Category: Subverting Empire

Messianism Against Christology

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

MessianismBy Tommy Airey

…the undercurrent of a conflict between lifeways haunts the text.
Jim Perkinson, Messianism Against Christology (2014)

*Note: an abridged version of this review was published in the December 2015 issue of Sojourners Magazine

Growing up in the conservative white suburban Evangelical Christian tradition of North America, nothing was more important than the Bible & Jesus. Indeed, is there really anything else? Yet, many like me have grown into adulthood and out of Evangelicalism, not because the Bible & Jesus are no longer important, but because the Bible Answer Men have used their interpretations to justify privilege all over the globe. Continue reading “Messianism Against Christology” →

The Yes Men Strike Again!

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

People do a demonstration of next genera

From the magnificent site CreativeResistance.Org, covering the latest prank pulled off by the Yes Men:

Masquerading as ‘Global Security Response’, the activist duo unveiled the ENDURAsphere, a ‘sort of gated eco-commune for one’

A group calling itself Global Security Response unveiled this unual-looking anti-terrorism device in a press conference at the European Parliament today. Continue reading “The Yes Men Strike Again!” →

It Was Not Inevitable

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Rebecca SolnitFrom Rebecca Solnit:

Our world is both better (more inclusive, less discriminatory) and worse (think corporate consolidation, ecological devastation, the surveillance state) than the world of fifty years ago. The ways in which it is better happened because people made demands and then acted to realize them. It was not inevitable that Native Americans, women, gays, lesbians, and transgender people would gain rights and respect. The better part of our present happened because of enormous efforts, sometimes over decades or, as with the vote for women, nearly a century of effort and social transformation.

Empire Cracking: An Interview with the NY Catholic Worker

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire1 Comment

cwThis 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: What is the work that the NY Catholic Worker is doing that is so different from what our culture asks of us?

Joanne Kennedy: Off the top of my head, the paper is different – in the social media twitter-verse the relatively slow nature of our paper and it’s message of more love (and it’s existing for so long) is different. So old it looks new, anyone??

Amanda Daloisio: The work that we do daily- cleaning and cooking; caring for each other’s basic needs, is a gentle reminder of the Little Way. There is holiness to be found in the simplest of tasks and no work is beneath us if it can lessen the burdens of others. We uphold the dignity of manual labor but more than that- we know the joy that can be found there. So often those ideas bump into our upwardly mobile culture! Continue reading “Empire Cracking: An Interview with the NY Catholic Worker” →

Empire Cracking: An Interview with Wilderness Way

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

wildernessThis 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: Biefly, what is Wilderness Way’s story? How did it come to be? What was it in response to? What was it a calling away from and a calling to something different?

Solveig Nilsen-Goodin: Wilderness Way began with a friend of mine coming over one day in 2006 saying he was feeling led to start an alternative church at the margins of Christianity, and something inside of me immediately responded, YES!  We spent the next six months listening for what “at the margins of Christianity” meant to us, and gathering others to join us, and soon the name, Wilderness Way Community, emerged.  The name signifies the particular place we are planting ourselves.  Biblically, the wilderness is the place outside the walls of empire, the place where prophets are called and fed, the place where manna is given and enoughness is taught, the place where John the Baptist initiated those who were defectors from and dehumanized by empire; the place where Jesus was tested and prepared for his prophetic, spiritual leadership.  Wilderness also signifies the wild spaces that emerge and exist without human control.  Within the context of Western civilization (particularly urban contexts) most of us are profoundly cut off from the “natural” world – a disconnection that is having devastating consequences for the planet, the poor, and our very souls.  The values we seek to bring forward are, in fact, values found deep in the wilderness of both scripture and nature: the values of Sabbath, jubilee and shalom. When manifested, these values look a lot like what Jesus called the Kingdom of God, and that’s the new (old) world that is emerging. Continue reading “Empire Cracking: An Interview with Wilderness Way” →

5 Years Later: Blessed Are The Organized

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire1 Comment

BlessedA Summary of Jeffrey Stout’s Blessed are the Organized by Tommy Airey

Democracy, in the sense I am commending, opens up space for minority voices because it is committed both to freedom as non-domination and the avoidance of arbitrary exclusion. Neither of these things can be achieved, according to the tradition of grassroots democracy, unless a lot of ordinary people get organized and actually hold officials accountable. These are things that require action.
Jeffrey Stout

In Blessed Are The Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America (2010), Princeton political science professor Jeffrey Stout recounts a back-and-forth he had with his 20-something son about deeply dysfunctional economic conditions in the U.S. You know the basics: the American worker has been tremendously productive for their company, but isn’t even coming close to sharing the wealth. In fact, since the 1960s, more income went to the top 1% of Americans than the bottom 50% combined. At the end of this casual, fact-filled conversation, Stout’s son proclaimed, “We’re fucked!”
Continue reading “5 Years Later: Blessed Are The Organized” →

Magnificat: Poor Women’s Voices Liberated

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

MyersMagnificatBy Ched Myers, for the 4th Sunday in Advent (Luke 1:39-55)

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, 2015-16.

Luke 1 is the prolegomenon to the nativity story, and is structured around the stories of two women who, for radically different reasons, cannot conceive. In a nutshell, Elizabeth is too old, and Mary is too young. Their stories are narrated in staggered parallel:

  • Annunciation to Elizabeth (1:5-25) Annunciation to Mary (1:26-38)
  • Elizabeth’s Response (1:41-45) Mary’s Response (1:46-55)
  • John’s birth (1:57-66) Jesus’ birth (2:1-20)

Continue reading “Magnificat: Poor Women’s Voices Liberated” →

These Long Advent Nights

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Tommy Airey, an Advent Communion Meditation from Detroit

And maybe this is what heroism looks like nowadays: occasionally high-profile heroism in public but mostly just painstaking mastery of arcane policy, stubborn perseverance year after year for a cause, empathy with those who remain unseen and outrage channeled into dedication.
Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark (2004)

About 40-50 years after the death of Jesus, Luke’s Gospel, the story of Jesus the suffering servant, was read in its entirety in small Christian communities all over the Roman Empire. Out loud. It would take about 90 minutes to two hours. About the length of one of our movies.
Continue reading “These Long Advent Nights” →