In The Hands of an Angry God?

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Micah IconBy Tommy Airey

On that day, says the Lord,
I will cut off your horses from among you
and will destroy your chariots;
and I will cut off the cities of your land
and throw down all your strongholds…
And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance
on the nations that did not obey.
Micah 5:10-11, 15

*This is the fifth installment in a series of seven pieces on Micah posted every Wednesday during Lent.
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Small town Micah portrays a big time God whose anger and wrath fuel justice. This God, thankfully, is not apathetic or indifferent to the plight of the vulnerable and marginalized. This God is passionate and determined to level the playing field, to eliminate the weapons of war driving the false security apparatus and unjust killings all around us. Continue reading “In The Hands of an Angry God?” →

the word you’re looking for

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Just Peacemaking2 Comments

sarahSarah Matsui was born and raised in Hawai’i, raised some more in Philly, and is now living in San Francisco. She did not grow up in the church though is now part of the church, and she cares deeply about intersections of faith, identities (race, gender, language, sexuality, cultural, etc.), justice, and reconciliation.

The church I am attending sent out a letter today (3/13/15) that overall I was excited about, and thankful for. But it also invited further response. In an optional survey response they requested, I submitted the following note:

“Firstly, I am thankful for our church, this board, and for the direction indicated by the board letter. Secondly, a question: if the board has come to the conclusion that our church’s practices have been causing harm, not leading to human flourishing, and excluding LGBTQ people from belonging in the body of Christ, would a logical next step be to issue an explicit apology to the LGBTQ Christians attending our church and/or to the broader LGBTQ community?” Continue reading “the word you’re looking for” →

38 Years Later: Fannie Lou Hamer

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses1 Comment

fannie louTwo quotes from Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper for decades until she became inspired and uprooted by the Civil Rights Movement in 1962. Then, she spent more than a decade, like those first century followers of Jesus, “turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). She died of breast cancer on March 14, 1977:

Christianity is being concerned about your fellow man, not building a million-dollar church while people are starving right around the corner. Christ was a revolutionary person, out there where it was happening. That’s what God is all about, and that’s where I get my strength.

And, in case you were down about our abysmal numbers:

There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.

My Name is Not “Those People”

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology1 Comment

juliaBy Julia Dinsmore

My name is not “Those People.”
I am a loving woman, a mother in pain, giving birth to the future, where my babies have the same chance to thrive as anyone.

My name is not “Inadequate.”
I did not make my husband leave – he chose to,
and chooses not to pay child support.
Truth is thought, there isn’t a job base for all
fathers to support their families.
While society turns its head, my children pay the price. Continue reading “My Name is Not “Those People”” →

Radical Discipleship: Seven Communities

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

tim nafzigerBy Tim Nafziger, originally posted at Geez Magazine

Radical Discipleship: Seven communities that have shaped my journey as an Anabaptist

From February 16-20, 2015, I was immersed in the Between Seminary, Sanctuary, Streets and Soil: A Festival of Radical Discipleship. The gathering featured over 80 presenters from communities around the U.S. Their stories of radical discipleship inspired me to put together this primer of seven communities that I have visited and interacted with over the past decade. Each of them were represented at the Festival.

Read more here.

Report from Prison: Possibly Escape

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just PeacemakingLeave a comment

kathy kellyLetter from Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (info@vcnv.org), is in federal prison for participation in an anti-drone protest.

That is also us, the possibility of us, if the wonderful accident of our birth had taken place elsewhere: you could be the refugee, I could be the torturer. To face that truth is also our burden. After all, each of us has been the bystander, the reasonable person who just happens not to hear, not to speak, not to see those people, the invisible ones, those who live on the other side of the border.

– Karen Connelly, The Lizard Cage

It was a little over two weeks ago that Marlo entered Atwood Hall, here in Lexington federal prison. Nearly all the women here are nonviolent offenders. Continue reading “Report from Prison: Possibly Escape” →

A Prophetic Imagination: Right Here, Right Now

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

Micah IconBy Tommy Airey

…they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid;
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
Micah 4:3-4

*This is the fourth installment in a series of seven pieces on Micah posted every Wednesday during Lent.
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As we travel the Lenten road of death and resurrection, we continue to inventory both the personal and prophetic. The more we pursue the personal the more we realize that the addiction, abuse and alienation in our homes are symptoms of the wider systems in our world—the social, economic, political and religious structures that organize and, ultimately, pulverize our lives.
Continue reading “A Prophetic Imagination: Right Here, Right Now” →

Learning from Laughter: A Series on Radical Discipleship Parenting

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology1 Comment

100_2372By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

I became a mom two years ago today. I can still feel Erinn’s hand in mine as she breathed with me through each contraction and reminded me what the pain was for. After more than two days of active labor, in one final push, this beautiful child leapt out head to toe.

Almost a year earlier, as we began to try to get pregnant, we had beloved friends over for dinner who were helping us conceive, one of them asked us “Why do you want to be parents?” Continue reading “Learning from Laughter: A Series on Radical Discipleship Parenting” →

On the Trail Together: Confessing Resonances in Anti-Oppression Work

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race1 Comment

cara curtisBy Cara Curtis. Cara Curtis took part in Word & World’s 2011-2012 mentoring program. A former resident of Philadelphia, she now studies and centers her activism at Harvard Divinity School.

During my years at an elite, majority-white, social justice-oriented liberal arts college, I joined many of my fellow students in a process of awakening that many call “unpacking the invisible knapsack.” Coined in a landmark 1988 article of the same name by Peggy McIntosh, this phrase refers to a process of learning and re-evaluation in which people of privilege—economic, sexual, gender expressive, or in McIntosh’s case racial—begin to realize the ways that their lives are made easier solely by virtue of belonging to a dominant group. With practice, people also become vocal about calling out this privilege when they see it. They actively try to minimize their dominance in order to create greater opportunity and space for folks with non-dominant identities to thrive. Continue reading “On the Trail Together: Confessing Resonances in Anti-Oppression Work” →