Cannibals

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Micah IconBy Tommy Airey

…you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin off my people,
and the flesh off their bones;
who eat the flesh of my people,
flay their skin off them,
break their bones in pieces,
and chop them up like meat in a kettle,
like flesh in a cauldron…
Micah 3:2-3

*This is the third installment in a series of seven pieces on Micah posted every Wednesday during Lent.
————-
Surely, Micah wasn’t winning any popularity contests by openly comparing political and religious leaders to Jeffrey Dahmer. The prophet homed in on two socio-economic atrocities. First, the decisions that social, corporate, political and religious elites make have a direct effect on the livelihood of everyday people. Masses of people are trying to survive slave conditions. Many live and work in toxic and hazardous environments. Those who can do something about this almost always don’t.
Continue reading “Cannibals” →

Love Story to Narnia

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

narniaBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann (First published at http://www.dlmayfield.wordpress.com)

Frustrated he said, “Well what would you do if you were trying to convert someone?” He had been following my mom around campus for months trying to convert her to be a Crusader for Christ by following the 5 spiritual laws of conversation. Without needing a minute to think about it, she said “I would ask them to read the Chronicles of Narnia and then invite them to talk about it.” Continue reading “Love Story to Narnia” →

The 38 Tears of Bishop Whipple

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

Bob Two BullsSeven or eight years ago when I lived and served in the Diocese of Los Angeles, I began teaching a class on Art and Spirituality and the marketing of Native American Indian Art. From these two experiences, coupled with my own art-making, I found that individual minds are opened by art. Art can transform the individual. When Native artists create art that is not necessarily tribally themed, non-Native viewers often voice surprise. Continue reading “The 38 Tears of Bishop Whipple” →

The Festival of Radical Discipleship

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

DSCN3827Radical Discipleship is about nothing more and nothing less than laying bare the roots of the personal and socio-political pathologies of our imperial society and its dead-end history, even as we seek to recover the roots of our deep biblical tradition. And what tradition is that? It is the messianic movement of rebellion and restoration, of repentance and renewal, a “Way out of no way” that has been going on since the dawn of resistance to the dusk of empire.
Ched Myers, Opening Ceremony of The Festival of Radical Discipleship, Feb 16, 2015
————–
Last week, Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries hosted their first ever Festival of Radical Discipleship in the Ventura River Watershed of Southern California. The 60th birthday of Ched Myers, one of the godparents of the Radical Discipleship Movement, provided an ample excuse for 170 of us to get together for inspiration, prayer, strategy, celebration and mayhem. Myers asked, “How might our Movement be more healthy and sustainable if we celebrated each other more often?”
Continue reading “The Festival of Radical Discipleship” →

Patient Trust, Prayer of Teilhard de Chardin

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

TeilhadAbove all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
Continue reading “Patient Trust, Prayer of Teilhard de Chardin” →

95 Years Later: Gandhi’s Satyagraha

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

GandhiAccording to This Week In Peace & Social Justice History, on this day 95 years ago:

Mohandas Gandhi launched his campaign of non-cooperation with Imperial British control of India. He called his overall method of nonviolent action Satyagraha, formed from satya (truth) and agraha, used to describe an effort or endeavor. This translates roughly as “Truth-force.” A fuller rendering, though, would be “the force that is generated through adherence to Truth.”

—————— Continue reading “95 Years Later: Gandhi’s Satyagraha” →

The Prophetic In The Face of Plunder

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation3 Comments

Micah IconBy Tommy Airey

Alas for those who devise wickedness
and evil deeds on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.
They covet fields, and seize them;
houses, and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance.
Micah 2:1-2

*This is the second installment in a series of seven pieces on Micah posted every Wednesday during Lent.
—————–
This week, Micah takes us from the personal to the political. I write from a church office with a cold, crisp view of downtown Detroit. Just on the other side of the skyscrapers, a man worth $100 million lives in a 14,500 square-foot mansion. He is buying cheap land from the city to plant a tree farm. He is hailed as a job creator and a blight reducer. But there’s more to the story: banks, land developers and young middle-class white folks coming in from the suburbs are targeting certain (poor, black) neighbors through city-imposed tax foreclosure & water shut-offs. These powers (including the multimillionaire tree farmer) are not innocent bystanders. Their intentions inevitably create unintended consequences. They prosper off the misery of poor people.
Continue reading “The Prophetic In The Face of Plunder” →

Principles of Environmental Justice

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Identity, RaceLeave a comment

environmental justiceDelegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held on October 24-27, 1991, in Washington DC, drafted and adopted 17 principles of Environmental Justice. Since then, The Principles have served as a defining document for the growing grassroots movement for environmental justice. Continue reading “Principles of Environmental Justice” →

Stories

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

rebecca solnitFrom Rebecca Solnit in The Faraway Nearby (2014):

We think we tell stories, but stories often tell us, tell us to love or hate, to see or be seen. Often, too often, stories saddle us, ride us, whip us onward, tell us what to do, and we do it without questioning. The task of learning to be free requires learning to hear them, to question them, to pause and hear silence, to name them, and then become a story-teller.