Center for Action and Contemplation

Theologian Kat Armas celebrates how early Christians would have heard the gospel call to dignity and belonging, in contrast to the empire’s insistence on conquerors and those conquered:

In the empire’s world, belonging was a double-edged blade. To be counted, to have a name that meant anything beyond yourself, you had to be willing to shed your own skin, ...

Cherokee theologian Randy Woodley contrasts Western Christianity’s emphasis on salvation through doctrine with the healing work of Jesus:

People who believe themselves to be at the top of a hierarchy must find ways to maintain power. Doctrines can be a handy tool for doing so. If you can convince the masses that a reward awaits them in heaven, you’ve got ...

Father Richard considers how the lens of empire shifted the interpretation of the gospel:

Once Christianity became enmeshed with empire, we could no longer talk about the opening line of the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). Emperors don’t want people who are poor in spirit. They want loyalists. They want people who salu...

Father Richard Rohr points to the creation of winners and losers as a sure sign that an “empire consciousness” is at work:

There is an overall paradigm that I’ve been calling “empire thinking,” which is a zero-sum game. And in a zero-sum game, one can only win by causing another to lose. Unless that assumption is stated very clearly, we don’t realize how ...

Sunday
We are both driven and called forward by a kind of deep homesickness, it seems. There is an inherent and desirous dissatisfaction that both sends and draws us forward, and it comes from our original and radical union with God.
—Richar...