Salted the Nile with her Tears

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

By Kelley Nikondeha, o

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: “Striated Heron,” Nile River, Luxor, Egypt, Becky Matsubara CC, flickr.com/beckymatsubara.

riginally printed in Geez magazine on Mothering.

A cry broke the early morning silence and interrupted the royal daughter’s bath.

Already knee-deep in the river, she knew instantly that it was a Hebrew baby. On the opposite shore a mother, exhausted from the crossing, dragged her wet body out of the river and collapsed – arms now empty.

As an adopted child, I grew up mesmerized by Moses with only a cursory interest in his mothers. Sunday school lessons didn’t help, offering a sentimentalized characterization of these women – the one who let go and the other who saved the boy through adoption. But as I grew, so did my understanding of the mothers. I learned their story existed against a socio-political backdrop complete with hard edges and harder choices. Continue reading “Salted the Nile with her Tears” →

Scaffolding This Appalling Silence

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

By Tommy AireyWexler

Late last month, Ruby Sales lobbed me my first reading assignment: The Awful Grace of God: Religious Terrorism, White Supremacy and the Unsolved Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock. Over the phone, she delivered a tutorial on its fresh relevance for late stage racial capitalism. We hung up a week before white men targeted Black and Brown bystanders in El Paso and Dayton.

As it turns out, the real terrorists are white Christians. The Awful Grace of God details the ways and means of white pastors and their KKK-congregants who conspired to kill Dr. King in the 50’s and 60’s. This clandestine movement fused religious passion, reactionary politics and the spirituality of hatred. By 1967, the price on Dr. King’s head was $100,000. The news of this rapidly circulated through federal prisons, where King’s supposed killer James Earl Ray was about to escape. Of course, this strand is still alive and well, but as King himself noted time and time again, the greatest tragedy remains “not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” The grandest conspiracy of all is the collective denial of white supremacy in all its insidious forms. Continue reading “Scaffolding This Appalling Silence” →

Relationship is not the Answer to Racism

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology1 Comment

Chanequa Walker BarnesFrom the blog of Chanequa Walker-Barnes, author of the upcoming release I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation. Walker-Barnes is a theologian and psychologist whose mission is to serve as a catalyst for healing, justice, and reconciliation in the Christian church and beyond.

People often ask me how long it takes me to write a book. That’s a hard question to answer. With both of my books now, I spend years living the book before I sit down to write the book. I spent 10 years immersed in the Christian racial reconciliation movement, from 2006-2016. From the beginning, I was plagued by “Yes, but” moments, but that didn’t stop me from being all in. I loved being in spaces where diverse Christians had honest convo about race and racism. I had only experienced that previously in Black church spaces. Continue reading “Relationship is not the Answer to Racism” →

Seeking Right Relationship

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Kingsbay7An excerpt from Clare Grady’s oral arguments earlier this month in Georgia. Clare is a member of the Kingsbay Plowshares 7.

At this point, I would like to take a moment to look at the word religion. I learned that it has its roots in the word re-ligament. I translate that as re align, or to be in right relationship. Before I finish my time, I would like to share a few paragraphs from my affidavit and my testimony from the evidentiary hearing. All of my testimony was about religion, was about seeking right relationship. I will begin with a passage I quoted from Mark’s gospel chapter 12. It was the Sunday Mass reading on November 9, 1958, the day that I was born. In many ways it has been a rudder in my faith journey, one that has informed my religious beliefs, choices and practices. Continue reading “Seeking Right Relationship” →

Healing as Liberation from Crippling Debt

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Sabbath Economics, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

DebtBy Ched Myers, on Luke 13:10-17

Note: This is part of a series of weekly comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year C, 2016.

This part of Luke’s gospel offers two symbolic stories about the healing of “political bodies” that signify pathology in the body politic: the “bent over” woman (13:10-17) and the “too big” man (14:1-6). Sadly, the second of these is (literally) skipped over by the lectionary. These intimately related healings bracket a series of Jesus’ sayings concerning the Kingdom as surprise and mystery (13:18-21), the “narrow Way” (13:22-30) and the cost of prophetic discipleship (13:31-35). Continue reading “Healing as Liberation from Crippling Debt” →

Wild Lectionary: Agency, Age, and Attentiveness to Power

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Photo from Salal and Cedar

Proper 16 C
Jeremiah 1:4-10

By Rachael Bullock

The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
“Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.” Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Agency, Age, and Attentiveness to Power” →

The Clothier’s work

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By Keith DavenportBy Ken Sehested,

We are free to act boldly because we are safe.
We are safe because we are at rest.
We are at rest because we have been forgiven.
We are forgiven because we have come to know that the Spirit meets us in our weakness, not our strength.
And in the strength of our weakness we find our security; fear’s fierce grip loosens,
freeing us to act boldly.
Such is the journey, ever onward.
By the Clothier’s hand are we fitted with garments apropos for the Fiesta to come!
So rise up, you pilgrims, whether hale and hearty or flustered and weary.
Be clothed with the sun and with power from on high, robed in righteousness,
shod in the Gospel of Peace.
Round up your rowdy friends,
but especially the lame and all with no claim on the Bountiful Table.
The Banquet beckons.
Your Host awaits.

inspired by Rev 12:1; Luke 14:13, 24:49; Ps 139:2, Eph 6:15

Come the Dawn

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

OzBy Oz Cole-Arnal, former professor emeritus at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary

*Note: this is the third installment of poems from Professor Cole-Arnal’s recent memoir work. “Come the Dawn” was written in Feb 1981, shortly after almost succumbing to an illicit affair in France during May-June (1980). These words mark his attempt to remember his marital promises and his continual love for wife Marian (“Bunny”). It is also critical to remember that this poetry included a third party: his therapist Andy Coppolino with whom they were wrestling with his nocturnal dreams.

A howl of pain piercing the night,
Wide awake, the only sound a heartbeat,
The discovery of mortality, alone, deeply alone,
Wrapped in darkness and afraid

–Before the dawn. Continue reading “Come the Dawn” →

Conjoined Twins

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire7 Comments

ibram-kendi--credit-jeff-watts-american-universityFrom author and professor Ibram X. Kendi’s recent interview on DemocracyNow (August 13, 2019). Kendi’s new book is called How To Be An Antiracist.

I classify racism and capitalism as these conjoined twins — right? — from the same body but different personalities, different faces. And the reason why I do that is because I’m an historian. And so I track, particularly in my last book — the origins of racism cannot be separated from the origins of capitalism. The origins of capitalism cannot be separated from the origins of racism. The life of racism cannot be separated from the life of capitalism, and vice versa. Continue reading “Conjoined Twins” →