Homecoming or Going-Away Party? Questioning the Rapture through the lens of homelessness

This is the sermon I gave at Patchwork Central’s Sunday evening worship on July 26, 2009. Of course, these texts are not the only ones pertinent to discussion of the so-called “end times,” but 1 Thessalonians in particular is of major importance since it is the text most-often used to discuss “what the Rapture will [...]

The Bush II and Obama administrations and the transition from American hegemony to the “Post-American world”

This past weekend the Common Root conference was held in Minneapolis. Tom and Christine Sine of Mustard Seed Associates led the first plenary session, and my friend Jordan Peacock wrote the following as a summary statement of one of their points:
The Pax Americana is not necessarily the strongest ‘empire’. It stands together with global capitalism, [...]

The “stimulus” and economic assumptions

What seems to get lost in all this shuffle about whether or not the Senate will pass Obama’s economic stimulus package, in what form, and what compromises will have to be made with the House, is that there is absolutely no debate about what form the economy should take. It is simply taken for granted [...]

The irony of progress

However else it may be defined, it is generally agreed that a (if not the) major feature of modernity is the pervasiveness of the myth of progress. According to the progress myth, progress will be attained in a definite, concrete form as the continuing dialectic (and, in some forms, utopian end) of history if “we [...]

Ellsworth replies

I stopped by for a quick check of my inbox today to see that Congressman Ellsworth did in fact send a reply to my email. Ok, so it was probably a staffer sending a canned response, but it’s something. Unfortunately, he did very little to address my actual concerns or engage my proposed action – [...]

Letter to my Congressman on the bailout

I’m not usually a big believer in the governmental process as an agent of change, truth, justice, or whatever, and the current issue with the proposed Wall Street and bank bailout plans is no exception. I have very little expectation that my letter will actually in any way influence the decision of the representative for [...]

Derrick Jensen quote

If monetary value is attached to something it will be exploited until it’s gone. That’s what happens when you convert living beings to cash. That conversion from living trees to lumber, schools of cod to fish sticks, and onward to numbers on a ledger, is the central process of our economic system. — Derrick Jensen

Hidden costs double war bill

Washington Post article
Ignoring for a moment the hypocrisy of the Democrats criticizing the cost of the wars when they overwhelmingly voted for them in the first place and continually approve funding for endless “emergency” appropriations, here’s an excerpt from the article:
The economic costs to the United States of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so [...]