From Howard Thurman in Footprints of a Dream : The Story of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples (1959):
The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and women often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires.
From C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair:
“Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things- trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones…I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.”
We urge you to take up and read two really important pieces of social analysis & theological animation before this huge weekend of climate justice action and international peace advocacy. Continue reading “Two Weekend Reading Recommendations”
The climate crisis is not just a narrow ‘environmental’ problem of resources or jobs in need of better management. It is the supreme symptom of a political and economic system that is bankrupt to its core.
Flood Wall Street organizer Sandra Nurse
Today we excerpt from an article by Yates McKee over at Waging Nonviolence, detailing the upcoming People’s Climate March & follow-up action, Flood Wall Street, in NYC this Saturday to Monday. Continue reading “Coming This Weekend: A Wall Street Flood”
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy…Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Martin Luther King, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
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By Tom Airey, Co-Editor of RadicalDiscipleship.Net & Lindsay Airey, MFT
Mainstream media outlets have homed in on the subject of domestic abuse in the wake of the release of the video of pro football player Ray Rice literally knocking out his fiance (now wife) back in Febuary. Continue reading “Ray, Janay & Restorative Justice In A Culture of Violence?”
Today, we share a Facebook Post (and highlights of an ongoing strand from Friday, Sept 12) from Dr. Wes Howard-Brook, former attorney and, currently, a professor of Theology & Scripture at Seattle University. Social media has all sorts of issues, but sometimes it can serve as a really helpful forum for “overhearing” conversations about vital issues. This strand focuses on the issue of ongoing violence in the Middle East, ISIS (and other “terrorist” groups) and, specifically, the role of the American Empire in the whole affair. Continue reading “Wes Howard-Brook on How Empire “Handles” Violence”
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
II Corinthians 5:16-17
Below, we excerpt the work of Ched Myers & Elaine Enns, critically reflecting on II Corinthians 5:16-17 in Ambassadors of Reconciliation, Volume I: New Testament Reflections on Restorative Justice & Peacemaking (2009). Continue reading “A Revaluation Of Everything”
From Jeffrey Stout, Princeton Professor of Political Science in Blessed Are The Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America (2010)
To maintain a position of dominance, even the most powerful people in the world rely on the inaction of others and the resignation that lies beneath it. The powerful became powerful by organizing others to work for them and creating incentives for profitably cooperative activity. It appears to be against the interests of the rich and the lucky for everyone else to be similarly well organized. The rich and the lucky benefit from making large-scale democratic reform appear hopeless. Paradoxically, they also benefit from making large-scale change seem easily achievable, for example, by casting a vote every four years for a candidate who promises something called “change.”
From Daniel Berrigan, priest, peace activist, poet:
One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better.
We live in a society that has been oppressively controlled and dominated by white people for about 400 years. To put it bluntly and succinctly, a society dominated by white control can’t be fixed by white people taking control of the situation. The failure in the white privilege stewardship model, is that it inherently affirms and utilizes the very thing that it is called to resist and counter. If the answer to our racial problems is that white people must run things, call the shots, and be the saviors to the world, then we have missed the mark.
Drew Hart, “Beyond A White Privilege Model” (The Christian Century, September 9, 2014)
We end this week with a cross-post from The Christian Century, where Drew Hart tackles the issue of white privilege. Continue reading “Beyond a White Privilege Model”
