Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire
SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. The website is dedicated to: The Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire. More on Empire below. PLEASE NOTE: the Sitemap. There is also a list of all Book Reviews separately, and alongside each post. You may search the Blog too. Please consider […]
Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity.
Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity. By Christine Mungai, Truthout Part of the Series: Religion’s Role in the Struggle for Justice December 16, 2020 photo above: howafrica.com WN: This is the central theme of this website! A significant portion of what follows is from the previous highlighted part. There is […]
The Gospel Counter-Narrative
WN On April 4, 2017, our pastor, Rob Brown, at Eden Mennonite Church in Chilliwack BC preached a great sermon about the Counter-Narrative in the Gospel stories, including the Ultimate Counter-Narrative: The Resurrection. I asked Rob for permission to upload the audio recording (you do not have to sign up for DropBox!) of the sermon (mp3 […]
Reconciliation–WN Contribution to:
illustration above: The rescue by (Anabaptist) Dirk Willems. Engraving by Jan Luiken in Martyrs Mirror, v. 2, p. 387 of Dutch edition. Scan provided by Mennonite Library and Archives WN: Reconciliation is a key term in the New Testament. The article excerpted below was written in 1989 at the invitation of The Mennonite Encyclopedia (Volume […]
The Great Sumas Lake Heist: A Guilty Little Secret in Plain Sight
Sumas Lake until a century ago covered about 10% of the Fraser Valley’s fertile farmland. Then it was ‘disappeared.’ Whatever happened? And what to do about it? NOTE: There are several footnotes that add related material to the article, that for some may be of interest. NOTE 2:It was exactly a year ago that the […]
Legacy of Shame:
October 19, 2021 by Kenn Orphan photo above: Photograph Source: Reagan White House Photographs – Public Domain WN: Saint Augustine recounts this story of Empire: The king asked the fellow, “What is your idea, in infesting the sea?” And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “the same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because […]
Josh McDowell steps back from ministry after controversial remarks on black families
By Michael Gryboski, Christian Post Reporter September 23, 2021 photo above: Josh McDowell speaks at Talbot Chapel at Biola University in California on January 21, 2020. | YouTube/Biola University WN: Meanwhile, 82 years and 150 books in, Christian “intellectual” McDowell has finally learned something about Black History in America? Thank God we’re never too old […]
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Welcome SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. The website is dedicated to: The Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire. PLEASE NOTE the Sitemap immediately below the “Home” hot button. There is also a list of Book Reviews below the hot button by that name. All Blog entries are available by […]
How Trump Unleashed a Domestic Terrorism Movement—
“He tells them what to do. He tells them why they’re angry.” Mark Follman March+April 2021 Issue photo above: Nate Gowdy WN: Trump continues to inspire hatred and acts of violence worldwide. His is the height of White Grievance Politics–and so tragic for the millions of victims who fall prey to such xenophobia. A rewording […]
The Man Card
WN: Please see this new and powerful video–free until November 3! It tells America’s story of the past half century through White Male Identity Politics. Canadian-born Liz Plank in her fall 2019 book (before the pandemic!), For the Love of Men: From Toxic to a More Mindful Masculinity states baldly: Although the news often focuses […]
Life Under the Bomb Means a Life of Resistance
Published on Thursday, August 06, 2020 by Common Dreams by Rev. John Dear photo above: “Our message over the years has been simple and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us. They don’t make us safer; they don’t provide jobs; they don’t make us more secure—these are age-old lies. Instead they bankrupt us, economically and […]
Cornel West Says ‘Neo-Fascist Gangster’ Trump and Neoliberal Democrats Expose America as ‘Failed Social Experiment’
WN: Please see in light of the title this outstanding article by Canadian Wade Davis: The Unraveling of America. [pullquote]One knows a “civilization” is dying when small men cast long shadows.–anonymous American pastor, 2020[/pullquote] 1. Introduction to the Post: This post, updated numerous times, has become a kind of dog’s breakfast. One could spend hours […]
Why this ‘genius’ scholar is mapping out the world’s largest jail system
photo above: Kelly Lytle Hernández, who received the MacArthur ‘genius’ grant, views prison abolition through the eyes of rebels Fri 11 Oct 2019 by Sam Levin WN: In a revised forthcoming publication by Wipf and Stock Publishers, namely Volume One of Justice That Transforms, I write: Longtime Restorative Justice promoter Howard Zehr once directly critiqued […]
Reinforcing US Status as ‘Bully and Hegemon,’ Bolton to Threaten ICC Over Probes into America’s War Crimes
Human rights advocates decried the Trump administration’s attack on the International Criminal Court as “another low point” in its effort to skirt accountability for war crimes September 10, 2018 Common Dreams by Jake Johnson, staff writer photo above: Afghans have been waiting decades for justice for war crimes, including some allegedly committed by U.S. forces. […]
Millennial Evangelicals Diverge from Their Parents’ Beliefs
The separation of families at the border, climate change, and various progressive causes have galvanized young Christians. By Eliza Griswold August 27, 2018 WN: I have a white Canadian Evangelical friend who expresses being fed up with white Evangelical-bashing — in particular towards white Evangelicals south of the border1. I argue on the contrary that […]
Trump is now dangerous – that makes his mental health a matter of public interest
Bandy Lee This world authority in psychiatry, consulted by US politicians, argues that the president’s mental fitness deserves scrutiny Sun 7 Jan 2018 00.05 GMT Last modified on Fri 9 Feb 2018 18.35 GMT WN: Today in Rwanda, we discussed why many African leaders have destroyed home and people over whom they rule(d). When traits such as […]
Christianity and the Subversion of Just About Everything!
April 16, 2017 WN: This essay was initially written in the 1980’s while I was preparing a sermon on Romans 13. My “aha” moment is that described in the excerpt below. I’ve never seen this elsewhere in biblical scholarship. Someday a New Testament scholar may tell me it really is not good exegesis. But until […]
Restorative Justice
NOTE: Some of what follows is excerpted from Chapter One of Justice That Transforms: Volume 1 WN: From a Canadian vantage point, Dr. Herman Bianchi, a Dutch criminologist, is one of the three “grandfathers” (if one must use that term) chronologically of Restorative Justice, together with Mark Yantzi and Dave Worth, the first and longstanding […]
Rwanda Dispatches May 18 to July 12, 2018
At 30 years on to this day, April 7, 2024, the Rwanda Genocide broke out, that saw more than 1 million Rwandans murdered. CBC did the interview you see below. 30 years after Rwandan genocide, Roméo Dallaire feels ‘rage’ amid global crises | Watch (msn.com) Roméo Dallaire led the UN’s peacekeeping mission when more than […]
Easter Song and Reflections on the Resurrection
***NOTE: Please check out the footnotes for additional, more detailed commentary. Also, there are poetry and songs in the final footnote; and four additional songs below that.*** Please also see two great sermons, one on Good Friday, the other on Easter Sunday, by my colleague Randy Klassen: both in the context of criminal/restorative justice. Easter […]
Focus On: Mapping Militarism 2020
by David Swanson May 6, 2020 WN: The article highlighted below represents a brilliant and multiplex presentation of the worldwide realities of the premier world blight of militarism. One could call it the Ultimate Virus, the Unremitting Pandemic–that few even recognize for the Monstrous World Nightmare it is. The other day I was forwarded an […]
The Unraveling of America
by Wade Davis August 6, 2020 Wade Davis holds the Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. His award-winning books include “Into the Silence” and “The Wayfinders.” His new book, “Magdalena: River of Dreams,” is published by Knopf. WN: This is an exceptional article! There is however a […]
Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity
Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout Published March 14, 2019 photo above: CNN Politics WN: The article highlighted below describes a continuing horror story… Lord, have mercy. Then, I must confess that this article makes me hopping furious for another reason! I’m livid about the majority of […]
Why the Justice Department Can’t Be Trusted to Investigate Abysmal Conditions in Federal Prisons
Justice That Restores, Charles W. Colson, Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2001. 172 pages
WN: Charles Colson’s book seems so out of place in the Age of Trump. Colson was of course a conservative Evangelical darling because he was “saved” post-Watergate and his solution to crime in America became simply personal conversion to Christ – as you will see below. And his kind of Christianity in turn has made […]
Reckoning With John McCain
Respecting the best of McCain requires grappling with the rest of McCain. By Timothy Patrick McCarthy Twitter August 27, 2018 photo above: John McCain in 2007. (Dennis Van Tine / MediaPunch / IPX) WN: In my view, the article highlighted below is a respectful, balanced assessment of Senator McCain, when seen through the lenses of […]
“Prison, Sexual Assault, and Editing John Howard Yoder: One Man’s Story” by Andy Alexis-Baker
WN: In January 1975, I read John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus at an Inter-term course taught by Clark Pinnock 1 at Regent College, University of British Columbia. Though a (“quintessential fundamentalist” (Ernest Sandeen)– Plymouth/Christian Brethren initially) Christian all my life, thanks to Yoder and Pinnock I went through two Gospel conversions while at […]