Category: Subverting Empire

Radical Friendship

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

radical-friendshipAn exclusive RadicalDiscipleship.Net interview with Ryan Newson, professor of religion, philosophy and ethics at Campbell University.  He is the author of Radical Friendship: The Politics of Communal Discernment, coming out on April 1.

RD: Describe how this project started.

RN: This project began during my doctoral studies when I was immersed in Anabaptist theology and political theology, respectively. As I read Anabaptist theologians in depth, I was drawn to a communal form of reasoning about spiritual and moral questions that seemed to haunt that tradition—always lurking even if it was not always perfectly implemented. This picture of radical disciples drawing near one another in order to figure out what God would have them do, or who God would have them be, was magnetic. It reminded me of the form of Christianity that had always appealed to me, and that I had seen practiced by house churches in Camden, NJ, and New Monastic communities in Durham, NC, and Catholic Worker communities in Silk Hope, NC. In particular, I was attracted to the way in which this practice had the potential to guide communities into new waters without fear, acquiescence, or retreat. It certainly carried much more power, it seemed to me, than the way many of my fellow Christians approached questions of discernment: through a wooden, legalistic application of scripture. Continue reading “Radical Friendship” →

The Anti-Trump

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

rileyBy Tommy Airey, a letter to his nephews who call him “Uncle Coo-Coo”

Riley and Mason,

I want so badly for you to grow up with a deep awareness of what it means to be “a real man.” You have a big advantage because you have parents and a Nawny who are committed to recovery: fearless and thorough in their commitments to mutual and rigorous honesty, to establishing boundaries and assertiveness and to pursuing gentleness with themselves and others in the process.  They have been important models in my own journey of re-claiming open-heartedness and emotional expressiveness.

Unfortunately, the man who gets the most attention, who you will see over and over on TV and the internet, whose name you will hear about more than any other man on the planet is a President who lives off a steady diet of name-calling and fear-mongering, who paints those from south of the border as “criminals” and “rapists” and says if refugees from Muslim-majority countries “are allowed in, it’s death and destruction!,” who magnifies deeply ingrained racial stereotypes of inner-cities as “in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested),” whose whole ethos is shaped by bullying and “locker room talk” and whose policies favor the securing of enormous profits for a few over relieving the suffering of everyday people. Continue reading “The Anti-Trump” →

Welcome to the Resistance. Here’s Your Survival Guide.

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Uncategorized1 Comment

rose.jpgBy Rose Marie Berger. Reposted from Sojo.net

Even during a constitutional crisis and a white nationalist assault on the executive branch of federal government, the kids still need to get to school, bills must be paid, homework done, groceries bought, clothes washed, church attended.

In addition to your regular job, you are now a full-time grassroots organizer and obstructionist, showing up for protests and rallies. You’re also trying to implement a full-time legislative strategy, calling representatives, signing petitions, encouraging others to do the same. And for some, your full-time government job or journalism job or advocacy job now requires a renewed understanding of the ethics of public service, while also developing strategies to implement or refuse unclear and possibly illegal directives.

How do you keep from flaming out? Continue reading “Welcome to the Resistance. Here’s Your Survival Guide.” →

I Was A Stranger

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment
martinFrom the Facebook page of Fr. James Martin:
President Trump has announced that he will order the construction of a Mexican border wall, the first in a series of actions to crack down on immigrants, which will include slashing the number of refugees who can resettle in the United States, and blocking Syrians and others from what are called “terror-prone nations” from entering, at least temporarily.

These measures, which mean the rejection of the stranger, the rejection of the person in need, the rejection of those who suffer, are manifestly unchristian and utterly contrary to the Gospel. Indeed, last year, Pope Francis said, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the Gospel.”  

Continue reading “I Was A Stranger” →

21 Running, Working, Experiential Definitions of Mysticism

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

meditationFrom Matthew Fox’s The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (1988):

By exposure to each of these “definitions” the reader will begin to feel and make connections with his or her own mysticism, for the purpose of defining mysticism here is to elicit the mystic within each person…

  1. Experience: a trust of the universe, a trust of what is and what occurs to us, yes, a trust of oneself
  2. Non dualism: the end of alienation and the beginning of communion, the end of either/or relationships and the beginning of unity
  3. Compassion: “the keen awareness of the interdependence of all living things which are all part of one another and involved in one another” (Thomas Merton)
  4. Connection Making:  by symbols, stories, myths, music and colors, form and ritual–we connect with one another’s deep and often unspoken experiences of life’s mysteries
  5. Radical Amazement: awe is the opposite of taking life for granted
  6. Affirmation of the World as a Whole:  neither neutral nor bitter or cynical
  7. Right-Brain: synthesis over analysis and verbalization

Continue reading “21 Running, Working, Experiential Definitions of Mysticism” →

Homeless Memorial Day

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

homeless-memorial-dayBy Mary Scullion, a Sister of Mercy, is cofounder and executive director of Project HOME in Philadelphia

Elaine, a 37-year-old veteran and talented artist, was homeless in a wheelchair, having lost her legs to frostbite. She suffered from severe PTSD and addiction. Veterans’ organizations and other community groups were working with her to help her to break out of homelessness, but early one August morning she was struck by a drunken driver and killed.

Jim was an accomplished lawyer before mental illness precipitated a fall into homelessness. But even during years when he lived in a shelter, he was a tireless advocate, offering his political analysis and mobilizing energies in the fight for affordable housing, health care, and other critical services. He was working on voter mobilization among the homeless community last summer when he died suddenly. Continue reading “Homeless Memorial Day” →

#BUYNOTHINGXMAS

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Sabbath Economics, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

nobuyFrom Adbusters:

This year, why not take a path less traveled?

Opt-out of the consumer fest that the holidays have become, the weeks of overconsumption that leave you feeling empty. Quit performing out of habit.

Think back to your fondest memories, those moments of real joy.

What might the holidays be like if you refused to hit the mall … let your friends know that you’re not accepting gifts (and not giving any either) … give back to people in real need … and if you do have to give a gift go indie or go rogue … make it yourself … inject some life back into that sedated and automatic sense of time.  Continue reading “#BUYNOTHINGXMAS” →

Baptized Into Resistance Work

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Subverting Empire1 Comment

tridentThis is the first question of a longer interview that Dan McKenzie did with Wes Howard-Brook in Seattle in October.  A read of the full interview is well worth it, available HERE on Dan’s blog.   

Dan: You mention that between the years of 1979 and 1983, you were working in Washington as a government attorney.  Then, something happened and by 1985 you were completing an M.Div.  You seem to allude to a remarkable, and unexpected transformation taking place in your own life.  I wonder if this is also why you emphasize some of the more mystical and experiential components of faith, not to mention things like communal readings, faith-based readings with the assistance of the Spirit, and hiking in the mountains or on trails by the waterways close to you.  Your studies and your areas of focus, seem to arise from deeply personal spiritual experiences.  Am I wrong it wondering about this?  Could you share a bit about your personal journey and how you ended up where you are today? Continue reading “Baptized Into Resistance Work” →

Our Essential Oneness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

vincentFrom Vincent Harding in Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement (1990):

Who knows, perhaps with insight, courage and serious study we could introduce ourselves and our students of all ages to some of the basic tenets of this nonviolent way, exploring such convictions as:

  1. The fundamental unity of all creation, including our essential oneness with those we call “enemy.”
  2. The deep and often hidden capacities in human beings to become much more than we realize; to approach much more closely the essential oneness of life; to create many more social, political, and economic manifestations of our unity than we dream.
  3. The purpose of true civilization is not to focus on higher and higher technology or greater material wealth; it is to help us live more deeply and grow more fully in the humanizing work of mutual responsibility and respect.
  4. The necessity of challenging anything–or anyone–in society (or in ourselves) that appears to destroy the God-ordained oneness, or which seeks to damage our great capacities for an ever-expanding development of our humanity.
  5. The greatest necessity of all is to seek out and hold firmly to the truths of our oneness, our hope, our mutual responsibility, our capacity to create, our refusal to destroy.  Included here, of course, is a willingness to dies, if necessary, for such truths, but not to injure or kill others.
  6. The constant, disciplined quest for personal and collective communion with the One, the divine and ultimate source of all our unity.

Continue reading “Our Essential Oneness” →

A New Boycott for a New Era

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Race, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

rosa-parksTomorrow, Shaun King and Injustice Boycott will be announcing specifics about an ongoing boycott of cities, states, businesses, and institutions which are either willfully indifferent to police brutality and racial injustice or are deliberately destructive partners with it.  Sign up to join the boycott and get more details HERE.

On this Dec. 5, the anniversary of when Dr. King and others began the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, we are launching our own Montgomery Bus Boycott to show every city, state, institution and corporation in this country that meaningful, reasonable, achievable reforms on police brutality and injustice are not our long-term dreams. They are our immediate emergency priority… Continue reading “A New Boycott for a New Era” →