the word you’re looking for

On March 17, 2015March 16, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Just Peacemaking2 Comments

Sarah Matsui was born and raised in Hawai’i, raised some more in Philly, and is now living in San Francisco. She did not grow up in the church though is now part of the church, and she cares deeply about intersections of faith, identities (race, gender, language, sexuality, cultural, etc.), justice, and reconciliation.

The church I am attending sent out a letter today (3/13/15) that overall I was excited about, and thankful for. But it also invited further response. In an optional survey response they requested, I submitted the following note:

“Firstly, I am thankful for our church, this board, and for the direction indicated by the board letter. Secondly, a question: if the board has come to the conclusion that our church’s practices have been causing harm, not leading to human flourishing, and excluding LGBTQ people from belonging in the body of Christ, would a logical next step be to issue an explicit apology to the LGBTQ Christians attending our church and/or to the broader LGBTQ community?” Continue reading “the word you’re looking for” →

Learning from Laughter: A Series on Radical Discipleship Parenting

On March 10, 2015March 10, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology1 Comment

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

I became a mom two years ago today. I can still feel Erinn’s hand in mine as she breathed with me through each contraction and reminded me what the pain was for. After more than two days of active labor, in one final push, this beautiful child leapt out head to toe.

Almost a year earlier, as we began to try to get pregnant, we had beloved friends over for dinner who were helping us conceive, one of them asked us “Why do you want to be parents?” Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: A Series on Radical Discipleship Parenting” →

Birth: The conspiracy of Soul and Body

On January 27, 2015January 28, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology1 Comment

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann (printed in Conspire, Fall 2014)

It was unseasonably warm as I carefully stepped onto the next wrung balancing the extra weight and size. My body called me into those trees as I deliberately and gently trimmed the small, sucker branches. First the apple tree, then the peach, then the plum. Being past my due date, I knew I probably shouldn’t be on a ladder, but I kept climbing higher and higher. Continue reading “Birth: The conspiracy of Soul and Body” →

It Runs in the Family

On January 23, 2015January 24, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology4 Comments

…this book is about how parents can create lasting and meaningful bulwarks between their kids and the violence endemic in our culture. It posits discipline without spanks or slaps or threats of violence, while considering how to raise thoughtful, compassionate, fearless young people committed to social and political change — without scaring, hectoring or scarring them with all the wrongs in the world.

This week we got a chance to talk with Frida Berrigan, author of It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood. Continue reading “It Runs in the Family” →

Repenting of Homophobia: An Autobiography

On January 7, 2015January 7, 2015 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology2 Comments

by tommy airey
—————
The invitation to “turn around” assumes there is something important and precious we have left behind. It is an invitation to deconstruct what is wrong about our way of life and to reconstruct one that is more characterized by justice & mercy.
Ched Myers, Who Will Roll Away The Stone? (1994)

Back in ’08, I began the slow, patient journey of repenting of the homophobia that had been instilled in me by Western civilization in general and, more specifically, the sports & Evangelical Christian cultures that most shaped my moral imagination during the “formative” 80s & 90s. Back then, my world was framed by a triumphalistic masculinity. My Jesus was athletic. And He was kicking ass.
Continue reading “Repenting of Homophobia: An Autobiography” →

We need to look toward women

On November 22, 2014November 19, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and TheologyLeave a comment

“The one who finds wisdom finds life. To find wisdom, we need to look toward women clothed with the sun, who shine their light on our path and beckon us forward. They are in the Bible. They are among us as modern witnesses to the resurrection. And they are each of us, for we all carry a pearl of wisdom to add to life’s treasure.”

– Joyce Hollyday, Clothed with the Sun

God’s Domination-Free Order: Reflection from Revival

On October 21, 2014October 21, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and TheologyLeave a comment

Josina Guess is a beautiful writer and lover of Jesus. She lives with her husband and their four children at Jubilee Partners in Comer, GA.

“So what did you think?” We were driving home from the revival that my son’s 6^th grade classmates had invited him to attend and I wanted to hear his thoughts. In the three years since we moved down south this was my son’s first invitation to do anything with anybody born and raised around here. He was excited to see his friends, his “homies” as he affectionately calls them, and I was coming with a little trepidation but an openness to worship with my neighbors. Continue reading “God’s Domination-Free Order: Reflection from Revival” →

A Letter to our Churches

On October 15, 2014October 14, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and TheologyLeave a comment

Written by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann in 2012 for the Michigan delegation of United Methodist pastors to General Conference who would be voting on changes to the Discipline around gay marriage.

Dear Delegation,

I have been told by politicians, by laws and disciplines, by bishops, by friend’s partners, by extended family, by neighbors and life long friends, and even by a woman waiting for a bus, that my marriage is wrong. That its mere existence is a cause of harm in this world. Continue reading “A Letter to our Churches” →

If You Come Softly (Audre Lorde)

On October 12, 2014October 17, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and TheologyLeave a comment

If you come as softly
As wind within the trees
You may hear what I hear
See what sorrow sees.

Continue reading “If You Come Softly (Audre Lorde)” →

Visionary Feminism

On October 5, 2014October 6, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and TheologyLeave a comment

From bell hooks in Feminism is for Everybody (2000):

Visionary feminism is a wise and loving politics. It is rooted in the love of male and female being, refusing to privilege one over the other. The soul of feminist politics is the commitment to ending patriarchal domination of women and men, girls and boys. Love cannot exist in any relationship that is based on domination and coercion. Males cannot love themselves in patriarchal culture if their very self-definition relies on submission to patriarchal rules. When men embrace feminist thinking and preactice, which emphasizes the value of mutual growth and self-actualization in all relationships, their emotional well-being will be enhanced. A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving.