The Day Jacques Ellul & Menno Simons Created a Political Candidate

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

robbThe following is an excerpt of a fascinating conversation between theologian Mark Baker and Robb Davis (right), the mayor of Davis, CA.  We highly recommend reading the full interview HERE: 

Mark:  It would be surprising to many that an enthusiastic reader of Jacques Ellul would run for political office. How did Ellul’s work factor into your decision to run for city council?

Robb: I’ll start by that saying Ellul arguably is the reason I became involved in city politics. Maybe even more surprising than my claiming to have run for office on the basis of something Ellul said, which many might consider to be paradoxical, is that I am also a Mennonite. I wasn’t just trying to break some molds. I had spent about 25 years travelling the world. I was a technician, dispensing wisdom to many villages and communities all over the planet—45 different countries. I started reading Ellul, and Patrick Deneen, and they started challenging me about living and acting locally. Continue reading “The Day Jacques Ellul & Menno Simons Created a Political Candidate” →

Advent: When the Whole Framework is Shaken

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

delpFrom Alfred Delp, a German Jesuit priest and philosopher of the German Resistance. He was arrested, sentenced to death and executed by the Nazis in February 1945 (quoted in Bill Wylie Kellermann’s Seasons of Faith and Conscience: Kairos, Confession, Liturgy, 1991):

Advent is a time for rousing. Human beings are shaken to the very depths, so that they may wake up to the truth of themselves. The primary condition for a fruitful and rewarding Advent is renunciation, surrender…A shattering awakening; that is the necessary preliminary. Life only begins when the whole framework is shaken.

Cider Blessing

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

cider press.jpgWritten by Kate Foran as a wedding blessing this fall.

On this day you invite your beloveds to the feast,
provide meat and drink to do justice to the harvest.
As you attended to every detail of this celebration,
you had a vision of serving the season’s cider
pressed and unfiltered
in the old way–beginning to bubble,
hospitable to the wild yeasts–
the bouquets of microflora that are our ancestors and guests,
making life from decay, enacting everyday Cana miracles.
Generations of households have observed
the domestic mystery of cider, preserving the yield of the trees
in a draught more common and reliable than water. Continue reading “Cider Blessing” →

Praying for a Voice

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

our-walmartA Thanksgiving Prayer from OUR Walmart, courtesy of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice:

Spirit of Life/Most Divine/God/Beloved Community/Creator,

We give thanks. We give thanks for those of us gathered at table. We give thanks to those who bring us this day our food. We give thanks for the food farmers and workers collected. We give thanks for the hands who helped set this table: factory workers, construction workers, truck drivers, mechanics, stock people, cashiers, managers. Continue reading “Praying for a Voice” →

Momma’s God

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

debBy Deb Anderson-Pratt, October 15, 2012

As a little girl I cried “God”
as thoughts of how i could
end the pain of all abuse
verbal, mental, physical, sexual
Momma’s God held my hand saying
“I am here my child in everything”

As an adolescent I cried “God”
as thoughts of how i could
wipe away the words he told
me as he used my body “you’re
just a dirty Indian, nobody will care”
Momma’s God held my hand saying
“I am here my child in everything” Continue reading “Momma’s God” →

The Doctrine of Discovery and Watershed Conquest

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

doctrineOn November 3, 524 clergy went in solidarity to Standing Rock as part of a call for clergy to join the struggle. As part of the action, the clergy repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery (which coincidentally is 524 years old). They presented a copy of the doctrine to an elder who burned it.

Below is an excerpt from Kat Friesen’s chapter in Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice where she explores the Doctrine of Discovery.

The Doctrine of Discovery and its resulting “Watershed Conquest” provide an exceptionally relevant case study of the harmful outworking of Christendom theologies. Any work toward reconciliation as mission must take into account these exploitative theologies, and begin with repentance as metanoia. Metanoia, translated from Greek as repentance (e.g. Mark 1:4), carries a connotation of changing both mind and action. Thus, repenting of the theologies of placelessness that persist today means recognizing their error and actively changing direction. Continue reading “The Doctrine of Discovery and Watershed Conquest” →

Trumpeting More Whiteness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race3 Comments

j-perkBy Dr. James Perkinson, Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Detroit, MI

So I am reading the left alt-press for insight on what just happened with the election of Donald Trump, and find myself yet one more time provoked at our white blindness. No less than Glenn Greenwald—whose typically razor-sharp analysis I have relied on so often in the past—quotes Nate Cohn to the effect that “Clinton suffered her biggest losses in the places where Obama was strongest among white voters. It’s not a simple racism story.” And offers further: “Matt Yglesias acknowledged that Obama’s high approval rating is inconsistent with depictions of the U.S. as a country ‘besotted with racism.’” How little we have learned for all of our supposed “learning.” Continue reading “Trumpeting More Whiteness” →

This is the time

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

timwe have been preparing for this time,
we were called, told only to be ready,
and we have been practicing and connecting.

she said that this is not a time for self-doubt and trying to please everyone,
for withholding any gifts, for wasting any time delaying your life’s work.

this is no time for ego, drop into the place where your work becomes divine.
this is the time to unleash all our healer clarity, we are all needed.
-adrienne maree brown