Hope for Babylon: Church as an Alternative Community

11 December 2013
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In our time, as in many times in history, things often seem like they are spinning out of control. The government seems to be less and less about the people, and more about supporting a vision of corporate power and oligarchy. Many feel that the powers that be cannot be counted on to make decisions [...]

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Calendar Grrlz

4 December 2013
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On the weekend of Black Friday, a group of three people emptied a calendar stand of its entire stock of sexist and objectifying products. Every day on the way to work, we had to walk by this kiosk.  Each passing encounter forced a specific sexuality and beauty standard upon us, and we couldn’t take it [...]

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Distress of the Privileged

15 November 2013
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Editors Note: This essay originally appeared at The Weekly Sift In a memorable scene from the 1998 film Pleasantville (in which two 1998 teen-agers are transported into the black-and-white world of a 1950s TV show), the father of the TV-perfect Parker family returns from work and says the magic words “Honey, I’m home!”, expecting them to conjure up a smiling [...]

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Tim DeChristopher’s Unreasonable Morality

7 November 2013
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Tim DeChristopher’s 2008 protest at a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction has been labelled a“a Rosa Parks moment” for the climate justice movement. DeChristopher’s spontaneous act of civil disobedience resulted in 21 months in a federal prison, part of that time in isolation. It was a ridiculous sentence in light of [...]

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Poem: Jesus’ Second World Tour

23 October 2013

Two thousand years off the world stage . . . Jesus does his Reckoning of the Rock of Peter tour. His earliest Rock of Peter . . . his humble gift to the world . . . became the weary foundation of imitation bands to follow. Imitation bands who . . .  truth be told [...]

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Privilege in Christian Pacifism: My Life is Not Your Thought Exercise

23 October 2013
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Editors Note: Originally posted at Sarah Over the Moon I’ve been thinking about pacifism lately. It’s come up in my church, in Twitter discussions, and in blog posts. This is not a response specifically to any recent discussions of pacifism, but since it keeps coming up I do want to let out some of the [...]

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The Government Shutdown—an Anarchist Dream?

15 October 2013
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Editors Note: Originally appeared at Wagingnonviolence.org In his complaints against the wing of the Republican Party that engineered the present government shutdown, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid derided his opponents as “Tea Party anarchists.” It’s hard to decide who should be more annoyed — the Tea Party or the anarchists. In any case, Reid’s remark is revealing [...]

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Libertinism vs. Christianity?

10 September 2013
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“libertinism (plural libertinisms) A lifestyle or pattern of behavior characterized by self-indulgence and lack of restraint, especially one involving sexual promiscuity and rejection of religious or other moral authority.” (Wiktionary) For many, Christianity and Libertinism are indissoluble contradictions. At least for the American mind, so shaped by pietism as it is. That was my experience [...]

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A Dream for Those Who Cannot Sleep

31 August 2013
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Sermon on the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Second Baptist, Evanston, Illinois. The text for the day is Luke 13:10-17. Introduction On this weekend when the Nation remembers the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom we gather as disciples of Jesus to remember his March on [...]

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the Iconocast: Anthony Nocella (episode 48)

15 August 2013
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Podcast: Embed In this episode, Mark and Nekeisha interview Anthony Nocella. Anthony J. Nocella II, Ph.D., author, community organizer, and educator is a Visiting Professor in the School of Education at Hamline University and Senior Fellow of the Dispute Resolution Institute at the Hamline Law School. Nocella is a scholar-activist grounded in the field of [...]

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