Those Most Othered

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KBDDay 45 of our Lenten Journey beyond “Beyond Vietnam.”  A Good Friday meditation from theologian Kelly Brown-Douglas, excerpted from a post on the Feminism and Religion blog.

In Jesus’ first century Roman world crucifixion was reserved for slaves, enemy soldiers and those held in the highest contempt and with lowest regard in society. To be crucified was, for the most part, an indication of how worthless and devalued by established power an individual was.  It also indicated how much of a threat that person was believed to be to the order of things. There was a decided crucified class of people. These were essentially the castigated and demonized as well as the ones who defied the status quo of power. It is in this respect that I believe Jesus’ crucifixion affirms his identification with the marginalized and outcasts. Indeed, on the cross Jesus fully divests himself of all pretensions to power and anything that would compromise his bond with those most othered in the world. The reality of the cross further affirms the profundity of god’s bond with put-upon bodies.. Continue reading “Those Most Othered” →

Here’s the Rub

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michelleDay 44 of our Lenten Journey beyond “Beyond Vietnam” continues.  An excerpt from Michelle Alexander’s recent comments on Mark Lewis Taylor’s re-release of The Executed God (2001), part of a longer back-and-forth dialogue that is well worth reading.

The truth is that I am still struggling to figure out what I believe about the nature of God and what it means to say that anyone has a “personal relationship” with God. I am just beginning my journey with theology, and therefore I have mostly questions — not answers or critiques.

What I do know is that I can no longer proceed as though mass incarceration is a purely political or legal problem that can be solved through forms of organizing, advocacy, movement-building and protest that lack a strong moral and spiritual foundation. The fact that Taylor offers a rigorous argument for spiritually-grounded actions that will force a national reckoning with our criminal injustice system is a cause for celebration. I wholeheartedly agree with him that political organizing and movement-building among faith communities is essential, and I also agree that political insurrection can be healing and transformative for those who have been traumatized, abused, and violated. Continue reading “Here’s the Rub” →

Wild Lectionary: Jesus seeds, sprout!

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

4472671089_c4d4169f44_b.jpgEaster Sunday
By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

Night and day, woman and man, soil and sky, humanity and God: all these primal pairs are present in this week’s proclamation of the Uprising of Jesus. Each pair echoes an element of the first chapters of Genesis, the foundational narrative of the “religion of creation” upon which John’s gospel is grounded. These connections help us to hear that the hope of Easter is not in an invisible part of one’s self (“the soul”) leaving earth for somewhere else, but in the power of the Creator God to continue to bring forth life from the earth, despite the murderous ways of empire. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Jesus seeds, sprout!” →

The Categories We Need

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JyarlandDay 43 of our Lenten Journey beyond “Beyond Vietnam. A rich resource from Jyarland Daniels (photo right) of Harriet Speaks, who did the hard work of reading Dr. King and then compiling some of his key convictions.  Informative and inspiring.

After reading several works written by Martin Luther King, his comments seemed to fall into several categories. I’m not sure if they fell into those categories, or if I see those categories that I believe we need the words of MLK today.

Martin Luther King: On Ally-ship

“Young Negros had traditionally imitated whites in dress, conduct, and thought in a rigid, middle-class pattern… Now the ceased imitating and began initiating. Leadership passed into the hands of Negros, and their white allies began learning from them.” (“The Trumpet of Conscience”)

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klan, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice.” (“Letter from Birmingham Jail”) Continue reading “The Categories We Need” →

Sermon: “Save Us!”

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

palm sunday.pngBy Joyce Hollyday, April 9, 2017, Palm Sunday: Circle of Mercy

Our text tonight is Luke 19:29-41. I’m reading from the New Revised American Version:

When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his billionaire cronies, saying, “Go into the town ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a stallion that has been ridden many times in war. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord wants it. And what the Lord wants, the Lord gets.’ If necessary, pay off its owners with a bribe. Close the deal with whatever it takes.” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them.  Continue reading “Sermon: “Save Us!”” →

More Spending, Of Course

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Sharon KyleDay 42 in our Lenten Journey beyond “Beyond Vietnam.”  From Sharon Kyle, publisher of the LA Progressive and a professor of law at Peoples College of Law in L.A., excerpted from “Is Racism a Racket?” in the L.A. Progressive:

What struck me was that Dr. King almost laid bare the notion that racism is a racket. Not to say that racism doesn’t exist but that it’s continued existence serves an elite few.

In a similar assertion, Smedley Butler—a career military man who received 16 medals, five for heroism, and is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice— wrote a book entitled, “War Is a Racket” because he felt that his years of experience showed him that American corporations and other imperialist motivations were behind our wars. He came to see through the PR campaigns that prime the public — that set the stage for war.  After retiring from service, he became a popular activist, speaking at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists, and church groups. Continue reading “More Spending, Of Course” →

What My Soul Sings

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LenyDay 41 of our Lenten Journey beyond “Beyond Vietnam.”  From Leny Mendoza Strobel (photo right), Professor of American Multicultural Studies at Sonoma State University, in her Foreword to Ethnoautobiography: Stories and Practices for Unlearning Whiteness, Decolonization, Uncovering Ethnicities (2013):

A long-time colleague asked me, for the first time the other day: Why did you become interested in the Indigenous?  My answer was an academic one: When I started doing research on Filipino Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices.

What I really wanted to say was: I have always been interested in the Indigenous worldview; it’s what my bones know and what my soul sings. Continue reading “What My Soul Sings” →

You Either Are or You Are Not

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AdichieDay 40 of our Lenten journey beyond “Beyond Vietnam.”  Excerpted from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s recently released Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions (2017):

Beware the danger of what I call Feminism Lite; the idea of conditional female equality. Being a feminist is like being pregnant. You either are or you are not. You either believe in the full equality of men and women, or you do not.

Teach your daughter to question language. A friend of mine says she will never call her daughter “princess”. The word is loaded with assumptions, of a girl’s delicacy, of the prince who will come to save her. This friend prefers “angel” and “star”. So decide the things you will not say to your child. You know that Igbo joke, used to tease girls who are being childish – “What are you doing? Don’t you know you are old enough to find a husband?” I used to say that often. But now I choose not to. I say, “You are old enough to find a job.” Because I do not believe that marriage is something we should teach young girls to aspire to.  Continue reading “You Either Are or You Are Not” →

For The Long-Haul

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MonicaDay 39 of our Lenten Journey continues beyond “Beyond Vietnam.”  What now?  For nine more days, we listen to voices calling us onwards, to live out the legacy of Dr. King.  Today, we hear from Monica Lewis-Patrick (right), point guard of Detroit’s struggle for water affordability, excerpted from a conversation she had with a youth group visiting Detroit in July 2016:

People are driven by either two things: pleasure or pain. What has driven me over the past ten years living in this city is watching a lot of pain. That pain has sparked a passion. I’m 50 years old. I’ve done social justice work since I was 16 years old. In North Carolina, in Tennessee, the Deep South. I’ve been in Detroit for ten years and I can tell you there’s not a lot of difference.

What I do know is that people cannot come into the city with the attitude of being a missionary, that “I’m just going to do good in the hood,” and then go back to their community and live well or live in privilege. I think it’s only about immersing yourself in the community and culture and I think it’s only by allowing yourself to be courageous enough to interface with people that make you uncomfortable. I think sometimes it takes us out of our comfort zone—it’s not easy for us who are doing front line justice work to allow outsiders in because of distrust and co-opting and people taking advantage of our trust and the sanctity of these spaces.  So it has to be a commitment and willingness to be committed for the long-haul.

I think the other thing about social justice work is that everyone has to decide what amount of themselves they can give to this work. But I think you’ve got to be fully committed, that it’s got to be a life-long commitment because people know the difference. They know when you are coming in to extract from their community so you can feel better about yourself or when you come to give yourself to that community, to let the collective heal so that we can feel better about ourselves. That’s the difference and we know the difference.

White Supremacy Defined

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aliciaDay 38 of our Lenten Journey continues beyond “Beyond Vietnam.”  What now?  For nine more days, we listen to voices calling us onwards, to live out the legacy of Dr. King.  Today, we ponder this “working definition of white supremacy” from Chicago-based community organizer Alicia Crosby:  

White supremacy establishes whiteness as superior to other racial identities through the elevation of the needs, wants, concerns, perspectives, feelings, and desires of white people over that of people of color. This includes the centering of the theological, rhetorical, aesthetic, and economic priorities and preferences rooted in whiteness as well as the appropriation and rebranding of cultural expressions sourced from people of color.