Category: Subverting Empire

Journaling on the outside of the Jail

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment

20181211_192911By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

This Advent my dad, Bill Wylie-Kellermann, spent 10 days in jail for an action he was part of in the spring with the Poor People’s Campaign. Each night I journaled and shared them on facebook. It was a practice that held my heart steady in a rather chaotic week and a half.

Day 1 of Dad in Jail for Advent
“But who will….”

My morning was crappy. Both kids with tantrums leaving it almost impossible to get everyone where they needed to be on time. On the way to school, I pulled a completely unnecessary turn around, scraped a log next to someone’s driveway which pulled off my bumper.

So, I am driving down 96 to concerning sounds of things scraping against my tires and wind rushing through the exposed mechanics of my car. I am running late, but trying to still make it to see my dad and Tommy Tackett turn themselves in at court today. I want to get video statements. I want to help alert press releases with on the ground information. I want to say thank you to my dad and hug him goodbye. Continue reading “Journaling on the outside of the Jail” →

Don’t Wake a Sleeping Dragon

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment
fritz
By Fritz Eichenberg

By: Anonymous

A few weeks ago I was sitting in Jose’s kitchen, waiting for his monthly phone call. Once a month he gets a call on a voice-recognition system: at some point during a two hour window, the phone will ring. He answers, then has to call back within three minutes. A machine recites a string of numbers, which he repeats, and then he is okay for another month. Since getting Administrative Closure of his case a few years ago, this has been the only contact he has had with the immigration folks. Finally the phone rang. I watched as he called back, heard him repeat the string of numbers. And repeat it again, and again, four times altogether. Finally he turned to me, ashen-faced. “It says it’s going to report me,” he said. Continue reading “Don’t Wake a Sleeping Dragon” →

Loving our Way through the Darkest of Days

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WWCFrom our comrades at The Wilderness Way in Portland, OR:

“They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher,* let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.”–Mark 10:46-52

Week Three’s Skill of Loving is RESPONDING TO NEEDS:

“I will respond to your needs and be there for you, within the limits of my value system, when those needs are made known. I also take the responsibility to make my needs known.” Continue reading “Loving our Way through the Darkest of Days” →

An Opportunity to Connect and be Transformed

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

EmpireAnother important offering from The Center of Prophetic Imagination:

This weekend intensive explores the ways in which our society’s systems of oppression are legitimized by an imperial spirituality that we rarely recognize as such. The goal of this intensive is to examine the nature of this “spirituality of empire,” how it shapes our imaginations, why it is hostile to life, and and how we might begin to resist it.

Please note: The lecture portions of this intensive will be filmed, in fulfillment of a curriculum grant from FTE to create an 8-week online course. Our goal is to break the lecturing portion of the intensive into eight 30-45 minute sessions that will be enhanced with additional multimedia elements and turned into the core content for an online course, which will be released in January 2020.

Because of this, we are offering the weekend retreat for free. Continue reading “An Opportunity to Connect and be Transformed” →

From Downtown to the Desert: Voices from the Wilderness Call Out for Water Justice

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MLPBy Kim Redigan, an Advent reflection on Luke 3:1-6 for the Faith Outreach Committee of the People’s Water Board (Detroit, MI)

Today’s Gospel opens with a litany of the strong and mighty – the political and religious powerbrokers of their time. Ruthless men whose cruel governance in partnership with their corrupt religious lackeys oppressed the people in a thousand different ways. A violent alliance based on greed and domination with no tolerance for resistance or rebellion.

Does this sound familiar?

Today’s political and corporate tyrants embrace the same imperial imperative – to crush and control by any means necessary. Here in Detroit, water is used as a weapon in the hands of those who have crafted a well-woven matrix of subjugation and theft that includes water shutoffs and home foreclosures as part of a violent gentrification project that has created a diaspora of displaced citizens and a web of private security and surveillance systems to keep the people in line. As in the time of Jesus, many religious leaders either look the other way or are actively complicit, sometimes profiting handsomely from a relationship based on a mutual love of money. Continue reading “From Downtown to the Desert: Voices from the Wilderness Call Out for Water Justice” →

Loving our Way through the Darkest of Days

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WWC
From our comrades at The Wilderness Way in Portland, OR:

“When we hear, there is something being woven. And what is happening is, I am making a real effort to hear not just your words but what is coming from your other chakras, and you are demonstrably showing that you are seeking to hear what I am saying. And we are in a fluid, almost musical, state in what we are doing right now.  That hearing is love.”  

— Gerald Jud, Love is an Intention

December 9: Week Two’s Skill of Loving is HEARING.

HEARING: I hear what you are truly saying, not what I wish you were saying. I also speak my own truth with kindness and respect.

Invitation

This week we invite you to consciously practice HEARING (and speaking truth) as a way of loving our way through the darkest of days. Share stories, insights and discoveries in this group. Continue reading “Loving our Way through the Darkest of Days” →

The Political Reality at the Heart of the Gospel

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LukeBy Pádraig Ó Tuama, comments on the Gospel reading for the second Sunday of Advent (reposted from Spirituality of Conflict)

Luke’s gospel is an extraordinarily political one. Over and over, the writer mentions the names of people in power, referencing their eras, areas of governance and even some of their policies.

The readings for the past two weeks have been filled with warnings about signs of the times. Now, rather than talking about signs, Luke’s gospel text drops us into the actual events, describing in detail the political landscape of the times. Even a casual acquaintance with the gospel texts brings some familiarity with the complicated dynamics of conflict in the politics of the day — names such as Herod, Pilate, Judea, Pharisees, Scribes, Samaria, Syrophonecia, Gentile, Rome, all trip off the tongue, even though our knowledge about these geographies, groups and geopolitical realities might be patchy. Continue reading “The Political Reality at the Heart of the Gospel” →

An Opportunity to Network and Be Inspired

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Two Bulls
Wowasake kin slolyapo wowahwala he e (“Know the power that is peace”)  Diptych icon of Black Elk by Robert Two Bulls.

Come join RadicalDiscipleship.Net at the 2019 Bartimaeus Kinsler Institute in sunny Southern California Feb 18-22, 2019.

The 2019 BKI theme is “Indigenous Justice and Christian Faith: Land, Law, Language.” The week will feature a great line up of indigenous resource people, the acclaimed theater production “Discovery,” workshops, art, music and more.

Registration is now open: Registration and Accommodation Package Details

Registration includes, accommodation (most packages), all study materials and 11 meals (Mon dinner-Fri breakfast).

Early bird registration closes: Dec 16th, 2018
Registration deadline: Feb 3rd, 2019

Click on HERE for more information!!!!

World on the Scales: The Apocalyptic Season of the Church Year

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King CrimsonBy Ched Myers

Note: These thoughts were shared on the 26th Sunday after Pentecost at Farm Church to give context for the readings and theme of the service. They are germane to this long but informative issue of the BCM Enews.

Yesterday Elaine and I attended the memorial service for my oldest friend’s mother. She was the last of the parents of our tight-knit neighborhood group to cross over during the last year, a string that began with my mom’s passing. We gathered at the venerable old St. James Episcopal church in South Pasadena, where I was baptized as an infant. The memories shared yesterday were about the halcyon days of our little suburban community—and it was by all means a very privileged and insular context in which to grow up. But as I listened, I was mindful of the fact that actually, from puberty onward, I was a pretty alienated kid. In 1970, I was 15, a vegetarian, and already marching against the Indochina war, to the great exasperation of my father, a veteran of two wars. This was on the heels of the 60s, and my older brother was stuck in Vietnam, sending me coded antiwar letters—in Elvish script! Continue reading “World on the Scales: The Apocalyptic Season of the Church Year” →

The Politics of Christmas

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From our comrades at the Alternative Seminary in Philly…just in time for Advent:Adbusters

In an age of Trumpism, can we liberate Christmas from its cultural captivity and rediscover the truly prophetic story that speaks to the crises of our world today?

Peace on Earth and the Politics of Christmas

Saturday morning, December 8
9:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Project HOME, 1515 Fairmount Avenue

Much of the Christian church in the United States has been co-opted by an American gospel of prosperity, racism, violence, and militant nationalism. The celebration of Christmas is a victim of that co-optation: It is often wrapped in innocent, feel-good, Hallmark-card imagery. But in fact the biblical texts describing the coming of Jesus are making powerful assertions about the politics of the Bible that speak very much to our contemporary global crises. We will reflect on the “nativity narratives” in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to see how they express core biblical themes of justice and liberation. We will try to “un-domesticate” these tales of liberation and reflect on how they are truly challenging us in terms of our allegiance and our discipleship. A perfect event for Advent. A light breakfast will be served. A $5 donation is requested to cover costs.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Will O’Brien at (215) 842-1790 or wobrien@alternativeseminary.net by December 5.

The Alternative Seminary is a program of biblical and theological study and reflection designed to foster an authentic biblical witness in the modern world. For more information, see http://www.alternativeseminary.net.