Category: Subverting Empire

I Am Being “Unsettled”

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire1 Comment

perkinsonA excerpt from Dr. James Perkinson’s “Unsettling Whiteness: Refocusing Christian Theology on Its Own Indigenous Roots” in Wrongs to Rights: How Churches Can Engage the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2016): 

What is this thing called “Whiteness” as a force of history?  A hidden Power that inhabits institutions, influences policies, whispers in psyches, and colors perceptions without itself appearing, except in shadows and at the edge of vision.  I have only become aware of how profoundly this Power has moved my will, shaped my desire, and birthed my thought, as black and native people in my life have called out its nearly invisible Presence that is so obvious to them.  I am married to a Filipina, from a country colonized by my own for half a century, so the scrutiny is relentless–but also very healing, in the midst of the “trouble” it occasions.  I am, year-by-year, deepening my understanding that I am a Settler on someone else’s land, and enjoy access to unjust amounts of “resources” and goods because of someone else’s labour.  I am being “unsettled.” Or more precisely, what is being unsettled within and around me is White Power (I am actually more than just the Whiteness that “possesses” me).

To Rekindle Our Indigenous Souls

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire1 Comment

babExcerpt from Lily Mendoza’s keynote at the recently concluded Third International Babaylan Conference held in the Unceded Coast Salish Territories, Vancouver, Canada:

This is what we’re doing when we come together in this way, and in our respective local communities, when, in ritual and ceremony, we ask help from our Ancestors to joggle our memories so we can remember once more how to live on the earth in a good way, in order that we, as a people seeking to rekindle our Indigenous Souls can remember once more the Original Instructions that every natural people has lived by for hundreds of thousands of years. What we’re doing, often in fumbling, bumbling, and groping ways–in the process inevitably making many mistakes–is striving to create cultures capable of sprouting seeds of vitality worthy of feeding a time beyond our own, cultures that could not be designed by humans using the imperial mind. In other words, they could not be grown by us simply upping and leaving our cities and current places for a hoped for new life among our indigenous kin (Empire is there, too!).  Continue reading “To Rekindle Our Indigenous Souls” →

It Will Be Waged in the Streets

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire1 Comment

russellFrom Russell Rickford is an associate professor of history at Cornell University, an excerpt from his article The Fallacies of Neoliberal Protest on the African American Intellectual History Society website: 

Truth is, we don’t need “diversity” training. We don’t need focus groups. We don’t need consultants and experts. We don’t need the apparatus of our oppression—racial capitalism itself—to rationalize and regulate our dissent. The logic and techniques of the corporate world won’t end the slaughter of black people, or the dispossession and degradation of indigenous people, or the transformation of the entire Global South into a charred landscape of corpses and refugees. Continue reading “It Will Be Waged in the Streets” →

Have Mercy on Us!

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lepersBy Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

The final leg of the journey to Jerusalem begins with this week’s gospel (Lk 17.11-19). Alert readers, though, will note that Jesus and the disciples have not gotten very far. At the very beginning, Luke tells us that “they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him” (9.52). Now, eight chapters later, Luke says, “On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the midst (Gk, dia meson, misleadingly translated by NRSV as “between”) of Samaria and Galilee.” Like the Israelites in the wilderness, they seem to be going in circles in the land north of Judea. Perhaps this is a sly reference to the disciples, like their Israelite ancestors, lacking the faith that the journey they are on will lead to the place of God’s abundant provision. Indeed, as we heard last week, the disciples had just demanded of Jesus, “Increase our faith!” (17.5). Continue reading “Have Mercy on Us!” →

Frank Talk with Ruby Sales

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ruby-salesSome highlights from Krista Tippett’s recent interview with Ruby Sales: 

I think that one of the things that theologies must have is hindsight, insight, and foresight. That is complete sight.

—————-

I really think that one of the things that we’ve got to deal with is that how is it that we develop a theology or theologies in a 21st-century capitalist technocracy where only a few lives matter? How do we raise people up from disposability to essentiality? Continue reading “Frank Talk with Ruby Sales” →

Real Estate, Oil Pipelines & The Kingdom of God?

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enbridgeAn Open Letter To The Diocese of Hamilton, ON

Dear folks at the Diocese,

Thanks for all the good work you do to keep the name of Jesus alive and well. It’s important that we are reminded, in word and action, that the essence of Jesus’s life was to love one another. As far as I can tell, that love means one thing, perhaps two: a sacrifice that leads to joy, a reminder that the goods of the world belong to the poor, first of all. Bearing these little thoughts in mind, it is interesting to note that there seems to be a large discrepancy at work in the workings of the Diocese. While, with one hand, it clothes the poor, as G-d clothed Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden, and feeds the hungry, as G-d fed the prophet, Elijah, by way of a raven, it, with the other, denudes and starves them both. I speak, specifically, of two actions. Continue reading “Real Estate, Oil Pipelines & The Kingdom of God?” →

Beyond Christian Duty Into the Way of Jesus

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treeBy Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

Many vivid images are squeezed into this week’s Gospel passage from Luke (17.5-10), including one of the oddest in all the gospels: a tree being “planted” in the sea. Understanding this puzzling passage is even more challenging because the lectionary cuts it out of context. We need to start by taking a step back to listen to what’s going on at this point in Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. Continue reading “Beyond Christian Duty Into the Way of Jesus” →

When The Carnival Came to the Twin Cities

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting Empire1 Comment

maestroBy Tommy Airey (all photos from Tim Nafziger)

Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left.
Victor Hugo

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The past two weekends, Redeemer Lutheran Church in North Minneapolis showcased the Carnival de Resistance, a traveling arts carnival and ceremonial theater company performing at the intersection of ecological justice and radical theology. These performers converged upon the Twin Cities during the month of September, migrating from the four corners of North America to reclaim and reframe the biblical prophetic tradition. They combined their standard four productions into two: “Rooted Wind” and “Burning River” (playing on Friday and Saturday on consecutive weekends). But the bulk of their month-long residency was devoted to uplifting projects and voices that are indigenous to this watershed, the mostly white crew consistently passing the baton to Native American leaders, people of color and women, those well-acquainted with the kind of grief and passionate resistance that it will take to create and construct Something sustainable in a culture well-adept at fooling itself into thinking America ever was great.   Continue reading “When The Carnival Came to the Twin Cities” →

The Rich Man and Lazarus: Warning Tale and Interpretive Key to Luke

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation9 Comments

fyodorBy Ched Myers, on Luke 16:19-31 (19th Sunday after Pentecost)

Note: This post is part of a series of weekly comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during Year C, 2016. As was the case last week, this is a longer post, because of the importance of Luke 16 to those of us suffering from “Affluenza.” For a recording of a recent webinar Ched did on this gospel text, go here. [Right: Fyodor Bronnikov, “Lazarus at the rich man’s gate,” 1886.]

This Sunday’s gospel completes our journey through Luke 16. How rare it is that the lectionary allows a sustained look at Luke’s narrative argument! Last week’s text was Jesus’ subversive tale of the “defect-ive” discipleship of the beleaguered middle manager of a “filthy rotten system” (16:1-13). I read it as a poignant fable for those who would try to monkey-wrench the dominant economic system to provide a modicum of Jubilee justice for themselves and others.  The “paired” story of Lazarus and the Rich Man represents, in turn, a warning tale about the dark consequences of failing to deconstruct the systems of vast social and economic disparity that hold our world hostage. Continue reading “The Rich Man and Lazarus: Warning Tale and Interpretive Key to Luke” →