The etymology of the term radical is from the Latin radix, “root”; if we want to get to the root of anything we must be radical. Radical Discipleship is about nothing more and nothing less than laying bare the roots of the personal and socio-political pathologies of our imperial society and its dead-end history, even as we seek to recover the roots of our deep biblical tradition: namely, the messianic movement of rebellion and restoration, of repentance and renewal, a “Way out of no way” that has been going on since the dawn of resistance to the dusk of empire.
by Ched Myers From: Sojourners and “Two Martyrs Reflect on Anger and Justice” in Tom Fox was My Friend, edited by Chuck Fager. Fayetville, Kimo Press. 4 pp. “We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price,” Daniel Berrigan wrote in the wake of…
By Ched Myers Sojourners. 4 pp. There have always been two Americas: that of rich and poor, of inclusion and exclusion. The America of inclusion found expression in the ideal of “liberty and justice for all,” and has been embodied whenever Indian treaties were honored, and in the embrace of civil rights, women’s suffrage, or…
By Ched Myers Published in Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries E-News. 4pp. Elaine and I have experienced a lot of loss over the last two years. The death of loved ones leaves a hole in our hearts and souls, one that can be salved only with memory. We North Americans, however, are not very competent at the…
By Ched Myers Chapter in Consuming Passion: Why the Killing of Jesus Really Matters. Edited by Simon Barow and J. Bartley, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, pp. 61-73. 7 pp. The most concise thing I can say about my reaction to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is: I loved the book,but hated the…
By Ched Myers Talk at Presbybop’s “Jazz and the Church” Conference, New York. 11 pp. Azusa Street today is a garbage-strewn lane tucked away in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles, about 5 miles from my home in East L.A. The teeming tourists and transients are ignorant about its historical significance in the history of…
By Ched Myers Orbis Books. 3 pp. There is an extraordinary story in Jeremiah 36 that the great Jesuit radical Daniel Berrigan drew our attention to not long ago in a retreat with Christian peace and justice activists. It concerns how the prophet’s condemnation of Judah’s economic and military policies earned him an official “cease…
By Ched Myers The Living Pulpit, pp 28-31. 7 pp. “THE VOCABULARY OF CHRISTIAN FAITH SUFFERS from misunderstanding at every turn,” writes Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall, “but no one term is as badly understood in both society and church as the little word, ‘sin’.” Most modern critics of Christianity would concur. Dour Christian discourses…
By Ched Myers Priests and People (England). 5 pp. “He told them to give her something to eat” (Mark 5:43.) This curiously mundane instruction represents the conclusion to Jesus’ most dramatic healing in Mark’s gospel. He has just raised a young girl from the dead, and members of her household are still reeling from astonishment….
By Ched Myers I. “Same Sex Marriage: A Sacramental Unity” (with Bill Wylie Kellermann, posted on SojoNet) and II. “Splitting the Difference? Same-Sex Marriage as a Justice Issue” unpublished. 13 pp. In 1963, William Stringfellow—Movement theologian, Sojourners mentor and gay man—had the following to say about mainline churches who were pondering whether to join the…
By Ched Myers The Catholic Agitator. 6 pp. Let me begin by putting things plainly. None of us would be gathered here—neither Catholic Workers nor members of the Immaculate Heart of Mary nor any of us other assorted feral Christians—were it not for Dan’s showing and telling of the gospel. The political spaces he opened…