No American pastor has had greater length and depth of commitment to Palestinian justice than Rev. Donald Wagner of Chicago. His latest book is Glory to God in the Lowest: Journeys to an Unholy Land (2022). In late January 2024, Don and our mutual longtime colleague Rev. Darrel Meyers of Los Angeles paid us a visit here in Oak View. We took the opportunity to interview these two Presbyterian ministers; listen here to learn about Don’s wonderful memoir, and about their respective half-century journeys with the people and issues at the heart of the present war in Palestine.

On Memorial Day 2022, Elaine & Ched interviewed Rose Berger, Senior Editor at Sojourners Magazine and veteran Catholic peace and justice activist. Rose was 48 hours back from a week-long international, interreligious Peace Delegation to Ukraine—the first such group to visit Kyiv since the Russian invasion began on Feb 24, 2022. The religious leaders visited Kyiv and surrounding areas and met religious and political leaders, Ukrainian nonviolent activists, and survivors of the war’s violence.

In this half-hour conversation, Rose lays out the purpose of this trip and shares poignant moments from the trip: stories of bombing victims, faith leaders doing relief work on the ground, and continuing calls for solidarity (“Do not forget Ukraine!”).

Bartcast 58, recorded Feb 14 2021, is another presentation from last year’s BKI: “ACTIVISTS OF COLOR AND INDIGENOUS SOLIDARITY” is a wide-ranging panel conversation between Rev. Sue Park Hur (left), Dr. Jimi Valiente-Neighbours (second from left), and Linda QuiQuivix (second from right) and Jeannette Ban (right)—all activist-educators and dear friends!

Recorded live at the 2021 Bartimaeus Kinsler Institute, Sat Feb 13, 2021.

Alison McCrary is a tribal citizen of the Ani-Yun-Wiya United Cherokee Nation, a social justice movement lawyer, Catholic activist, restorative justice practitioner and an internationally sought-after speaker on social justice, spirituality and liberation.

Alison currently serves as the Practitioner-In-Residence at Wake Forest University’s School of Divinity, a Spiritual Advisor on Louisiana’s death row, and the Movement Capacity Building Strategist supporting about 50 formerly-incarcerated-people-led nonprofits in the United States.

Recorded July 15, 2021. Elaine and Ched offer a Bible study from Healing Haunted Histories (which is part of CLBSJ’s imprint at Wipf & Stock). Our comments are followed by a response from Maria De Freece Lawrence (Lenape) and Gretchen Thies Brokaw (Shinnecock), founding members of the Sweetwater Cultural Center, and a conversation about this indigenous-led organization which represents an example of indigenous-settler solidarity, and a project the CLBSJ supported.

In November 2020 Ched gave this brief (9 min) reflection for the Graduate Theological Union's Alumni in Conversation series, explaining concisely why BCM uses the rubric “discipleship at the intersection of seminary, sanctuary, streets and soil,” and what it means for our personal and political spiritual formation and activism.

In 2020 Ched gave this devotional for the Nomad Podcast in the UK (www.nomadpodcast.co.uk). In this devotion, Ched takes us on a journey down the Ventura river, where he lives in California, and goes on to open up the radical political imagination of the many biblical visions of rivers, in a world where colonization and empire habitually steal water and turn fertile places into deserts.

Thanks to NOMAD for the recording and production - original version at https://www.nomadpodcast.co.uk/ched-myers-roll-like-a-river-n245/

Elaine and Ched were interviewed in mid-January 2021 by Jamie Pitts, editor of the Anabaptist Witness journal, about Healing Haunted Histories. They discuss the background and motivations for this project, the evocative title, and major themes addressed in the volume.

This Bartcast is a 20 minute section of the memorial to Murphy Davis in early November. It features Ched and Elaine’s reflection on Murphy’s vocation as a “Charon” figure, who traversed back and forth across the Great River over 25 years, teaching us about life and death. The recording ends with a beautiful song by Robin and Linda Williams. We encourage you to read Murphy’s memoir, Surely Goodness and Mercy, and to pray for her husband Eduard and daughter Hannah and family.

In honor of the All Saints triduum, Bartcast #51 features Ched’s reflections on his father, who passed away almost 30 years ago. He reads from a piece originally published in the mid-90s titled “Pulpo en su Tinta”; you can find it in the Appendix to his book Our God is Undocumented (https://www.bcm-net.org/resources/books). (20 min).

We encourage you to remember a loved one during this season.