Belovedness

On March 18, 2019March 18, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

By Will O’Brien (right), director of the Alternative Seminary in Philly, PA

*This is the 12th installation of a year-long series of posts 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.

Many decades into a vocation of trying to faithfully engage in movements for social justice and peace, I am coming to sense more and more the powerful and radical truth in the simple phrase from the First Letter of John, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). I am utterly convinced that all systematic theologies, all ethics and morality, all spiritualities are subsumed into this daring assertion: God is love. All of the created order is a miracle of love. The human adventure over millennia is the struggle to know and live out our belovedness. The mystery of sin is ultimately the failure to love or to experience belovedness. Jesus the Anointed One embodies love and invites us to a path of love. Continue reading “Belovedness” →

In Ever-More Predatory and Beguiling Forms

On March 17, 2019March 12, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

BWK From Bill Wylie-Kellermann’s recent release Principalities in Particular: A Practical Theology of the Powers That Be (Oct 2017):

In the struggle for racial justice the recognition of “institutional racism,” that insidious structural element far beyond personal prejudice, was a huge step toward seeing racism as a principality. Ironically, however, the liberal preoccupation with its institutional character would prove progressively blind to its overpowering spiritual dimension. The African American freedom struggle, founded under SCLC’s early banner, “To Heal the Soul of the Nation,” tended to become more and more a civil rights movement with a largely legislative agenda. In the several decades since Stringfellow’s address, the legal apparatus of our American apartheid has been all but dismantled. End of racism, right? No. We ignore its spiritual reality at the peril of our national soul. And there is no force in our history that has proven more relentless or devastatingly resilient than white racism. It is empirically a demon which again and again rises up transmogrified in ever-more predatory and beguiling forms, truly tempting our despair. The frustration we suffer is not unlike that of the disciples who were gently upbraided by Jesus, “This kind can only be cast out by prayer and fasting.”
Continue reading “In Ever-More Predatory and Beguiling Forms” →

Wild Lectionary: The Boy with Epilepsy- Listening Again

On March 14, 2019March 13, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

img_5191_med_hr-2 — Wing and a Prayer, 2014, mixed media, L.J. Throstle

Lent 2C
Luke 9:28-43

By Lucy Price

Matthew, Mark and Luke all contain seizures and demons in the same sentence and some even translate the word to epilepsy. Lunatic and moonstruck are closer to the original translation, but in any case growing up in the church as a person living with epilepsy, hearing the story of the boy brought to Jesus for healing left me with a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: The Boy with Epilepsy- Listening Again” →

The Cross: A Call to Gospel Nonviolence

On March 11, 2019March 12, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

crucifixion_edilberto-merida East Coast Friends!! An announcement from The Alternative Seminary in Philly!

THE CROSS OF CHRIST: A JUSTIFICATION FOR REDEMPTIVE VIOLENCE OR A
CALL TO GOSPEL NONVIOLENCE?

The cross can heal and hurt; it can be empowering and liberating but also enslaving and oppressive … I believe that the cross placed alongside the lynching tree can help us to see Jesus in America in a new light, and thereby empower people who claim to follow him to take a stand against white supremacy and every kind of injustice.” ― James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree

Continue reading “The Cross: A Call to Gospel Nonviolence” →

Where We Put Down Our Roots

On March 11, 2019March 10, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

By Mark Van Steenwyk MVS

*This is the 11th installation of a year-long series of posts 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.

What is Radical Discipleship? This used to be a fairly simple question to me. Now? Not so much.

Fifteen years ago, with the confidence of a late 20’s white seminarian, I “planted” a church whose only real mission was to take Jesus seriously. Soon, that new church experiment mutated into a full on intentional community, a sort of hybrid between a catholic worker house and a hippy Mennonite Church. We called ourselves the Mennonite Worker. Continue reading “Where We Put Down Our Roots” →

Are You Willing to Follow Dr. King Today?

On March 10, 2019March 4, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Some highlights from Rev. William Barber’s 50-minute speech delivered on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Tennessee.

We do not celebrate martyrs. You join them.

MLK Jr. preached, but we make a dangerous mistake that his words were just soaring oratory. He preached civil disobedience and he preached a movement to challenge the demons of Jim Crow.

Not only in sanctuary…but he preached and acted in the streets of the nation.

If … it doesn’t lead to the liberation of the sick, poor and oppressed — then preaching is just words with no action,

People love dead prophets, but the question is, “Are you willing to follow Dr. King today?”

Wild Lectionary: Roots and Stories

On March 7, 2019March 4, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

7491435002_e9fed382f8_o — Wangari Maathai mural in the Lower Haight. Photo by Phil Dokas.

Lent 1

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13

By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie

As I reflected on today’s readings, the theme they seemed to weave together is to begin Lent by reviewing our stories. With the First Reading, in which the writers of Deuteronomy are giving the reader a sort of Last Will and Testament of Moses, God’s people are reminded of their history and God’s presence in it. They are told to recount that history in ritual and celebration. We are also being reminded to reflect on our personal intergenerational stories. Who were our ancestors? How was God with them as they journeyed? How do their stories impact your story? How has God’s presence in all of our stories led us to where we are today: physically, socially, emotionally and spiritually? The First Reading reminds us to ponder these questions as we reflect on our stories. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Roots and Stories” →

A Wild, Ragged Figure

On March 4, 2019February 28, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Ric Hudgens

*This is the tenth installation of a year-long series of posts 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.

What is radical discipleship?

I’m in bed recovering from a stroke. I have dramatic weakness on the right side of my body. I can only walk with assistance. I talk slowly and softly. It is difficult for me to write. I am poor in physical strength, but rich in friends and strong in faith. Maybe I’ll be back to normal some day; or maybe it’s time for me to find a new normal. Continue reading “A Wild, Ragged Figure” →

Wild Lectionary: Fully Human, Fully Divine, Fully Trans 

On February 28, 2019February 27, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

frog By Mary Ann Saunders

Exodus 34:29-35
Luke 9:28-43a

For me, as a trans woman, the Transfiguration feels deeply personal.

It’s not just that the word transfiguration simply means “a change of form”—which is something I know quite a bit about—nor is it simply that my experience and Jesus’ experience are consistent with the natural world. Creation, after all, is full of transfigurations: tadpoles become frogs, seeds become plants, some fish species change sex, caterpillars become butterflies (this last itself being a popular metaphor for gender transitions). We now even know that genetic information—supposedly immutable—can change over the course of our lives.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Fully Human, Fully Divine, Fully Trans ” →

Like a Radish

On February 25, 2019February 6, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

By Kyle Mitchell

*This is the ninth installation of a year-long series of posts 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.

The word discipleship reminds me that the way of the Jewish rabbi named Jesus is grounded in a posture of discipline and learning. For those of us whose native religious tongue is Jesus language, discipleship is the main way that we express our faith in the world. We never “arrive”, but are always growing, maturing, discerning, listening, and learning. We make the road by walking. Continue reading “Like a Radish” →