Category: Subverting Empire

Propaganda

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GreenwaldFrom Glenn Greenwald:

But whatever else is true, if we are constantly bombarded with images and stories and dramatic narratives highlighting our own side’s victims, while the victims of our side’s violence are rendered invisible, it’s only natural that large numbers of us will conclude that only They, but not We, are committing civilian-killing violence. That’s a really pleasing thing to believe, no matter how false it is. Having media outlets perpetrate self-pleasing and tribal-affirming — but utterly false — narratives is the very definition of propaganda. And that’s what largely drives Western media coverage of these terrorist attacks every time they occur in the West.

Look! God’s tent is among humans!

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Diane FairfieldBy Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

Powerful images from the Bible’s closing chapters, Revelation 21-22, are featured in these ongoing weeks of Uprising. We focus here on the entirety of Revelation’s vision of “New Jerusalem,” and will return to John’s Gospel and Acts in coming weeks (painting right: “New Jerusalem” by Diane Fairfield).

No New Testament text reverberates more with Hebrew Scripture than Revelation. Almost every image in John of Patmos’ visionary description of New Jerusalem has a scriptural antecedent. The “new heaven and new earth” which he proclaims is indeed new, but also the fulfillment of all the hopes and dreams of God’s people throughout the ages. Continue reading “Look! God’s tent is among humans!” →

I give them life of the age to come!

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

LightBy Wes Howard-Brook & Sue Ferguson Johnson

As we continue through the season of Uprising, the lectionary pulls a passage from John’s gospel totally out of context (John 10.22-30). It finds Jesus in the temple during the festival of Chanukah, the celebration of the military victory of a guerrilla band of Judeans over their Seleucid (Greek) oppressor, some two centuries before Jesus. It is the only mention of Chanukah in the Bible (the books which describe the battles leading to the feast are in 1-2 Maccabees, which are among the Apocrypha and not part of Hebrew Scripture). It comes after a long series of confrontations and challenges in and around the feast of Sukkoth, aka “Tabernacles” or “Booths,” that fills John 7.1-10.21. Chanukah carried no scriptural mandate requiring all male Israelites to journey to Jerusalem, as did the three torah-temple feasts of Pesach (Passover), Sukkoth and Shavuoth (Pentecost), as found in Deuteronomy 16. Thus, we can imagine that those still in Jerusalem during the rainy, winter season would be the “true” Jerusalemites, those most eager to hear a word about a coming “messiah” who would vanquish the Romans with military power and divine authority. Continue reading “I give them life of the age to come!” →

Conspiracy Theories: Rise Up!

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DSC02622By Tommy Airey, a sermon preached at Shalom Community Church: A Mennonite and Church of the Brethren Congregation (Ann Arbor, MI), 04.03.16

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’  A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
John 20:24-29 Continue reading “Conspiracy Theories: Rise Up!” →

The Cost Benefits of Healthy Children

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marian wrightFrom Marian Wright Edelman in a recent article on the Flint water scandal:

Children and families everywhere would benefit immediately from stronger, clearer and consistent national standards for measuring, monitoring, and reducing lead exposure that are enforced. The incalculable child harm from lead poisoning should be reason enough to act now with great urgency and persistence. And the nation’s bottom line would benefit too. Every dollar invested to decrease lead hazards yields an estimated return of $17:1 to $221:1. These cost benefits exceed the return on vaccines long considered one of the most cost-effective public health interventions.

The First Bible Study in the History of the Church

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

EmmausBy Ched Myers

Note: This is part of a series of Ched’s occasional comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year C, 2016. Because the Easter Sunday reading from Luke is long, so too is this reflection. It is abbreviated from a chapter entitled “Easter Faith and Empire: Recovering the Prophetic Tradition on the Emmaus Road,” in Getting On Message, edited by Peter Laarman, Beacon Press, 2006.

In the first century Pax Romana, Christians had the difficult and demanding task of discerning how to cling to a radical ethos of life—symbolized preeminently by their stubborn belief in the Resurrection of Jesus—while living under the chilling shadow of an imperial culture of domination and death. Today, in the twenty-first century Pax Americana, U.S. Christians are faced with the same challenge. Continue reading “The First Bible Study in the History of the Church” →

The earth we are leaving for our children…The children we are leaving for our earth…

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

Wilderness WayBy Solveig Nilsen-Goodin

Just a few weeks ago, the Wilderness Way Children’s School (read: Sunday School…Wilderness Way style) opened its doors to invite children whose parents are not regularly participating in the life of the community. Why?

Imagine this…

Imagine a “Sunday School” program happening mostly outside.

Imagine a Sunday School program led by two well-paid (for the few hours a week they prepare for and work with our children), highly skilled and experienced teachers of children, who view their work with children as a calling. Continue reading “The earth we are leaving for our children…The children we are leaving for our earth…” →

She is Breathing: Listening for Another World and an End to Empire

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iluminadoBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann. Printed in Geez Magazine.

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe… Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

― Arundhati Roy, War Talk

I think of myself as a generally hopeful person. I’ve always believed in Martin Luther King’s long arc bending towards justice. But being in Detroit, the city where I was born and raised, over the last 5 years has crushed me. In a blink of an eye, a place filled with community leadership and creativity was steam rolled by an illegitimate government and the banks. We’ve gone from a city facing transformation by thousands of gardens to facing gentrification by tens of thousands of water shut offs. Black and poor folks are being pushed out fast. The stories are too painful. The work too big. The struggle for survival too real. The powers and principalities seemingly unstoppable. It’s all too much. Continue reading “She is Breathing: Listening for Another World and an End to Empire” →

Empire Cracking: Reflection from Open Door Community

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the open doorThis interview was taken by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann as part of a writing project for Geez Magazine entitled “She is Breathing: Listening for Another World and an End to Empire.” It was published in the Winter Issue.

Lydia Wylie-Kellermann: Where are the moments for you where you are beginning to see a crack in the empire? Where is resurrection alive and being practiced? What is the story that lingers on your heart and keeps you moving forward? Is this the moment we’ve been waiting for? Is another world being birthed before our eyes?

Terry Kennedy:  I believe that one of the many great things that we do here that is counter to this revenge oriented society is our stand with those who have been condemned to die. Here at Open Door we visit those who are on Death Row, we write letters and vigil at the capitol when there is an execution. Continue reading “Empire Cracking: Reflection from Open Door Community” →