In preparation for Indigenous People’s Day on October 11, we share this edited excerpt from Elaine Enns & Ched Myers, Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization(Cascade, 2021), pp 275, 281f.

Christians are too often responsible for injecting what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” into public conversations that seek to reckon with historical violations through reparations. Our sentimentality would presume to resolve centuries of oppression with ritual apologies. But healing historical injustices and violence requires systemic transformation, not rhetorical contrition. The problem is, the culture of capitalism in North America has few ethical resources that consider seriously wealth or power redistribution of any kind, much less as reparation. Indeed, redistributive justice as a concept is roundly condemned as heretical here.

But the biblical imaginary can reinvigorate our political imagination. As an example, let us reread the infamous gospel story of Jesus and the rich man—the Revised Common Lectionary’s gospel reading for 10/10/21—with our eye on Indigenous Peoples’ Day (10/11/21). 

By Ched Myers, for the 19th Sunday of Pentecost (Mark 10:1-16), originally posted on October 1, 2015

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 Sunday is the Feast of St. Francis. There is much to celebrate about the recent U.S. visit of the Bishop of Rome who took this saint’s name, even for Protestants (after all, October 4 is also World Communion Sunday). In particular, Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ is an important statement of public theology addressing the implications of our interlocking ecological crises for our civilization. So we would do well to focus preaching on these themes, perhaps through the lens of the gospel’s concern for children (i.e. future generations). Continue reading “Family, Gender & Power” →

By Shannon Evans. Originally published in Geez 61: Seeds are Sacred.

We hungered to imagine a world where people could just eat together without anyone trying to rescue the other, without anyone more powerful or anyone more shamed.

I raised my sweater and put the baby to my breast, the still-thick rolls of my middle cushioning his tiny body as he slurped hungrily for his dinner. Around us, people milled about, flicking cigarettes into the grass to free their fingers for a plate and fork.