Marie Durand (1711-1776)

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

pic.jpgThis piece was developed during the second Bartimaeus Institute Online (BIO) Study Cohort 2016-2017.  These pieces will eventually be published in a Women’s Breviary collection.  For more information regarding the BIO Study Cohort go here.

By Chelsea Page

“Seek the reign of God and God’s justice, and all things will be given to us below.”

“Resister.” Marie Durand carved this word in stone in the wall of the Tower of Constance, the fortress where she was imprisoned in southern France in the 1730s. She had grown up in a Huguenot (French Protestant) household where “Praise” was carved above the fireplace and the plea for divine “Mercy” above the door, through which French soldiers could return at any time. To these words she added the prayer “Resist.” Continue reading “Marie Durand (1711-1776)” →

Wild Lectionary: Our Default State is Goodness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

20882079_10154703261826366_3299820859768196481_nProper 21(26)
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32

By the Reverend Doctor Victoria Marie

As I reflected on today’s readings the theme that emerged is: our response to God. In the first reading Ezekiel is saying that when we turn away from what is just, we die. When we return to acting with justice, we save our lives. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Our Default State is Goodness” →

White Liberals, You Too Are Complicit

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

AliciaBy Alicia Crosby, a Chicago-based community organizer, re-posted with permission from her blog Chasing The Promise

Today I find my body wrestling with illness while my spirit fights against the crushing weight of seeing the toll white supremacy is taking on the world around me. While I feel we all have some degree of complicity we can afford to address, I need to name a particular manifestation of this explicitly.

I am utterly exhausted by all the ways that progressive, liberal, and radical white folks run away from and contort themselves to avoid dealing with the truth that they too are complicit in upholding white supremacy. It’s often not overt supremacy that troubles me so much as the ways in which this particular group of folks refuses to identify, interrogate, hold, then deconstruct their own complicity in upholding this oppressive system.  Read MORE.

 

When the Landowner is not God

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation3 Comments

day laborerBy Tommy Airey, adapted from a sermon on Matthew 10:1-16

Most interpretations of Jesus’ “parable of the landowner” equate the vineyard owner with God and the workers with God’s People or humanity at large.  God is seen as “generous” and “equitable” with the people and expands the population of those who, by grace, are ushered through the heavenly gates.   The grumbling worker at the end of the story is representative of Israel at large or the Pharisees, chief priests and other Jewish leaders who confronted Jesus during his life and ministry—the lesson being that we should all be thankful for God’s equal treatment and unconditional generosity and kindness.

Infused by the scholarship of William Herzog and his former student Ched Myers, there is a more compelling and contextual interpretation of Matthew 20 flowing out of the “minority report” of the radical discipleship movement.  Fortunately, nothing in the parable forces us to assume that the vineyard owner in the parable is God!  Instead, like a political cartoon, the parable is an exaggerated representation of what life was actually like during the time of Jesus and in the culture of the very first hearers of the parable five decades later. Instead of offering us heavenly principles that permit us to rest easy, the parable functions as a jarring illustration that prods us to face reality. Continue reading “When the Landowner is not God” →

Fifteen Years Fermented

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Little CaesarOn September 12, the brand new $800 million+ Little Caesar’s Arena kicked off with a Kid Rock concert on the southern edge of the Cass Corridor in Detroit. It was the culmination of white billionaire Mike Ilitch’s* fifteen-year “dereliction by design,” scores of properties purchased and left to rot.  Land values were intentionally driven lower so Ilitch could buy even more. One week after the grand opening, prompted by this journalistic prose, Lindsay Airey was visited by a nightmare. Her attempt to relay it in poetry: 

A sea of black faces.
Beaten, downtrodden
by violent displacement,
callous disregard.
Greed turned sick
the souls
of these precious ones’
attackers.
Gluttonous murder,
seeping like poison,
hemorrhaging
out their murdering pores. Continue reading “Fifteen Years Fermented” →

After August 12

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

CharlottesvilleBy Rev. Neal Halvorson-Taylor, lead pastor of Grace Church | Red Hill in Charlottesville, Virginia, a deeply rooted, ​boldly inclusive, and fully committed to the well-being of the earth and all living things

What if the dust does not settle
From the battle,
When unleashed
Sticks and stones and words
Beat and bruised and tore open
The skin, bones, heart?
Do we breathe its particles? Continue reading “After August 12” →

Sing about it until it can be realised

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Uncategorized3 Comments

IMG_0655.JPGBy Talitha Fraser

“Sing about it until it can be realised” said Ched Myers at the Kinsler Institute, a call to write, play and sing the songs of freedom until freedom is won . This is not a new idea, we sing in the tradition of so many justice movements: civil rights, suffragettes, apartheid, slavery… What songs are we singing that are calling us forward and giving us courage along the way – in this place, at this time, in this context? Continue reading “Sing about it until it can be realised” →

You Are Choosing

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

IMG_0727From officiant Cait De Mott Grady, for the wedding of Anna Joyce and Max Paskin in Ithaca, NY on September 9, 2017:

Good afternoon! My name is Cait De Mott Grady and it is my honor and privilege to welcome each of you to this most amazing day! The day when our dear Anna and Max, bravely and with great love and care and with the support of their family, friends, and community choose to commit to each other in marriage.

Today come together to actively witness, bless, and support Anna and Max as they enter this new phase of their couple-ship.

In preparation for today, I’ve been thinking deeply about Anna and Max’s choice to marry in this moment of history we find ourselves in. I’ve also been thinking a lot about stories and the truths they tell and the truths they erase. Continue reading “You Are Choosing” →