In this episode Joanna interviews Rev. Lynice Pinkard and Nichola Torbett.
Lynice is a pastor, teacher and healer in Oakland, California. Her work is dedicated to decolonizing the human spirit and to freeing people from "empire affective disorder." Nichola is a contributor to the Jesus Radicals blog and the founding director of Seminary of the Street in Oakland. She is committed to joining the move of God’s spirit against the physical and spiritual deadliness of American culture under corporate capitalism. Together they discuss the national conversation on race and racism and the roles of people of color and white people in movements for justice.
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In this episode Joanna interviews Joerg Rieger.
Joerg Rieger is a professor, author and activist. Originally from Germany, his theological work is based on the recognition that more radical and faithful visions of Christianity are needed. Since 1994 he has taught constructive theology at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas. His books include Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude and Religion, Theology and Class: Fresh Engagement After Long Silence. He continues to develop this vision of radical Christianity in close collaboration with colleagues both nationally and internationally and with emerging grassroots movements. In Dallas, he and his spouse Rosemarie are active in the religion and labor movement. In this episode, he outlines where power rests in our global economic system, how to move from charity to advocacy to deep solidarity and what it looks like to claim revolutionary collective power.
In this episode Joanna and Mark interview Bill Ayers.
Bill Ayers is an author, including the books, Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident; To Teach: The Journey in Comics with Ryan Alexander-Tanner; Race Course: Against White Supremacy, with Bernardine Dohrn. He co-founded the revolutionary group, Weather Underground in 1969, a radical left-wing organization aimed at supported Black liberation movements and protesting US imperialism through the use of targeted bombing of government and bank property. Before retiring Bill served as distinguished professor of education and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is an education theorist and lives in Hyde Park, Chicago with Bernardine Dohrn. His partner, comrade and soulmate for close to half a century. In this episode he discusses his terrorist label, movement building and what it means to live in the present moment, moving away from generational separations and from optimism to hope.
In this episode Joanna and Mark interview Micky Jones.
Micky is a perpetual learner, communicator, facilitator, and contemplative activist living just south of Nashville, Tenn. She studies with the co-learning community at NAIITS (North American Institute of Indigenous Theological Studies) through George Fox Evangelical Seminary in Portland, Oregon. Her early career includes the cutthroat world of contemporary Christian music, YMCA administration and community youth services through Rocketown in Nashville. She now engages groups through academic gatherings, conferences, blogs and podcasts on a wide variety of topics. Recently named one of the Black Christian leaders changing the world by the Huffington Post, she also serves on the leadership team of TransFORM Network as the director of training and program development. Her special interests & scholarship include womanist & practical theology, the intersections of Black and Native American history and theology, the pursuit of shalom, faith-rooted organizing, intersectional justice, community formation and health issues. She believes in revolutionary love and never passes up a dance floor!
In this episode Joanna interviews Sandhya Rani Jha. They discuss the defining racist narratives of the United States, intersectionality, what it means to be an ally, intergenerational movement-buildling and more. These themes are explored at length in Sandhya's new book, Pre-Post-Racial America: Spiritual Stories from the Front Lines.
Sandhya serves as director of the Oakland Peace Center in Oakland, California a collective of 40 organizations creating access, equity and dignity for all in Oakland and the Bay Area. She also serves as Director of Interfaith Programs for East Bay Housing Organizations, where she organizes faith communities to advocate for housing as a human right and spiritual mandate throughout California’s Bay Area. She serves as a consultant with Hope Partnership and an anti-racism/anti-oppression trainer with Reconciliation Ministries for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She is a faith-rooted organizer with Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (formerly Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice – CA) and is particularly proud of her podcast, Hope from the Hood, available on iTunes and at sandhyajha.com In this episode, from the archive, Joanna and Jason interview Willie Baptist. Willie Baptist is a renowned anti-poverty organizer. Coming to political awareness in the 1965 Watts uprisings, through the Black student movement, and as a shop steward with the United Steelworkers, Willie has ultimately dedicated 40 years to organizing the poor. He provided vital leadership to the National Union of the Homeless, as formerly homeless father; the National Welfare Rights Union; the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign; and many other networks. Willie now serves as the Scholar-in-Residence of Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary (New York), which is dedicated to raising up generations of religious and community leaders dedicated to building a social movement to end poverty, led by the poor. He is also the coordinator of the associated Poverty Scholars Program, a leadership development, technical assistance, and skills training program for grassroots organizers working around issues of economic justice, with the aim of building a national movement to end poverty united across lines of race, religion, geography and issue-focused organizing. Since 2007, the Poverty Scholars Program has focused on reigniting the Poor People’s Campaign and finishing the unfinished business of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Willie has recently co-authored Pedagogy of the Poor, which draws on lessons from grassroots organizing and social theory for building a movement to end poverty. In this episode, Mark talks with Thomas Gokey. Thomas, a Syracuse University art professor, is a part of Strike Debt. Strike Debt is a nationwide movement of debt resistors fighting for economic justice and democratic freedom. A little over a year ago, Strike Debt announced Rolling Jubilee. Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. They are trying to spark a movement that imagines and creates a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits. You can download the episode here. 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 education and peace and conflict studies. He is internationally known for his innovative, transformative, and intersectional collaborations among fields of study, social movements, scholars, communities, and activists. He has published numerous books and is the co-founder of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies and Save the Kids. In this episode, Joanna and Tim interview Mark Van Steenwyk. Mark Van Steenwyk is the co-founder of the Mennonite Worker in Minneapolis, an organizer at JesusRadicals.com, a producer of the Iconocast podcast, and the author of That Holy Anarchist and the upcoming book, the unKingdom of God: Embracing the Subversive Power of Repentance (which is available for pre-order). This interview is co-sponsored by the Mennonite Church USA and the Christian Peacemaker Teams and is part of the Widening the Circle mini-series. To more deeply engage a commitment to undoing oppression with seasoned justice-seekers, the Iconocast is launching a mini-series, Widening the Circle: Experiments in Christian Discipleship. Editor Joanna Shenk and the co-hosts will interview chapter authors about their continuing journeys of discipleship, asking questions like: How has their thinking deepened around the themes they wrote about? What do they see happening in the discipleship community movement currently? What is taking shape in their community/organization? What have they let go? In the meantime, make sure to check out Widening the Circle, with stories including from Dr. Vincent Harding, Reba Place Fellowship, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Mark Van Steenwyk, Andrea Ferich, Anton Flores and Jesce Walz. In this interview, Joanna and Jarrod interview Vincent Harding. Vincent Harding is Professor Emeritus of Religion and Social Transformation at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. He is chairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project, which he founded in 1997 with his late wife, Rosemarie Freeney Harding. As longtime activists and teachers, the Hardings began their work in the Mennonite Church in Chicago, Illinois, in the late 1950s and moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1961 to join with Martin Luther King Jr. and others in the southern freedom movement. Vincent Harding occasionally drafted speeches for Martin Luther King, including his famous anti-Vietnam speech, “A Time to Break Silence” which King delivered on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City, exactly a year before he was assassinated. In ensuing years, the Hardings served as scholars, advisors, and encouragers for a wide variety of movements, organizations, and individuals working for compassionate social change in the United States and internationally. Three of his most recent books are: Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement; Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero; and We Changed the World. This interview is part of the Widening the Circle mini-series. To more deeply engage a commitment to undoing oppression with seasoned justice-seekers, the Iconocast is launching a mini-series, Widening the Circle: Experiments in Christian Discipleship. Editor Joanna Shenk and the co-hosts will interview chapter authors about their continuing journeys of discipleship, asking questions like: How has their thinking deepened around the themes they wrote about? What do they see happening in the discipleship community movement currently? What is taking shape in their community/organization? What have they let go? In the meantime, make sure to check out Widening the Circle, with stories including from Dr. Vincent Harding, Reba Place Fellowship, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Mark Van Steenwyk, Andrea Ferich, Anton Flores and Jesce Walz. |
AboutThe Iconocast is a collective project of a handful of radical practitioners, separated by thousands of miles, each exploring the way of Jesus in the Empire. Usually, episodes follow an interview format. We don’t always interview Christians or anarchists. Rather, we interview those who we believe have some wisdom to share for those who are exploring the intersection of Christianity and anarchism. Archivesep. 74: L.M. Bogad
ep. 73: Sarah Pritchard & David Brazil ep. 72: Chude Allen, part 2 ep. 71: Chude Allen, part 1 ep. 70: Beth Roy ep: 69: Carol Lee & Sarah Lee ep.68: David Solnit ep. 67: Elaine Enns & Ched Myers on Audre Lorde ep. 66: Elaine Enns, Ched Myers and "Beyond Vietnam" ep. 65: Father Richard Smith ep. 64: Zephyr Elise ep. 63: Clayborne Carson ep. 62: Chris Carlsson ep. 61: Sara Miles ep. 60: Ellen Dahlke & Rick Ayers ep. 59: Dalit Baum ep. 58: Corrina Gould ep. 57: Kazu Haga ep. 56: Paul Kivel ep. 55: Lynice Pinkard & Nichola Torbett ep. 54: Joerg Rieger ep. 53: Bill Ayers ep. 52: Micky Jones ep. 51: Sandhya Rani Jha ep. 50: Willie Baptist ep. 49: Thomas Gokey ep. 48: Anthony Nocella ep. 47: Mark VanSteenwyk ep. 46: Vincent Harding ep. 45: Mary and Peter . . . ep. 44: Noam Chomsky ep. 43: Jin S. Kim ep. 42: Ashanti Alston . . . ep. 41: Shannon Kearns ep. 40: Richard Beck ep. 39: Starhawk ep. 38: Calenthia Dowdy ep. 37: Robert Ellsberg ep. 36: Bruce Levine ep. 35: Bob Ekblad (part 2) ep. 34: Bob Ekblad (part 1) ep. 33: Alexia Salvaterria ep. 32: Seth Donnovan ep. 31: Goshen and . . . ep. 30: James H. Cone ep. 29: Joyce Hollyday ep. 28: Jonathan Moyer ep. 27: Carolyn Griffeth . . . ep. 26: Eda Uca ep. 25: Ed Loring ep. 24: Murphy Davis ep. 23: Ragan Sutterfield ep. 22: An Hour on Power ep. 21: Fr. Richard Rohr ep. 20: Fr. John Dear S.J. ep. 19: Anton Flores ep. 18: Becky Garrison ep. 17: Stanley Hauerwas ep. 16: Rita Nakashima Brock ep. 15: Cornel West ep. 14: Onelilove Alston ep. 13: Carol Rose ep. 12: Seth Martin ep. 11: Gender, Sexism . . . ep. 10: Richard Horsely ep, 09: Brian McLaren ep. 08: Wes Howard-Brook ep. 07: Mary Jo Leddy ep. 06: Jim Douglass (part 2) ep. 05: Jim Douglass (part 1) ep. 04: Waziyatawin (part 2) ep. 03: Waziyatawin (part 1) ep. 02: Ched Myers ep. 01: Nekeisha Alexis |