By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
“But one of the greatest gifts we feel she can receive is a life in this community: we want her to know and feel the love of people who are alive, who don’t give a damn about money and who are willing to do with their lives what they think God is asking” – Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: Sabbath Economics Support Group for Parents”
From Cuban artist Erik Ravelo: photographs of children crucified by their oppressors. The first image refers to pedophilia in the Vatican. The second to child sexual abuse in tourism in Thailand, and the third to the war in Syria. The fourth image refers to the trafficking of organs on the black market, where most of the victims are children from poor countries; the fifth refers to the widespread access of weapons in the U.S. And finally, the sixth image refers to obesity and the fast food industry.
Ched Myers (right, at La Posada Sin Fronteras in December 2013) on the importance of repentance and resistance in the lives of radical Christian disciples–from Binding The Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (1988).
Repentance is not only the conversion of the heart, but a concrete process of turning away from empire, its distractions and seductions, its hubris and iniquity.
Resistance is shaking off the powerful sedation of a society that rewards ignorance and trivializes everything political, in order to discern and take concrete stands in our historical moment, and to find meaningful ways to impede imperial progress.
“History is not the past. It is the stories we tell about the past. How we tell these stories – triumphantly or self-critically, metaphysically or dialectally – has a lot to do with whether we cut short or advance our evolution as human beings.”
– Grace Boggs
By Tim Nafziger, co-founder of Young Anabaptist Radicals residing in Southern California’s Ventura River Watershed
8 years ago, I showed “What a Way to Go” to my family. I hope they would, as the movie tag line says, come to grips “with Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot and the demise of the American lifestyle.”
Halfway through the movie my sister walked out. It wasn’t so much that she was opposed to the message of the movie. She just couldn’t take how relentlessly depressing it was. Continue reading “Prophecy, Pedagogy and Permaculture”
By Ched Myers, for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost (Mark 4:26-34)
Note: This is an ongoing series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B, 2015.
This week the lectionary gives us the last third of Jesus’ parables sermon (hopping over the famous parable of the Sower and its allegorical interpretation, Mk 4:2-23). This section begins with a sober warning:
And he said to them, “Take heed what you hear: ‘The measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to him who has will more be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away’.” (Mk 4:24-25)
Continue reading “Sowing Hope”
John Main
*This is the final post in a three-part series exploring more compelling ways to follow Jesus.
During the summer of 2013, Lindsay and I took a 75-day, 12,000-mile road trip. We simply wanted to meet people whose lives of faith were compelling. We wanted to get a taste test of what some might call “Movement Christianity” or “Radical Discipleship” (radical in Latin means “roots”), a particular strand of faith and action that goes all the way back to the roots of Judeo-Christian faith: Moses’ contemplative meeting with the Divine at the burning bush and his ensuing confrontation with the beastly bastards of Egyptian Empire, calling the underdogs out of enslavement and into a whole new Way of being.
Continue reading “A Post Evangelical Pilgrimage, Part III”
To achieve healing and hope for the Mennonite Church through the inclusion and welcome of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) individuals and their supporters.
Pink Menno Vision Statement
Originally posted on the Pink Menno website:
At the Mennonite Church USA (MCUSA) bi-annual convention (in Kansas City, MO), Pink Menno will convene a symposium focused on intersectionality. “On the Way: Dis-Covering Diversity” will be held in Pink Menno’s hospitality space in Room 2504B of the convention center, right around the corner from the Grand Ballroom on Level 2.
Continue reading “Kansas City Here We Come: The Pink Mennos Dis-Cover Diversity”
John Sellers, co-founder of The Ruckus Society
This is a cross post from Kate Aronoff at Waging Nonviolence.
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Seattle has become a hub of anti-extraction activism. Protests began on May 14, when Royal Dutch Shell — bucking city residents and officials — docked its Polar Pioneer off the Emerald City coast. The towering 400-by-355-foot oil rig is en route to the Arctic, where it is scheduled to begin drilling operations this summer. The largest demonstration yet happened May 16, as hundreds of “kayak-tivists” swarmed Seattle’s Terminal 5, where the Polar Pioneer is docked. Since then, protests against the rig have been ongoing, and show few signs of letting up.
Continue reading “Shell No! Kayaktivism in Seattle”
From TA-NEHISI COATES:
When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is “correct” or “wise,” any more than a forest fire can be “correct” or “wise.” Wisdom isn’t the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.
Radical Discipleship 