Monica Coleman posted back in November on the New Media Project blog, asking the question that I had begun to asking when I saw the Occupy movement start up, If we used the hashtag #occupychurch with the same revolutionary fervor as the Occupy movements, what would we doing? Here’s my first Tweet: Whatever you did for one of the least Continue Reading
This panel represents what , for me, ought be happening around the country. These clergy are in the NY area, and so it may well be even more obvious to them, as their parishioners may well be seeing the encampments every day, or often. For us in less urban settings, we are nonetheless citizensof this country, and even more Continue Reading
Yes, I’ve been harping on how the Occupy movement has , to put it somewhat hyperbolically, eaten the church’s lunch regarding getting out the message of the serious case of imbalance that’s been allowed to take place in this country. Now Fast Company has taken notice of the messaging strategy and success in terms of getting out a message. Even Continue Reading
Quote from Jim Winkler, General Secretary of UMC’s Global Board of Church and Society: “In our United Methodist Social Principles, we claim all economic systems are under the judgment of God. We believe corporations are responsible not only to their stockholders but to their other stakeholders.†Winkler believes that if alive, John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, would at Continue Reading
The “angel” here is, as Forbe’s reads Walter Wink’s exploration of “The Powers”: Walter Wink’s concept of “the powers” in which he describes that there is, in a sense, an angel of every nation. “The angel or spirit of America,” Wink writes, “stands, as it were, before God; it bears the knowledge of that to which it is called. The Continue Reading
a team of “Occupy chaplains†who come daily to the encampment sites to lend spiritual support and pastoral care to the scores of protesters http://crosscut.com/2011/12/06/religion/21628/In-Occupy-movement%2C-religion-and-politics-mix/
Author Ched Myers (Binding the Strong Man, Who Will Roll Away the Stone, Ambassadors of Reconciliation) offers up some resources for reflection on Occupy: http://www.chedmyers.org/blog/2011/12/06/few-advent-resources-occupy-cpt-and-god-exodus-link-our-recent-sermon
Thank you Lauren, for putting into writing what is obvious to anyone who observes and listens (and read on after the quote. I’m not being sarcastic. It is something conveniently ignored by press seeking quick bites and political rancor) Much of the criticism directed at the Occupy Movement has focused on protesters’ lack of clear objectives. However, as I’ve witnessed Continue Reading
It’s a bit frustrating to see that we’re talking about “sympathetic churches” (neccessary because of the Right wing church whose bullhorn is so loud that many other more moderate churches also absorb the “anti-protest”, status-quo defending posture of the America-loving Christian) rather than asking where the churches have been all along as this economic tipping of the scales has been Continue Reading
NBC News led Tuesday night with a story on gas prices going up, during a time when the economy is trying to recover. And I , like I have been for a few years now, and especially since the economic crisis hit, why are oil companies allowed to brag about “record profits” while they seem unwilling to “share the load” Continue Reading
Denominational agency efforts and reports re: economic/budget issues affecting our economy are few on the front pages of the denominations’ websites. (This post was originally published on Sep. 29, and I am re-posting it today to check on who may or may not have made progress on this front, now that the OWS movment has garnered at least some popularity, Continue Reading
Vincent Harding, in an article in Sojourners, on the way forward after the experience of many who have felt let down from the expectations and hopeful luminance of the election of Obama: The question is, what do we do now? We know what we shouldn’t do now, in terms of dependence on the Democratic Party, as it is, on the Continue Reading
Jim Rice writes in Sojourners magazine about Occupy. Sojourners is one of those communities that have become a mashup of activist, publishers, movementOrganizers….and has been an example of the kind of theological discernment regarding our country and its churches that have been seeing the kinds of things Occupy has been good at bringing into movement form in the public square. Continue Reading
Still finding tasty theological results from my Googling of “Walter Wink powers occupy”. Here’s one on the sequence implied in Walter Wink’s “Powers” series of books: As the theologian Walter Wink shows, challenging a dominant system requires a three-part process: naming the powers, unmasking the powers, engaging the powers(11). Their white noise of distraction and obfuscation is the means by Continue Reading
The title of this post is from a blog post in Sierra Voices by Sharon Delgado. It was another result in a search I just did on Google using “Walter Wink Powers Occupy”, a search that has yielded some good “Occupy Theology”. I am going to stand in solidarity with those who are oppressed by the current corporate-dominated Empire, and Continue Reading