Download the worship folder for August 23, 2020
Presiding and preaching: Pr. Joseph Crippen
Readings and prayers: Dwight Penas, lector; Kathy Thurston, Assisting Minister
Organist: Cantor David Cherwien
Looking ahead:
Readings for Tuesday study, 13 Pentecost, Lect. 22 A
13th — Ava DuVernay, Netflix, 2016
The title of Ava DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing documentary refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. With a potent mixture of archival footage and testimony from a dazzling array of activists, politicians, historians, and formerly incarcerated women and men, DuVernay creates a work of grand historical synthesis.
Note: this documentary is available with a Netflix subscription, and it is currently available on YouTube and through Ava DuVernay’s website for free.
Jim Crow of the North, Minnesota Experience, Season 1 Episode 20, aired February 25, 2019
Why does Minnesota suffer through some of the worst racial disparities in the nation? One answer is the spread of racist, restrictive real estate covenants in the early 20th century. Jim Crow of the North charts the progression of racist policies and practices from the advent of restrictive covenants after the turn of the last century to their final elimination in the late 1960s.
By office
This book calls for reconciliation in society that is radical, that goes to the roots. Too many initiatives for reconciliation, fail to remove the weeds of injustice at the roots, and thus stop short of completing the work required. Such political arrangements usually favor the rich and powerful, but deprive the powerless of justice and dignity. This is a form of political pietism, and when Christians refuse to name this situation for what it is, they are practicing Christian quietism. True reconciliation is radical.
In this book the authors a South African prominent in the struggle against apartheid, and a white U.S. theologian who has served in pastoral roles in multi-racial congregations offer a vision of reconciliation and social justice grounded in the biblical story and their own experience of activism. After re-examining the meaning of reconciliation in the biblical context, the authors examine Jesus role as a radical reconciler and prophet of social justice. They go on to examine the role of reconciliation in religious communities and in the wider society.
MOUNT OLIVE LUTHERAN CHURCH
3045 Chicago Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55407
612-827-5919
welcome@mountolivechurch.org
