Love Must Win Out

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

weddingbelleisleIf anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.
I John 4:20-21 (The Message Version)

A wedding homily preached by Tommy Airey for Eliisa & Peter Croce-Bojanic (right, September 18, 2016, on Belle Isle, Detroit, MI).
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God and people: you’ve got to love both. Sounds so simple. But the author of these sacred words from First John knew what an extreme challenge that this real, gritty, self-donating love presented. In fact, in the Gospel of John and all three letters that bear John’s name, there is only one ethical command provided for readers: to love. And because love is such a contested concept, because there are so many ideas floating around about what local and organic ingredients actually constitute love’s recipe, John holds up the cross of Jesus as the ultimate symbol: Continue reading “Love Must Win Out” →

Eucharistic Prayer

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

euchWritten by Salal and Cedar

May God be with you
And also with you
Lift up your hearts
We lift them up
Let us give thanks to God our Creator
It is right to give our thanks and praise

It is right in all times and in all places to thank and praise you Creator of all. We praise you here where the Fraser River meets the Salish Sea, where city and farm, wilderness and industry are side by side. We praise you at a time when the body of earth is broken again and again. Continue reading “Eucharistic Prayer” →

Something Much Greater At Stake

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire51 Comments

michelle-alexanderAn announcement from Michelle Alexander on social media (September 16, 2016):

I am taking a long break from social media, but tonight I want to thank the Heinz Foundation which offered me today a large monetary award (along with several amazing individuals). See https://medium.com/…/announcing-the-21st-heinz-awards-honor….

Continue reading “Something Much Greater At Stake” →

Discipleship as Defection from the Mammon System: Jesus’ Parable about a “Manager of Injustice”

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation4 Comments

luke16By Ched Myers, on Luke 16:1-13

Note: This post is part of a series of weekly comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during Year C, 2016. This week Ched offers a longer study because of his conviction that this is a crucial text for middle class Christians. A more detailed version of the reflections below can be found here; a webinar exploring these themes can be found here. [Right: “The Wicked Servant,” Ian Pollock, 1972.]

Summary: This Sunday’s gospel can be read as a poignant fable for all who realize that they have been disenfranchised by the dominant economic system, and who would try to “monkeywrench” whatever status they have in it to provide a modicum of Jubilee justice for themselves and others.  This parable illustrates the contemporary strategy of navigating what Wendell Berry calls the “Two Economies” by using capital to build social relations, rather than sacrificing social relations to build capital.  Continue reading “Discipleship as Defection from the Mammon System: Jesus’ Parable about a “Manager of Injustice”” →

A Shift Towards Sustainable Community

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Subverting Empire1 Comment

golden calfAn update from Mark Van Steenwyk, the co-founder of the Minneapolis Mennonite Worker:

I’ve gotten a few comments and messages expressing the assumption that The Mennonite Worker is closing, or has closed. That isn’t true (in one way), but it is true (in another way). Let me explain.

We launched the Mennonite Worker (originally called Missio Dei) in 2004. We started as an urban church with a strong commitment to living out the way of Jesus in a particular area of Minneapolis (mostly around the Cedar Riverside neighborhood). Within the first couple of years, we began a strong radical shift towards becoming an intentional community that lived more deeply into the sorts of radical practices Jesus calls us to embrace: hospitality, peacemaking, prayer, and simplicity. Continue reading “A Shift Towards Sustainable Community” →

Why I stand – or rather choose to sit – with Colin Kaepernick

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Uncategorized1 Comment

Kaepernick-Tomsula-benched-09-28-15

By Patrick O’Neill- co-founder of the Fr. Charles Mulholland Catholic Worker House, an intentional, pacifist community that provides hospitality to people in crisis. Reposted from News Observer.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is teaching us all an important civics lesson: Freedom is not free. The term, usually reserved to support war, can also be applied to the price Kaepernick is paying for his decision not to stand and sing the national anthem at NFL games as a protest of police killings of African-Americans. Continue reading “Why I stand – or rather choose to sit – with Colin Kaepernick” →

Empire Baptized

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

wesDuring our current lectionary cycle, we’ve been downright spoiled with the scholarship that Ched Myers, Wes Howard-Brook (right) and Sue Ferguson Johnson bring every Thursday with their weekly comments on the Gospel passage.  When Wes is not busy teaching at Seattle University, serving at the local soup kitchen, leading the weekly Bible Study in his home, participating in liturgical direct action, hiking up Tiger Mountain or making Sue a latte, he spends his free time researching church history for his next publication.  Last week, his Empire Baptized: How The Church Embraced What Jesus Rejected (Orbis) was released for public consumption.  We sat down for a long-distance dialogue about what to expect next.

RD.net: What were the circumstances in your own life that led to writing Empire Baptized?

WHB: Two major realities led to this book. First, in doing Come Out, My People!, the contrast between the New Testament’s clear message of embodied resistance to empire and historical Christianity’s embrace of empire jumped out at me. Second, in teaching undergrads who are often deeply and rightly suspicious of “Christianity” as well as older and often lifelong church people, I regularly experienced the shock people express when they discover that, for instance, Jesus not only wasn’t concerned with “how does my soul go to heaven,” but wouldn’t even have understood the question!

I had inherited the Yoderian narrative [Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder] of “it was great for three centuries, but then along came Constantine,” but several things led me to question that story. For instance, that Constantine embraced “Christianity” did not explain such things as many churches’ obsessive focus on right “doctrine,” sexual ethics, and lack of regard for social injustice. I wanted to find out, at least for myself, what “really happened.”

Continue reading “Empire Baptized” →