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12/16/2010 Comments The Things that Make for Peace![]() Joy to the world the Lord has come, let earth receive her king! This is the season in which we celebrate the coming of the rebel King of Bethlehem. The one sent in the words of his mother to “bring down rulers from their thrones and to lift up the humble.” During Advent we read passages from the Hebrew prophets that remind us of the alternative future of peace awaiting the people of this earth. But it is a future we can speak of only in symbols, metaphors, and parables. It is a future too big for our words. It is a future too big for our imaginations. It is a future too big for our faith. But how will we ever get there? Where is the path away from the graveyards of the past? Where is the path through the maze of the present? Where is the path that will bring us into that clearing where the light of God shines unhindered and we flourish in its radiance fulfilling that ancient word of Irenaeus who said, “the glory of God is humanity – fully alive!” Our initial response to that question is “We do not know.” We admit that in light of our finitude, our confusion, and perhaps even our shame, we simply to do not know how to get there.
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12/13/2010 Comments Sing We A Song of High Revolt!By: Keith Hebden ![]() At Advent we prepare for Jesus return, for the coming of the Kin-dom of God. The song of Mary—the Magnificat—can help us prepare spiritually for this season because with it we echo Mary’s longing for a new and just re-ordering of society. Like Mary, we have no real idea of what that might mean. Only it will not be like before. Last year, during Advent, Father Tim Jones, an Anglican priest in the Church of England made headline news here in Britain—and not for the first time—for the audacity of translating his faith into political direction. “‘It’s okay to shoplift’ says Father Tim Jones, parish priest of St Lawrence and St Hilda” read the headline and the debate took wings. The inspiration for Jones’s position was the Magnificat—the Song of Mary—a text from Luke’s gospel read daily around the world as part of the evening prayer liturgy. My soul doth magnify the Lord, By: Andy Lewis ![]() In recent years the connections between an anarcho-primitivist critique and the Christian faith have been the focus of numerous gatherings, conferences and discussions. Jesus Radicals has been the on-line center for discussion regarding these connections for nearly six years now, and while the forums were never totally focused on an anarcho-primitivist critique, discussion relating to these ideas has fallen off quite noticeably since the merger with Jesus Manifesto. With few exceptions, the front page essays have been almost entirely devoid of any explicitly anarchist critique. This reflects a disappointing tendency amongst “radical” Christians to constantly refer back to the principles of the peace and justice movement which have effectively created a homogeneous “Christian Left” devoid of any anarchist analysis. Don’t get me wrong–I’m not looking for a more radical Christian Left, I’m looking for a real break from the Left and all its inherent values such as production and development especially in the scientific and technological fields. The ever-present focus on poverty never seems to go deeper than a Leftist insistence on guilt and reformist measures such as “hospitality.” Sure, hospitality is radical in the right context (the 1930s for example), but when it’s so thoroughly institutionalized as it is in so many Catholic Worker Houses I fail to see how promoting such a response does much more than perpetuate reliance on institutional models for living out the Christian faith. The same could be said for plowshares actions. Maybe the first 100 times you poured blood on the nuke it was really something novel and creative but now, it’s a catholic worker form of institutionalized “resistance.” ![]() Over the weekend, I was part of a small group that explored areas of Chicago’s south side under the umbrella of “Seeing the City through Prophetic Imagination.” The day of learning and theological reflection, which was organized by the SCUPE urban ministry program, focused on the former Cabrini Green housing projects, the Auburn Gresham neighborhood and the congregations that were places of refuge and resistance in those areas. I signed up for the trip wanting to learn from people of faith living and acting in places of turmoil and transition, but was not sure what I would encounter. What I found were numerous stories that left me hopeful about the church as an engaged and liberating body. At the same time, I also discovered stories that left me wrestling with the delicate dance between church and state, and the viability of anarchist praxis in the midst of systemic and systematic injustice. 11/9/2010 Comments On Hope and AnarchismBy: Brenna Cussen Anglada ![]() The epic movie “Reds” is based on the lives of the American socialist, journalist, and revolutionary Jack Reed (the only American to be buried at the Kremlin) and his wife and fellow writer, Louise Bryant. While the movie focuses heavily on the tumultuous and romantic relationship of the two characters, it also chronicles how Reed, along with his contemporary Emma Goldman, first ardently supported, and then became disillusioned by, the Bolshevist revolution in Russia. Watching the movie again last week, I was struck how this theme seems to play itself over and over in human history: passionate and well-meaning revolutionaries try to bring justice to the world—either through structural change, or violence, or both—but despite their best intentions, the institutions of power, in one form or another, ultimately prevail. Today there are social movements all around the globe attempting to bring about a better world—from voting in the “right” president or working through the international community, to blowing up buildings, buses, bridges, and dams or picking up arms and starting a rebellion. Behind all of these efforts exists compelling enthusiasm, righteousness, energy, and a willingness to sacrifice lives—both their own and others—for the sake of the cause. While I understand and often support the basic motivation of these activists (to ease suffering and restore justice) I find myself wary of the fundamental lack of hope their actions belie. Like for the characters in “Reds,” their admirable desire to create a perfect world eventually turns into desperation, because they believe that if they don’t do it, nobody will, and if justice is not achieved here on earth, it will never be achieved. 11/2/2010 Season of Remembrance in a Season of Gratitude: The Wampanoag and the Gospel of HospitalityBy: Jocelyn Perry ![]() Recently tears came to my eyes as I began to read about the Trail of Tears. In 1830, the United States Congress passed the “Indian Removal Act” which was the catalyst for the Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears was the forced disconnection and displacement of the Cherokee people from their ancestral homeland. The suffering and death of thousands of Cherokee women, children and men began in 1838. About 4,000 died on the long march over thousands of miles with minimal facilities and food. These sorts of injustices only deepened the great disaster of Western involvement in the “new world” as disease brought by Europeans and subsequent conscious efforts by the US government during the 1600s—1800s resulted in a culminated death of 10 to 30 million Native Americans people. As we approach Thanksgiving, the anarchist critique is vital. The anarchic critique calls us to take a hard look at the historic imperialistic behavior of the first European settlers and the US government against Native American people. Also, an anarchist perspective serves to critique aggressive approaches in missionary work pushing for the “conversion” of Native American peoples to Christianity. This season is not just a season of grateful celebration but also a season of remembrance, even a season of mourning, for the Native Americans. But in struggling with this paradox of celebration and remembrance we ask the question: how was Jesus’ living gospel of hospitality and gratitude embodied by the Native Americans during the First Thanksgiving? 10/7/2010 Living Off the GridBy: Jocelyn Perry ![]() “Off-The-Grid” is a term normally used by people living without electricity installed in their homes. This grid of power links people to the corporation that services their municipality. People of faith and justice have also coined the phrase to live without cell phones, TVs, cars, or other technologies that can be technological distractions. But the question is, “How do people of faith and justice stay connected without the power-lines of technology?” The answer to this challenge is community. Using technology, for example using a cell phone, is not a question of dualism—“Is a cell phone good?” or “Is a cell phone bad?” But as people, we are on the path to becoming fully human. We are challenged to answer the question, “What does it mean to truly manifest Jesus’ spirit in community using the interconnection of community to communicate?” Turning “Off-The-Grid” is tuning into spiritual community without distraction. 6/7/2010 Comments Oil TheologyBy: Maria Kirby ![]() There is this black sticky substance that fuels our empire. That motivates us to go to war and have military bases all over the world. We feed off of it. We use this black sticky substance to supply our every need and desire. It energizes our greed and chokes out the life God made. This black sticky substance has even oozed into our religion and our theology; our thinking has become so black and sticky that we try and use the Bible to justify its use.Our thinking has become so darkened that all we consider is ourselves. We have fallen into the hubris of pride and tell ourselves it is our God given duty. We believe that “God gave man the stewardship of the earth, to look after it and to use it for our enjoyment while living from its benefits. Plants, animals, fish, and fresh water. Minerals, such as coal, copper, gold, silver to make things and earn a living,” including that black sticky stuff. We can be sad and shake our heads at the damage that black sticky stuff causes; the creatures that gasp and drown, the trees that fall, the mountains that crumble, the water that’s poisoned, the air that’s polluted. But we don’t have to do anything different, after all, we need that black sticky stuff and God gave it to us to use for our enjoyment. ![]() Editor’s Note: Make sure to read parts one, two, and three before this last part in Dan Oudhorn’s series challenging the somewhat flimsy ways we’ve tried to embrace the way of Jesus even as we accommodate the “death-dealing powers of our day.” Be forewarned–this is the most provocative part of the series. All too often, those involved in Christian communities are so solely focused upon enacting a creative, life-giving alternative that they end up neglecting the concomitant work of resistance to the death-dealing powers of our day. This is a point I have inherited from cultural theorists and philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida. If, in the context of death, we wish to participate in something that is new and life-giving, then we must simultaneously, if not first of all, engage in the destruction of that which is death-dealing. So, for example, taking feminism seriously requires us to not only ensure that women and men are accorded the same status and judged by the same standards; it also requires us to abolish previous structures, attitudes, and discourses that were patriarchal and androcentric. Or, to take a second example, we can see how the worship of YHWH necessarily requires the Israelites to destroy their idols in the Old Testament, and necessarily requires Jesus to overturn the tables of the moneychangers in the New Testament. Therefore, if we are hoping to be involved in communities of new creation, committed to life, love, solidarity, and justice; then we must also be committed to resisting and destroying that which is given over to death, hatred, alienation and injustice. It is not enough for us to simply focus upon being a creative alternative to the status quo. We must also attack the status quo. Doing so does not mean that we have given in to a “false soteriology”. I once thought this, given the way I have been influenced by the Duke School and scholars like Stanley Hauerwas and William Cavanaugh. Both Hauerwas and Cavanaugh have made convincing arguments that liberal democracies operate with a false soteriology and look to the State for salvation… when in actuality salvation is found in Christ and in the Spirit-empowered community of those who follow him. ![]() Editor’s Note: In parts one and two of this series, Dan Oudshoorn explored the challenges (and hypocrisies) of living in solidarity with folks in the “margins.” Now his attention begins to shift towards the necessity of resistance if we are to participate in liberated communities. In this article, he explores the way in which private property under-girds injustice. If we are serious about our desire to share space, share life together, and participate in God’s new creation, then we must seriously reconsider our understanding of and relationship to private property. Indeed, the more I study the Bible and economics, the more I am convinced that private property is at the core of many of the problems we face and is, itself, a fundamentally anti-Christian belief and practice. There are three sources that have been particularly influential upon me in this regard. The first is the book Faith and Wealth by Justo Gonzalez. In this book, Gonzalez demonstrates the ways in which the Church Fathers consistently and strenuously attacked notions of private property and replaced those notions with a biblical theology that stresses that everything in creation and culture exists as a gift of God for the benefit of all. Furthermore, because the God of the Bible is defined by acts of benevolent and abundant giving, the same characteristic should define the people who follow this God. Therefore, if we wish to live in light of the biblical traditions, we would do well to draw our inspiration from the pre-monarchic economics of the Hebrews, from the correctives offered by the prophets, from the type of collectivity practiced by the early community of disciples gathered around Jesus, and from the economic mutuality that comes to the fore in the Collection that dominates the later years of Paul’s Aegean mission. Therefore, Gonzalez convincingly demonstrates that those who participate in the economy of the Christian God should reject any economics premised upon a right to private property. |
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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
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October 2017
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