A message from Chani Nicholas, re-posted from her website.

I tried to stay off the internet that day. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of being stressed out by what men in power with bad hair, worse fashion sense, and criminal records or intent are going to do to us all next. I’m not saying what they have planned isn’t anything short of terrorizing, but I’m no longer offering my cortisol to their whirligig willy-nilly. I know that every piece of news I lay my eyes on over the next four years is going to be demoralizing, to say the least. I need to conserve my energy. No need to spend any excess on the first day, I thought. This isn’t 2016. I’m wiser and far more wary. I want to keep as much of myself intact as I navigate my way through the onslaught of violent acts that are promised to us.

But I saw it anyway. Clear as day. We all did.

The images of the openly transphobic billionaire, left arm raised, fingers taut, reaching for the gold medal of supremacy were everywhere. The richest man in the world — a man who promotes the far-right party in Germany, the AfD, the British anti-immigration party, and Reform UK — in a full Nazi salute.

Which he did twice.

Continue reading “To Be Disobedient in the Face of Power” →

Some helpful analysis from the [Fred] Hampton Institute as we head into another Trump administration.

Trump worked out two deals to gain a ton of political capital before even taking office. The first (which was probably done months ago and contingent on him being reelected) with his close friend, Netenyahu [the temporary ceasefire deal], and the second with fellow Ivy League capitalist Shou Zi Chew [overturning the Tiktok ban]… 

We don’t know exactly what the long game is here but we do know that (1) Trump unconditionally supports the colonial apartheid state of Israel, has very close ties to Netenyahu, and wholeheartedly supported the genocide of the Palestinian people, and (2) Trump’s support of “free speech” is conditional on such speech being in line with the capitalist/imperialist narrative (although with a more controlled-ops orientation, ala Infowars, Rogan, etc). 

What we anticipate is that this political capital is being used to manufacture consent through popular support for some early power moves being planned by his administration (US/Israel expansion, destroying Iran, pressuring China, more fascistic domestic policies regarding immigrants, the homeless & the poor/disabled, strengthening the internal police/surveillance state, etc.). We should also know is that Trump has proven to be an asset to the American empire (including the “deep state” that supposedly hates him), has proven his loyalty to unrestrained capital, and has proven to be no friend of the struggling, working-class masses here in the US. 

The bottom line with all of this is that overt fascism is a *systemic* development rooted in capitalist decay. While Democrats/Biden have served an important role in pushing this systemic transition, they’ve also effectively set up Republicans/Trump to play an even more important role. With this pre-arranged political capital supercharging his facade as an “anti-establishment outsider,” Trump now has a clear path (with popular support) to guide this capitalist decay into a more organized and powerful form of fascistic corporatism. 

A poem called “Moving towards Home” by June Jordan.

“Where is Abu Fadi,” she wailed.
“Who will bring me my loved one?”
The New York Times, 9/20/82

I do not wish to speak about the bulldozer and the
red dirt
not quite covering all of the arms and legs
Nor do I wish to speak about the nightlong screams
that reached
the observation posts where soldiers lounged about
Nor do I wish to speak about the woman who shoved her baby
into the stranger’s hands before she was led away
Nor do I wish to speak about the father whose sons
were shot
through the head while they slit his own throat before
the eyes
of his wife
Nor do I wish to speak about the army that lit continuous
flares into the darkness so that others could see
the backs of their victims lined against the wall
Nor do I wish to speak about the piled up bodies and
the stench
that will not float
Nor do I wish to speak about the nurse again and
again raped
before they murdered her on the hospital floor
Nor do I wish to speak about the rattling bullets that
did not
halt on that keening trajectory
Nor do I wish to speak about the pounding on the
doors and
the breaking of windows and the hauling of families into
the world of the dead
I do not wish to speak about the bulldozer and the
red dirt
not quite covering all of the arms and legs
because I do not wish to speak about unspeakable events
that must follow from those who dare
“to purify” a people
those who dare
“to exterminate” a people

those who dare
to describe human beings as “beasts with two legs”
those who dare
“to mop up”
“to tighten the noose”
“to step up the military pressure”
“to ring around” civilian streets with tanks
those who dare
to close the universities
to abolish the press
to kill the elected representatives
of the people who refuse to be purified
those are the ones from whom we must redeem
the words of our beginning

because I need to speak about home
I need to speak about living room
where the land is not bullied and beaten into
a tombstone
I need to speak about living room
where the talk will take place in my language
I need to speak about living room
where my children will grow without horror
I need to speak about living room where the men
of my family between the ages of six and sixty-five
are not
marched into a roundup that leads to the grave
I need to talk about living room
where I can sit without grief without wailing aloud
for my loved ones
where I must not ask where is Abu Fadi
because he will be there beside me
I need to talk about living room
because I need to talk about home

I was born a Black woman
and now
I am become a Palestinian
against the relentless laughter of evil
there is less and less living room
and where are my loved ones?

It is time to make our way home.

June Jordan, “Moving Toward Home,” in Living Room: New Poems by June Jordan (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1993) and reprinted in Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2007)

By Jim Perkinson, a sermon for St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (pictured above) in Detroit, Michigan (July 21, 2024)

As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things (Mk 6:34).

⁴ But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, ⁵ “Go and tell my servant David, Thus says the Lord: “Would you build me a house to dwell in? ⁶ I have not dwelt in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling (2 Sam 7:4-6).

Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people Israel (2 Sam 7:8b).

So, where are we today—in reality, in the text?  In our reality, it is simple, at one level. Apocalypse. An ending of the world as we have known it.  Not an absolute end, but a proximate and particular end.  “What” is ending?  Ah, the big question.  I would say: in a word, civilization.  Not the earth. Not the universe. But our species’ delusion about who we are on the planet.  And already I am deep in it, so let’s back up.

It is interesting in the texts today.  Jesus calls the disciples to go away to a desert-place (Mk 6:31).  Why? As we read in the lectionary offerings two weeks ago, he has gone home to Nazareth and been threatened with death (Mk 6:1-6; Lk 4:16-30). Sent the twelve out for a first foray into . . . . what? Actually, into gift-economy reciprocity and sabbath-sharing, with the very people—peasant small farmers—they are sent to (Mk 6:7-13). They don’t take a credit card and carry-on luggage with themselves.  They depend upon the people they are sent to.  Gift economy hospitality.  (Which, hint, hint, in this [biblical] tradition is characteristic of animal-herding lifestyle, not city-dwelling self-concern and opportunism. Pastoral nomad Abraham offering a meal inside his tent-flaps to three “wanderers” that show up at his “door” not urban Sodom’s exploitation and abuse of strangers as we read in the archetypal story in Genesis of the lifestyle difference between sheep-herders and city-dwellers.) (Gen 18:1-15 vs Gen 18:16-19:29).

Continue reading “A House of Cedar or a Tent of Hide: Why Does It Matter?” →

An open letter from faith leaders to the administration of Wayne State University in Detroit, MI.

June 26, 2024

President Espy, Provost Clabo, and the WSU Board of Governors,

We, the undersigned faith leaders from varied traditions and denominations, write to express our profound concern and condemnation regarding the police brutality against students and community members that occurred on May 30. A number of us have been present to the Wayne State encampment and others similar. They strike us as embodying beloved community, listening and learning gatherings of conscience. Indeed we are taught by them.

We understand the demands of the students – the divestment from war and weapons manufacturing – to be a good and just pursuit for which you should take pride as university leadership. Instead, you authorized the deployment of riot police and the use of brutal force against members of our communities, including the violent removal of a woman’s hijab, a grave violation within the Islamic faith.

Continue reading “We Are Taught By Them” →

At the end of this month, RadicalDiscipleship.net will be joining an interfaith coalition in D.C. to take on Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the largest Zionist organization in the country. For those unfamiliar, Christian Zionism is a far-right fascist ideology that is not only antisemitic and a majority force responsible for the ongoing U.S.-sponsored Israeli genocide being waged on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, it is aggressively white-and-Christian supremacist in a way that is actively working within the highest places of power in our nation to strip us all of our rights, safety and freedoms here domestically as well. In the face of the full court press these far-right Christian extremists are waging, we will be participating in the largest interreligious protest for Palestine. Please consider joining us July 28-30 if you can! Both in-person and online options are available.

For more details, join this mass informational call hosted by Christians for a Free Palestine tonight (9amPT/12pmET): https://christiansforafreepalestine.com/events/iapinfo2

To register to join in this action in some capacity, click here: interfaithforpalestine.com/takeaction 

RD contributor Cindy Wallace has a new book out about Simone Weil, who was raised as an agnostic by Jewish parents, had mystical encounters with Christ in her late 20s and died in England at 34, after contracting tuberculosis and refusing to eat more than those who were resisting Hitler’s regime in France. This is an excerpt from a little interview Cindy did with Canadian Mennonite. Check out Cindy’s book here.

Over and over again, in moments where there’s no room to talk about religion in public life or what it looks like to choose self-sacrifice over comfort, to choose to take up our crosses and follow Jesus in a literal way—different generations of writers find a conversation partner in Weil.

She doesn’t give all the answers, but she is provocative and countercultural enough to makes us think, ‘Oh maybe business as usual isn’t the best way to live a full and fruitful life.’ She’s a conversation partner for questions about what it looks like to live a countercultural life that’s still open to beauty, goodness and joy.