If Not Empire, What?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Empire…this book is for those who have been disillusioned by the empire’s way of running the world and are curious about what insights the Bible may contain on how to think about, organize and act collectively to restore a just and sustainable life on Earth.
John Stoner & Berry Friesen in the Preface to If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible (2014)

This week, we got an opportunity to sit down with John Stoner, the author (with Berry Friesen) of If Not Empire, What? (click here for free online PDF!) and co-curator (with Friesen) of the resource-rich site BibleAndEmpire.Net.
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Claiming his body as his Own

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

ww communionWritten by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann for a neighborhood Eucharist.

In a time when we are so mindful of the violence and racism done to black bodies and mindful of the privileges of our own bodies, we pause as a community to remember another body. One that was targeted and murdered by another violent system over 2000 years ago. Continue reading “Claiming his body as his Own” →

Selma: The Wait Ain’t Over

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

selma-bridgeBy Tommy Airey

Who murdered Jimmie Lee Jackson? Every white lawman who abuses the law to terrorize. Every white politician who feeds on prejudice and hatred. Every white preacher who preaches the bible and stays silent before his white congregation.
Martin Luther King in Selma (1965…2015)

There’s a chilling scene in the just-released Selma where Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) peppers George Wallace (Tim Roth) over why he won’t ensure that black Americans have full protection to vote in his state. The notorious governor of Alabama assures the President that he doesn’t really have the power to do anything even if he wanted to: that’s up to counties and cities. And besides, if black folks get the full power of the vote (as enshrined in the Constitution a century earlier), then they will move on to more “demands:” for jobs, housing, health care and more.
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Fifty Years Later. In Detroit the End of Brown: Separate and Unequal

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Identity, RaceLeave a comment

schoolBy Bill Wylie-Kellermann

The Detroit Public Schools are being dismantled by design and effectively looted. Though Detroiters and the elected school board are consistently blamed for their demise, for twelve of the last fifteen years DPS has been under state control.

Mother Helen Moore, an attorney who heads the Education Task Force has become notorious for her fight on behalf of the schools, and tells the story over and over in community meetings. It’s well documented. Continue reading “Fifty Years Later. In Detroit the End of Brown: Separate and Unequal” →

Baptized Into Our Bioregion

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

the-Baptism-of-JesusBy Ched Myers of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, hosting the Festival of Radical Discipleship in mid-February in Oak View, CA:

Yesterday, the First Sunday after Epiphany, was the Feast of Jesus’ Baptism. In the gospel reading, a particular preposition is used in refrain in Mark 1:9-12. Everyone else is baptized by John in the Jordan, but Jesus is baptized into the river (Gk, eis ton Iordanēn). Then that wild bird descends onto or into Jesus (eis auton). And right after this, Jesus journeys deep into the wilderness (eis tēn ‘eremon), on his “vision quest.”
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Against Silence

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, RaceLeave a comment

JessFrom Tyehimba Jess, whose first book of poetry, leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. Wave Books will publish his next book, Olio, in 2016. He is an Associate Professor of English at the College of Staten Island.

My name is Tyehimba Jess. I am a black poet. I have a silence to be rightened. I have a silence after each shooting. I remain a nation unsilenced. I am a poet murdering silence. My name is Eric. My name is Bell. My name is Eleanor. My name is nation. My rights fit any murder description. My remains remained on the asphalt for
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An Underground Counter-Culture

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of WitnessesLeave a comment

RubemAlves_relogioFrom Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves:

The early Christian community was…an underground counter-culture. The reason it was so ruthlessly persecuted was because the dominant powers perceived it as a basically dysfunctional and subversive social reality. The values it wanted to realize and live out implied in the long run the abolition of the very foundations of the Roman Empire.

We Are Not Alone

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From Vincent Harding:

vincenthardingWe are not alone in this struggle for the re-creation of our own lives and the life of our community.  It has long been written and known that those who choose to struggle for the life of the earth and its beings are part of an ageless, pulsating membrane of light that is filled with the lives, hopes, and beatific visions of all who have fought on, held on, loved well, and gone on before us.  For this task is to magnificent to be carried by us alone, in our house, in our meeting, in our organization, in our generation, in our lifetime…  we are all a part of one another, and we are all part of the intention of the great creator spirit to continue being light and life.

[ We are to seek out ] … a path that expresses our own searching – expanding the confidence in the healing power of the universe, in the presence of a loving, leading Power, exposing us always to the harsh and the tender, to the dreadful and the compassionate, prying our lives open to the evidence of things unseen.

Hope Spills Over From 2014, Volume II

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Nick PetersonFrom Nick Peterson (photo: far right), an adjunct instructor and worship planning coordinator at Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is pursuing ordination in the African Methodist Episcopal Church:

In South Central PA a group under the monicker #BlackLivesMatter717 has organized and given voice to issue of predatory racialized policing. In addition to leading training around non-violent direct action and carrying out various direct actions, the group is also committed to expanding the anti-racism on all fronts.
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