The Iconocast

In this episode Joanna and Jason interview Willie Baptist.

 

Willie Baptist is a renowned anti-poverty organizer.  Coming to political awareness in the 1965 Watts uprisings, through the Black student movement, and as a shop steward with the United Steelworkers, Willie has ultimately dedicated 40 years to organizing the poor.  He provided vital leadership to the National Union of the Homeless, as formerly homeless father; the National Welfare Rights Union; the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign; and many other networks. Willie now serves as the Scholar-in-Residence of Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary (New York), which is dedicated to raising up generations of religious and community leaders dedicated to building a social movement to end poverty, led by the poor.  He is also the coordinator of the associated Poverty Scholars Program, a leadership development, technical assistance, and skills training program for grassroots organizers working around issues of economic justice, with the aim of building a national movement to end poverty united across lines of race, religion, geography and issue-focused organizing. Since 2007, the Poverty Scholars Program has focused on reigniting the Poor People’s Campaign and finishing the unfinished business of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Willie has recently co-authored Pedagogy of the Poor, which draws on lessons from grassroots organizing and social theory for building a movement to end poverty.

Direct download: Iconocast-Willie_Baptist.mp3
Category:Iconocast -- posted at: 2:03pm CDT

In this episode, Mark talks with Thomas Gokey.

Thomas, a Syracuse University art professor, is a part of Strike Debt. Strike Debt is a nationwide movement of debt resistors fighting for economic justice and democratic freedom. A little over a year ago, Strike Debt announced Rolling Jubilee. Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. They are trying to spark a movement that imagines and creates a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits.

Direct download: s3e49-iconocast.mp3
Category:Iconocast -- posted at: 2:54pm CDT

In this episode, Mark and Nekeisha interview Anthony Nocella.

Anthony J. Nocella II, Ph.D., author, community organizer, and educator is a Visiting Professor in the School of Education at Hamline University and Senior Fellow of the Dispute Resolution Institute at the Hamline Law School. Nocella is a scholar-activist grounded in the field of education and peace and conflict studies. He is internationally known for his innovative, transformative, and intersectional collaborations among fields of study, social movements, scholars, communities, and activists. He has published numerous books and is the co-founder of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies and Save the Kids.

Direct download: s3e48-iconocast.mp3
Category:Iconocast -- posted at: 2:47pm CDT

In this episode, Joanna and Tim interview Mark Van Steenwyk. Mark Van Steenwyk is the co-founder of the Mennonite Worker in Minneapolis, an organizer at JesusRadicals.com, a producer of the Iconocast podcast, and the author of That Holy Anarchist and the upcoming book, the unKingdom of God: Embracing the Subversive Power of Repentance (which is available for pre-order). This interview is co-sponsored by the Mennonite Church USA and the Christian Peacemaker Teams and is part of the Widening the Circle mini-series. To more deeply engage a commitment to undoing oppression with seasoned justice-seekers, the Iconocast is launching a mini-series, Widening the Circle: Experiments in Christian Discipleship. Editor Joanna Shenk and the co-hosts will interview chapter authors about their continuing journeys of discipleship, asking questions like: How has their thinking deepened around the themes they wrote about? What do they see happening in the discipleship community movement currently? What is taking shape in their community/organization? What have they let go? In the meantime, make sure to check out Widening the Circle, with stories including from Dr. Vincent Harding, Reba Place Fellowship, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Mark Van Steenwyk, Andrea Ferich, Anton Flores and Jesce Walz.

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Intro and bumper music for this episode is  All Along the Watchtower as performed by Jimi Hendrix.

Direct download: s3e47-iconocast.mp3
Category:Iconocast -- posted at: 11:05am CDT

In this interview, Joanna and Jarrod interview Vincent Harding.
 
Vincent Harding is Professor Emeritus of Religion and Social Transformation at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. He is chairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project, which he founded in 1997 with his late wife, Rosemarie Freeney Harding. As longtime activists and teachers, the Hardings began their work in the Mennonite Church in Chicago, Illinois, in the late 1950s and moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1961 to join with Martin Luther King Jr. and others in the southern freedom movement. Vincent Harding occasionally drafted speeches for Martin Luther King, including his famous anti-Vietnam speech, "A Time to Break Silence" which King delivered on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City, exactly a year before he was assassinated. In ensuing years, the Hardings served as scholars, advisors, and encouragers for a wide variety of movements, organizations, and individuals working for compassionate social change in the United States and internationally. Three of his most recent books are: Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement; Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero; and We Changed the World.

This interview is part of the Widening the Circle mini-series.

To more deeply engage a commitment to undoing oppression with seasoned justice-seekers, the Iconocast is launching a mini-series, Widening the Circle: Experiments in Christian Discipleship. Editor Joanna Shenk and the co-hosts will interview chapter authors about their continuing journeys of discipleship, asking questions like: How has their thinking deepened around the themes they wrote about? What do they see happening in the discipleship community movement currently? What is taking shape in their community/organization? What have they let go? In the meantime, make sure to check out Widening the Circle, with stories including from Dr. Vincent Harding, Reba Place Fellowship, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Mark Van Steenwyk, Andrea Ferich, Anton Flores and Jesce Walz.

Direct download: s3e46-iconocast.mp3
Category:Iconocast -- posted at: 3:09pm CDT

In this episode, Joanna interviews Mary and Peter Sprunger-Froese. Since 1979, Peter and Mary Sprunger-Froese have been Mennonite peace activists with an ecumenical community in Colorado Springs. They work with homeless people, refugees, and nonviolence seekers. They find the Anabaptist story deeply sustaining in their Christianized military setting.

This is a part of the Widening the Circle mini-series.

To more deeply engage a commitment to undoing oppression with seasoned justice-seekers, the Iconocast is launching a mini-series, Widening the Circle: Experiments in Christian Discipleship. Editor Joanna Shenk and the co-hosts will interview chapter authors about their continuing journeys of discipleship, asking questions like: How has their thinking deepened around the themes they wrote about? What do they see happening in the discipleship community movement currently? What is taking shape in their community/organization? What have they let go? In the meantime, make sure to check out Widening the Circle, with stories including from Dr. Vincent Harding, Reba Place Fellowship, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Mark Van Steenwyk, Andrea Ferich, Anton Flores and Jesce Walz.

Direct download: s3e45-iconocast.mp3
Category:Iconocast -- posted at: 2:56pm CDT

In this episode, Joanna and Tim interview Noam Chomsky.
 
Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, political critic, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. In addition to his work in linguistics, he has written on war, politics, and mass media, and is the author of over 100 books.
Direct download: s2e44-iconocast.mp3
Category:Iconocast -- posted at: 4:46pm CDT

In this episode, Mark interviews Jin Kim.
 
Jin is the founding pastor of Church of All Nations. Born in Korea in 1968, he came to the US with his family at age 7, and grew up in Columbia, SC & Atlanta, GA in multiethnic environments. He holds degrees from Georgia Tech, Princeton Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry from Columbia Seminary. He serves on Minnesota Council of Churches' board, and formerly served as Presbyterian Church USA delegate to the National Council of Churches, as US delegate to the 3rd Lausanne Congress, as Moderator/Council Chair of Presbytery of Twin Cities Area, and as President of Presbyterians For Renewal. Jin has a passion for the ministry of reconciliation and a vision for the visible unity of the global church. His household includes his wife, Soon Pac, children Claire Nicea and Austin Athanasius, and Jin's parents. He is an avid golfer, enjoys volleyball, basketball, racquetball, table tennis & Monopoly, and will one day pick up ice fishing (?).
Direct download: s3e43_iconocast_jin_kim_3b.mp3
Category:Iconocast -- posted at: 12:26pm CDT

In this episode, Joanna and Nekeisha interview Ashanti Alston Omowali.

Ashanti is an anarchist activist, speaker, writer, and former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army (BLA) and a former political prisoner. He was also the co-chair of the National Jericho Movement (to free U.S. political prisoners.) Ashanti came of age as the political action of the 1960′s was hitting its peak. He recalls struggling through Malcolm X’s biography as a teen and feeling awestruck at the 1967 rebellions that saw numerous American neighborhoods temporarily taken over by the people who lived there, including his home town of Plainfield, New Jersey. He joined the Black Panther Party while still in high school, starting a chapter in Plainfield, and later going underground with the Black Liberation Army. For a while, he straddled the above ground Panther work of selling newspapers and running breakfast programs with more aggressive underground tactics. In 1974 he was involved in a Connecticut “bank expropriation,” captured and imprisoned for 11 plus years. Today, Ashanti is active in the prison abolition movement (Critical Resistance and the Jericho Movement), in Anarchist People of Color organizing, and in efforts to connect organizers of colour in the north with the Zapatistas (Estacion Libre) in Mexico. He is also a loving father to his son Biko and partner to fellow change agent, Viviane Saleh-Hanna.

Episode produced by Orrin Pratt and Mark Van Steenwyk. Hosted by Joanna Shenk and Nekeisha Alexis-Baker. Intro and bumper music for this episode is De Usuahia a la Quiaca by Gustavo Santaolalla.

Direct download: s2e42_iconocast.mp3
Category:Iconocast -- posted at: 12:00pm CDT

In this episode, Mark and Sarah interview Shannon T.L. Kearns.

Shannon writes as the anarchist reverend. He is a seminary graduate (M.Div 2009 from Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York) on the ordination path who also happens to be a transsexual man. Many of his theological musings are on the intersection of theology and being trans*. He also writes about Christian anarchism and his dreams for the future.

He is the co-founder and co-director of Camp Osiris, a camp for young adults aged 18-23 to come together and talk about the intersections between their sexualities/gender identities and their various spiritualities. The camp is located in Minnesota and welcomes youth from all over the country.

He is also the founder of House of the Transfiguration, a new church plant in Minneapolis.

He is the winner of the 2008 Queertopia homoletics preaching competition and has preached numerous times in various churches. He has also provided churches and other groups with Transgender 101 workshops and discussions.  The anarchist reverend resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Direct download: s2e41-iconocast.mp3
Category:Iconocast -- posted at: 12:00pm CDT