It Simply Becomes “Force”

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn RaceLeave a comment

CoatesFrom Ta-Nehisi Coates (see full article from The Atlantic here):

To understand the lack of police legitimacy in black communities, consider the contempt in which most white Americans hold O.J. Simpson. Consider their feelings toward the judge and jury in the case. And then consider that this is approximately how black people have felt every few months for generations. It’s not just that the belief that Officer Timothy Loehmann got away with murdering a 12-year-old Tamir Rice, it is the reality that police officers have been getting away with murdering black people since the advent of American policing. The injustice compounds, congeals until there is an almost tangible sense of dread and grievance that compels a community to understand the police as objects of fear, not respect. Continue reading “It Simply Becomes “Force”” →

Voice

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

standing rock.jpgOur hearts are full; this an historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and for tribes across the nation. Native peoples have suffered generations of broken promises and today the federal government said that national reform is needed to better ensure that tribes have a voice on infrastructure projects like this pipeline.

  • Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

Solidarity with Standing Rock

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized1 Comment

nathanBy Nathan Holst

Spirit come alive
Let us follow the current
Trace the sacred sighs
In the call of the earth
With seven generations
Standing before us now
May the Spirit come alive

These words from a song I wrote years ago were ringing in my ears this last weekend as I came with folks from the All Nations Indigenous Center in Duluth to join thousands of indigenous people at the incredible gathering at the Standing Rock Reservation to protect the water (and burial sites) from the Dakota Access Pipeline, slated to run just North of the reservation. There truly was an incredible Spirit coming alive in that space where elders, children, families were all tracing the call of the earth to protect the water for future generations.

Continue reading “Solidarity with Standing Rock” →

Sinners & Lost Sheep

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological AnimationLeave a comment

sheepBy Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

This Sunday’s passage from Luke (15.1-10) seems straightforward: like a man seeking a lost sheep and a woman a lost coin, Jesus seeks and finds people who are “lost.” But like so much of the Bible in general and Luke in particular, a close reading reveals there is more than what meets the eye at first glance.

Our first task is to show how Luke subtly but clearly suggests that the Pharisees’ resistance to Jesus’ message is the primary topic of our passage. Next, we’ll look at the passage itself, and how the first two parts of the parable (sheep/coin) are parallel to the two sons in the final section (15.11-32). Finally, we’ll consider how this speaks to our call to discipleship today. Continue reading “Sinners & Lost Sheep” →

Bearing The Brunt of Climate Change

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
The John Amos coal-fired power plant is seen behind a home in Poca
The John Amos coal-fired power plant is seen behind a home in Poca, West Virginia on May 18, 2014. Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

By Leah Wiste & Bob Chapman, Michigan Interfaith Power & Light

This July, the African Methodist Episcopal Church—the oldest Protestant denomination founded by African Americans—became the latest religious body to pass a resolution on climate change.   

Many religious groups have issued statements about the urgency of environmental stewardship in an age of global warming and the need for action on behalf of those who suffer most: the world’s poor—the “least of these” in the language of Christian scriptures. Continue reading “Bearing The Brunt of Climate Change” →

An Unusual Wedding Gift

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized1 Comment

outhouse.jpgBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

I spent the summer building an outhouse.
I spent the summer building an outhouse for my sister.
I spent the summer building an outhouse for my sister because she was getting married.

Forty-eight hours before the wedding as darkness fell and rain poured, even the groom was still drilling and cutting.

Lucy got married at our cabin in a pine grove a short walk from where my mom is buried. In order to accommodate 150 people for the service and thirty campers on our shallow, illegally plumbed crock well, we needed an outhouse. Continue reading “An Unusual Wedding Gift” →

10 Years Later: The Greensboro Truth & Community Reconciliation Project

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NelsonFrom Nelson Johnson, pastor of Faith Community Church in Greensboro, NC and co-founder of the Beloved Community Center and Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project (which concluded in 2006)–quoted from Ambassadors of Reconciliation, Volume II (2011, Enns and Myers):

A public discussion about a historic event that focuses only on culpability—who was right, who was wrong, or whether the government was involved—isn’t enough. These are important moral questions, and I am fighting to answer them, but at the end of the day the TRC must lead to a therefore: If this be true, what shall we do?   People will not rush to embrace something that doesn’t make any difference for their lives. That would be like having a good discussion in church about the Bible, but when the flood comes everybody drowns anyway. If behavior doesn’t change, if people are still starving, if their children are still going to jail, TRCs will not be embraced. In order for TRCs to avoid becoming domesticated, as have so many other great political innovations, they must stay connected to real life. Continue reading “10 Years Later: The Greensboro Truth & Community Reconciliation Project” →

A Tremendous Spirit

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

From Swoon Studio: Portrait of Nyurapayia Nampitjinpa, also known as Mrs Bennett, who helped shape the Aboriginal women’s painting movement. This shot is from 2011, when I was working inside the church in Braddock, using it as a studio for the summer because it was an interior space big enough to carve a piece on this scale. I had just been to Australia and met Mrs. Bennet, spent the day sketching her, watching her paint, listening to her stories and songs and enjoying the wildly mischievous grin she would give me. Such a tremendous spirit. She passed away a couple of years later, and I am still honored to have gotten to spend some time with her while she was alive.

Swoon Studio

Rizpah

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

rizpah.jpgThis piece was developed during the first Bartimaeus Institute Online Cohort (2015-2016), aka “The Feminary.”  These pieces will eventually be published in a Women’s Breviary collection.  For more information regarding the Feminary go here

By Adella Barrett

The king took the two sons of Rizpah…whom she bore to Saul…and the five sons of Merab… and gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they impaled them on the mountain before the Lord. The seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest. Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it on a rock for herself, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens; she did not allow the birds of the air to come on the bodies by day, or the wild animals by night.

2 Samuel 21: 8-10

It was during the time of the dry winds,
the barley white for harvest, the apricot and almond trees in bloom.
It was when the land began to ripen,
when the hands of the people were ready for gathering,
that Rizpah lost her sons. Continue reading “Rizpah” →