Category: Theological Animation

AI – Principalities, Powers & Mass Movements

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By Rev. Joanna Shenk, the fourth and final sermon in a series at First Mennonite of San Francisco called “Living with Courage and Clarity in the face of AI.”

When I was growing up we read a lot of books together as a family. One significant book series was the Lord of the Rings – a fantasy trilogy about good and evil, with many Christian themes. 

The Lord of the Rings movie adaptations came out in the early 2000s and were an instant family favorite. No one loved them more than my youngest brother, Jonny, who watched all three movies 50 times each, as well as read the books and other writings of the author, JRR Tolkien. 

For those who aren’t familiar, Lord of the Rings is a deeply spiritual tale, reflecting on the nature of power and its ability to corrupt. In the story, the smallest and humblest creatures, the Hobbits, are tasked with saving the world from the powers of evil that are a destructive, extractive force. Although there are ways that Tolkien was problematic in his binary thinking, he was telling a story in response to the rise of fascism in his day. 

Jonny told me that Tolkien was always suspicious of people with grand plans and he was not a fan of technology. Tolkien believed that you couldn’t beat an enemy with their weapons, but instead had to use simplicity and creativity, like the earthy Hobbits or the angry Ents – ancient tree people – who destroyed Isengard, an evil fortress, by rupturing a dam.    

I was inspired to talk with my brother while writing this sermon because two of the most powerful AI tech companies draw their names from Lord of Rings – Palantir and Anduril. There are many others (over 20) including Valinor (the undying lands), Isengard (the evil fortress I just mentioned), & Sauron. 

Yes, Sauron, which is the death dealing force hell bent on destroying all living things not under its control. Sauron the company “is the first home security system that accurately identifies, understands, and deters threats” using military grade technology, facial recognition and AI predictive threat technology. 

But I digress.. Back to Palantir and Anduril. Palantir was founded by Peter Thiel, who I mentioned in my sermon last Sunday. It is difficult to explain what Palantir does, but I found this helpful summary from the American Friends Service Committee: Palantir vacuums up massive amounts of data collected by governments and corporations. Palantir is used by militaries, police forces, banks, hospitals, and even your local pharmacy or favorite fast-food restaurant. Palantir’s AI algorithm then combines all this data into a single, gigantic dataset and looks for patterns that are hard to see.

Continue reading “AI – Principalities, Powers & Mass Movements” →

There is Another Court

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From Dr Kamal AlHindi, a professor, an astute analyst and a genocide survivor from Gaza, re-posted from the Substack of Dr. Farah El-Sharif

This is not how the story ends.

Those who think that Gaza’s bloodshed will end with a “two state solution” type of peace agreement or some hollow, fragile truce are deeply mistaken.

Human courts have failed Gaza, and they will continue to fail her. 

But there is another court—the Divine Court—and one day it will render justice for Gaza and call the maniacal oppressors to account.

The oppressed will not depart this world without bearing witness to this promise, in one way or another, and will live to see the day of reckoning, soon.

The truth is, many of our “brothers” conspired against us, and even more who stood by in cowardice and silence.

But what Gaza gave the world was nothing short of a miracle in every sense of the word—a sacrifice in defense of this slumbering ummah that had grown too accustomed to the taste of humiliation and resigned itself to living on the margins of history.

Indeed, this ummah has been worn down by cowardice and fear for far too long. 

Historians will record this shameful chapter of humanity, but by God, your cowardice did not add a single day to your lives, nor did our courage take away single day from the lives of her children.

To the naysayers and cowards: one day, you will look back at this time and you will be ashamed of yourselves. You will remember that you left a child, standing with his bare chest exposed, to face an entire global system of oppression alone.

And surely, one day, you will rush to pay homage to the brave and you will want to visit Gaza.

When you do, please, tread softly upon her soil.

For beneath that earth lie the finest souls humanity has ever brought forth

“The Baptism of John—From Heaven or From the Human?”: A Brief Riff on the Rain of God

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By Jim Perkinson, a sermon on Matthew 21:23-32, preached at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Detroit, MI on September 27, 2026

“Not Me” Attention

A prelim footnote: my evangelical, born-again, Pentecostal, tongues-speaking, word of the Lord-seeking “Christianity” all to the good, much of my adult life has been about learning to see, appreciate, honor, and finally be amazed by what is not me.  “Not me” in terms of living for 15 years in community sharing all things in common under the same roof with as many as 20 other people in one single family dwelling; “not me” as a white male in east side inner city, Black Detroit; “not me” in terms of gender and orientation; “not me” in having a wife who is Filipino-born and enculturated; and with her, “not me,” in learning from indigenous cultures and peoples how to turn aside from human focus on human concerns to fall in love with the Wild World of more-than-human elders and co-dwellers, whether plant, animal, soil, season, weather. Or water. 

We are in the Christian lectionary “Season of Creation” with a central theme of Living Water.  And the question for me is: Can I pay attention to water outside of my concern to drink it, wash with it, ask it to cleanse my dishes and tools and take my garbage and pollution away, grow my crops or transport my computer chips from Taiwan or my I-phone from DRC?  Can I get fascinated with Water on Her own terms and for Her own sake?  Can I stop being human supremacist and only paying attention to such things to the degree they support me or give me some kind of experience I can capture in a selfie?  Can I stop being the center of my own universe?  After all, I am more than 60% water myself and Her dwelling in me means I am not primarily “me,” but another creature who is literally billions of years old and only for an evolutionary split-second, “agreeing” to be in this strange conjunction of all kinds of other creatures—eaten plants and metabolized animals, cavorting bacteria and provocative viruses, a little bit of residual iron and copper, bone and nails and hair, etc.—whose sum and substance for some 70+ years has rambled across a small piece of this planet as an upright oddity called “Jim Perkinson.”  Can I relate to Water without instantly colonizing it?

Nepal Devastation

8:37 am Nepal Time on August 26, 2026, a seismic thud registered at 5.2 magnitude on the Richter scale. A slice of glacier-covered-rock 5,000 feet long, 3,300 feet wide, 425 feet thick, sheered off the north face of Langtang Lirung Mountain, plunged nearly a mile almost straight down into the Lhende Khola valley tributary to the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river systems, landing with the force of 950 tons of TNT, pulverizing the rock, melting the ice, and then surging with a force 30 times that of Niagara Falls, at times racing more than 100 miles an hour with a wave crest as high as 300 feet, downstream for 60 miles before finally slowing and settling into a “mere” flood. 

A “Water Word” sounding at a mega-decibel level heard round the globe.

The human consequence is still being figured in the multiple thousands of deaths, entire villages wiped out, 41 bridges swept away, thousands of homes destroyed.  And we can be tempted to say—Ah, Nature! So cruel! So brutal! So uncaring in the trajectory of its “wild agency,” mindless of its effect, in an eyeblink taking out vast numbers of our species who did nothing to warrant such an annihilation!”

Continue reading ““The Baptism of John—From Heaven or From the Human?”: A Brief Riff on the Rain of God” →

The Hip-Hop Gospel

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Another compelling offering from The Alternative Seminary.

An Online Gathering on Saturday, October 10, 2026 from 10:30am to 12:30pmET – Led by Rev. Donte Milligan.

Hip Hop is a genre of music deeply rooted in and inseparable from Black culture and community. More than almost any other genre, Hip Hop has created space for marginalized voices to speak, resist, testify, and imagine new possibilities.

In this program, we will explore Hip Hop as a prophetic and mystical tradition. Rappers often function as prophets and mystics of marginalized Black and Brown communities, giving voice to experiences that are too often ignored, silenced, or misunderstood. Through their lyrics, they name injustice, expose systems of oppression, wrestle with suffering, celebrate resilience, and imagine liberation. 

Even when its language is bold, brash, or profane, Hip Hop can speak a gritty truth on behalf of God’s beloved. Together, we will ask what happens when we take those voices seriously as sources of theological reflection and prophetic wisdom.

Come listen with open ears, wrestle with the theology, and find God in the places you least expect it.

If you have any questions, contact Will O’Brien at willobrien59@gmail.com or 267-339-8989.

Offering Cultures, Sacrifice Cultures, and Us: Behind the Abraham and Isaac Story: Gen 22:1-19

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By Jim Perkinson (above), a sermon preached at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Detroit last weekend. Click here to check out (and suscribe to!) Dr. Perkinson’s new Substack newsletter.

I’ll begin retrospectively.  A month ago, we had a lectionary passage from Genesis about humans being given “dominion” over the animals and plants of the planet.  Four days before that I had just gotten back from leading a bible study at Kirkridge Retreat Center in eastern Pennsylvania, 544 miles one way by car from Detroit.  And I could not help instantly relating the two things—the scripture passage and my “passage” to and from Kirkridge.  As I had driven east on I-80 to get there, I counted the number of deer, lying in grotesque postures, killed by autos careening across the landscape.  I stopped at 26.  That is our dominion over deer. 

And with every one of them that I passed at 78 miles per hour—staying just under the speed at which I know police would pull me over in a 70-mile-per-hour zone—I loathed my behavior.  If I really lived what I believe, I would not dare pass by such a supine body without stopping and at least burying the departed one with appropriate ritual, if not more respectfully skinning the body, gathering the bones, preserving the back strap and ligaments, removing the horns—making sure every feature of that magnificent creature was being honored and lived up to in gratitude for its unwilling gift.  Instead, I held myself responsible to cry out to each and every one I passed—as well as all the smaller-sized little ones also lying by the side of the road—“I’m so sorry, I lament my kind doing this, please go over to the Other Side, be healed, find peace!”  And in every instance, I would find tears flushing my eyes and often dribbling down my cheek. 

And then after the Kirkridge time, I came back to a Motor City in full levity, celebrating the Grand Prix auto fest.  We use the French pronunciation to give it seeming status, but I would rather pronounce the “x” in “Prix” as an English “x.” Pricks”!  Yes, celebrating the Grand Pricks, the Big Dicks, the high-tech MFs plundering the planet for ever greater speed, going . . . around in circles (the planet is round after all)!  Even when we are already energy-strapped and facing fuel crises!  What could be more indicative of our insanity!

I don’t believe in dominion.  But I live it.  I drove to church today.  I lament much of what I do every day—but I don’t stop doing it. I am part of the plundering and killing of the planet. 

Continue reading “Offering Cultures, Sacrifice Cultures, and Us: Behind the Abraham and Isaac Story: Gen 22:1-19” →

The Madness of Grace in a Fallen World

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A new online course offering from The Alternative Seminary. Tuesday evenings, July 7-28 (7:00 – 9:00 p.m).

The Southern writer Flannery O’Connor once offered a wry variation on a theme of Jesus: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”  Her fiction, set in her rural Southern culture, is a world of oddness, weirdness, madness, misfits and murderers, corrupt preachers and moralistic hypocrites.  It is also a world of the sometimes harsh and shocking intrusions of grace into flawed and fractured humanity.

The Alternative Seminary is offering an opportunity to explore O’Connor’s fiction in an upcoming online course.  For four weeks, we will read and discuss some of her most challenging stories. We will pay particular attention to what she might be saying to us in these strange and troubling times – which includes wrestling with her complex views and fictional portrayals of race.  Join us for some provocative (and fun) literary and theological adventures.

The course will be led by Will O’Brien, coordinator of the Alternative Seminary.  The cost for this course is $50 (or whatever you can afford).  To register, go to https://bit.ly/FlanneryOConnor26

For more information contact Will O’Brien at willobrien59@gmail.com or 267-339-8989.

The Alternative Seminary is an informal program of biblical and theological study and reflection designed to foster an authentic biblical witness in the modern world. www.alternativeseminary.net

post-evangelical

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By Tommy Airey, re-posted from his Substack newsletter.

Charles Cha and I joke that we were evangelical Christians before it was cool.

In the early 90’s, we attended a bible study for high school students sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. It was basically a training camp for evangelizing students, teachers, administrators and coaches at our public-school campus in Orange County, California.

During our junior year, Charles and I invited friends to join us in Mr. Leander’s classroom during lunch so we could get them saved. We utilized a tract called “The Four Spiritual Laws,” which was created by Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright back in the 60’s. 

Charles had the whole thing memorized.

He used the whiteboard to scrawl out bible verses from the Book of Romans.

He drew images to show how our sin will send us straight to hell – and also how God’s grace builds a bridge to heaven for those who make a decision for Christ, whose death on the cross makes us clean.

None of our friends bought that bridge.

Continue reading “post-evangelical” →

Bones, Beads, Belonging, and the Bible: Just Where are We Standing?

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By Dr. Jim Perkinson, a sermon for St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Detroit (03.22.2026) – pictured above at the annual Nakba Day march in Dearborn, MI (photo credit)

37 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; it was full of bones. 2 And he led me round among them; and behold, there were very many upon the valley; and lo, they were very dry. 3 And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, thou knowest. . . . 11 Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you home into the land of Israel (Ezek 37:1-3, 11-12).

I’m going to start weird and way out—something new for me, right?  But walk with me for a moment.  We need some background.

First, I want to suggest that this story of Ezekiel prophesying to bones is ultimately about bones in the right place of burial.  And its opposite is bones out of place.  If we read just two chapters further on in Ezekiel, we encounter another strange little vignette about bones in or out of place that reads thus:

They will set apart men to pass through the land continually and bury those remaining upon the face of the land, so as to cleanse it; at the end of seven months they will make their search. And when these pass through the land and anyone sees a man’s bone, then he shall set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Manon-gog (“Multitude of Gog”) (Ezek 39:14-15).

And what is in view here are the bones of invaders that are not just allowed to lie around wherever they fell but collected and “placed” in a particular domain previously called “The Valley of Travelers,” now renamed “Valley of the Multitude.” In fact, chapters 37, 38, and 39 of Ezekiel are actually one whole piece of interaction between Ezekiel and YHWH concerning a vision of the Great End Times Battle of Gog and Magog, much later taken up in the Book of Revelation as “Armageddon,” the Final Apocalyptic Catastrophe that supposedly ruptures history as we know it (and which right now is being used by U.S. military commanders to motivate their troops to fight Iran as a prelude to provoking the Second Coming of Jesus).  The Valley of Dry Bones episode is actually the Preface to this War scenario.  We’ll come back to that in a bit.  But for now, Ezekiel is wrestling with an implicit question: where do bones belong?

Continue reading “Bones, Beads, Belonging, and the Bible: Just Where are We Standing?” →

Splendor Within Humility

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A word from our comrades at Rabbis for Ceasefire. They are posting these everyday during the 49 days of Omer, which extends from the second night of Passover to the day before Shavuot.

When involved in solidarity movements, it is important that those of us who show up as allies defer to the leadership of those most directly impacted by state violence. So, for example, in Palestinian solidarity work, it is incumbent upon those of us who are not Palestinian and not directly impacted by the actions of Israel and the U.S. to ensure that the voices of Palestinians are centered, whether in our meetings, at events, with the press, etc.

This requires humility. The humility to know that your words are not more powerful or more important than those of Palestinians. The humility to recognize that deferring to the wisdom of those directly impacted is a true act of solidarity. I see splendor within humility as a beautiful mosaic of opening the white spaces between the black letters for the voices of the most directly impacted and marginalized to speak and share their truth and stories—stories that are far too often silenced in a society that awards narcissism and charisma over truth and justice.