who transitioned to the great cloud of witnesses on Friday. This is a letter he wrote to friends and supporters three months ago, reposted from Common Dreams (March 2, 2023).
Dear friends and supporters,
I have difficult news to impart. On February 17, without much warning, I was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer on the basis of a CT scan and an MRI. (As is usual with pancreatic cancer–which has no early symptoms–it was found while looking for something else, relatively minor). I’m sorry to report to you that my doctors have given me three to six months to live. Of course, they emphasize that everyone’s case is individual; it might be more, or less.
I have chosen not to do chemotherapy (which offers no promise) and I have assurance of great hospice care when needed. Please know: right now, I am not in any physical pain, and in fact, after my hip replacement surgery in late 2021, I feel better physically than I have in years! Moreover, my cardiologist has given me license to abandon my salt-free diet of the last six years. This has improved my quality of life dramatically: the pleasure of eating my former favorite foods! And my energy level is high. Since my diagnosis, I’ve done several interviews and webinars on Ukraine, nuclear weapons, and first amendment issues, and I have two more scheduled this week.
Continue reading “Under a Deadline”A Day with Vincent Harding
From Rachel Elizabeth Harding, re-posted from social media.
On May 19, the 9th anniversary of his passing, the Iliff School of Theology is honoring my father — with a day-long program of music, art, community conversation, good food, and reflections by Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Anne Dunlap , Tink Tinker, Daryl Walker, Jon Hurst, Gloria Smith and yours truly. For more information and to register (it’s free!) click in the link here.
The Reflexes of Racism
An excerpt from Wendell Berry’s The Hidden Wound (1970).
I am trying to establish the outlines of an understanding of myself in regard to what was fated to be the continuing crisis in my life, the crisis of racial awareness—the sense of being doomed by my history to be, if not always a racist, then a man always limited by the inheritance of racism, condemned to be always conscious of the necessity not to be a racist, to be always dealing deliberately with the reflexes of racism that are embedded in my mind as deeply at least as the language I speak.
A Wake
By Robert Jones, Jr., re-posted from his MLK Day substack newsletter. Subscribe here.
“The majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro. They believe that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
Hello Family,
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It is a day on which a particular kind of performance is expected of every Black American.
It is believed that we should join hands; sing sweet gospel songs; be respectable, conciliatory, and most importantly, civil representatives of the man assassinated by the very nation that turned him into a hollow holiday platitude. A man whose face they put on postage stamps and t-shirts to sell back to us at a premium.
For us, today is supposed to be a day of forgiving, certainly; but most of all: of forgetting.
Continue reading “A Wake”My Forever King
By Johari Jabir
America had but one pastor
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was his name
My King,
The days leading up to the national observance of your birthday
seem to result in a passing season of melancholia
we have crossed so many lines
you warned us not to cross
we now live in the reality of that other side
of hate-filled violence and indifference
that feeds the victims to themselves
Daniel Erlander: Child of God
A special thank you to Marcia Dunigan for passing along the news that Rev. Daniel Erlander passed away in late August. His memorial service was this last weekend and you can access a video recording of it here. His books were clear and clever and were beloved by children and adults. If you haven’t, please order Manna and Mercy now. What a beautiful scripting of the biblical narrative! This is Dan’s obituary from the memorial bulletin.
Daniel Winfred Erlander
Child of God
December 10, 1938 – August 28, 2022 Daniel Erlander’s story is one of art and theology: theology as an embodied art and art as visible theology. Dan was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1938, the second of Ruth and Emory’s three sons, and baptized on February 6, 1939. He was nurtured in faith and life in Lutheran parsonages in Cheyenne, Moline, and La Crescenta, CA. His childhood memories include drawing, especially airplanes, trains and cars.
Continue reading “Daniel Erlander: Child of God”
Radical Discipleship 