Young Anabaptist Radicals

Monthly Archive: March 2012

Adrienne Rich: Visionary (1929-2012)

Several months ago I drafted a post on Occupy Wall Street suggesting that people interested in thinking through issues of race and gender (re)turn to Adrienne Rich as a wise source. We so often forget those who have gone before us, outside a fairly limited range, and I thought posting a few quotations from one of Rich’s essays might provoke thought and also encourage folks to dig out college anthologies, hunt down books in the library, or do a little web-searching.

I didn’t post the little piece because I wanted it to be Just Right. Then I got busy.

And now Adrienne Rich has died, and I am reminded again of how much she has to teach us.

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March 30, 2012 activism, antiracism, Books, Current Events, Economics, Gender, Group Identity, Media, Poetry, Politics, Privilege, Race, Sexism, Stories, Wealth, Writing Read more >

The Universe Loves You! (A publication of the Marginal Mennonite Tract & Propaganda Dept.)

The Universe Loves You! … & thinks you’re perfect just the way you are!

The christian church teaches the doctrine of original sin, that everyone is born with a sinful nature.

… We, on the other hand, believe in original goodness, that the spark of the divine resides in each and every human being. (Psalms 82:6, John 1:9)

The christian church portrays God as the heavenly father.

… We believe in God as mother, as well as father. (Isaiah 49:15)

The church says God’s justice will require him to damn most of his creatures to eternal punishment.

… We believe hell is a myth, and that every person who’s ever lived gets a seat at the celestial banquet table. (Isaiah 25:6)

The church claims Jesus was rejected by the Jews, and that his message superseded the “Old Testament.”

… We believe Jesus was a Jew in good standing until his dying day, and that everything he taught was firmly grounded in Torah.

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March 28, 2012 End Times, Evangelism, Exclusion, Interfaith, Polemics, Tolerance, Urban Ministry Read more >

First Anabaptist conference on Occupy movement plus American Spring

This spring will see the first Mennonite conference on the Occupy movement (at least that I’m aware of). The Anabaptist Missional Project will be hosting #Occupy Empire: Anabaptism in God’s Mission at Eastern Mennonite Unversity on April 13-14,. They have an impressive line-up of Anabaptist-minded peace and justice activists and thinkers: Nekeisha Alexis-Baker, Janna Hunter-Bowman, Isaac Villegas and Chris Haw.

The last speaker to be announced was Paulette Moore, one of the leaders of Occupy Harrisonburg. Moore is a documentary film maker, a professor at EMU and one of the writers at the Occupy Harrisonburg blog. She’s been involved with the group since the beginning.

“We definitely started out with the use of the word [Occupy] as an appropriation and a creative theological reinterpretation,” said Brian Gumm, one of the two organizers of the conference. “Before Paulette was on the schedule, we didn’t have explicit references to the movement itself. So by adding Paulette’s voice and the experience of the local movement here, we can make that connection explicity and have a more robust, multi-voiced conversation about Occupy.”

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March 26, 2012 activism, Nonviolence, Social justice Read more >

Intentional Community: A Reflection, My Journey, and Shalom House

PART 1. INVITATION AND REFLECTION

So, you have read about intentional community in Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution years ago and new monasticism has now become a part of your everyday vocabulary. Maybe you are nearing the end of your college career, or maybe you are facing another life transition and wondering how to integrate your values in to those exciting next steps. In other words, what now?

Or, perhaps you are someone who has been living “in community” for some time now, but the experience has increased your skepticism and cynicism rather than given you new life-giving perspective. Your expectations were not met, probably because you carried too many expectations with you. Your impression of “community” has officially been sobered. As Bonheoffer says in Life Together, the earlier a community can let go of its wish dream, the better for the community.

This post is for the excited college graduate, eager to combine faith and practice. It is also to the sobered young adult who has already faced some of the world’s harshest realities, and to anyone in between who is still somehow interested in this word (more…)

March 19, 2012 activism, Books, Community, Contemplation, New Monasticism, Peace & Peacemaking, Young Folks Read more >

Looking for an organic church/fellowship near Olympia, Washington

Here’s a letter from a reader:

I just found your blog and a lot of what is there really resonates with me. I really relate to a lot of Anabaptist concepts such as putting faith into action, actively promoting peace, creation care, and anti nationalism.

I’m currently looking for an organic church/fellowship in my area near Olympia Washington to connect with. Haven’t ever considered a Mennonite church because my impression was that they are really conservative including politically and very institutional. Is that assumption an incorrect one? Do you have any suggestions for connecting with similar minded people in this area who are/want to connect through an organic church model?

…

I’m happy to fellowship with people of various persuasions, but I don’t want to be a cause of dissension in a group where most everyone has the same specific ideas. Not sure how minority opinions are received in smaller conservative Mennonite churches.

Blessings,
Robin

Anyone have any leads for Robin?

March 18, 2012 Emerging Church Read more >

Protest, performance and pottery: Interview with a Mennonite ceramics artist

On March 10, I visited my uncle Dennis Maust in his studio in northern Lancaster, Pa. It was a beautiful sunny day and the windows of his studio look out across rolling farmland to the hills of the northern border of the county. While he worked on his latest pieces, I asked him some questions about his work as a ceramics artist. But first I had a read through his essay “Living the Patchwork” in the latest issue of The Studio Potter for some background. This interview draws on themes from that piece. Dennis’s next show is in Lancaster for the month of July at Laporte Jewelers on Harrisburg Pike in Lancaster (across from F&M University). It is opening July 6th.

Found somewhere near father Abrahams birthplace (unexploded)

Found somewhere near Father Abrahams birthplace (unexploded), 2004. Photo by Dennis Maust

Tim: In the article in Studio Potter you talk about the period where you were building “protest-oriented pieces.” Can you say more about this?

Dennis: During the lead up to the latest Iraq war and during the early stages of the war, I was looking a lot at historic Iraqi pots and thinking about the tremendous loss of the antiquities when the U.S. troops first went in and didn’t protect the museums. So I was thinking about both the loss of antiquities and the human loss. And I was doing this series of pieces that were based loosely on historical Middle Easter forms and that particular piece seemed to be a bomb canister form, so I thought about where Abraham was born and the thought that something of this sort may have been found unexploded as a bomb canister. It’s about the loss and the danger and the cost of this war. I wanted to have people look at it as something that could have been found.

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March 16, 2012 Art, Peace & Peacemaking Read more >

The Beatitudes – You are more than blessed

Code_Pink_by_MennonotOne of the most attractive features of our Anabaptist tradition is that it doesn’t take tradition too seriously. Of course, Anabaptists have their own traditions, but they can – and have been – shrugged off when necessary. That’s one of its hallmarks, saying: “Okay, this or that praxis may have been useful and good way back then, but let’s go a different way now, in the full confidence that God’s creative spirit will lead us in the footsteps of Jesus.” Some examples of traditions that Anabaptists have occasionally dumped: paid church leaders (bishops, priests, pastors)? Don’t need ’em. We’re all priests of God. Liturgy? No, it stifles creativity. Creeds and confessions? They shackle our minds and hearts.

One of the areas where Anabaptists in the past proved more timid was in their use of Bible translation for challenging the powerful. At the beginning that wasn’t true. Luther basically copied Hans Denck’s and Ludwig Haetzer’s translation (1527) of the major prophets for his new translation. Denck was a politically engaged Anabaptist rebel: at that time translating the Hebrew prophets was considered a risky political action. It was a means of obliquely criticizing contemporary politicians and thereby fomenting rebellion. But those were the early years. Later, under pressure to defend their orthodoxy, Anabaptists held on to traditional translations – where they did offer some new emphases, it was usually in internal matters (internal church relations). (more…)

March 5, 2012 Peace & Peacemaking, The Bible Read more >