Early morning, April 4, a shot rings out in the Memphis sky…

As you’re probably aware, on this day 40 years ago Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.
Fewer people are aware of this speech he gave 41 years ago, today.
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
April 4, 1967
I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no [...]

Thoughts on Lent and Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, also known as “Fat Tuesday hangover day”, also known as the beginning of the season of Lent. The Gospel reading for today, from the Daily Office Lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: [...]

Subverting the rhetoric of American empire

Brandon Rhodes has written an EXCELLENT article at Jesus Manifesto called “Severing the Rhetorical Roots of the Empire“. In it he lists some quotes, inviting followers of Jesus to creatively rewrite them to displace idolatry and blasphemy with subversive truth, just as Paul and other early Christian authors rhetorically usurped Caesar’s place of privilege and [...]

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

This is one of King’s most important speeches and yet one of his most little-known. Delivered on April 4, 1967, exactly one year to the day before he was assassinated, this speech provides a scathing denunciation of the practices of the American government on the world stage, particularly in Vietnam. King extends his methodology of [...]

Galatians 3:28 and gender equality

One thing I’ve heard on a couple of message boards lately is the statement that Galatians 3:28, which says “For there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female, but you all are one in Christ Jesus”, does not in fact refer to a social equality that is expressed in the practice [...]

Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire, by N.T. Wright

article link
The good Bishop of Durham has summed up a lot of things quite concisely in one article that I spend pages and pages on this blog discussing. He goes briefly over passages from Romans and Philippians within the framework of a discussion of the term “Gospel” and Paul’s conception of Jesus as Messiah and [...]

May 1 - International Workers’ Day

Happy May Day, or as it is widely known, International Workers’ Day.
On this day in 1896 the great general strike for an 8-hour workday (over 350,000 strikers across the United States) that culminated in the Haymarket affair began. Today is an international day of labor recognition in many countries - with the United States a [...]

The Liberating Image: Imago Dei in Genesis 1 by J. Richard Middleton

J. Richard Middleton’s The Liberating Image: Imago Dei in Genesis 1 is an excellent exegetical look at Genesis 1 and particularly the “Image of God” section in vv. 26-28. The book was written, I believe, for the completion of his Ph.D at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. It is divided into three parts, [...]

well, this is one way to fight economic injustice

‘Robin Hood’ Gang Robs Gourmet Stores in Bid to Feed Hamburg’s Poor
I’m conflicted over the usefulness of this tactic, particularly for Christians, but at the same time I’m intrigued.  I definitely sympathize with their ideals, though.  I suppose I’ll cheer them on from the sidelines.
I’m constantly conflicted over my desire to see the church truly [...]

battle of the sexes and creation

From the first creation story, in Genesis 1:
26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the ground.”
27 [...]

Nieztsche, the fall, anarcho-primitivism, and human domination

[Anything which] is a living and not a dying body… will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant — not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power… ‘Exploitation’… belongs to the essence of what [...]

speaking of protesting…

Here’s one for you from The Smirking Chimp:
Future Shock: Evidence of Plans to Torture US Demonstrators
I do not see any way our government can even pretend to uphold the supposed traditional American values of little things like liberty and justice for all, that whole pursuit of happiness bit. The only reason it’s even possible [...]

Interfaith war protesters arrested outside US Capitol

71 War Protesters Seized; Baltimore’s Tradition of Civil Disobedience Continues
Of course, we can’t have any mainstream media attention on this. Terrell Owens’ possible suicide attempt or whatever it was is obviously FAR more important.
Jonah House website

civil obedience?

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over [...]

Love of money and corporations

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. — The Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 6:10)
Or, as it is rendered in The Message, by Eugene Peterson:
But if it’s only money these leaders are after, [...]

USAmerican self-determination ideals and contradiction

(this is an expanded version of material I have written elsewhere)
I find it odd that the United States celebrates its self-determination as a nation-state on July 4 when politically we have quite a history of denying the same to others when it suits certain political purposes, generally business-related. For example, the Phillippines in that oft-forgotten [...]