JUSTICE AND INCLUSION: FROM ISAIAH’S PEN TO OUR EYES AND EARS---An insightful essay by Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox has a particularly insightful article out taking up some aspects of his reading of the Hebrew Bible and his reading of the Book of Isaiah. At one point in his essay Fox says

The Book of Isaiah has, of course, been heavily proof-texted and read selectively by Christians for centuries. No other set of Hebrew poetic and prophetic texts that made their way into the canonical Old Testament have had as massive an impact on how Christians, from ancient to modern times, articulated the faith which the recorded statements of Jesus and the accounts and letters of his early followers inspired. It’s not just that Jesus himself is shown in the Christian Gospels to be quoting from or referencing Isaiah more than any other older text besides the Psalms; it’s that Christianity’s entire cultural and theological approach to and interpretation of Jesus’ message and meaning comes through a heavily Isaian lens–the language of Handel’s Messiah being just the most obvious example. (And with the commemoration of the Messiah’s birth just a couple of days away, this seems like a good time to revisit the text.)

Separating myself as a reader from that inheritance was no easy feat, and I can’t say I was entirely successful. Thanks to Alter’s translation, however, a couple of key ideas were made profoundly clear to me. First, that from its beginning, the book of Isaiah–far more than those associated with any of the other Hebrew prophets–is a text that presents calls to social justice on the same level as its condemnations of the cultic failures and ritual sins of Israel. Isaiah 1:14-17 sets the theme for the entire text, with its explicit condemnation of those who hypocritically attend outwardly to religious duties but ignore the needs of those who are part of that same religious community.

I want to recommend this short essay particularly to my Christian friends who spend much time in the Hebrew Bible and challenge them to read this carefully.

Catch up with the essay here.

Important connections & resources from religioussocialism.org

Poor People's Campaign Tour and March on Washington

The Poor People's and Low-Wage Workers' Assembly has embarked on its Mobilization Tour, making at least ten stops nationwide to do MORE: Mobilize, Organize, Register, and Educate people for a movement that votes. All leading to the historic Assembly and March on Washington on June 18, 2022. Check here for virtual tour dates! Also, if you're planning to be in DC for the march, let us know at religioussocialism@dsacommittees.org so that we can meet up!

Webinars to Watch

Religion & the Left Series #2: The Individual, the Collective & the Common Good ICYMI: The livestream recording of the April 26th Religion & the Left series panel features the perspectives of several religious traditions followed by Q&A. Also, view the recording of the first discussion in the series asking, "What can religious traditions bring to the Left?" Dharma and Justice Dialogues Watch Union Theological Seminary's final Dharma and Justice Dialogues of the Spring semester recorded on April 11, featuring Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad and Dr. Toni Pressley-Sanon as they discuss Dr. Vesely-Flad's newly released publication, Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation. Ending Ageism Watch the April 5th "Ending Ageism" webinar, featuring Margaret Morganroth Gullette, author of Ending Ageism, or How Not to Shoot Old People; Susan Chacin, long-term feminist activist; and Paul Garver, retired labor leader and a co-convener of the RS Buddhist Group. King and Breaking the Silence View the recording of the “King and Breaking the Silence” virtual gathering on April 4. We came together to listen to Rev. Dr. King’s 1967 speech and reflections on it from current activists because we believe it offers a vision and a bridge upon which to continue to build the intergenerational and intersectional movements we desperately need in order to achieve the revolution of values Dr. King called for.

Further Discussion

At religioussocialism.org, we regularly publish original articles and lift up pieces connected to our work. Check us out on Twitter or Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Also follow our podcast, Heart of a Heartless World, available on SoundCloud and iTunes. Unitarian Universalists! If you'd like to get involved with the new UU faith-based subgroup, Unitarian Universalists of the DSA, contact uureligioussocialists@gmail.com. We're just getting started, expect more in the fUtUre! Watch Professor Richard D. Wolff interview Professor Joerg Rieger on Christian Socialism on the March 28th episode of Democracy at Work (starts at approximately 15:00 in). Also, watch Rieger speak about deep solidarity at last year's DSA Religion & Socialism Working Group conference on "Building the Religious Left." Dr. Maha Hilal, author of Innocent Until Proven Muslim, shared this dua'a on Eid al-Fitr from Muslim Counterpublics Lab, a radical discursive space focused on combatting systems of oppression rooted in Islamophobia through advocacy, writing, and more. In Democratic Left, co-convener of the RS Buddhist Group Ty Kiatathikom writes "Please Don’t Forget About Afghanistan." If you’re not yet a member, join DSA!

AN EASTER PRAYER: TO RECOVER THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX TRADITION OF PEACE (Michael Centore in religioussocialism.org)

Taken from ReligiousSocialism.org. Please support them. I believe that Michael Centore's article is especially important right now. 

For those of us with a deep love of Russian Orthodox spirituality, the events of the past two months, heartbreaking enough on their own, have brought additional grief. We mourn the warping of the Russian Orthodox faith for nefarious nationalistic ends. We see Patriarch Kirill’s longstanding capitulation to the violent messianism of Vladimir Putin as a tragic case of succumbing to a false god.

We are not alone in this. In March, nearly 300 Russian Orthodox clerics issued a statement decrying the war and comparing Russia’s actions against Ukraine to Cain’s fratricide of Abel in the book of Genesis. Archbishop Leo of Helsinki, the spiritual leader of the Finnish Orthodox Church, challenged Kirill to “wake up and condemn this evil.” Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams made the case for expelling the Russian Orthodox Church from the World Council of Churches. Pope Francis has been unequivocal in his criticism, breaking protocol to appeal directly to the Russian Embassy in February and exclaiming during a general audience on April 6, “Let the weapons fall silent! Stop sowing death and destruction!”

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which has a hierarchical leadership structure centered on the person of the pope, Eastern Orthodoxy exists as an association of 16 (or 14; there are still internal debates over the status of two) autocephalous, or self-governing churches. Many of these are organized as national churches—think of the Russian Orthodox or Bulgarian Orthodox Churches, for example. Though modern ideas of the nation-state and its relationship to ethnicity did not exist when many of these churches were founded, some members have anachronistically applied them to advance nationalistic agendas.

This is precisely what Kirill and Putin are doing when they invoke “Holy Russia” or the “Russian world” as justification for the invasion. In a dangerous alliance of church and state that links up with a longstanding vision of Russia as the “Third Rome,” imperial heir to the Byzantine Empire and defender of “Christian civilization” against a decadent, secular West, they are proposing what the authors of a dissenting open letter at the website Public Orthodoxy describe as “a transnational Russian sphere or civilization . . . which includes Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (and sometimes Moldova and Kazakhstan), as well as ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people throughout the world.”

Read the rest here.

Democratic Socialists Religion & Socialism Presentation

Please join the DSA Religion & Socialism Working Group on Tuesday, April 26th for the new Religion & the Left Series: "The Individual, the Collective & the Common Good"

This will be an interfaith event featuring Rabbi Robin Podolsky, Dr. James Mark Shields, and Rashad X who will be discussing:

How do we balance nonconformity and individual morality against the perils of capitalist individualism?
What is the relationship between the individual and the collective?
How can religion help build solidarity in pursuit of a greater common good?

There will be plenty of time for Q&A and open discussion in the second half of the event.