Category: Theological Animation

Catalysts for Hope in Action

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

The conclusion of an Easter proclamation from Palestinian Pastor Rev. Mitri Raheb (read or listen to the whole article here)

As Indigenous residents in the birthplace of Jesus, we know that there can be no true peace for anyone here without peace for all. The current onslaught will not destroy hateful and extremist ideologies. It’s a historic injustice that is only fueling further injustice and destroying our ancient community in the process.

We cannot presume to know what comes after a cease-fire and the release of all captives, including both Palestinians and Israelis. But we know that without a cease-fire today, Palestinians (Muslim and Christian alike), Israelis, the region and the world will be pulled into a dark spiral of misery, reprisal and instability. We will continue to cry out: Stop. And we will continue to practice hope. 

In the West Bank, with major streets closed by the Israeli occupation, we are locked in our cities behind concrete walls that transformed our cities into “Bantustans.” We are entombed by a heavy stone. We keep asking: Who will roll away the stone? We have been living for more than seven decades, keeping a long Easter vigil. We keep asking if and when Sunday will come, when this oppression will end, when will we obtain our freedom to live in dignity and to reach our full potential.

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Carrying the Cross towards the Rubble

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Every Good Friday, a motley crew of radical disciples walks the streets of Detroit with a large, awkward wooden cross. They stop at “stations” where life is being crucified in the city. This year, these Detroiters are homing in on the image of rubble. Empire is bombing Gaza. Empire is bulldozing ghettos. It’s part of a settler-colonial supremacy story that seizes land for wealthy and powerful elites. Ad agencies and mainstream media and political parties – and, yes, Christian churches – play their part in hiding the collateral damage. As Palestinian pastor Munther Isaac proclaimed in his viral Christmas sermon, the crucified are buried under the rubble. Christians are called to join Jesus in there. To work. To bear witness. To worship. As we wait expectantly for Something Else to resurrect the dead and discarded into newness of life. The post below is the introduction to Detroit’s Good Friday Stations of the Cross Walk. [artwork above: Lucia Wylie-Eggert]

For more than forty years, we have placed a wooden cross against the brick wall on the backside of the Manna Meal soup kitchen. We pass the booklets, ring the gong, raise our voices, and read these words. Then we walk. Together. On this journey of repentance. A word in the ancient context that referred to a soldier switching sides during a battle. 

We walk the streets of Detroit asking:

Where is Christ crucified today – and what does it mean for us to repent, to switch sides and join him in the rubble created by empire?

Each year our route is different and distinct. The faces of victims and executioners rise up to us from a particular time and place. The imperial powers that we recognize today are the same and not the same as before – and they are all threaded together, entangling us in a settler-colonial web of death and domination. We name them again. We name them anew. 

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Recovering the Authentic Jesus of the Gospels

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Another compelling offering from The Alternative Seminary.

A SEVEN-WEEK ONLINE COURSE
7:00 – 9:00 pm EST
Tuesday evenings, April 2 – May 14, 2024

In the United States today, we are witnessing the ascendancy of Christian Nationalism – a dangerous heresy in which “American Jesus” is a gun-toting, law-and-order, pro-military, pro-capitalist, and largely racist Messiah of the Domination System.

We urgently need to recover the authentic Jesus of the Gospels. Together we will explore the radical and revolutionary mission and vision of Jesus in the midst of the Empire and false idols of his time. What does Jesus mean in proclaiming “the reign of God”? How does his life embody that new spiritual and social reality? What kind of discipleship community does he call people to? We will reflect on how the Gospel addresses issues of politics, economics, power, healing, community, and suffering. We will struggle with how this Jesus challenges us to be a Beloved Community in these insane and dangerous times.

This course, which begins in Easter Week in the light of the Resurrection, will be led by Will O’Brien, coordinator of the Alternative Seminary.

Continue reading “Recovering the Authentic Jesus of the Gospels” →

Lifting Up Our Gaze to Gaza

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

Young woman in keffiyeh among may others holds sign and appears to chant. Lots of red and green.

By Tommy Airey

Over the next three weeks, the Christian season of Lent will overlap with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started yesterday at sundown. Yesterday. When a billion Christians read the Gospel text where the radical rabbi Jesus tells the wealthy and powerful Nicodemus that Jesus himself must be lifted up on a cross – just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

Jesus was giving a little sermon on the story in the Hebrew bible about the post-exodus Israelites getting bit by poisonous snakes. God tells Moses to make a bronze snake, put it on a pole and raise it up whenever someone gets bit – so they can look up at the snake and be healed. Jesus says that he is now playing the role of the bronze snake.

In the Gospel story, Jesus will inevitably be lifted up on a cross. Because he paved a path that threatened those who clung to their privilege, power and wealth. Radical Christian spirituality roots salvation in gazing at Jesus up on that imperial cross.

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Whose Liturgy Is It Anyway?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Another compelling offering from Alternative Seminary.

Whose Liturgy Is It Anyway? Reclaiming Christian Liturgy as the People’s Work

A Three-Part Series Led by Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart (above)

Saturdays, March 9, 16, 23. 10:00 am- 12:00 noon EST. $100

Familiar and traditional liturgy in Christian worship can be a source of comfort. But liturgies left unexamined can do harm. In this series, we’ll explore various liturgical forms and ask – whose liturgy is this and what “work” is this liturgy doing? 

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Jesus’ “Second Call” to Discipleship

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation2 Comments

JesusPeter2By Ched Myers, For the Second Sunday in Lent (Mk 8:31-38), re-posted from Lent 2015

Note: An ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary.
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The midpoint of Mark’s narrative poses two questions, aimed both at the disciples in, and the readers of, the story:

“Do you not yet understand?” (Mk 8:21).

“Who do you say that I am?” (8:29a).

The latter provokes what I call the “confessional crisis” (8:30-33), which this Sunday’s reading inexplicably jumps into the middle of (we get the whole text on the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, Sept 13th). This is followed by Jesus’ second call to discipleship (8:34ff), deepening the journey begun in 1:16-20. Continue reading “Jesus’ “Second Call” to Discipleship” →

Learning from Laughter and the Trees: Sometimes I Feel like it’s the End of the World

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Sometimes the most miraculous moments of parenting happen in those late night hours when you wish your kids were asleep, but you are snuggled up beside them and they begin to speak.

A few months ago, as the leaves were just beginning to fall, I was lying with Isaac rubbing his back. The lights were off, but the moonlight was streaming through his window. Isaac is now ten years old. I don’t know if you remember fifth grade social studies, but this is the year when the curriculum teaches about “the founding of America.” And Isaac has been struggling. He is learning it in a very different context from our beloved Detroit to our new home in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania.

We had been quiet for quite some time and I wondered if he had fallen asleep, when suddenly he said, “I miss Detroit.”

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Having Nothing and Yet Possessing Everything

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It’s Ash Wednesday. A day for personal recommitment to collective liberation. A day marked by scrutiny, accountability, confession. A day to rediscover our identity and worth in the well-being of others. A day to remind ourselves of our baptism into the struggle for Something Else, from the ghetto to the Gaza Strip. A day to double-down on rebuilding what supremacy has burned down. A day to start giving up what weighs us down and holds us back. A day to embrace the beautiful, ancient tension of what the sacred text says in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10:

…but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Hope is a Deeper Current

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From Ken Sehested’s newsletter Prayer & Politiks (Jan 30, 2024).

My friend Richard sent me strong words of encouragement regarding something I’d written, particularly this line: “”Despair is often a disguised form of narcissism. Get over yourself.” He then recounted a recent conversation, saying “I told a friend the other day: “When I think about 2024, I am not as hopeful as you are. But I wish I were. Does that count?”

It is a pertinent question requiring a thoughtful response. I responded:

Thanks for your words of encouragement. I certainly resonate with the sentiment you spoke to your friend; though I would use the word “optimistic” instead of hopeful. When it comes to public policy, I am as pessimistic as I’ve ever been.

Continue reading “Hope is a Deeper Current” →