Love in a Dangerous Time

We Are Batman!!!

Hi, Lovers – Well, if we didn’t think we were living in Dangerous Times, I guess we all get it now! Aye? The future that looked so inevitable on the morning of November 8 is gone. Simply gone. Well, I hope we all agree that it’s time to create a new one.

A friend of mine tells of how on Tuesday night, at about 1am, he became weary of the election returns and decided to watch an episode of “Gotham”, just for fun. Turns out when you’re living in a nightmare, everything is nightmarish. In this episode, The Penguin has managed to get elected as the mayor of Gotham. The nightmare continues and the struggle between “good” and “evil” ensues. Ultimately, “good” triumphs as Batman saves the day. What a relief!! But we don’t have Batman to save us. Or do we?

Seems to me that these Dangerous Times are tossing the weird costume and the cape to us. We’re Batman!!! Of course, I mean everyone who sees the dark future that is forming on the horizon, but I mean it especially for people of faith. It’s really our responsibility to uphold, work for, and make sacrifices for the justice-loving, people-loving, future-loving messages that our traditions bring us. Immigration, peace, human rights, even simple fairness are moral issues. We have to rise to the occasion if we are to survive what is to come.

Today’s episode of Love in a Dangerous Time features an amazing leader from the sixties anti-war movement and from everything that has come since. Bill Ayers is my guest and he’s got an important new book called (are you ready for this?), Demand the Impossible: A Radical Manifesto (Haymarket Books, 2016).

Let’s think about it.

What if we broke from the dogma of militarism?

What if we converted the American financial system into a public utility?

What if we stopped tinkering with the business of caging people and abandoned the prison system altogether?

What if we agree that education is not a commodity to be sold for profit?

What if we simply stop destroying our earth, and work for sustainability?

What if?

What if?

What if our imaginations were free to imagine a world where racism, xenophobia, poverty, homelessness, male supremacy, gun violence, deportations, endless wars, drones, criminal climate change, mass incarceration, and so many more humanity-limiting things were gone?

What then might our imaginations be free to create?

What if?

I’ve been talking a lot about the work of building a new Church in these podcasts. Right now – what if we all started meeting in small groups to support our own transformation into true Christians (or Jews, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or…..) and begin to reshape the world?

I think Ayers’ book, Demand the Impossible, along with Brian McLaren’s The Great Spiritual Migration (Love in a Dangerous Time, episode 72), and Rick Ufford-Chase’s Faithful Resistance (episode 76), could be the reading list that would get us going. So I urge you, Lovers, to get these books, read them and discuss them with the folks in your community.

And all along, I hope you’ll be in dialogue with the other Lovers. Please comment on the LoveInADangerousTime.net website and on our Love in a Dangerous Time Community page on Facebook. Let’s get some dialogue going on here.

It’s going to take a lot of discussion and hard work to become Batman! Really!

Don’t forget that we’ll be getting dispatches from Rev. Donna Schaper (see Love in a Dangerous Time episode, episode 78) on her participation in the World Climate Change conference in Morocco. He messages will start in the next day or so and go till the end of the conference. I’ll put out separate blog posts, so keep an eye on the LoveInADangerousTime.net website, or on your RSS feed for this podcast.

So, Lovers, let’s listen to this conversation with Bill Ayers, author of “Demand the Impossible.”

NOTE: This interview was recorded on Monday, November 7, the day before the election. What a different world it was.

Bill Ayers’ website – billayers.org/

Bill’s Facebook page – facebook.com/bill.ayers

Bill on Wikipedia – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers

Hi, Lovers – In 2012, the late-great Phyllis Tickle said in her book, The Great Emergence, that every 500 years, the Church goes through a rummage sale, and cleans out the old forms of spirituality and replaces it with new ones. The last big rummage sale was the Protestant Reformation which began 499 years ago. Do you see where I’m going here?  Churches throughout Protestlandia celebrated Reformation Sunday last week. Judson Memorial Church in New York, and their Senior Pastor, The Rev. Donna Schaper, celebrated by declaring a one-year head start on the next Reformation. This is what I’ll be talking with Rev. Donna today on Love in a Dangerous Time.

Donna believes that it’s necessary for Christianity to stop looking at itself as the “one true” religion. We have to stop thinking that we have God in a Box. We talk about how that will play out and how it’s already beginning.

This episode is definitely part of the #Church2B series.

Then we’ll shift gears entirely and hear about Donna’s plan to attend the upcoming COP22, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Marrakesh, Morocco. The conference begins on November 7, 2016 and will go till the 18th. Donna will be making daily reports to several state-side outlets (including LoveInADangerousTime.net) on the final five days of the meeting. She will be reporting on the moral and spiritual issues and insights that come out of this world-wide confab from the point of view of people of faith.

The last few minutes of the interview are devoted to her plan. This introduction will also be available as a separate audio download, with Rev. Schaper’s dispatches, as they come in.  Please let your friends know that this is happening, read (or listen to) the dispatches, and then have those important conversations about what we, as people of faith, need to do (and even learn how to do).

Exciting times, Lovers. Let’s go.

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/schaperdonna

Donna’s Amazon Author page: http://amzn.to/2ew1DUR

http://www.judson.org/DonnaSchaper_1 – Donna’s blog on the Judson Memorial page. The website is being rebuilt and this page will return soon.

COP22:  http://www.cop22-morocco.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Climate_Change_conference

Hi, Lovers – You man have noted that with the repeat of the Brian McLaren episode (episode 72) and the interview with Rick Ufford-Chase (episode 76) a them is emerging, or rather re-emerging, here on Love in a Dangerous Time. In March of 2015 I posted a kind of a manifesto called #Church2B. In it I called for a series of open-ended conversations about the fact that the Church is in a deep crisis time, and about how we, as progressive Christians can respond to bring our faith commitment into the twenty first century – probably with a very changed Church. Brian’s and Rick’s books (Brian: The Great Spiritual Migration, and Rick: Faithful Resistance) both take on this topic and put forward clear (and quite similar) analysis of the situation as well as creative and often profound ideas about what we can/should do.

As a small niche podcaster, I have no illusions about how much help I personally can be to this process, but if we can get a bigger conversation going we could go into this future with tools and perspectives that can really help people find ways to contribute to a truly better world.

So, I’m re-releasing episode 24, with some extra information here, to start that discussion again. I can imagine some future episodes being more open ended discussions, which followed the original release of the #Church2B document (episodes 25 & 32). We’ll also be looking at some other books on the subject and some of the experiments in community and theological education that are popping up all over the country.

So Lovers, I invite you to join the conversation. You can leave your thoughts on the website, www.LoveInADangerousTime.net or on our new Facebook community at www.facebook.com/LoveInADangerousTime. (a note to anyone who has tried to leave a comment at facebook/LoveInDTime. We’re not using that one any more). You can post your ideas anywhere, but please use the hashtag, #Church2B, so we can all find your thoughts on the web.

This is all happening because the times are getting urgent and because we do have a real opportunity. With Brian’s and Rick’s books out there, and the Wild Goose Festival, and some of the experiments going on, there is lots to talk about. Let’s get into it and create future.

Now, here’s the re-broadcast of the manifesto, #Church2B.

Ep 24 – #Church2B Manifesto – http://loveinadangeroustime.net/church2b/

ep 32 – Rev. Dr. Peter Heltzel & Rev. Jacqui Lewis – http://loveinadangeroustime.net/page/5/

ep 25 – Rev. Bob Brashear & Rev. Steve Phelps – http://loveinadangeroustime.net/open-ended-conversation-rev-bob-brashear-rev-steve-phelps/

Hi, Lovers – Welcome to Love in a Dangerous Time, where we take a cool and honest look at the huge transitions that are occurring in the Church. Today, we are so on-topic it’s scary. My guest, Rick Ufford-Chase is the former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA, which is that denomination’s highest elected office. Before that, he was an activist in the Sanctuary movement. So he’s quite embedded in both the institution and the missional activism of The Church. Since those days, he and his wife, Kitty, have become the co-directors of the Stony Point Center, in upstate New York, just an hour or so up the river from the Love in a Dangerous Time World Headquarters. There, they have formed a multi-faith intentional community that acts as the staff for the Center and carries on the business of raising their families and living their various faith traditions in community. More about that in the interview.

Rick came out with a new book back in June, called Faithful Resistance – Gospel Visions for the Church in a Time of Empire. This book is a calm and faithful assessment of the state of the Christian Church today, the direction it is headed, and many creative, and somewhat radical, ideas about how to continue and grow into a future in a world where The Church is not the beneficiary of absolute cultural support.

I know that, right now, many Lovers are involved in efforts to “save” or reform The Church, or starting a home church, or maybe even dropping out of the Church altogether. You may be very intrigued by some of the ideas Rick raises in the interview. The best thing to do, after listening to this interview and telling all of your friends to do the same, is to read his book. In fact, if you’re working with a group of Christians who are looking for change, reading Faithful Resistance together could be very rewarding.

Another thing to do would be to log onto LoveInADangerousTime.net or onto the LoveInADangerousTime community on Facebook, and leave a comment, perhaps with even more book recommendations, or stories of your efforts to create a truly faithful community where you are. Let’s get some conversation going here.

OK. So now to the interview with Rick Ufford-Chase, author of Faithful Resistance.

Two related pieces by Dr. Martin Luther King

Letter from Birmingham Jail

Beyond Vietnam

Christian Piatt is my guest on this episode. You may know him from his books or from the Homebrewed Culture Cast – a podcast I never miss. Christian and some collaborators have put together an amazing web-based, community powered publishing group that offers a great way for new and niche authors self-publish books that may not ever get done by a regular commercial publisher. So in this episode, you’ll find out everything you need to know. Maybe now is the time to write that book.

CrowdScribed.com

HomebrewedChristianity.com

Homebrewed Culture Cast page

Christian’s Blog – patheos.com/blogs/christianpiatt/

ChristianPiatt.com

Today’s episode combines theatre, music and spirituality. I know many of you, like me, see all three of those as aspects of the same thing. And so does Mario Biagini, main force behind The Open Program, which is based in Florence, Italy, but comes to New York every few months to do some of their programs. The group is a direct descendant of the Polish theater

e director, Jerzy Grotowski. Here’s what their material says about him:

“Considered one of the most important and influential theatre practitioners of the 20th century, Jerzy Grotowski revolutionized contemporary theatre in multiple ways. Grotowski changed the way Western theatre artists and performance theorists conceive of the audience-actor relationship, theatre staging and the craft of acting. Perhaps best known for his notion of ‘poor theatre,’ Grotowski’s practice extends beyond the confines of conventional theatre assuming a long-term and systematic exploration of the possibilities of the human being in action and relation in a performance context.”

The programs they bring us are deeply spiritual. With haunting music and meditative dance, they move the watcher but even more the performer. And when I say “performer” I mean people who have been studying it for decades as well as first-timers.

I think you’ll want to look more deeply into this work, so be sure to look at the links below and if you’re in the northeast, click on the poster to see the dates for their events in mid-October of 2016.

There is a lot of noise in this recording. I’ve cleaned it up as best I can, so you shouldn’t have any problem following it.

www.TheWorkcenter.org

www.TheSeedGroupNY.wordpress.com  

www.facebook.com/opencenter

This is the latest in the CONVERSION(S) series. The idea here is that we all have many conversions in our life that define who we are a Christians, and that the stories of those conversions is often fascinating.

For most people, a conversion kind of “happens” to them. They’re in some situation where they’re almost forced to grow. My guest today, Roger Dewey, is a guy who’s gone through his whole life deliberately seeking conversions. And he’s had many. He started out very conservative, in both the religious and political sense. But throughout his life he’s put himself into situations that he knew would change him. This led him into a life of working for justice and understanding with a truly liberating way of listening to Jesus.

Roger has three books that tell of his journey from different angles (click below)

First, a couple of things. First, Love in a Dangerous Time is now available on yet another outlet. If you ever use I Heart Radio, you can now listen to this podcast on their app. We’re definitely working toward world domination here. Someday all you’ll have to do is think about it and you’ll hear the latest episode.

Also, I want to remind you that the love and sweat that goes into a podcast, while fun, is very time consuming and there are even hard costs. So I want to invite you to go to Patreon.com/loveinadangeroustime and make a monthly contribution to sponsor this podcast. You can pledge any amount. Nothing is too small (or – I know you knew I was going to say this – Too large.) There is swag involved, so take a look and make a pledge. You can also help by clicking on the various book covers on the website and buying your books at Amazon. If you do, Love in a Dangerous Time will get a small kickback. If money’s not your thing, give us a five-star review on iTunes. You can write what you really think, but those five stars will help all those people who don’t know yet that they’re Lovers find this podcast. That’s a good thing.

Roger’s Website- www.rogerdewey.com

[This interview was originally presented on Episode 42 of Love in a Dangerous Time, in October of 2014]

Lovers! This is the beginning of the third year of the podcast. The first episode dropped on September 8 of 2014 and today is September 12. So happy anniversary to all of us.

I have a special anniversary present for you. You may remember episode 42, back in October of 2015. It was a really amazing interview with Brian McLaren, talking about the book he had just completed. It’s been a long time, but the book is finally coming out. It has a new title. It was going to be Converting Christianity, but now it’s called The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian. You can click here, or on the picture below to order (or pre-order it) from Amazon, and help Love in a Dangerous Time in the process.

I’m really excited about this book. I’ve been quoting Brian from it for the whole last year. We should all be reading it

and talking about it in these days of big change in the Church.

So, as an anniversary gift to all of you Lovers, this week’s edition of the podcast is a repeat of Brian’s interview last fall. Enjoy it, and spread it around to your friends

Brian’s Blog:  http://www.brianmclaren.net/

Brian’s Books on Amazon  (Click here to order Brian’s books and to support Love in a Dangerous Time)

Brian’s interview with Krista Tippet on “On Being” – Recorded at Wild Goose Festival, June 2013

Summer is almost over and I hope it has been going well for you. I’m in the throes of moving these days, so sometimes I may be a little distracted. I think I’ll be able to stick to my schedule of a new episode every other Monday till after Labor Day, when we’ll return to the one episode per week system.

This episode is a direct outgrowth of the GooseCast program at Wild Goose. For those of you who don’t know it, The Goose, this year has begun a podcasters program, and I was lucky enough to be the guy who put it together. So I’ve gotten to meet many of my favorite podcasters and also some new folks I didn’t know about.

One of my new podcasting friends is Jay McNeal, who’s “Coffeepot Fellowship” podcast has been going on for a bit over a year, and also has over eighty episodes. Jay and I talk about his life, using the same series of questions that he uses to structure his episodes, and then we talk about United Faith Leaders, an entrepreneurial ministry that he’s building.

I have links to both the “Coffeepot Fellowship” podcast and United Faith Leaders below.

We had a great chat. I hope you enjoy it.

One of the themes of the GooseCast program is that we need more progressive Christian podcasts. I invite you to search on iTunes & Stitcher and find a few and then listen to them. In addition to helping you connect with some great information and points of view, these casts may inspire you to start one of your own. If you need help getting started, drop me a note at [email protected], which is my production company, and I can help you through the tall grass of tech stuff for very Goosely rates.

Everyone has a story about how they got where they are, and some of the most interesting stories come from the experience of becoming a “convert” to a faith tradition. Often it’s the thrill of running down the aisle in an alter call to be “saved”, or it might be a quiet moment of suddenly “getting it,” or it might come from reading a book. But usually, there are several conversions that lie ahead. As we grow in our faith, we approach it as someone who has grown. New questions lead to new answers; and new answers lead to new questions. These conversions are interesting, and often moving, but even more they help us grasp the ongoing dynamism of who we are in our faith.

So, every once in a while, I’m going to give you another episode in the “Conversion(s)” series. We’ll hear about the twisted road that got people to where they are now. Stay tuned.

Today’s Conversion(s) story comes from John-Paul (J.P.) Ross, a seminarian from New York. J.P. is doing some amazing work with homeless people now, but it wasn’t always that way. I think you’ll find his Conversion(s) story really compelling.

Please go to our Facebook Group, LoveInDTime and leave a comment about your reaction to J.P.’s story, or any of the other episodes. Let’s get some discussion going about the issues that my guests bring to the table. And be sure to “like” the page while you’re there.

Links:

Micah Institute