Christian Nonviolence & the next gen

originally posted at backyardmissionary.com by Jarrod McKenna Can we separate living the gospel from sharing it? Evangelism from the invitation to follow Jesus? Last night I arrived back from a country tour with ‘Empowering Peacemakers’ (or EPYC) inviting High School students to forsake lives wasteful consumption and dare lose their themselves in lives of compassion [...]

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Don’t miss this ‘Peacemaking Crim’

Our mate Ciaron O’Reilly is about to rock Melbourne. “Ciaron O’Reilly is a devout Brisbane-born Christian pacifist. In a life dedicated to protest, he’s been jailed for disarming warplanes, dismantling uranium mining machinery and performing exorcisms of warships. To some he’s an inspiration, to others a criminal.” (Andrew Denton: Enough Rope June 2006) Last year before [...]

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sharing the love

Hamo from backyardmissionary.com has bravely invited me to hijack his blog occasionally (click here) with provocations of love, questions of grace and rants of a recovering sinner seeking to relate to myself, my neighbour, my enemy and all of creation with the love I’ve experienced in Jesus… needless to say it’s a work in progress. [...]

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Beauty’s victory

My beautiful Teresa teaches me so much about prayer, life, nonviolence and following the One who has conquered not with tanks rolling in but with a towel washing feet. The other day I found myself telling my friend Ian Barns that Teresa has taught me that beauty is a sign of the transformation of the world. [...]

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Gandhi “go ye”

  Wednesday’s with Gandhi:“May it not be that “Go ye unto all the world’ message has been somewhat narrowly interpreted and the spirit of it missed? It will not be denied, I speak from experience, that many of the conversions are only so-called. In some cases, the appeal has gone not to the heart but [...]

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MLK’s conversion to Christ’s limitless love

  Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that in studying Gandhi;“My scepticism concerning the power of love gradually diminished… prior to reading Gandhi, I had about concluded that the ethics of Jesus were only effective in individual relationships… but after reading Gandhi, I saw how mistaken I was.” Without Gandhi’s influence Dr. King would never have [...]

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Carole Powell’s court sentencing statement

Statement given on 2 August 2007 Your honour, before sentencing me I would ask you to take into consideration that I have been working as a nurse for 33 years. A role that helps to heal and save lives. A role where I have seen first hand the devastation reeked on young men who have [...]

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Powerful peace testimonies

The Talisman Sabre wargames sparked some powerful nonviolent protest. Out of that, two statements testify to the power of faith in nonviolence in a world of near-total war. These could easily be used as opening or closing meditations for Pace e Bene workshops! 1. Imagining Peace – the statement by 5 Christian peace activists about [...]

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Avoiding the post-lunch lull

Gill and I facilitated a very rewarding day-long Engage introduction program on the Central Coast on Saturday. The feedback at the end was positive about the mix of standing & sitting, high-energy & personal reflection, etc. One person commented that the ‘post-lunch lull’ was hard for him. Because of where we were up to in [...]

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King and Jesus

I came across a great article today about Martin Luther King Jr and Jesus as prophets of nonviolence. Quoting Rev James Lawson, himself a great hero of the US Civil Rights movement, Ched Myers says “If you want to understand King you must look at Jesus.” But Myers then adds: “… but the converse also [...]

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