Archives
Jesus Radicals Blog 2005-2017
Autumn’s note: As a part of editing one of my previous blog submissions, Nekeisha and I had a dialogue about whether or not to include an anecdote about my personal meat-eating practices. It was in this dialogue that I learned about her deep political and spiritual commitment to veganism. That dialogue led me to invite Nekeisha into an intentional exchange in which we would question each other about the political and spiritual dimensions of our food choices, and each take space to more fully and deeply explore the journeys that have brought us to similar political realities, but very different food choices. Here is Part 1 of our exchange. Autumn: Some of our readers may not realize that veganism can be a politically motivated lifestyle choice. Nekeisha, can you share some about your experience of becoming vegan? What inspired you to make this choice and how is it a manifestation of your politics? 2/22/2012 Comments A Lenten Reflection on ShameToday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. For many Christians, it is a season of repentance. I’ve been thinking a lot about repentance lately, since I’m writing a book on repentance. I’ve become increasingly aware of the inability of our culture to embrace repentance. By “our culture” I mean white western culture–particularly as expressed in the United States. We are enmeshed within a cultural ethos that looks forward. We assume that progress will resolve the problems of the past without requiring us to embrace lives of repentance. We learn history, but when we notice injustices in the past, we are urged to move on–to consume the information–but must not dwell there. To dwell in the past is seen as anti-social. However, repentance means coming to terms with the past–to not only own our complicity and relationship with past (and ongoing) wrongs, as well as return to those stories that should shape us as followers of Jesus Christ.
Queering Genesis: Sexuality, Anarcha-Primitivism, and the Bible Christians often marshal the creation narratives of Genesis as foundational evidence for a vision of sexual morality based on gender complementarity and heterosexual marriage. The dominant interpretations go something like this: God made humans either male or female, for companionship (Genesis 2) and reproduction (Genesis 1), and Jesus referred to these verses while teaching in favor of marriage (Matthew 19). Therefore, to be cisgender (not transgender, but clearly male or female) and heterosexual is to be made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). Case closed, right? Well, it’s not that simple from an anarch@-primitivist1 perspective, which views all aspects of human flourishing, including sexuality, through the primary lens of earth-based sustenance. This perspective focuses on the environmental and economic roots of all aspects of civilization and culture, including the holy stories that are themselves a product of civilization’s preoccupation with symbolic thought. For example, Christian anarch@-primitivists approach Genesis as the story of a real, material “fall” into civilization. The expulsion from the wild Garden of Eden and the curse of farming in Genesis 3:17 is evidence that at least some Hebrews regretted humankind’s shift from hunter-gathering into agriculture, which had taken place no more than 7,000 years before their writing. For this series’ work of rewilding civilized sexualities, materialist biblical interpretation is a useful tool for re-examining holy sexuality in Genesis, one that is well-aligned with the concerns of anarch@-primitivism. As a deconstructive or critical approach, materialist biblical interpretation seeks to uncover and name the unholy dynamics of power and hierarchy that influenced the writing (or the “production”) of Scripture. For example, Ched Myers has traced the anti-monarchy strains of political thought in the Hebrew Scriptures that seem to have arisen from pockets of resistance to economic oppression, and the pro-monarchy strains that arose from the ideology of the rulers.2 There are many models for uprooting oppression in our communities. To offer one of many, the Hosanna! People’s Seminary approach is to discern particular areas of privilege and poverty within a community through a three part process: awareness of privilege and oppression in the community; accountability in the community to the oppressed party and to the continued education and development of the privileged party through ally training; and solidarity in relationship with the oppressed party or those allying with the oppressed party outside of the community. For example, a group committed to rooting out ableism in their community and work would first grow in awareness of any ability-based disparities in privilege in the circle. To assist them in this task, they may seek out the help of an anti-oppression trainer, a trusted advisor, or a tool such as an accessibility audit.
In Tell Us Our Names: Story Theology from an Asian Perspective, C.S. Song turns on its head pre-Communist era missionaries’ complaints against some Chinese converts being more interested in feeding their stomachs than their souls. The hungry suspects were accused of being “rice Christians”. He writes that, “we celebrate Christ’s divine presence in the eucharist… [because] in Christ the divine future,” a Kin-dom of God wherein all stomachs will be fed, “becomes the human present.” He writes of the hungry suspects: Rice determined their present and their future. Rice brings a concrete content to all talk about the future, about the world to come, and about the kingdom of God. For those who subsist on rice, can there be a future without rice? Can there be a world to come where they must struggle again for rice? . . . Understanding rice in this way, Christians in China should have been proud to be “rice Christians.” They should have represented this kind of “rice Christianity” to their rice-hungry compatriots. Preachers should have preached “rice sermons” to their famished audiences… theology must serve the God of the present- a God whose pockets are full of rice.1 In working through this series (where I’ve oh-so-briefly explored the complementarity of the way of Jesus and anarchism and the way the anarchic impulse has been expressed in Christian scriptures and history), I’ve realized a few things. Firstly, so much more work needs to be done. Commenters in earlier parts of this series have rightfully pointed out weak spots in my analysis, neglected historical figures, or unfleshed biblical strands. Secondly, no matter how sophisticated or compelling one’s arguments, people have always (and will always) declare with certainty that anarchism and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible. Let me give a classic example. Someone reposted part one of this series on anarchistnews.org. Predictably, many comments reflected this sentiment: What’s anarchistic with worshipping and serving a man, anyways? Socialist perhaps… fascistic, absolutely. Many anarchists I know assume that, at best, Christian Anarchists are either anarchists who refuse to let go of their childhood fantasies or Christians who really don’t understand anarchism. To be fair, I suspect that their suspicions are correct, more often than not. Anarchism, particularly as a loose set of principles, doesn’t often “play well” with Christianity. For one to be a Christian Anarchist, one would be considered fringe by the vast majority of Christians in history. But one would also be considered fringe by most anarchists as well. After all, “no gods, no masters” is a well-embraced slogan by most anarchists.
(Or, I hope it is because we are all recovering hierarchists trying to find another way forward) Editor’s Note: This piece is part two of a series of call and response between Amaryah Armstrong and Nekeisha Alexis-Baker as they consider what possibilities Christian anarchy can provide for marginalized peoples. The conversation grows out of friendship and mutual respect for each other, and from our commitments to living lives of liberation. We aim for to be an ongoing dialogue that builds on each call and response. As a result, we strongly encourage you to begin at the beginning and follow along from there. You can read part one from Amaryah here. Many things came to mind as I reflected on your questions—some of which I still ask myself almost a decade after unwittingly co-creating this thing we call Jesus Radicals. I had to smile at the “Black Queer Feminist with anarchist impulses” identity you’ve adopted because it reminded me of when I called myself “a Christian with anarchist tendencies” as I sorted out whether anarchism was for me. 12/26/2011 Call: Must I Be Anarchist?
(Or, Why Are All the Anarchists Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?) 1 Editor’s Note: This piece is part one of a series of call and response between Amaryah Armstrong and Nekeisha Alexis-Baker as they consider what possibilities Christian anarchy can provide for marginalized peoples. The conversation grows out of friendship and mutual respect for each other, and from our commitments to living lives of liberation. We aim for to be an ongoing dialogue that builds on each call and response. As a result, we strongly encourage you to begin at the beginning and follow along from there. You can read Nekeisha’s response here. I must confess, I simply don’t know what to do with Christian anarchists. I am anti-domination, anti-capitalism, critical of technology, more than a little suspicious of the nation-state, and all about my citizenship being in heaven and thus having a commitment to radical politics on earth. But still, something about “Christian anarchists” just doesn’t sit well with me. It could be the irony of Christian anarchy being anti-domination and yet being predicated on domination by White men. But this is no different from other Christian identified radical groups. Exclusion is a practice we all participate in. Perhaps it is that I have yet to see or read or participate in sustained Christian anarchist discussions of White supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity that go beyond the niceties of anti-racism/sexism/homophobia 101 training. Or maybe it is because explications of why anarchy is a valuable way to dismantle these systems of evil never seems to offer anything radical feminist, black, and queer Christian critiques have not already begun to deal with. 12/20/2011 Comments A Bloodless ZealBy: James Hamrick Whenever I talk to Christians about the non-violent way of Jesus they inevitably bring up an incident from Jesus’ life that ‘proves’ that pacifism is nonsense: his cleansing of the temple. All four canonical Gospels tell us that Jesus went to Jerusalem, entered the temple, and proceeded to chase people and animals out, overthrow tables, and cause an overall ruckus. The Gospel of John even tells us he used a whip. “That certainly doesn’t sound like something a pacifist would do!” Unfortunately, this story is not the slam-dunk that violent Christians think it is. Ultimately there is no contradiction between Christian pacifism and Jesus’ action in the temple. 11/28/2011 Animal Liberation: The Missing PieceRather than individualized battles, the view of social anarchism encourages us to see struggles as interconnected, and to act appropriately by building alliances and solidarity between them. . . . Yet while social anarchism has been at the forefront of challenging many oppression, most social anarchists have not been very active—either historically or presently—in challenging the human domination of animals.1 On a day like Thanksgiving, when various charred and mutilated bodies lay strewn across millions of American tables, the feeling that is foremost in my heart is not one of gratitude, but of mourning and even anger. That the average person sees no disconnect between centering thanks and grace around death is unsurprising. That this disconnect remains an oversight or rejected outright in radical Christian and anarchist circles is more confusing. Like Bob Torres, anarchist and vegan author of Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights, I contend that lack of careful and ongoing attention to nonhuman animal liberation leaves one of the most obvious and persistent forms of oppression unchallenged. Furthermore, it also makes for incomplete and disjointed analysis around other forms of oppression and resistance. Below are a few thoughts on important movements that miss the animal liberation piece and the consequences of that omission. |
Disclaimer
The viewpoints expressed in each reader-submitted article are the authors own, and not an “official Jesus Radicals” position. For more on our editorial policies, visit our submissions page. If you want to contact an author or you have questions, suggestions, or concerns, please contact us. CategoriesAll Accountability Advent Anarchism Animal Liberation Anthropocentrism Appropriation Biblical Exegesis Book Reviews Bread Capitalism Catholic Worker Christmas Civilization Community Complicity Confessing Cultural Hegemony Decolonization Direct Action Easter Economics Feminism Heteropatriarchy Immigration Imperialism Intersectionality Jesus Justice Lent Liberation Theology Love Mutual Liberation Nation-state Nonviolence Occupy Othering Pacifisim Peace Pedagogies Of Liberation Police Privilege Property Queer Racism Resistance Resurrection Sexuality Solidarity Speciesism Spiritual Practices Technology Temptation Veganism Violence War What We're Reading On . . . White Supremacy Zionism ContributorsNekeisha Alayna Alexis
Amaryah Armstrong Autumn Brown HH Brownsmith Jarrod Cochran Chelsea Collonge Keith Hebden Ric Hudgens Liza Minno Bloom Jocelyn Perry Eda Ruhiye Uca Joanna Shenk Nichola Torbett Mark VanSteenwyk Gregory Williams Archives
October 2017
|