The only things that have shown up in my comments are the social media pointers I have put out asking my theological friends to comment. It’s not that this is THE most important issue on the world. It’s not. Their are wars, killings, severe oppression, economic hegemony of the extremely wealthy, etc. But this IS a vastly influential and consequential Continue Reading
Was just talking to a friend about “Social Singularity” thoughts I’ve been writing about… He mentioned a coffeehouse experience and the “sensory” , etc. that can’t be duplicated. We are heading for a “Social Singularity” that will make that LESS true; that we cant get that from a screen is true…but we wont be talking about “screens” in 20 years Continue Reading
When I read the following, from a previous Chris Hedges article just after the start of Occupy Wall Street, I immediately added my own group to the list of “discarded intellectuals”: Bakunin’s vision of revolution, which challenged Marx’s rigid bifurcation between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, carved out a vital role for these rootless intellectuals, the talented sons and daughters Continue Reading
Brian Merritt has written an excellent OccupyTheology sermon. The only thing I dont like about it is that there are too many great things in it I want to quote in full. I am told by a prepackaged and consumeristic society that there are non-threatening and easy answers to societal’s ills. The reality is that recycling will not save the planet, voting Continue Reading
Brian McLaren, another participant/speaker at Wild Goose later this week on Occupy: public spaces—from economic markets to political processes—have been colonized by powerful corporate elites (the 1 percent, or maybe the 10 percent), elites driven not by an ethical vision but by the relentless demand to maximize shareholder return. The 99 percent are realizing how destructive this colonization of public Continue Reading
I’ll be at The Wild Goose Festival later this week, and my friend Jeremy John and I have set aside two sessions there for some conversation about the Occupy movement and what it means for the church. I just saw this article from last fall at the beginnings of Occupy by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove re: Occupy and the church. for many Continue Reading
Chris Hedges in TruthDig yesterday: Trinity had the demonstrators arrested. It chose to act like a real estate company, or the corporation it has become, rather than a church. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/americas_street_priest_20120611/ Fr. D.Berrigan: “It is up to us to take the initiative and hope the churches catch up” Berrigan believes, as did Martin Luther King, that “the evils of capitalism are Continue Reading
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgf4ozKHmA4&feature=player_embedded
“The world of finance, while necessary, no longer represents an instrument that favours our well-being or the life of mankind, instead it has become an oppressive power, that almost demands our adoration, mammon, the false divinity that truly dominates the world.†Who said that? A socialist? A number of the Occupy Movement? An economic advisor to President Obama? None of Continue Reading
I just had a friend forward me an email he got from an acquaintance invitinghim to join “Occupy Cafe”. So I did. And I ran across this link to one of the organization’s people talking at Trinity Wall St. about the moral and ethical implications of the Occupy movement. So here it is http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/webcasts/videos/conferences-classes/trinity-institute-lectures/wall-street-dialogues-occupy-as-a-leap-of-faith
I believe that the most loving thing we can do for the richest and most powerful is to tell them the truth: call them to the truth and challenge them to live truthfully. After all, one of the spiritual works of mercy is to admonish sinners. If this is so, we must love the 1% enough to speak the truth 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
This quote from a UMC pastor re: Occupy in Christianity Today has me thinking about the scale of church responses to Occupy: At bottom, is outright rejection and demonization (ala Fox and The Tea Party), 2) condescension expressed in comments like ” irrelevant” and “naive” 3) total ignoring 4) Skepticism about it’s ultimate effectiveness 5) Hopefulness about it but dampened Continue Reading
That “evil atheist”, Christopher Hitchens, expressing a healthier theology than do most of those in the Christian Right: The Occupy movement is the force that will revitalize traditional Christianity in the United States or signal its moral, social and political irrelevance. The mainstream church, battered by declining numbers and a failure to defiantly condemn the crimes and cruelty of the corporate Continue Reading
From The Church and PostModern Culture. Excellent. Badiou calls these eruptions ‘events’, an event (in this case a political event) is the revealing or acknowledging of something within the situation that had not been previously represented by the state, and not only not represented by also repressed by the state. In this way, an event disrupts the smooth functioning of Continue Reading