How Do You Tell the Kids that Grandma Is in Jail for Resisting Nuclear Weapons?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, UncategorizedLeave a comment

H14_Ploughshare-activist-arrest-on-US-submarine-base3By Frida Berrigan. Re-posted from truth-out.org.

“Our grandma is in jail,” Madeline tells a woman wrestling a shopping cart at Target.

“She went over a war fence and tried to make peace,” Seamus adds helpfully. “They arrested her, and she is in jail now.”

“Where?” the woman asks, looking from them to me in disbelief and maybe pity.

“We don’t remember,” the kids say, suddenly done with their story and ready to make passionate pleas for the colorful items in the dollar section over the woman’s shoulder. Continue reading “How Do You Tell the Kids that Grandma Is in Jail for Resisting Nuclear Weapons?” →

Earth Day – The link between Easter and Pentecost

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Sabbath Economics, Theological Animation, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

VenturaBeachBy Ken Sehested

Pacem, pacem, pacem in terries

Easter’s focus is always sharper when allied with Earth Day. We sing, properly, of being wayfaring strangers. “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor” (Deuteronomy 26:5) is among the oldest testimonies of fate and faith. An alternate translation—“A Syrian ready to perish was my ancestor”—brings added poignancy to the text.

We are indeed strangers; but not foreigners. In common usage these two words seem similar. Biblically speaking, though, the theological difference could not be greater. Continue reading “Earth Day – The link between Easter and Pentecost” →

Act Together…By Moving Upstream

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

EcoFaithBy Robyn Hartwig, for EcoFaith Recovery’s Practices for Awakening Leadership

Community Dimension: We nurture relational cultures, identifying common interests and public issues affecting our communities, so that we are ready to act together to promote justice and healing for the whole community of creation.

From childhood through adulthood, the faith communities I have belonged to over the course of my life have been good at certain kinds of “acting together.” We are good at worship which is certainly a kind of public action. We are great at potlucks. Jello salads and hot dishes used to be some of the favorite offerings when I was growing up, but with well over a hundred people having participated in Simply in Season small groups within my current faith community, salads with locally grown vegetables are now much more common. We are also great at collecting socks, coats, care kits, blankets, discretionary funds, and food for those in need. We collected over 10,000 pounds of food during one Lenten food drive! Continue reading “Act Together…By Moving Upstream” →

Philly: More Than Just Sports Hype

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

Holy FoolWe are fired up for what is coming to Philadelphia this summer, after the NBA playoffs leaves town.  Holy Fool Arts is organizing its 7th residency of the Carnival de Resistance from July 24th through August 5th. Weekend productions (which weave storytelling, dance theater, live music, and circus arts) will be taking place at Arch St. United Methodist Church. 

CdR is rooted in a prophetic Tradition of many compelling strands.  This is how these holy fools describe it on their website: 

The Carnival de Resistance is made up of a diverse group of people who’s political persuasion and theology covers a spectrum of beliefs. The following are not indicative of the overall “message” of the Carnival, but are simply some of the historical movements, artistic traditions, fields of study and teachers that have influenced us.
Continue reading “Philly: More Than Just Sports Hype” →

Wild Lectionary: Sheep are not sexy

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

10599554_10152591711770351_5785986799088242268_nFourth Sunday of Easter (B)
John 10: 1-18
By Matthew W. Humphrey

Sheep are not sexy.

Many biblical commentators struggle with language for this most archetypal figure, oftentimes casting them in unfortunate ways.  In a brief review of the 9 commentaries on the Gospel of John, which contains the reading this week, I counted no less than 6 which noted that sheep were “stupid,” “dumb,” or “dirty.”  (And, equally surprising, all noted how the role of Shepherd in the ancient world was one of ill repute.)  Perhaps that is correct, but if sheep are dumb it is in the same ways as you and I.  Namely: they seek out their own self-preservation, reacting to circumstances and perceived threats, often making rash decision based on incomplete knowledge.  Sheep lack depth perception, meaning they see shadows and pools of water as mysterious threats to be avoided.  (I don’t know about you, but I often lack vision too.)

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Sheep are not sexy” →

Poor People’s Campaign: It’s Time to Resist and Rise Above

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

PPCSign up now for the Poor People’s Campaign, a forty-day moral revival starting the day after Mother’s Day.  Forty states are organizing.  Throw in with the movement today!

From the Poor People’s Campaign website–a look at the movement in historical context.

Why a Poor People’s Campaign?

Just a year before his assassination, at a Southern Christian Leadership Conference staff retreat in May 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

I think it is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights…[W]hen we see that there must be a radical redistribution of economic and political power, then we see that for the last twelve years we have been in a reform movement…That after Selma and the Voting Rights Bill, we moved into a new era, which must be an era of revolution…In short, we have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society.

Continue reading “Poor People’s Campaign: It’s Time to Resist and Rise Above” →

Telling my own story

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Race, Identity, and History, Uncategorized2 Comments

kateriBy Kateri Boucher

Last year for my Sociology senior thesis, I chose to research the interactions between two environmental justice (EJ) organizations in a majority-Black city with a rich and complicated history of EJ work. I had made connections with folks in the EJ movement when I had lived there for a few weeks the previous summer, and I figured that studying these two organizations would be a perfect way to both learn more and get involved in work that I was drawn to. I did some background research, and then traveled to the city for a week to do interviews with members of both organizations. After documenting my findings, I submitted the paper and got a near-perfect grade on the first draft. I was proud of my work, and I was rewarded and praised for it. Continue reading “Telling my own story” →

A Creed…

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Theological Animation, Uncategorized3 Comments

Wall_painting_at_Partrishow_(3)_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1213970By Sarah Moon. Reposted.

Recently, while at work, I was thinking about the Apostles’ Creed, and how I cannot say the words in it anymore and actually mean them. So, when I got home from work, I sat down and rewrote it. I decided to share my rewritten creed on Facebook. I’d already rewritten and shared a few Bible verses in a similar manner, and my friend Rod asked when I was going to turn these into blog posts. Well, there’s no time like the present. Continue reading “A Creed…” →

Worthy of More Study and Attention

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation3 Comments

KapitalBy Dennis Moore

The first time I was ever stopped and searched by the police was on the way home from an anti-fascist protest.  The most seditious thing I had in my bag was a copy of Das Kapital by Karl Marx. I’d bought it on the way to the protest, but the fact that the police who were going through my stuff commented on it negatively just made me want to start reading it even more enthusiastically later that night!

Over the next few months, I trawled through the pages. It was obscenely difficult to understand.  I made pages upon pages of notes and repeatedly Googled terms I didn’t understand, but eventually I came stumbling over the finish line to the end of the book. Soon after, I went through it twice more–once with a local Marxist reading group and once with the aid of David Harvey’s free online lectures. Since then I’ve gone on to read many more works by both Marx and Engels, a few by Lenin and a number of more modern Marxist articles and pamphlets and even contributed a few of my own to a Marxist journal. Continue reading “Worthy of More Study and Attention” →