Why is This the Only Issue?

On May 29, 2019May 27, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

An excerpt from The Atlantic‘s interview with Rev. Jen Kast, a UCC pastor who grew up in hyper-Evangelical Western Michigan.

I began to understand myself as a woman in ministry. I began to see myself as this Christian feminist. I began to own my voice differently, and to question the rules of engagement of Christianity that I was raised with.

I began saying things like, “Why is it that abortion is the only issue that my parents and family really care about?” I have a very good relationship with my family. I’m not trying to paint them in negative light. But why? Why is this the only issue?

Like many Millennials coming out of evangelicalism, I began to care about different justice issues. I began to care about the Earth, and racial justice, and interfaith justice. And one of the topics that arose for me was abortion.

I began questioning: What about bodily autonomy? Isn’t that justice? How would God ever infringe upon that?

And this was a big one for me: Why is it that when it comes to this topic, it’s almost always white, straight, Christian men who are the loudest?

Radical Discipleship: An Invitation to be Led by the Spirit in Prayer

On May 27, 2019May 24, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Rev. Joanna Lawrence Shenk

*This is part of a series of pieces from contributors all over North America each answering the question, “How would you define radical discipleship?” We will be posting responses regularly on Mondays during 2019.

A version of this article was first preached at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco on March 31, 2019

During Lent this year I experienced a stripping away, a reorientation in a vulnerable and uncomfortable way. I recognized my need for God and guidance by the Spirit anew. It has led to questions such as:

Where is the Spirit at work?
Am I attentive enough to follow the Spirit’s leading?
Am I courageous enough to follow?
Do I actually need God or do I think I’m okay with my analysis and intention to do good in the world?

In this time prayer has become a central practice. Continue reading “Radical Discipleship: An Invitation to be Led by the Spirit in Prayer” →

The Intensity of the Witness

On May 25, 2019May 18, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

From the Essential Writings of Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm and author of the Cotton Patch paraphrase of the New Testament.

The history of the Christian movement demonstrates that the intensity of persecution is geared, not to the moral level of the non-Christians, or persecutors, but to the intensity of the witness of the Christian community. The early believers were not persecuted because the Romans were such bad people. In fact, on big occasions they would throw a thousand or two helpless people into the amphitheater to be clawed to pieces by lions, but the thought of atomizing [with a nuclear bomb] a whole city probably would have horrified them. The strong conviction of the believers might not have caused the Romans to persecute them, but there could have been no persecution without such faith. One wonders why Christians today get off so easily. Is it because unchristian Americans are that much better than unchristian Romans, or is our light so dim that the tormentor can’t see it? What are the things we do that are worth persecuting?

To Enlist

On May 24, 2019May 10, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

An excerpt from Detroit-based theologian Dr. Jim Perkinson’s classic piece “Theology and the City: Learning to Cry Struggling to See.“

*To live in a suburb “neutrally” is to participate in the American fiction of innocence.

…In complex, globally interdependent societies like those we now live in, theology that is not simply ideology requires a kind of militancy. It must enter a fray that is neither gentle nor innocent. But it has not ever been different for Christian “God talk.” In the first centuries of the church’s life, for instance, the early meaning of paganism was both “rural-dweller” and “noncombatant.” To become a believer in the early church meant to enlist. In the Roman imperial order, a sacramentum was an oath of loyalty taken by a soldier to Caesar. For Christians living under that imperial regime, celebrating “sacraments” like the Eucharist was a practice of political resistance in a struggle that engaged war-making as its nonviolent, but combative opposite. From the beginning, Christianity has been about spiritual warfare, when it has not forgotten its calling. And Christian theology in the mix is the articulation of where God is most likely to be encountered in the ongoing conflict.

Wild Lectionary: God’s Own Pocket

On May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

Batch hills(1) — Bachelor Hills, Secwepemc Territory

Easter 6C

Revelation 21:10; 21:22-22:5

And in the spirit he carried me to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God…I saw no temple in the city.

by Rev LeAnn Blackert

Forty-five minutes into our hike, we crest the last steep stretch and find ourselves standing on a flat section of land with limitless views in all directions. The snow covered peaks of the mountains of Wells Gray Park highlight the northern view, while off to our west the sun begins its descent to the horizon. Blue gray hills rim the southern exposure and to the east the city of Kamloops nestles in the valley. I recall words offered to me years ago on a trail leading to the water’s edge in western Vancouver: “Truly we are being held in God’s own pocket.” Our Wild Church group’s experience atop one of the hills in Kenna Cartwright Park in Kamloops, BC, comes to mind when I read the words from Revelation. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: God’s Own Pocket” →

Those Deemed Different

On May 21, 2019May 21, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

By Tommy Airey, last Sunday’s silent sermon

So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step…
Acts 11:2-4

When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”
Acts 11:18

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
John 13:34-35

In a previous life, I was the athletic director at a large public high school and an associate pastor at an Evangelical church plant at the same time. My single life and my Purpose Driven protein shakes subsidized my 80-hour workweek. It was a life of adventure. One week I was on a short-term mission trip to Nigeria. The next week I was dealing with the fallout of a teacher-and-coach who was sleeping with one of his students. Continue reading “Those Deemed Different” →

Our Most Sacred Relative

On May 20, 2019May 20, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

An excerpt from Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs’ powerful Thursday morning sermon at the February 2019 Bartimaeus Kinsler Institute on Chumash land (“Oak View, CA”). Listen to all 40 minutes of challenge and inspiration here.

The principle of non-Indigenous environmental justice work could be summarized like this:

The earth is our greatest natural resource and it is incumbent upon us to protect it.

Sounds good, but it is wrong. Because when viewed from an Indigenous perspective, we would state it like this:

The earth is our most sacred relative and it is incumbent upon us to protect her.

The Earth has an identity. The Earth lives. She breathes. She moves. She thunders. She nourishes.

The Traumatic Somatic

On May 19, 2019May 7, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

From the conclusion of a sermon that Ched Myers preached at Garret Evangelical Theological Seminary Chapel on April 24, 2019. Access the entire sermon here!

Our gospel text—and the excruciating lesson of Emmet Till’s funeral, which launched the most significant social movement in U.S. history—challenge us to embrace the beat up bodies of both marginalized people and degraded places around our earth mother. As we do so, we will be motivated also to embrace the militant evangelistic vocation Jesus leaves his companions at the end of Luke’s Emmaus narrative: to “proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in my name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (24:47). It is we who must continue the prophetic struggle to turn history around from its captivity to our terminal addictions and compulsions—that’s the meaning of “repentance.” Resurrection as Insurrection! And as Jesus notes, this good news is not just for individuals, but nations and systems, starting at the centers of power— for Luke, Jerusalem, for us, Washington DC. Continue reading “The Traumatic Somatic” →

Wild Lectionary: Trees, a Gift for All or Entitlement for Some?

On May 16, 2019May 20, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

226AtlanticAve Easter 5C 5^thRevelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35

By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals.”

I imagine that a new Jerusalem, where God will dwell, will most definitely have tree-lined streets. I also imagine that God’s design for the present Jerusalem—for Earth’s cities in general—is that all should benefit from the Divine gift of trees.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Trees, a Gift for All or Entitlement for Some?” →

Eastertide: the Outing of the Church

On May 15, 2019May 9, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Ken Sehested (photo right with grandchildren), curator of prayerandpolitiks.org

Some years ago, writing in the days leading up to Easter, I realized important though tragic anniversaries arrived in the days immediately following that Sunday.

“Even before our resurrection flowers have wilted, we will be confronted again with the presence of evil. Since Easter falls early in the calendar this year, in the coming resurrection week we will be forced to remember the enduring power of death. In 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian, was executed by the Nazis two days after Easter Sunday. This next Thursday, April 4, we will remember the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. right here in Memphis.” —continue reading “Open Letter to My Daughter: Easter morning, with the stench of death still in the air”

What it is

We have entered Eastertide, the liturgical season beginning with Easter and ending 50 days later on Pentecost (aka Whitsunday). The formulation of this season parallels the period in Judaism between the first day of Pesach (Passover, marking their liberation from Egypt) and the feast of Shavu’ot (Feast of Weeks, both a harvest festival and a commemoration of the giving of Torah at Mount Sinai). Parallel resurrection moments, setting the stage for resulting resurrection movements. Continue reading “Eastertide: the Outing of the Church” →