Words to Our Children…Part 2

On December 3, 2014December 3, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire2 Comments

Leah and I have had a rich correspondence as we have both tried to grapple from our different social locations with the power of racism in our lives. The grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown left us both feeling outraged and hamstrung, with the question, what do we do now? And what do we tell our children? Leah has a daughter, Dance (10 years) and two boys, Michael and Gabriel (3 years). I have a daughter, Sylvie (4 years). I asked Leah what she would tell my child, and Leah asked me what I would tell hers.

Kate Foran, November 2014.

Tuesday we posted Leah‘s letter. Today we post Kate’s. Continue reading “Words to Our Children…Part 2” →

Words to Our Children…Part 1

On December 2, 2014December 3, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire2 Comments

Leah and I have had a rich correspondence as we have both tried to grapple from our different social locations with the power of racism in our lives. The grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown left us both feeling outraged and hamstrung, with the question, what do we do now? And what do we tell our children? Leah has a daughter, Dance (10 years) and two boys, Michael and Gabriel (3 years). I have a daughter, Sylvie (4 years). I asked Leah what she would tell my child, and Leah asked me what I would tell hers.

Kate Foran, November 2014.

Today, we post Leah’s letter and tomorrow we will post Kate‘s. Continue reading “Words to Our Children…Part 1” →

Who Will Roll Away The Stone? 20 Years Later.

On November 19, 2014November 19, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire1 Comment

A theology of reclamation is about redemption–the healing of our individual, but more importantly our collective, humanity. It is thus, in the North American context, fundamentally concerned with the struggle to become a non imperial people, neither grandiose nor ashamed. It is about practicing discernment, honesty, dignity, community, and simplicity.
Ched Myers, Who Will Roll Away The Stone (1994)
—————
By Tom Airey

20 years ago, Ched Myers penned Who Will Roll Away The Stone: Discipleship Queries For First World Christians, his promised sequel to Binding The Strong Man (1988), the critically-acclaimed 560-page socio-political reading of Mark’s Gospel. Who Will Roll was an inter-disciplinary bombshell for making sense of how followers of Jesus might live in the wake of “the 1st Gulf War” and the Los Angeles uprisin Continue reading “Who Will Roll Away The Stone? 20 Years Later.” →

This Weekend: Converging Upon Georgia

On November 18, 2014November 18, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Join thousands at SOA Watch’s 25th anniversary Vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, where we will remember the martyrs and denounce continued SOA violence against our brothers and sisters in Latin America. For all the key info see this.

From School of the Americas Watch Vigil:

One of the most powerful allies of imperialism is division. Division deters communities from working together and confuses our understanding of the past, present and future. Let us recognize – as people from many parts of the world, of many faiths, ethnicities, colors, belief systems, sexualities, gender identities, classes and abilities – that our presents and futures are intertwined, and so too must be our resistance. As a collective of communities we can make a conscious effort to overcome divisions by uniting to denounce the impunity that safeguards Empire. Continue reading “This Weekend: Converging Upon Georgia” →

The Freedom Prayer

On November 16, 2014November 17, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Delivered by Rev. Melanie S. Morrison
at the Day of Remembrance & Call to Action
November 12, 2014, Freedom Plaza, Washington DC

—————

O Holy One, known by many names,
I am who I am
Forgiving Love
Fertile Darkness
Fiery Freedom
Liberator of the Oppressed
Lover of All Peoples

As we gather remembering your holy names,
may we also remember that this is holy ground.
For we sense your presence winging near. Continue reading “The Freedom Prayer” →

A Day of Remembrance: A Reflection

On November 14, 2014November 15, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire1 Comment

We who believe in freedom should not rest until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s son. We who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.
Ella Baker
—————
Tom Airey, Washington D.C.

This week, on a sunny Fall Wednesday at D.C.’s Freedom Plaza, SpiritHouse Project of Atlanta, recognizing that racial justice is both a spiritual and social concept, hosted a “Day of Remembrance” for the “slow genocide of extrajudicial killings” of people of color that continues to plague the United States. This event took the form of a memorial service, a wooden coffin taking center stage, filled with the scrolls of one thousand names of those killed by the police or state-sponsored vigilantes (think Trayvon Martin) since 2007.
Continue reading “A Day of Remembrance: A Reflection” →

Today: A Day Of Remembrance

On November 12, 2014November 13, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

From Ruby Sales of the SpiritHouse Project:

A DAY OF REMEMBRANCE: On November 12, 2014 at Freedom Plaza (14th @ Pennsylvania Ave) in Washington D.C. at 12:30 p.m., SpiritHouse Project and our allies will stand with you to break the silence on this modern-day lynching by holding the first national, public memorial service that includes a public roll call of the 1000 black victims of state-sanctioned murders. Family members from across the nation whom have lost loved ones to these murders will lead a processional into Freedom Plaza. The theme of this gathering, A Charge To Keep: A Movement to Build, reminds us that this is more than a memorial service. It is a call to the living for us to keep our eyes on the prize of racial justice. Continue reading “Today: A Day Of Remembrance” →

The Context of Oppression

On November 9, 2014November 5, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

From James Cone in A Black Theology of Liberation (1970):

Persons who live in the real world have to encounter the concreteness of suffering without suburbs as places of retreat. To be oppressed is to encounter the overwhelming presence of human evil without any place to escape…

…Who can ‘pray’ when all hell has broken loose and human existence is being trampled underfoot by evil forces? Prayer takes on new meaning. It has nothing to do with those Bible verses that rulers utter before eating their steaks, in order to remind themselves that they are religious and have not mistreated anybody. Who can thank God for food when we know that our brothers and sisters are starving as we dine like kings? Prayer is not kneeling, morning, noon and evening. This is a tradition that is characteristic of whites; they use it to reinforce the rightness of their destruction of blacks. Prayer is the spirit that is evident in all oppressed communities when they know that they have a job to do.

Book Recommendation! Set Them Free: The Other Side of Exodus

On November 6, 2014November 6, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

From Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Friends, when folks ask me for a book recommendation. This is it- no matter who you are. Whether you have never read the bible or are a total geek for it, whether you have been in the movement for decades or are just starting to ask the hard questions, this is a book that calls on your mind, your heart, and moves it into your hands and feet. For those growing up in the church identifying with the story of liberation, it turns everything on its head. It’s brilliant, accessible, loving, and filled with ancient and current stories of communities resisting empire. It calls us out on our shit and invites us into another way. I love this book. It is never far from reach. And I love the author- Laurel Dykstra loves the bible and you can tell. Her history goes deep in community and justice work. Her writing is born from movement and gift to movement. She is an incredible human being. So…..read this book. Read it in community. Read it on the bus. Read it in jail. Read it in the heart of empire and on the margins. And let us struggle together on our way out of empire. Continue reading “Book Recommendation! Set Them Free: The Other Side of Exodus” →

The Wilderness Way: 7 Sustainable Practices

On November 5, 2014November 1, 2014 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

The Wilderness Way Community (Portland, OR) is a practice-oriented community pledged to be “guided by the wisdom of Nature, the undomesticated Jesus and his movement, and the wilderness tradition in which Jesus was grounded.” They share a common life by committing to live by a common set of daily practices. These practices flow from their mission statement and shape their life according to values other than those of the marketplace or the battlefield.

Over the years their practices have changed as the community has changed. For several years they used these Seven Sustainability Practices to shape their lives. For many of them, those once-new practices have now become simply part of how they live their lives.
Continue reading “The Wilderness Way: 7 Sustainable Practices” →

Radical Discipleship

Category: Subverting Empire