Training for war

“Military planners operate on the basis of military expediency, and individual soldiers are trained to operate on the basis of unquestioning obedience to their military superiors…In the realm of copybook distinctions it may be a simple matter to divide the bombing of a city into separate acts of willed destruction of a war production plant [...]

A postmodern paraphrase of Philippians 2:5-11

The Incarnation is the mad story of the undeconstructible God who did not consider undeconstructibility as something to be grasped, nor did he despise deconstructibility, but rather taking the “human, all too human form” of a servant, he humbled himself to the point of inhabiting the very deconstructible structures of human law and culture—even to [...]

“What anarchism is not”

I must tell you, first of all, what anarchism is not. It is not bombs, disorder, or chaos. It is not robbery or murder. It is not a war of each against all. It is not a return to barbarianism or to the wild state of man. Anarchism is the very opposite [...]

Ironic quote about the efficacy of war

“The blood shed on the European continent in the course of the last three hundred years bears no proportion to the national result of the events. In the end, France had remained France, Germany Germany, Poland Poland, and Italy Italy. What dynastic egotism, political passion and patriotic blindness have attained in the way of apparently [...]

Make poverty history?

“All the time I get emails from socially-aware individuals and organizations asking me to participate in ‘making poverty history’. I don’t believe poverty is necessarily the problem. Yes, it is true that there are millions of people in the world who do not have the means to feed their children or have clean drinking water, [...]

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 [...]

Bonhoeffer quote on community

We just finished reading Bonhoeffer’s Life Together in my formation for ministry course. Here’s a quote from the reading we discussed tonight:
“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. . . Let him who is not in community beware of being alone” (p. 77).
This is a profound statement worthy of much consideration.

Think of this quote before you elect a politician who campaigns on religious values

“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” — Sinclair Lewis

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

Raising the dead

“Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works.” — Robert Farrar Capon
Quote courtesy of the fine people at Boar’s Head Tavern

The problem with war

The problem after a war is with the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay. Who will now teach him a lesson? — A.J. Muste
I wouldn’t say this is the ONLY problem with war, but I think the statement is certainly true as far as it goes.

Bakunin on freedom

I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men [sic], far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation. — Mikhail Bakunin
Anarchy is freedom… order without control.

Christian preaching and imagination

“Preaching is fundamentally about shaping the imagination of the Christian community. … We need preaching that will set the captives free, especially when they have become comfortable in captivity.”
From Subversive Preaching in a Postmodern World by Brian Walsh.
Walsh quotes Walter Bruggeman several times in the piece, most notably (for me):
“The key pathology of our time, [...]

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 [...]

it’s a quote world after all

The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and [...]

two quotes on American politics and economics

“The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist — McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell-Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.” — Thomas Friedman, “A Manifesto for the [...]