Tag: Ramadan

Crossing Over

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Tommy Airey, re-posted from his Substack

This week, the stars will align.

The Christian season of Lent will kick-off on the exact same day as Islam’s holy month of Ramadan.

This is not just a coincidence. This is a divine conspiracy.

It all starts on Ash Wednesday, February 18.

I am wondering what it might look like for a network of Christians and Jesus-adjacent folks in North America to cross over and fast from food and drink during daylight hours for the entire month of Ramadan.

I see this as a small act of solidarity with Muslims all over the planet – and specifically with Palestinians who are enduring ethnic cleansing and genocide abroad, and constant demonization here in the US.

I also see this as a tangible way for Christians to repent from all the anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia built into the body of Christ.

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Lifting Up Our Gaze to Gaza

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

Young woman in keffiyeh among may others holds sign and appears to chant. Lots of red and green.

By Tommy Airey

Over the next three weeks, the Christian season of Lent will overlap with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started yesterday at sundown. Yesterday. When a billion Christians read the Gospel text where the radical rabbi Jesus tells the wealthy and powerful Nicodemus that Jesus himself must be lifted up on a cross – just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

Jesus was giving a little sermon on the story in the Hebrew bible about the post-exodus Israelites getting bit by poisonous snakes. God tells Moses to make a bronze snake, put it on a pole and raise it up whenever someone gets bit – so they can look up at the snake and be healed. Jesus says that he is now playing the role of the bronze snake.

In the Gospel story, Jesus will inevitably be lifted up on a cross. Because he paved a path that threatened those who clung to their privilege, power and wealth. Radical Christian spirituality roots salvation in gazing at Jesus up on that imperial cross.

Continue reading “Lifting Up Our Gaze to Gaza” →