Deep Love

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation5 Comments

Kings BayBy Tommy Airey

Lindsay shot me a text last Friday afternoon. KingsBay7 all found guilty of all the charges. She concluded with crying emojis. The Kings Bay Plowshares 7 is a motley crew of older white Christians who, on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, broke into a Naval base in Georgia with hammers, crime scene tape, baby bottles containing their own blood, and an indictment charging the U.S. government with crimes against peace. ¡Personas peligrosos!

The Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base is home to at least six nuclear ballistic missile submarines, each of which carries 20 Trident thermonuclear weapons—possessed with 3,800 times more destructive power as the weapons that were used on Hiroshima. Hammers? They were literally following the prophet Isaiah’s command to “beat swords into plowshares.” They discerned the action after two years of prayer and practice. This was a deep symbolic action designed to penetrate souls. Continue reading “Deep Love” →

Wild Lectionary: Saving Corporate Lostness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

IMG_4227Proper 26(31)
Luke 19:1-10

By The Rev. Marilyn Zehr

19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.
– Luke 19:10

If the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost, who could be more lost than large corporations whose actions defile the earth and her creatures? But wouldn’t corporations need to be “people” in order to be saved? Apparently in the USA, corporate personhood is a thing. Corporate personhood is the legal notion that a corporation separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Saving Corporate Lostness” →

Reading the Bible as a Trans-Affirming Ally

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Uncategorized2 Comments

indexBy Mx Chris Paige

Reading the Bible while transgender involves sorting through many distortions and biased assumptions that have been passed along, both through tradion and translation. Often critics are so confident in their bias that they aren’t even looking at the text. My book, OtherWise Christian: A Guidebook for Transgender Liberation, has only been out for a few months, so I am only beginning to encounter trolls, but I have already seen “conversations” devolve into “because I said so” non-arguments. Looking past the strident (and often ignorant) opposition is the first barrier to reading the Bible as a transgender-affirming ally. Continue reading “Reading the Bible as a Trans-Affirming Ally” →

The Evidence Will Show

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Kingsbay 7From Ellen Grady, reporting from Georgia on behalf of the Kingsbay Plowshares 7:

Verdict in. In this Federal court in Georgia all 7 were found guilty of all your charges. In this Federal court in Georgia the trident submarine and all weapons of mass distraction are legal. In this federal court in Georgia the planning for the destruction of the world is legal. Continue reading “The Evidence Will Show” →

Wild Lectionary: Insect Armies and Fearful Soil

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

37661337_684148725265061_5398280923315699712_oProper 25(30)C

Joel 2:23-32

By Laurel Dykstra

In the Christian bible the book of Joel is three chapters long, in the Jewish bible four.

Joel describes a years long plague of locusts in military language. The people are exhorted to fast, pray and repent from ambiguous transgressions. An oracle of consolation—divine promise of restoration–is followed by a raw prayer of revenge equating Israel’s restoration with the defeat and humiliation of surrounding empires.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Insect Armies and Fearful Soil” →

Transgender Liberation Invitation

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Uncategorized1 Comment

indexThe Alternative Seminary, Transfaith,
and Germantown Mennonite Church
 Invite You to

 Transgender Liberation:
Intersectional Identities, Alternate Genders, and the Biblical Testimony of Eunuchs

 Saturday, November 2
10:00 am – 12:00 noon

 Germantown Mennonite Church
21 W. Washington Lane, Philadelphia

Mx Chris Paige (formerly publisher of The Other Side magazine) will present from their new book, OtherWise Christian: A Guidebook for Transgender Liberation. Drawing on 25 years of transgender-affirming scholarship, Chris will invite us to expand our understanding of the 50 explicit uses of the word “eunuch” in the Christian Bible (many of which are obscured in translation), as well as other likely or perhaps eunuchs such as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. In doing so, we will challenge one another to live more deeply into resistance from colonized gender ideology, white supremacy, and Christian empire. Continue reading “Transgender Liberation Invitation” →

Geez Call for Pitches: G56 Breaking the Law

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Image_from_iOS_580_435_90
Praise the Lord and Break the Law. As seen at the Sugar Creek Midwest Catholic Worker Gathering, fall 2019. Credit: Kateri Boucher

Deadline November 10, 2019

“We need to engage in whatever nonviolent actions appeal to us. There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at critical points to create a power that governments cannot suppress. We find ourselves today at one of those critical points.” – Howard Zinn

“The decision to engage in civil disobedience is challenging not just what the symbol represents, but also the laws that are set up to protect it.” – Bree Newsome, after pulling down the South Carolina Confederate flag in 2015

In countries founded on the legality of slavery and Indigenous massacres, we begin naming the complex relationships between law, violence, and power. Historically, engaging with laws through breaking them has been part of the arc that moves us towards justice. In this issue we hope to unpack the nuances of breaking the law, and the choices we do (or don’t) make in the process. Continue reading “Geez Call for Pitches: G56 Breaking the Law” →

May We

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Michael Raymond Smith
PC: Michael Raymond Smith

By Tommy Airey

A translation of the Jesus Prayer for this time.

May we celebrate Steadfast Love.
May we pledge to end exploitation and extraction.
May we live simply so it will be simple to love.
May we be released from our shame and supremacy.
May we share the debt load of others.
May our tests and trials transform us.
Amen.

Tommy Airey was born and raised on stolen, unceded Acjachemen territory (“Orange County, California”), was transformed by the thin place the Ojibwe, Huron and Odawa call Wawiiatanong (“Detroit River”) and has entered the sacred “hidden waters” the Molalla and Paiute named Towarnehiooks (“Deschutes River, Oregon”). He is the co-curator of RadicalDiscipleship.Net and author of Descending Like a Dove: Adventures in Decolonizing Evangelical Christianity (2018).