Category: Subverting Empire

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

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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” →

Mass Civil Disobedience

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mlkFrom Martin Luther King in his last book, The Trumpet of Conscience:

Nonviolent protest must now mature to a new level to correspond to heightened black impatience and stiffened white resistance.  This higher level is mass civil disobedience.  There must be more than a statement to a larger society.  There must be a force that interrupts its functioning at some key points.

The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker

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Dorothy Day in the Soup KitchenReprinted from The Catholic Worker newspaper, May 2016

The aim of the Catholic Worker movement is to live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ. Our sources are the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures as handed down in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, with our inspiration coming from the lives of the saints, “men and women outstanding in holiness, living witnesses to Your unchanging love.” (Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer for holy men and women) Continue reading “The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker” →

Change comes from actions, not votes

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment

dor-dayBy Brendan Walsh, Viva House Baltimore Catholic Worker. Reposted from The Baltimore Sun.

It is noteworthy that November 8 is Election Day and Dorothy Day’s 110th birthday. Dorothy was co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement and is currently on track for sainthood in the Catholic tradition.

Long before Dorothy was involved with the worker movement she was a journalist writing for The Call and The Masses in New York City. She was also a suffragette advocating for the right of all women to vote. She was arrested at the White House demanding that right and went on a bitter hunger strike while imprisoned in Occoquan, Va. Continue reading “Change comes from actions, not votes” →

Solidarity at Standing Rock

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Subverting Empire, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Oil Pipeline Key PlayersOn Thursday, November 3rd, 2016, over 400 clergy will be in North Dakota, hosting a multi faith solidarity circle for Standing Rock. We all cannot be there physically, but we can be there spirituality. We urge everyone around the country to take a few minutes at 9am Central Time to pray with them.

We offer this prayer, written by Lyla June Johnson (a descendent of Diné (Navajo) and Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) lineages) to say:

We pray for our family at Standing Rock.
We pray for Our Sister Water who is our life.
We pray for the healing and safety of the Water Protectors. Continue reading “Solidarity at Standing Rock” →

Standing Rock: A Clergy Call to Action

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Just Peacemaking, Race, Subverting Empire2 Comments

WaterIsLife1.jpgA message from the United Church of Christ:

To the broader church:

As Christians, we, the undersigned clergy, are conditioned by the gospel to stand on the side of the persecuted and the jailed. As such, we are compelled by our faith to stand with the water protectors of Standing Rock, who have pricked the conscience of a nation and the world. In opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline that would carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois, they have resolutely declared that they are not protestors but protectors and defenders acting out of a sacred obligation which affirms “water is life.” Continue reading “Standing Rock: A Clergy Call to Action” →

Faith in the Life of César Chávez: Part I, “Abuelita Theology”

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chavezBy Robert Chao Romero, originally posted on the Jesus 4 Revolutionaries website

César Chávez was the preeminent leader, voice, and public face of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s.  Chávez is to Latinas/os what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to the African American community.  Moreover, as the posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Aztec Eagle,[1] and a U.S. postage stamp in his honor, Chávez has been called the world’s most famous Latino.[2]  Together with Dolores Huerta and Filipino organizers Larry Itliong and Phillip VeraCruz, Chávez founded the United Farmworkers of America (UFW).  The UFW fought for increased wages and better working conditions for exploited California farmworkers and rose to national attention through the famous Delano grape strike and international boycotts of 1965-1970. Continue reading “Faith in the Life of César Chávez: Part I, “Abuelita Theology”” →

Deodorized Discourse

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cornelFrom Dr. Cornel West in Black Prophetic Fire (in conversation with and edited by Christa Buschendorf, 2014):

The central role of mass media, especially a corporate media beholden to the US neoliberal regime, is to keep public discourse narrow and deodorized.  By “narrow” I mean confining the conversation to conservative Republican and neoliberal Democrats who shut out prophetic voices or radical visions.  This fundamental power to define the political terrain and categories attempts to render prophetic voices invisible.  The discourse is deodorized because the issues that prophetic voices highlight, such as mass incarceration, wealth inequality, and war crimes such as imperial drones murdering innocent people, are ignored.   Continue reading “Deodorized Discourse” →