By Ched Myers The Other Side. 2 pp. Felix is staring out at Santa Rosa Island. We are sitting on ocean smoothed boulders at El Capitan, northwest of Santa Barbara. Only here do we break the unspoken taboo against speaking about our fathers. When we were young our families used to camp along this magical…
By Ched Myers Sojourners. 7 pp. IT IS AN OPEN QUESTION whether the Bible’s status in Western civilization has improved much since the last millennium’s turning. Now, as then, it continues to provide grist for popular eschatological fantasy, self-serving rulers still too often cite it for political gain, and it remains overly captive to the…
By Ched Myers Publication of Pax Christi USA (Eerie, PA). 7 pp. The final few Sundays in Ordinary Time and the first few Sundays in Advent constitute what we might call the “apocalyptic season of turning” in our church calendar. Traditionally the gospel readings speak of the end of the “old order” and the coming…
By Ched Myers Sojourners. 2 pp. Article link – this will take you to this free article on the Sojourners website (in a new window). The 1996 dismantling of the welfare system has engendered the most thorough reassessment concerning the role of the religious community in the delivery of public social services since the New…
By Ched Myers With Elaine Enns. A section in Making Peace with Conflict: Practical Skills for Conflict Transformation, edited by C. Schrock-Shenk & L. Ressler. Herald Press/Pandora Press. 8 pp This chapter looks briefly at the biblical commitment to equality, then examines three aspects of gender conflict today: equal hearing, equal opportunity, and equal respect….
By Ched Myers Priests and People (England). 7 pp. “WE READ THE GOSPEL as if we had no money,” laments American Jesuit theologian John Haughey, “and we spend our money as if we know nothing of the Gospel.” Indeed, the topic of economics is exceedingly difficult to talk about in most churches, more taboo than…
By Ched Myers The Other Side, May-June. With Eric Debode. 6 pp THE PARABLES OF JESUS IN THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS represent the very oldest traditions in the New Testament. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), our churches often handle these stories timidly, if they handle them at all. Perhaps we intuit that there is…
By Ched Myers Toronto: Malcolm Lester Books, Crossroads Press. 3 pp There is an old Bible story about King Josiah of Judah, who is told of “a book of the Law” that has been discovered in the basement of the Temple (2 Kings 22). The king summons all his advisors to interpret the meaning of…
By Ched Myers Orbis Books. 3 pp “WE READ THE GOSPEL as if we had no money,” laments American Jesuit theologian John Haughey, “and we spend our money as if we know nothing of the Gospel.” Indeed, the topic of economics is exceedingly difficult to talk about in most First World churches, more taboo than…
By Ched Myers Uniting Church Studies (Melbourne, Australia), 4:2. 11 pp. Over the past several years Australian and North American Protestants have witnessed widespread denominational deliberations concerning matters of Christian living–particularly regarding what constitutes faithful sexuality. Sadly, much of this churchly discourse has conformed predictably to the polarized ideological battle lines of the wider culture…