New Heaven, New Earth: Anarchism and Christianity Beyond Empire
August 14 & 15, 2009
Location
Caritas Village
2509 Harvard Avenue,
Memphis, TN 38112
Updated August 1, 2009
FRIDAY
Noon: Arrival
1 p.m.: Welcome and Worship
2:30 – 4 p.m.
Anarchism and Christianity Primer
What is anarchism? Can a Christian be anarchist? How can these two concepts fit together? Explore the connections between anarchist ideology and practice, and Christian faith. This session is ideal for people who want to get their feet wet before diving into the weekend.
Speakers: Brenna Cussen and Eric Anglada
Jesus & the Money Changers: Rioting Against the Economic Crisis
As recorded in the Gospel of Mark 11:15-18, Jesus initiates a rebellion within the temple at Jerusalem in response to the corrupt and exploitative practices he witnessed there. A few days later he would be crucified. This riotous act of protest by the “Prince of Peace” has been a source of controversy within Christianity for centuries. Poet and political activist Ewuare X. Osayande will relate the story of Jesus’ temple rebellion to the current economic crisis and render a Black liberation theological critique of American Christianity.
Speaker: Ewuare X. Osayande
4:15 – 5:45 p.m.
Seeing What Greenspan Couldn’t: A New, Partnership Economy
Alan Greenspan, former chair of the Federal Reserve Bank, testified before the U.S. Congress in September, 2008, that no one could have seen the economic collapse coming. Yet, many did. What each of us sees depends on the paradigm or lens through which we are viewing events. The paradigm of this session will be that of a partnership or jubilee economy. We will focus that lens on the importance of the non-imperial structures of the commons and commonwealth as expressed by Jesus, by the followers of the Way (Acts of the Apostles), and by contemporaries building and reclaiming the commons even as empire nibbles and bites at it to privatize it for profit and dominance.
Speaker: Lee Van Ham
Nonviolence in the Holy Land: A spiritual journey and nonviolent political odyssey from the Middle East to the USA
What will bring peace in the Holy Land? This session will explore the roots of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, including the role that the confiscation of land and water resources plays, and will offer nonviolent responses from a Christian and anarchist perspective. Christian activist Eileen Fleming will share her experience from her numerous trips to the Middle East, including her recent trip to build playgrounds in Gaza, her work with Muslims, Jews and Christians in organizations like the Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall and the Palestinian Christian group Sabeel, and her efforts to end the military occupation of the Palestinian Territories and help usher in the Kingdom of God.
Speaker: Eileen Fleming
6 p.m.: Dinner
7:15 – 8:45 p.m.
Anarcho-Primitivism versus a Darkening Reality
We face a crisis – environmental, social, spiritual – that is deepening and that has deep roots. Modernity/mass society itself is implicated and behind it, domestication/civilization at base. Industrial globalization is a cancer that is part of a suicidal course that must be challenged. If we are to have a future it will be a primitive one. It is time to confront the present limits of public discourse and face the totalizing trajectory to which we are all held hostage.
Speaker: John Zerzan
9 pm
“What a Way to Go” screening
“What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire” follows a middle class white guy as he comes to grips with peak oil, climate change, mass extinction, overpopulation and the demise of the American Lifestyle. Written, Directed, and Edited by Tim Bennett, the film features interviews with Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen, Jerry Mander, Chellis Glendinning, Richard Heinberg, Thomas Berry, William Catton, Ran Prieur and Richard Manning. For more information, visit www.whatawaytogomovie.com
Spin Session
Bring a song that has been meaningful to you on your journey as a Jesus Radical, Christian anarchist, or anarchist to share with others. Your song can be in a digital (e.g. CD, MP3, or iPod), cassette tape (sorry, no vinyl), or live format.
SATURDAY
8 a.m.: Breakfast
9:15 – 10:45 am
Revealing the Kingdom in the Midst of Empire: Reimagining Citizenship, Reimagining Economics
A discussion exploring Jubilee economics and its relationship to Kingdom citizenship reimagining a world of co-operation and co-liberation beyond and without empire.
Speaker: Gene Davenport and Jeannie Alexander
11 am – 12:30 pm
How to Transform the Industrial Military Corporate Complex in 24 Hours or Less: A Practical Approach to Creating a Nonviolent Society from the Bottom Up
Ethan Hughes of the Possibility Alliance will share concrete advice from his over 18
years of direct experimentation with utilizing the gift economy; applying the Sermon
on the Mount; living car-free, computer free, and electricity-free; and developing a
faith that hands everything over to God.
Speaker: Ethan Hughes
A Lullaby for the Planet: Undressing Ourselves for a Viable Parenthood
The current civilized and globalized model of parenting stems from the model of civilization and its methods of domestication. As Pavlov, the famous Russian animal “psychologist” observed, if you deny dogs access to food, you can train them to do anything you like by promising to give them a little bit. Of course, Pavlov was no revolutionary, for, civilization has been using these dressage methods from the beginning of ‘totalitarian agriculture’, where in order for it to work, food, forests, land, and water had to be taken away from living beings and their ability to know the world had to be stomped out; i.e. they had to be alienated from their own pain, from the pain of their children and from the suffering of the world and those who couldn’t adapt or be “educated” were exterminated. Today, daycare and school begin this dressing as early as at one month of age and drum it in continuously throughout our lives. Regaining our ability to feel and to empathize with what the others feel is vital for the process of unschooling or undressing ourselves in order to gain the knowledge of what and how the world endures so as to transmit to future generations this ability to know how the other feels so that the world and our children may live.
Speaker: Layla AbdelRahim
12:30 p.m.: Lunch
2 – 3:30 pm
Open Forum
Free time for people to gather for conversation based on shared interests.
Community Tour – GrowMemphis
GrowMemphis is a collaborative effort between the Mid-South Peace and Justice and three low-income communities in Memphis. The mission of GrowMemphis is to create productive and educational urban community gardens that provide fresh healthy food for low-income areas, and empower people to develop and enhance their own communities. These gardens provide a local food source for those in need and will empower a future generation with the important knowledge of sustainability and our connection with the Earth and with the community. People can sign up to take a tour of one of the nearby gardens at the conference.
3:45 – 5:15pm
Gospel Nonviolent Anarchism—Logos & Emmunah:
“Matthew 6:24-33, the Sine Qua Non”.
From the perspective of those—Christians or non-Christians— nurtured in one or another of the kingdoms of the world, Gospel Anarchism seem to be politically impossible, and spiritually too heavy a yoke to bear. Since it is clear from the Gospels that Jesus calls no one to part-time discipleship, baptism being the Greek word for total immersion, one cannot be the Gospel anarchist equivalent of a “Sunday morning Christian.” One cannot be a Gospel anarchist on Monday, a Democrat on Tuesday and then back to a Gospel anarchist on Wednesday, a Tony Blair devotee on Thursday, etc. Likewise one cannot just be a Christian anarchist, and ignore the remainder of Jesus’ teachings (truths) in the Gospel. The gift of freedom has a purpose. The Gospel anarchist must search for and live that purpose in, with and through Jesus, while being ever vigilant to what will for all time be his or her greatest temptation—”bad faith,” mauvaise foi, self deception—calling evil good in small and/or large matters, and then exercising one’s freedom in order to give one’s self permission to do it.
Speaker: (Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
5:30 p.m.: Dinner
7:15 p.m.: Jubilation Celebration: A Musical Farewell
theillalogicalspoon and Lesser Beggars will close the conference with a joyful noise.
