By Ched Myers With Matthew Colwell. Studies produced for the Center for a New American Dream. 11 pp. Few of us would argue with the complaint that Christmas has become too “commercialized.” It has deteriorated into an overheated festival of manic consumption in which the majority of the gifts are purchased by people who cannot…
By Ched Myers The Other Side. 1 p. This week a Baptist friend from North Carolina wrote me asking for some biblical background to the phrase “God Bless America.” He was commendably trying to discern the spirits of the times, a difficult task in days of warmaking. I got to work right away because of…
By Ched Myers Catholic New Times (Toronto), p. 9. 2 pp. Article link – this will take you to this free article on the Shalom Center website (in a new window). A friend of mine who teaches in the local public school reported that this was the first question asked her by third graders the morning…
By Ched Myers A chapter in The Other Side of Sin: Woundedness from the Perspective of the Sinned-Against, edited by Susan Nelson and Andrew Sung Park, SUNY Press, pp 77-108. 23 pp. “The vocabulary of Christian faith suffers from misunderstanding at every turn, but no one term is as badly understood in both society and…
By Ched Myers Ministerial Formation (WCC, Geneva) . 5 pp. This brief reflection proceeds from the conviction that the goal of theological education in the North American context today should be to equip everyday disciples to overcome their sense of disempowerment and denial in order to engage in the evangelical works of mercy and service,…
By Ched Myers Celebration (National Catholic Reporter). 5 pp. IN 21ST CENTURY NORTH AMERICA, the Bible lingers at the margins of our consciousness, both overexposed and misunderstood, fetishized by some and maligned by others, invoked in the culture wars and ignored in everyday life. Nevertheless, these old stories have survived every attempt to dismiss, banish,…
By Ched Myers Herald Press. 2 pp. The authors of Set Free: A Journey Toward Solidarity Against Racism advocate that we must all contribute to the struggle to “melt the iceberg of racism.” Similarly, Christina Pacosz concludes her reflection on the shattering impact of lies: “We must chase them to the sun, again and again,…
By Ched Myers With Elaine Enns. In: Mediation and Facilitation Training Manual, 4th ed.(Mennonite Conciliation Services, Akron, PA). 3 pp. Matthew 18:15-17 is well known in some Christian settings as a text that summarizes a process for handling conflict within the church or between church members. These verses, however, are too often interpreted in isolation….
By Ched Myers The Witness. 11 pp. For the better part of two centuries, modernism has waged a relentless war against narrative ways of knowing. The forces of rationalism, abstraction and science effectively marginalized, suppressed, or destroyed cultures of story. Utilitarian facts were privileged over useful fictions, and the propositional eclipsed the poetic, while narrative…
By Ched Myers Priests and People (UK). 6 pp. IT IS A FEW NIGHTS BEFORE Christmas, 1994. A small group of us are singing thinly, clutching candles against a chilly drizzle. We slowly make our way up a muddy hill. Below us an orange glow floats like fog above the border checkpoint at San Ysidro,…