If a person ate fast food and drank sugary drinks every day and 99 out of 100 cardiologists told this person that this diet was contributing to this person?s heart disease, and if that person chose?
Category Archives: Theoblogical
Writing enlivens and sustains
Long ago (some 40 years ago), a friend gave me a placque or poster (I forget which) that had this on it: “Writing comes out of life; life must come first. And yet my life does not go well without writing. It is my flywheel, my cloister, my communication with myself and God. It is my eyes to the world, Continue Reading
Listening to Our Climate Scientists
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Prayer and gnostic fallacy
Of course they did. To challenge the idea that “praying” somehow “absolves” one from actual action is going to get push-back from those who wish to, in effect, live “religiously vicariously” rather than upset any patterns of living. It’s one of those social consequences of the “Gnostic” fallacy that our “religious life” is a private, “internal” matter; and that our Continue Reading
Capitalism and the path of carbon emissions
On “Capitalism has lifted people out of poverty”: “In 2018, the World Bank estimated that the current path of carbon emissions would sharply diminish the living conditions of 800 million living throughout South Asia. One hundred million, they say, will be dragged into extreme poverty by climate change just over the next decade. Perhaps “back into” is more appropriate: many Continue Reading
Localized, relational harm vs Globalized, ecological harm
A bit more on my background passage that I invoked a couple days ago. (Here’s a direct link to that post : ) “Whom we have seen” vs “God, whom we have not seen” in I John 4:19-20 as we know, is not a critique of “belief in God”, but a recognition of the call to respond to actual, active Continue Reading
The Way Backward
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Perhaps, there may even come a day when some who favored or even voted for the Traditionalist Plan will look back on this past week and ask the question “What have we done?” They will be welcome to join the new way forward towards Beloved Community, and they won’t even have to sign anything. — Mark Davies
via The Way Backward
reading yourself interpreting the Bible
Indeed. Ironic that those most unconscious of this are those most strongly insisting that “this is what God says in His Word”. They insist that “they have no choice” but to obey “His Word”, all the while being unable to distinguish “reading one’s self interpreting the Bible” from “The Word”. Duke McCall’s words in his sermon in chapel at Southern Continue Reading
Trusting God on Climate Change via Mark Davies
Perhaps this all has something to do with fossil fuel corporations and their executives being able to make trillions of dollars by keeping us from trusting what climate scientists are saying. Perhaps they think they can trust that these trillions of dollars will keep them safe when the climate is in chaos, but that is not trusting in God, that Continue Reading
Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Forgotten Years, September 1963-1968.
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via the blog of
Mark Y. A. Davies
This post, written on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, observes how King’s years between that point and his “I’ve been the Mountaintop” speech delivered the night before his assassination, have not been explored much at all in the King “Holiday” messages. Those years do not “fit the narrative” desired for an “American hero”, so that his dream “that my four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” begins to sound more like “Be all that you can be”, and ignore what King was to explore in the days ahead, as he continued his path to uncovering what it was in America that was KEEPING it’s people from discovering what they were meant to be, and that it went beyond “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps” and into the evils of not only racism but militarism and materialism (economic justice)
So, it seems that MLK , as do many of us as we grow, added to that dream in his last 5 years. As he saw what was involved in getting there to that mountaintop, the dream took on some new elements. The dream envisioned a larger context of what would have to happen to see the “ending”. For my my last 5 years (just short of that), I have seen the relevance of the Ecological Crisis to MLK’s dream. Drew Dellinger did research on the hints of MLK himself understanding this linkage. “All life is INTER-related.” he often said. And also “We’re not going to have peace on Earth until we understand the interrelated structure of all reality”.
Davies has seen this as well, for probably longer than I have.
“as we look at the global ecological challenges of our day, if we do not address them systemically, we will likely not make the progress necessary to avoid a major global ecological crisis in the first half of this century. A national holiday for Martin Luther King and a monument in Washington or even another March on Washington, although all good things, will by themselves not bring about equal opportunity – only systemic changes will do that. The celebration of Earth Day, curbside recycling, more efficient light bulbs, and better fuel efficiency, although all good things, will by themselves not bring about ecological sustainability – only more thorough systemic changes will do that. ”
Mark Davies is the Wimberly Professor of Social and Ecological Ethics and Director of the World House Institute for Social and Ecological Responsibility at Oklahoma City University. He is the Executive Director of the Leadership, Education, and Development (LEaD) Hub North America of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church and an Oklahoma Humanities State Scholar.
Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Forgotten Years, September 1963-1968.
In our public celebration of the life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr., there is often not much said about the time between the ?I Have a Dream? speech, given 50 years ago today in ?
Why the Right and the Centrists Attack Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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via Why the Right and the Centrists Attack Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by Mark Davies
Here is one big reason why Republicans and even some corporatist/centrist Democrats are obsessively criticizing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ? they know that if younger generations ever fully realize and fully embrace that Democratic Socialism as practiced in the Nordic model actually works very very well (great education, great health care, strong economies, responsible care for the environment, and superb social security), then the Republican Party and the corporatist wing of the Democratic Party are finished.