By: Tevyn East, Jay Beck, and Tim Nafziger

In one way or another, all of us working for social change seek to turn the world upside down and topsy turvy. It’s a vision that goes all the way back to Mary’s Magnificat. What would happen if we actually sought to incarnate that vision of our world turned on its head?

Imagine a band of holy fools: living between worlds, threading church into Big Top dream and big band protest. They are creating space to deviate from the norm, to shape-shift through characters, to re-approach the old sacred stories from the groan of creation to a radical reclamation of the earthy truth within the Gospel narratives. They are topsy-turvy tight-rope walkers entwined between the worlds of faith, art and activism, dream-makers jesting on a grand scale. Their cross-cultural and mixed-media inspiration surges at the intersection of ancient and contemporary, of flesh and spirit, resounding in mythopoetic, syncretistic, voices of the sacred. They weave the elements, let the symbols speak, and call all to dance with the drum.

This is the experiment we call the Carnival de Resistance. 

By: Greg Williams

Note: This article was originally posted at PoliticalTheology.com

“[A] feminist perspective on the commons is important because it begins with the realization that, as the primary subjects of reproductive work, historically and in our time, women have depended on access to communal natural resources more than men and have been most penalized by their privatization and most committed to their defense.”
- Silvia Federici, “Feminism and the Politics of the Commons”

“If Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God, cannot be an option for Gays and Lesbians, then he cannot be an option.”
- M. Shawn Copeland, “Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being”

If my Facebook wall is any indication, both the Christian Left and the environmental movement are practically glowing with enthusiasm for Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. Quotes from it are ubiquitous, faith leaders are instructing their followers to read it, and even secular environmentalists are convinced that it is one of the most important documents in recent memory. 350.org celebrated the encyclical, saying that it “reinforces the tectonic shift that is happening, we simply cannot continue to treat the Earth as a tool for exploitation.” Even the significantly more left-wing official page of Javier Sethness-Castro’s book Imperiled Life: Revolution Against Climate Catastrophe has been posting excerpts.

By: Jesus Radicals

I found out about Rachel Dolezal via an email with the subject line, “WTF”. 

I can’t remember everything that went through my mind as I followed the enclosed link article: to a story about a woman of predominantly European descent who masqueraded as a Black woman for a decade. But I am fairly certain my feelings were a mix of disbelief (Is this a joke?), confusion (Wait, what???), humor (#iggyonsteroids), and eventually anger. Anger at how long her charade went on. Anger at all the opportunities she received because of her pretense. Anger at the deception: the African American man she claimed as her dad; the adopted Black brother she said was her son; the suspicious reports about receiving hate mail; the false stories about growing up as a Black girl; the lies on social media about “going natural.” Anger that each position she had in the community and beyond, she occupied in place of Black women academics, activists and artists who struggle to get the access and recognition that our skills and knowledge deserve.

That the Dolezal controversy came on the heels of Caitlyn Jenner’s emergence as a transgender woman made discussions about a complex situation even more complicated. As the hours passed, I steeled myself for the inevitable comparisons between the two stories. “Wait for it…Wait for it…Yep,” I thought as the transracial hashtag burst onto the scene. The only thing missing was a drumroll.

By: Louie Crew Clay