Bilgrimage: resistance

Showing posts with label resistance. Show all posts

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Happy 2023!

Photo of bluffs across Arkansas River at Little Rock a day or two before 1 January 2023

Wishing you all a very happy 2023, and apologizing that I have been absent from this blog. My spouse Steve had surgery on 19 December, then Christmas came along as he recuperated and I did nursing duties, and I have been stretched — though still posting routinely at my new Mastodon account, where you can find my "real time" commentary on various items I've been reading and want to share.

For anyone looking for music to listen to as you celebrate the new year, here's my YouTube playlist for New Year's day, developed over a number of years.

Friday, January 20, 2017

"Christendom Adjusts Itself Far Too Easily to the Worship of Power": Theological Bases for Resistance in the Trump Era

John Pavlovitz:*

And so right now a large portion of the American Evangelical Church sits pretty, believing itself victorious; momentarily giddy at its spoils, gloating in its apparent advantage, and oblivious to the cost.

The cost, is that the Church itself, though winning this political battle has lost the greater war for its humanity and its dignity. It has been fully separated from its namesake. It is no longer synonymous with Jesus. It is no longer good news for the poor, the marginalized, the hurting, the downtrodden. It is an exclusive brothel where power lusting white Christians fornicate freely.

The Evangelical Church is no longer a brilliant beacon of God's love in a dark place, it is simply another building upon which Donald Trump will slap his name, exploit for a bit, and eventually abandon, leaving behind lots of people hurting who are broken and bankrupt.

Singing Songs of Resistance: I Will Not Go Back As Trump Presidency Seeks to Pull My Nation Back While Right-Wing White Christians Applaud

Ruthless exploitative capitalism has decisively unmasked itself now as a deeply anti-human force, as it colludes with white ethnonationalism and right-wing Christianity to dismantle liberal democracy throughout the world. The election of Donald Trump is one result of this collusion.

Selected Publications

Religion and Public Life in the Southern Crossroads Region: The Showdown States. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira, 2004. Ed. by William D. Lindsey and Mark Silk.

Shailer Mathews’ Lives of Jesus: The Search for a Theological Foundation for the Social Gospel. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

Singing in a Strange Land: Praying and Acting with the Poor. Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1991.

“On Being Church in the New Millennium: The Challenge and Gift of Gay Believers,” Theology and Sexuality 16 (2002), 96-104.

“AIDS, Homosexuality, and the Churches in America Today,” Bulletin for Contextual Theology in Southern Africa and Africa 7,1 (2000), 45-48.

“The AIDS Crisis and the Church: A Time to Heal.” In Christian Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender, ed. Adrian Thatcher and Elizabeth Stuart. London: Eerdmans and Gracewing, 1996. Pp. 347-66.