Author: ppadmin

Conscientious objection

Stories of faith from veterans

Few testimonies about nonviolence are stronger than those from war veterans. Our friends at the Mennonite Central Committee's Peace Education Office have compiled the following online resources. (For those who work with young people: These would be excellent resources for discussion, particularly for those approaching the age of mandatory Selective Service registration.)

•Reflections from Iraq War veteran Ben Peters. Six video clips (each 4-7 minutes long) with study guide for high school students/adults.  Ben discusses the identity-shaping experiences of boot camp, his struggles with post traumatic stress syndrom, the question of whether violence can be redemptive, biblical frameworks and more.  Ben is thoughtful, articulate and a compelling presenter.  

•Reflections from Iraq War veteran Logan Mehl-Laituri and Marine Joe Gibson. 
Five video clips that feature reflections on conscientious objection, moral injury and contrasts between the call of the armed forces and the call of God.

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Hold Fast to Dreams: Defaulting on the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Lecture at the "Protestantism, Public Theology and Prophetic Relevance" conference

by Ken Sehested

"Protestanismo, Teologia Pública e Relevância Profética: Diálogos
com as éticas teológicas de Martin Luther King Jr. e Richard Shaull"
(“Protestantism, Public Theology and Prophetic Relevance,
in light of the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Richard Shaull”)
Centro Cultural da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
24-26 May 2007, Aliança de Batistas do Brasil

            It is a rare privilege to take part in this historic occasion. My prayer is that, years from now, you will look back on this occasion as the starting point of a powerful movement in shaping the faith and witness of the church in Brazil. And maybe for the whole world.

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Write the vision, make it plain

Sermon on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth

by Ken Sehested

Text: Habakkuk 2:1-3  “I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. Then the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.”

Why do we devote special attention to the “saints,” to those gone before us, to people like Martin Luther King Jr.? When we focus on particular people, don’t we run the risk of turning them into HEROES? By giving certain individuals special attention, don’t we risk distancing ourselves from them? Few if any of us feel heroic. We’re not like Superman: faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. If saints—hero’s of the faith—are so unlike us, can they be of any use, other than as objects of fantasy whom we put on a pedestal to admire? But also to collect dust?

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Hear this, O People of the Dream

A litany for worship commemorating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

by Ken Sehested

Hear this, O People of the Dream: It is good and right that you recall the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the movement which mobilized him. The journey to the Beloved Community is sometimes dark and desperate and dangerous, and we need constellating light to orient our hearts and direct our feet.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou who hast by Thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray.*

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News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  31 December 2015  •  No. 52

Processional. African Children’s Choir, live at Coolum Beach, Australia. (9:23 minutes. Thanks, Connie.)

Invocation. “May your home always be too small / to hold all your friends. / May your heart remain ever supple, / fearless in the face of threat, / jubilant in the grip of grace. / May your hands remain open, / caressing, never clenched, / save to pound the doors / of all who barter justice / to the highest bidder.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Benedicere: A New Year’s Day blessing” poem

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News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  24 December 2015  •  No. 51

¶ Processional.  “Nami, Nami” (Arabic Lullaby, 4:17 minutes), by Azam Ali.

Invocation. “The terror of God is the Risen One’s threat / to every merchant of death, every marketer’s breath, / every peddler of gun-wielding promise of power.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “The Payback of Heaven”

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Every portal of sight

A litany for worship inspired by Isaiah 60:1-6

by Ken Sehested

Arise, shine; for your Light has come, for heaven’s Glory rises to greet you!

But how can such frivolous claims be made? For blind rage covers the earth, and the nations are allied in enmity.

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Watch night history

Awaiting the quelling word

by Ken Sehested

“Watch Night” services began in 1733 with the Moravian communities in what is now the Czech Republic. By 1740 John Wesley and his Methodist movement within Anglicanism had adopted the tradition, with New Year’s Eve services ending after midnight, marked by penitence over shortcomings in the year past and resolution of greater faithfulness in the year ahead. One of the observance’s functions was to provide an alternative to the drunken revelry common in Britain on that night.

The Wesleyan revivals were especially attractive to the working class. Indeed, the early Methodist emphasis on sanctification (“holiness”) did not split personal from social application. Methodist societies were active in the abolitionist movement. “The ‘General Rules’ began with the commitment to give evidence of salvation by ‘Doing no harm’ and avoiding evil of every kind,” writes Bill Wylie-Kellermann,* noting that “‘doing no harm’ is an 18th century synonym for practicing nonviolence.” Significantly, the originating Methodist conference in the US called for the expulsion of any member participating in the slave trade, though the press of economic forces gradually weakened the tradition’s abolitionist convictions.

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The quelling word

Emancipation is (still) coming: A poem inspired by Revelation 21:1-6a

Written against the backdrop of New Year's Eve services, 1862, when African Americans gathered to await news of US President Abraham Lincoln's promised "Emancipation Proclamation."

The angel breaks with Heaven’s hail!
from Joy’s horizon on every weary heart,
amid that unruly, precarious land beyond
where cheery sentiment stalls and merry,
bright roads end. Now, in terrain beyond all
mapping, the adventure begins. No warranty
reaches this far. Creature comforts here are
few, risks are high, and danger surrounds.
Here winded Breath calls to bended knee
with promises of ecstasy and manna’s
fragile provision. Here water clefts rocks to
slake desperate thirst. Chained, tamed hearts
will never survive, deprived as they are of
Mercy’s solvent power to undo generations-old
resentments, driven deep by fear’s reflexive
habit into armed entrenchments. The
temptation is strong to abandon earth’s rancor
in favor of Heaven’s rapture. Yet from Joy’s
horizon storms the quelling word: Heaven’s
abode is anchored in earth’s tribulation.
The proclamation has been rendered;
incarnation, tendered; emancipation,
though delayed, will not finally be hindered.
Misery’s tearful eye will glisten with elation;
mournful cries shall rise in thankful jubilation.
Despoiling death itself will yield to adoration.
Behold! All things—from earth’s bounded
borders to Heaven’s blissful shore—stand
destined under Glory to be made new.
The quelling word to a quarreling world:
Come home. Come home.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.com
Inspired by Revelation 21:1-6a, lectionary text for the 2015 New Year's Eve Watch Night service.

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Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire

by Brian Walsh and Sylva Keesmaat (2004), reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

“Colossians is a subversive tract for subversive living and it insists that such an alternative imagination and alternate way of life is found and sustained within the context of community.”  For Paul, “the Christian household is an alternative to the dominant Roman model of household life” (p 9). Walsh and Keesmaat recognize the contextual nature of reading, and focus on postmodernity and globalization that shape our worldview; we live in a “global consumerist empire,” similar to that which the church in Colossae lived in, and so this is a critique not only of the time in which Paul wrote but also of our time.

The authors suggest we follow Paul, who was following the prophets (p 85). Paul weaves a vision of life, a vision that tells us who rules the world, where wisdom is to be found, and he identifies two themes that focus our response to the empire: a radical sensitivity to suffering and G-d’s overarching creational intent (p 107), a creation-wide intent of Israel’s G-d that militates against its being co-opted by a totalizing idolatry (p 104). Their perspective is powerfully given in a poem based on the great Christ hymn of Col 1:15-20. “We see a kingdom that is an alternative to the empire” (p 156) characterized by resurrection, ascension, liberation and eschatological ethics. Also, a relational ethic, an ethic of secession that leaves something to join with something else, seceding from imperial sexuality, idolatry, violence.

An ethic of secession arises when we cease to be comfortable in the empire. The writers invite us to explore what it means for a church that seems not to suffer but, rather to thrive, under empire, to live freed from “the oppressive absolutes of the empire” (p 233).

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