Category: Theological Animation

Full Frontal Prophetic Nudity

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Micah IconBy Tommy Airey

For this I will lament and wail;
I will go barefoot and naked;
I will make lamentation like the jackals,
and mourning like the ostriches.
Micah 1:8

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
Virginia Woolf

*This is the first in a series of seven pieces on Micah posted every Wednesday during Lent.
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Like us, Micah was living during imperial catastrophe and, like us, the reasons for the destruction and dysfunction were contested. In this prophetic leaflet, what Dan Berrigan calls “a torrid, icy mix of threat and promise,” Micah does what prophets do: he comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable in pointed, specific ways. To reclaim a phrase from the Religious Right who hijacked it from Gandhi who resurrected it from Augustine: “He loves the sinner, but hates the sin.”
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Pope Francis: What is your Capacity to Cry?

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The Solidarity of the Crucified

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Head shots for Miroslav Volf's forthcoming book about faith and globalization.From Miroslav Volf in Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (1996):

All sufferers can find comfort in the solidarity of the Crucified; but only those who struggle against evil by following the example of the Crucified will discover him at their side. To claim the comfort of the Crucified while rejecting his way is to advocate not only cheap grace but a deceitful ideology.

“God is Like a Mountain” (Mk 9:2-9)

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By Ched Myers, for Transfiguration Sunday (6. Epiphany)

Note: This is an ongoing occasional series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B.
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Without wildness, civilization could not survive. The converse does not hold.
Evan Eisenberg, The Ecology of Eden

The Feast of the Transfiguration probably dates back to the late Roman period. A major feast in the Eastern Church, it was not widely practiced until the 9th century by the Western Church. August 6th was designated as Feast of the Transfiguration for the whole church in 1456. The Roman Catholic Church today also commemorates the Transfiguration on the second Sunday in Lent, but the Revised Common Lectionary puts the story at the last Sunday of Epiphany, just before Lent. This is done in order to recognize the Transfiguration’s close relationship in the synoptic gospel narratives to Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem and the Cross.
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A Betrayal of the Disappointed

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Dorothee SoelleFrom Dorothee Soelle in “Christofascism,” in The Window of Vulnerability: A Political Spirituality (1990):

At a mass meeting a thousand voices shouted: ‘I love Jesus’ and ‘I love America’ — it was impossible to distinguish the two. This kind of religion knows the cross only as a magical symbol of what he has done for us, not as the sign of the poor man who was tortured to death as a political criminal, like thousands today who stand up for his truth in El Salvador. This is a God without justice, a Jesus without a cross, an Easter without a cross — what remains is a metaphysical Easter Bunny in front of the beautiful blue light of the television screen, a betrayal of the disappointed, a miracle weapon in service of the mighty.

What Would Happen if Jesus Came to Your Home?

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ChedBy Ched Myers, Fifth Sunday in Epiphany (Mk 1:29-39)

Note: This is an ongoing occasional series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B.
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In Mark 1:28, Jesus retreats to a home from his confrontation with the “Powers” occupying the synagogue, having created space for change. In Mark’s story, the home seems to be a safe site (5:38; 7:17, 24; 9:33; 10:10; 14:3), in contrast to the synagogue and Temple as places of conflict. Such “politics of space” no doubt reflected the experience of the earliest church—or of any social renewal movement’s relationship with established institutions of control. In this case, we should note that Jesus avails the hospitality of a peasant fisherman, setting the pattern that will continue throughout this story: Jesus abides with the marginalized.
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Agents of God’s Invasion

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Invasion-of-the-DeadSince 2007, Brian Blount has been the president and professor of New Testament at Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, VA, and Charlotte, NC. Before that, Dr. Blount was the professor of New Testament Interpretation at Princeton Theological Seminary for 15 years. In this interview, we focus on his most recent publication Invasion of the Dead: Preaching Resurrection (2014).
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RD: What led you into researching and writing Invasion of the Dead?

BB: I initially wanted to write about our contemporary understanding and misunderstanding of apocalyptic literature. I was very interested in trying to help the church read apocalyptic literature in the context of the 21st century, particularly in light of the way contemporary popular culture was reading apocalyptic language and imagery. This concern developed because of my sense that popular culture had really taken a liking to material that the church had given up on, even though apocalyptic imagery is a part of Christianity’s birthright. The more I worked on it, the more I realized that there were many persons, like my former teacher, J. Christiaan Beker, already speaking to this issue. What they were not speaking to more specifically was the language of resurrection, which is consummate apocalyptic language. As I focused more and more, my interest went more and more to reading resurrection as an apocalyptic theological reality.
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Prayer

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ripple_effectby tommy airey

Prayer from the heart can achieve what nothing else can in the world.
Gandhi

We do not want to be beginners [at prayer], but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners, all our life!
Merton
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Prayer is a pilgrimage into the deepest recesses of our being. It is being attentive to God’s active presence both with us and within us. The 15th century Indian contemplative Kabir wrote that “God is the breath inside the breath.” The Apostle Paul quoted the philosopher Epimenides as he sermonized the Athenians: “For in him we live and move and have our being.” God is that energy and power and inspiration that we draw upon to live and thrive. Continue reading “Prayer” →

The Movement For God’s Beloved Community

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greensboro1Today, we honor those nonviolent freedom fighters who sparked the sit-in movement at lunch counters exactly 55 years ago. It is also the 50th anniversary of the first mass arrests in Selma–Dr. King and more than a thousand demonstrators, including more than 500 children were jailed on February 1, 1965 (many these same children prayed for Sheriff Clark’s speedy recovery from exhaustion outside a hospital days later). Lastly, we celebrate the 60th birthday of Ched Myers, a man who has committed his life to the legacy of Jesus & Martin Luther King. This is an excerpt from an article he published 10 years ago in Transmission (U.K) titled “Was Jesus a Practitioner of Nonviolence? Reading through Mark 1:21-3:19 and Martin Luther King”, an appropriate piece of vision-casting for all of us who dare to resist like it’s 1960 Greensboro & 1965 Selma:

At the end of their lives, Jesus and King were each hemmed in by all the factions of their respective political terrains. They had to navigate death threats from without, dissent from within their own movements, and had as colleagues only a relatively tiny group of feckless companions. But that is how it always is struggling for the Kingdom of God in a world held hostage by tyrants, terrorists, militarists, and kingpins, unaided by ambivalent religious leaders and insular academics and utterly distracted young folks. Despite all this, however, both Jesus and King chose nonviolent love without compromising their insistence upon justice. They believed that the movement for God’s Beloved Community was worth giving their lives to—and they invite us to do the same.

Breakin’ Down Messianism With Dr. Jim Perkinson

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messianismJim Perkinson is a long-time activist and educator from inner city Detroit, where he has a history of involvement in various community development initiatives and low-income housing projects. He holds a PhD in theology from the University of Chicago and is in demand as a speaker on a wide variety of topics (especially race, class & colonialism). He is also a recognized artist on the spoken-word poetry scene in the inner city. Many of his works are published. In this interview, we home in on his 2014 work Messianism Against Christology: Resistance Movements, Folk Arts and Empire.
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RD: What’s the difference between “messianism” and “christology?”

J-Perk: Messianism Against Christology: Resistance Movements, Folk Arts and Empire is a work committed to re-thinking the Christian tradition from the point of view of social movements rather than magnified individuals.   Jesus was a movement man—as were Moses and Elijah before him, and John the Baptist alongside him. “Messianism” is a word drafted into service as a movement term. Rather than focus on a great individual called “Jesus” comprehended as “the Christ,” the book examines his effort as part of a broader resistance initiative. The social movement launched by John was already in motion when Jesus first opts to begin public action. Continue reading “Breakin’ Down Messianism With Dr. Jim Perkinson” →