Nonviolence vs. Jim Crow

On April 14, 2018April 13, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

The first essay (1942) in Time On Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin (2015).

RECENTLY I WAS PLANNING to go from Louisville to Nashville by bus. I bought my ticket, boarded the bus, and, instead of going to the back, sat down in the second seat. The driver saw me, got up, and came toward me.

“Hey, you. You’re supposed to sit in the back seat.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the law. N——‘s ride in back.”

I said, “My friend, I believe that is an unjust law. If I were to sit in back I would be condoning injustice.” Continue reading “Nonviolence vs. Jim Crow” →

Ancestors Rise Up!

On April 13, 2018April 9, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire1 Comment

Gloria Richardson The files of Civil Rights elder Ruby Sales have opened and gifted us with stories of freedom fighters of yesteryear. May their stories never be forgotten. This is a sample, with descriptions from Ruby:

The indomitable and courageous sister SNCC leader Gloria Richardson (right) of the Cambridge, MD movement during the Southern Freedom Movement standing up in all of her Black women soul force power to White police. As the debate rages around the nation about good of bad policing, this picture reminds us of their systemic roles of using violence and terrorism to maintain the social order of White supremacy. Lest we forget this picture reminds us of the courage and front line struggle of our sisters.

Gloria Richardson is still alive and in her 90’s.

circa early 1960’s Continue reading “Ancestors Rise Up!” →

Wild Lectionary: Universal Restoration

On April 12, 2018April 8, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Vikki Marie and a St’at’imc Bear Dancer praying for healing and protecting wild salmon.

Easter 3(B)
Acts 3:1-21

By The Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie

The liturgical season of Easter is the only time that our readings are all from the New Testament. During this season the first readings are from the Acts of the Apostles. Today’s reading from Acts is another occasion where our Roman Catholic Lectionary differs from the Revised Common Lectionary and omits scripture verses. This textual omission significantly changes the meaning and therefore our understanding of the scriptural message.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Universal Restoration” →

A Pilgrimage of Belovedness

On April 11, 2018April 11, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses1 Comment

By Tommy Airey

Way back in the wide-open fields of the Clinton years, the seed of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was planted in me during a semester with Professor Bill Tuttle at the University of Kansas. Way back then, I was attending Campus Crusade bible study on Wednesdays, drinking a 12-pack of beer on Fridays and going to an all-white Evangelical church on Sundays. My spiritual life was a complete circus. Way back then, I struggled to make the simple connection that Dr. King was a Christian and that his perspective on Jesus was completely different than what my white Evangelical mentors and heroes were pitching. Continue reading “A Pilgrimage of Belovedness” →

Welcome to Hineni House

On April 10, 2018March 12, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

18813433_1326828187424362_8324550511232301042_n — Photo credit: Anita Fonseca-Quezada

By Clare Morgan

After gathering the documents I need from my office, I walk across the street to the former rectory of St. Margaret’s Anglican Church in East Vancouver, British Columbia.

It’s already dark at 7pm, and a most welcoming yellow glow greets me as I knock on the door.

As it opens and I enter, a wonderful chorus of “Heeey!” spills forth from the big dining room table, which is spread with a beautiful vegetarian dinner. Continue reading “Welcome to Hineni House” →

An Act of Prayer: Kings Bay Plowshares

On April 9, 2018April 7, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, UncategorizedLeave a comment

His Faith Demanded It

On April 8, 2018March 29, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

From James Cone’s The Cross and The Lynching Tree (2013):

Just as Jesus knew he could be executed when he went to Jerusalem, Martin Luther King, Jr., knew that threats against his life could be realized in Memphis. Like Jesus’ disciples who rejected the idea that his mission entailed his suffering and death (Mk 8:31-32), nearly everyone in King’s organization vigorously opposed his journey to Memphis, not only because of the dangers but because of the need to focus on the coming Poor People’s Campaign in Washington. But King, like Jesus, felt he had no choice: he had to go to Memphis and aid the garbage workers in their struggle for dignity, better wages, and a safer work place. He had to go because his faith demanded it.

The Malady of Militarism

On April 7, 2018March 29, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

By Weldon Nisly, originally posted in Hospitality (April 2017), the newsletter of Atlanta’s Open Door Community

Militarism is “a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit” revealing “America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” With this prophetic proclamation a half century ago, Martin Luther King, Jr., named the sin-sickness of America’s warring violence. Dr. King was preaching to America from the Riverside Church pulpit in New York on April 4, 1967.

On that consequential night fifty years ago, Dr. King declared, “A time comes when silence is betrayal,” and boldly revealed the interconnected violence of America’s “giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism.” His sermon forever connected civil rights, poverty, and war arising from a malady deep within the American soul and psyche. Continue reading “The Malady of Militarism” →

Treacherous Machinations Around the Globe

On April 6, 2018March 26, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

After George W. Bush was elected in 2000, Alice Walker said in an interview: “I know that Martin Luther King would have felt very saddened because he gave his life for a very much larger vision.” During the Obama years, Walker was asked in an interview with an Israeli publication what Dr. King would have thought of Obama’s America and what should be done to fulfill his vision. This was her response:

Martin Luther King was a leader, a person of conviction. He would find it difficult to comprehend, as I do, why Obama is incapable of standing up to Israel and why, whenever he tries, he soon collapses again. I believe Obama started out in the presidency as a good and decent person. With much ambition, but that is not a crime. However, killing people in distant lands by drone attack is, in my opinion, a crime. Condoning Israel’s crimes makes him an enabler of criminal behavior and complicit in the misery Israel causes to poor and frightened people. This is almost unbearable to face, because I, like so many others, love Barack. But we have lost him to the US government machine that is only running true to course in its treacherous machinations around the globe. Continue reading “Treacherous Machinations Around the Globe” →

Plowshares on King’s Anniversary

On April 5, 2018April 5, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Uncategorized1 Comment

From Ellen Grady

Seven Catholic plowshares activists were detained early Thursday morning at the Kings Bay Navel Base St. Mary’s Georgia.

They entered on Wednesday nightApril 4. Calling themselves Kings Bay Plowshares, they went to make real the prophet Isaiah’s command: “beat swords into plowshares”. Continue reading “Plowshares on King’s Anniversary” →