Category: Subverting Empire

Never Forget

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Deschutes National ForestBy Ric Hudgens, Quarantine Essay #22, originally posted to Facebook on April 18, 2020. Ric is posted all his essays to Medium. 

Every day for the past month, something has stunned me. I’ve been unable to respond. I’m astonished by the news stories I’m hearing. I see and hear horrifying things.

The world has never been an entirely pleasant place. Horrifying things happen all the time. But now perhaps I’ve slowed down enough to feel and see the full weight of them.

I’m not surprised by the inequalities revealed in this crisis. They have been there for anyone to see who wanted to look. The callous disregard for human life by those who claim to be “pro-life” doesn’t surprise me. Their understanding of “life” has always been very narrow, partisan, and racist. Continue reading “Never Forget” →

A Few From Freire

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Paulo-FreireIn these days, we need more Paulo Freire.

The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed Continue reading “A Few From Freire” →

Simply Saying “Racism” Without Context is Harmful

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire1 Comment

jyarlandBy Jyarland Daniels, executive director of Harriet Speaks, an organization doing diversity differently providing a Black voice and perspective in diversity, equity, & inclusion

I write this because I teach and talk about race, diversity, and equity for a living, so there aren’t too many topics in this space that I am silent on. However, I prefer to “think fast, and speak slow” and try to offer thoughtful insights (vs regurgitation) where/if I can. I’m not here to be right or wrong — just to think.

The facts speak for themselves. There is a disparity between not only who contracts this virus, but also in the death rate. Black people are most likely to experience both. But just touting this data (as is too often being done) and attaching the word “racism” to this situation is incomplete, alarming, and confusing. And, I find some of it paralyzing; discussing race without steps to take can have that effect. Continue reading “Simply Saying “Racism” Without Context is Harmful” →

the second coming of easter

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment
Water Shift
A pre-pandemic water shift in Detroit, MI.

By Jim Perkinson

empty churches preaching empty tombs
to empty pews, a vision of gloom,
the doom of the poor now creeping
close in corona-spoor knocking even
at the door of the rich and who would
have thought it all could upend
in a single dash of air-splash, invisible,
carrying not quite living code from animal
to our abode everywhere, leading all
but rash, bible-brash evangelical hubris
to hunker in shelter, or fear-trembled,
in hovels or dense-packed streets of
homeless retreats or refugee tents
a world of babel towers
and fake news showers and glowering, bulge-veined purveyors of cover
for the bankers and oil exec wankers to push profit-margins to the edge of the cliff . . . Continue reading “the second coming of easter” →

Good Friday’s Warning

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

chedBy Ched Myers. For Good Friday.

“From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.” (Matthew 27:45)

In this greatest of cosmic “signs” in the gospel narrative–the darkening of the world for three hours—our attention is pointed back to the old Exodus story.  There Yahweh, in the war of myths with Pharaoh to free the Hebrew slaves, blots out the sun in Egypt for three days–a repudiation of the imperial order legitimized by the sun god Ra. The rhetoric describing this penultimate plague is evocative: “People could not see one another, and for three days they could not move from where they were” (Ex 10:23). What a trope for collective blindness, denial and paralysis, so fitting to the culture of empire still today! (For more on this, see my piece here.)

This Good Friday falls at or near the peak of the Covid-19 plague in the U.S. At the “apocalyptic moment” of Jesus’ crucifixion, we are supposed to pay attention to the lesson of plagues: they are the dramatic expression of the great struggle between Creation and Empire–and of the God who takes sides.

Maybe at 3 pm today we should be out on our porches banging pots for that…

Ched Myers, an ecumenical activist theologian, is a popular educator, writer, teacher and organizer, committed to animating and nurturing church renewal and radical discipleship, and supporting faith-based movements for peace and justice. Find his blog, many articles, webinars and a few audio recordings at chedmyers.org. You can also find out more about his Life & Activism there. Ched’s books are available for purchase on this site.

A Wonderfully Complex Set of Illusions

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anti-capitalist-protestFor Good Friday: Rev. Lynice Pinkard.
From her legendary 2014 interview with The Sun Magazine.

There is a seductive beauty in the idea that everyone has equal economic opportunity under capitalism. First, it allows the wealthy and powerful, the owning class, to feel justified in their position. They can believe their privilege is based on their own hard work, or the hard work of their ancestors. Second, just enough of the poorest are desperate enough to think that, despite all evidence, they can become rich. Most poor people don’t believe this, but they also don’t have enough resources or popular support to bring about real change, or else they are convinced that they are indeed unworthy and sometimes even work toward their own destruction. Third, the so-called middle class is led to dream of becoming rich and to fear the encroachment of the poor. Continue reading “A Wonderfully Complex Set of Illusions” →

AS THE WORLD SQUIRMS (Quarantine Essay #9)

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

mlkBy Ric Hudgens (originally posted to Facebook March 31, 2020). Ric is posting all of his quarantine essays to Medium.

In his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. King wrote: “In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

The coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic is putting this perspective to the test and vindicating it once again.

If we attend to the virology of this moment our unity is dramatically highlighted. Within just a few weeks, this disease has traveled the globe, infecting thousands, regardless of race, color, or national origin. All are vulnerable, and it is a universal threat. Continue reading “AS THE WORLD SQUIRMS (Quarantine Essay #9)” →

Divine Disobedience

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment
CPIBy Mark Van Steenwyk, the executive director of the Center for Prophetic Imagination

Christians in our society have a problem with authority—not that we are too disobedient, but that we aren’t disobedient enough. Howard Zinn once wrote: “Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty.”

In the middle of the 20th Century, feminist theologian Dorthee Sölle coined the term “christofascism.” Sölle experienced an authoritarian church during Nazi Germany. However, she saw the same imperial authoritarian form of Christianity alive and well in the United States after the war…and even foresaw the way in which Christianity would be used as a weapon of supremacy in modern America.
Continue reading “Divine Disobedience” →

Imagination Battle

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index“We are in an imagination battle.

Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown and Renisha McBride and so many others are dead because, in some white imagination, they were dangerous. And that imagination is so respected that those who kill, based on an imagined, radicalized fear of Black people, are rarely held accountable.

Imagination has people thinking they can go from being poor to a millionaire as part of a shared American dream. Imagination turns Brown bombers into terrorists and white bombers into mentally ill victims. Imagination gives us borders, gives us superiority, gives us race as an indicator of ability. I often feel I am trapped inside someone else’s capability. I often feel I am trapped inside someone’ else’s imagination, and I must engage my own imagination in order to break free.”
― Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

We are not at War

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RubyFrom the front porch of Ruby Sales (March 24, 2020).

We are not at war. Rather we are facing a humanitarian crisis. Our lives and futures depend on knowing the difference

My friends this is a long read , but I believe that it is worthy of your time and consideration.

It is important to understand that we are not at war as Trump and others declared. Rather, we are facing a humanitarian crisis. You might wonder what difference does it make how we call it. In my estimation it makes a difference between life and death- who lives and who dies – as well as how we treat and value each other. Our answers to these questions determine our approach and solutions. Continue reading “We are not at War” →