Category: Subverting Empire

How Can You Be Objective?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

HedgesFrom Chris Hedges in The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress (2013):

I have never sought to be objective. How can you be objective about death squads in El Salvador, massacres in Iraq, or Serbian sniper fire that gunned down unarmed civilians, including children, in Sarajevo? How can you be neutral about the masters and profiteers of war who lie and dissemble to hide the crimes they commit and the profits they make? How can you be objective about human pain? And finally, how can you be objective about those responsible for this suffering? I am not neutral about rape, torture, or murder. I am not neutral about rapists, torturers, or murderers. I am not neutral about George W. Bush or Barack Obama, who under international law are war criminals. And if you had to see the butchery of war up close, as I did for nearly two decades, you would not be neutral either.

Embracing the Personalist Approach

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

By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson JohnsonMartha

“Some people are Marys, and some are Marthas.”

Uh, no.

The little story of Mary and Martha in Luke’s Gospel is one that we regularly hear interpreted as a choice between two lifestyles, the “active” and the “contemplative.” Read in context, though, Luke’s message is not that at all. Let’s try to listen to this familiar story with fresh ears. Continue reading “Embracing the Personalist Approach” →

Standing on Our Own Feet

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire1 Comment

MertonBy Tommy Airey

It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than to be a soldier on the battlefield.
Cornel West

45 years ago, Jim Douglass wrote a little book called Resistance and Contemplation (1972), urging radical disciples to take seriously both the personal and political–what he called “the yin and the yang of the Movement.” In the second chapter, he recounts the last talk that Thomas Merton (photo right) gave, just hours before his death from electrocution in that Bangkok bathtub in 1968. Merton told the story of Tibetan Buddhist monks being driven out of their homeland by Communist revolutionaries. The elder monk tells the fretting younger protege, “From now on, Brother, everybody stands on his own feet.” Continue reading “Standing on Our Own Feet” →

Never a Doubt

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

CamusFrom Albert Camus’ essay “The Unbeliever and the Christian” (1948):

The world expects that Christians will speak out loud and clear, so that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could arise in the heart of the simplest man [sic].

The world expects that Christians will get away from abstractions and confront the blood stained face which history has taken on today.

The grouping we need is a grouping of men resolved to speak out clearly and to pay up personally.

Destroying the Golden Calf

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

golden calfA Facebook Event Page for July 3 from the Simone Weil House in Minneapolis, MN:

Uncle Sam is turning 240. In the days of his fathers, this land was abundant with forests and clean water and myriad indigenous cultures. A sad waste of productivity. His fathers, the European nations, subjugated the land and its people, and brought in new labor from across the Great Sea. And thus, when little Sam was born, he received a worthy inheritance…land and labor. Continue reading “Destroying the Golden Calf” →

Hospitality and The People of God

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Emma LazarusBy Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

For Jesus followers in the US, this week’s Gospel offers a powerful counter-narrative to the flag-waving patriotism of the 4th of July. Nearly every detail challenges those of us who live and thrive at the heart of empire to reconsider which “sacred story” binds us together as a people. Continue reading “Hospitality and The People of God” →

Because of Fear

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

TrumpFrom the Journal for Preachers:

TO: CHRISTIAN LEADERS IN THE UNITED STATES

The statement—“An Appeal to Christians in the United States”—reflects a growing alarm that our country is entering a very dangerous period in which some political leaders and some media are directly challenging our most fundamental Christian convictions. The statement is consequently a theological affirmation. We hope that you will read the statement carefully and join those who have already signed their names to it. Continue reading “Because of Fear” →

Let’s Get the Poison out of the Parks

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Reverend Billy, Buy Nothing Day NYC 2005

An update from Rev. Billy Talen and the Stop Shopping Choir:

The last ten months we got bizzy, as in show-bizzy: opening for Neil Young, a holiday run at Joe’s Pub at the Public in NYC, recording eleven songs in Avatar Studio, and then my book “The Earth Wants YOU” from City Lights.  We can fit or weirdly “misfit” into some entertainment categories.   That’s cool, but it means that we are farther from our heart, which is “Nonviolent Dramatic Action.”  Continue reading “Let’s Get the Poison out of the Parks” →