Category: Uncategorized

Wild Lectionary: Another World Is Possible

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
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Photo Credit Brynn Craffey, Vancouver Climate Strike, 2019

Proper 28 (33) C
Isaiah 65:17-25

By Brynn Craffey

This week’s first Lectionary reading from Isaiah features a vision of the Almighty who promises to create, “new heavens and a new earth,” in which, “the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” Restoration is a theme running through Isaiah, and today’s passage conjures up visions of utopia in my soul. I imagine old paradigms collapsing, social justice replacing unfairness throughout the land, and communally supported programs, such as Medicare for All and robustly-funded public health care systems, ensuring that, “No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.”  

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Another World Is Possible” →

Let Me Sing to You Now, About How People Turn into Other Things

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

indexA Review of The Overstory by Richard Powers, by Sarah Holst. Originally published in Geez 54: Climate Justice.

Last year, during the enormous, bursting green of Minnesota in July, my partner and I welcomed our first baby into our arms and into the cradle of the Tischer Creek Watershed.

Somewhere within those first months of the strange unveiling upheave of being a mama, I learned to read a book with one hand while balancing a baby sleeping on my chest. We were fortunate to welcome a stream of loved ones into our home in this time, and one of them brought with her The Overstory, a book travelling on the relational lines of beloveds deeply embodying lives of meaning in a time of climate catastrophe (like adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy before it). Continue reading “Let Me Sing to You Now, About How People Turn into Other Things” →

Unsettling Histories: Decolonizing Discipleship- An Invitation

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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“Bartimaeus Billabong”, painted for the 2019 BKI by Australian Indigenous artist, Safina Stewart. www.artbysafina.com.au

2020 BARTIMAEUS KINSLER INSTITUTE

February 17-21, 2020

Forest Home Camp, Oak View, CA

Questions? Email us.

Unsettling Histories: Decolonizing Discipleship

Following on from BKI2019, when we listened to and learned from a range of Indigenous voices, this year we are focusing on the work required of us white settlers to build deeper solidarity with Indigenous peoples.We have a new flyer (please use it) and a new program planning committee (PPC), including the BCM team, former attendees of multiple BKIs, local Chumash indigenous leaders and past BKI planners -artist Rev. Bob Two Bulls (who is kindly gifting use of his artwork again) and Rev. Art Cribbs from LA. As Art put it “The 2020 BKI aims to help us restore “20/20” vision”.

BKI 2020 is the middle year of a 3-year sequence curated to build capacity for Indigenous solidarity from different angles: at the 2019 BKI Indigenous Justice and Christian Faith: Land, Law, Language we listened to Indigenous Voices; in 2020 we will focus on the work required of white settlers; and in 2021 we’ll learn from the experience of non-white, non-indigenous settlers of color.

 

EcoFaith Recovery and the Practices for Awakening Leadership

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments
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“Discover Our Stories” by Sarah Holst

By Solveig Nilsen-Goodin, originally published in Geez 54: Climate Justice

“Are you a self-help group?” “Are you a church?” “Where do you worship?” We get these questions a lot! But for EcoFaith Recovery, the answers are more evolutionary and revolutionary than simply yes or no.

EcoFaith Recovery was birthed in 2009, when Robyn Hartwig began calling together friends and colleagues in Portland, Oregon, to try to make sense of our addictive culture and its escalating symptoms – the economic, social, ecological, and spiritual crises culminating in global warming and climate chaos. Gathering in those early years, we embarked on a process of discovery. Not unlike the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, we discovered that we felt more sane just by coming together. We felt less alone. We were less despairing. And we also discovered common experiences and feelings among us that compelled us to seek a way of recovery. Continue reading “EcoFaith Recovery and the Practices for Awakening Leadership” →

Wild Lectionary: Saving Corporate Lostness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

IMG_4227Proper 26(31)
Luke 19:1-10

By The Rev. Marilyn Zehr

19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.
– Luke 19:10

If the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost, who could be more lost than large corporations whose actions defile the earth and her creatures? But wouldn’t corporations need to be “people” in order to be saved? Apparently in the USA, corporate personhood is a thing. Corporate personhood is the legal notion that a corporation separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Saving Corporate Lostness” →

Reading the Bible as a Trans-Affirming Ally

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Uncategorized2 Comments

indexBy Mx Chris Paige

Reading the Bible while transgender involves sorting through many distortions and biased assumptions that have been passed along, both through tradion and translation. Often critics are so confident in their bias that they aren’t even looking at the text. My book, OtherWise Christian: A Guidebook for Transgender Liberation, has only been out for a few months, so I am only beginning to encounter trolls, but I have already seen “conversations” devolve into “because I said so” non-arguments. Looking past the strident (and often ignorant) opposition is the first barrier to reading the Bible as a transgender-affirming ally. Continue reading “Reading the Bible as a Trans-Affirming Ally” →

Wild Lectionary: Insect Armies and Fearful Soil

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

37661337_684148725265061_5398280923315699712_oProper 25(30)C

Joel 2:23-32

By Laurel Dykstra

In the Christian bible the book of Joel is three chapters long, in the Jewish bible four.

Joel describes a years long plague of locusts in military language. The people are exhorted to fast, pray and repent from ambiguous transgressions. An oracle of consolation—divine promise of restoration–is followed by a raw prayer of revenge equating Israel’s restoration with the defeat and humiliation of surrounding empires.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Insect Armies and Fearful Soil” →

Transgender Liberation Invitation

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Uncategorized1 Comment

indexThe Alternative Seminary, Transfaith,
and Germantown Mennonite Church
 Invite You to

 Transgender Liberation:
Intersectional Identities, Alternate Genders, and the Biblical Testimony of Eunuchs

 Saturday, November 2
10:00 am – 12:00 noon

 Germantown Mennonite Church
21 W. Washington Lane, Philadelphia

Mx Chris Paige (formerly publisher of The Other Side magazine) will present from their new book, OtherWise Christian: A Guidebook for Transgender Liberation. Drawing on 25 years of transgender-affirming scholarship, Chris will invite us to expand our understanding of the 50 explicit uses of the word “eunuch” in the Christian Bible (many of which are obscured in translation), as well as other likely or perhaps eunuchs such as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. In doing so, we will challenge one another to live more deeply into resistance from colonized gender ideology, white supremacy, and Christian empire. Continue reading “Transgender Liberation Invitation” →

Geez Call for Pitches: G56 Breaking the Law

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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Praise the Lord and Break the Law. As seen at the Sugar Creek Midwest Catholic Worker Gathering, fall 2019. Credit: Kateri Boucher

Deadline November 10, 2019

“We need to engage in whatever nonviolent actions appeal to us. There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at critical points to create a power that governments cannot suppress. We find ourselves today at one of those critical points.” – Howard Zinn

“The decision to engage in civil disobedience is challenging not just what the symbol represents, but also the laws that are set up to protect it.” – Bree Newsome, after pulling down the South Carolina Confederate flag in 2015

In countries founded on the legality of slavery and Indigenous massacres, we begin naming the complex relationships between law, violence, and power. Historically, engaging with laws through breaking them has been part of the arc that moves us towards justice. In this issue we hope to unpack the nuances of breaking the law, and the choices we do (or don’t) make in the process. Continue reading “Geez Call for Pitches: G56 Breaking the Law” →