This is the Iconocast Episode 1: An Interview with Nekeisha Alexis-Baker (aka, Who Would Jesus Subvert).
In this episode, co-hosts Joanna Shenk and Mark Van Steenwyk interview Nekeisha Alexis-Baker (founder of JesusRadicals.com, activist, organizer, and thinker).
From JesusRadicals.com:

When Christians engage with the political arrangements of the world, be it communism, socialism, capitalist republics, they have often claimed that [...]

“They grow no food, raise no livestock, and live without rules or calendars… What do they know that we’ve forgotten?”
This is an excerpt from the beginning of a National Geographic article on the Hadza, a small hunter-gatherer tribe in northern Tanzania.  Reading this challenged the usual assumptions I’ve had celebrating civilization.  As I read about [...]

It was actually my own inability and silence that allowed my mind to understand what my heart already knew.

Progress is a god, it is the god to which human life is expendable. Progress is a god of death. Progress in our world means, more, better, faster, stronger, richer, progress is synonymous with the future, where we are heading, whether we are ready or not, the world continues to move forward [...]

I read a curious blog this morning, about the United States of America. The article asks, “Is America at a Dangerous Tipping Point for Receiving God’s Judgment?” Much of what the article says I actually am sympathetic toward, especially the bit about materialism and the corruption of the powerful, but why would [...]

When I think about being grounded, I think about assessing the situation in which I happen to find myself. I think about people who are grounded, I think about those who seem to know what is going on in their context and they understand the way in which they are needed; to interact, to [...]

It is easy to speak about sin in the abstract, but God doesn’t always get God’s way either and speaking about sin in the particular is much more difficult, thus what we think about sin depends upon the situation in which we find ourselves.

whatever the United States military fights for, it certainly isn’t freedom in the truest form of the word.

God has a dream for the world

Imagine for a moment that a creature from another universe invades planet earth. This being is male, but he is profoundly different from us earthlings. He is neither Jew nor Gentile. He is altogether other.
He is a unique creation from a unique world. He is, if you please, a new species.
As this creature enters into [...]

ReJesus is the latest offering from the dynamic duo of Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch.
Let me say up front: I love these guys and their passion. I hope I’m not expecting perfection from them. They are contributing to a learning conversation. Their stated intention in this work is to declutter Jesus: to free him from [...]

I’ll admit, I wasn’t terribly keen to read this book. The title (Not The Religious Type) and the sub-title (Confessions Of A Turncoat Atheist) had me moaning inside: “please, not another tale of struggling with God for five minutes before surrendering to cliches”. It’s all well and good if people find tranformation like that, but [...]

I saw Bill Maher’s Religulous on Saturday night. Maher, along with Borat director Larry Charles, has produced a “scripted comedy” (Maher is careful not to call this a documentary) in which he pokes holes in supernatural belief and its’ wildly different manifestations around the world. To say he targets the lowest common denominators in the [...]

I would love to meet the new hires at Zondervan.  First they publish Shane Claiborne’s subversive first book, The Irresistible Revolution, in 2006.  Then in 2007 they release the fantastic The Books of the Bible, with refreshingly provocative book intros and formatting (these things matter to some of us).  And earlier this year they released Claiborne’s [...]

After expressing his apologies to the 50 million individuals in our world infected with HIV/AIDS, Tom Davis goes beyond scolding the Church for its lack of initiative (“Those of us who claim to follow Christ’s teaching should be ashamed…Entire nations are going up in flames while we watch them burn,” p. 13) and challenges those [...]

If the title or contents of Pagan Christianity? provoked or offended you, than it’s purpose was half accomplished. While far from inflammatory, it’s writing style can come off as melodramatic and over-the-top. This is deliberate. Frank Viola and George Barna have concerns over many modern and traditional church practices, and they want you to take [...]

After reading page 187 of Brian McLaren’s new book, the Jesus Manifesto community is even more blessed to have Brian sit down and accept my request for an interview. It is on that page that he reveals one area of his life where spiritual practices have helped him manage his anxiety and discomfort–answering emails day [...]

The creative mind that birthed a “new kind of Christian” is looking rather ancient these days. In Finding Our Way Again, Brian McLaren kicks off the eight volume Ancient Practices Series being released by Thomas Nelson through the year 2010 (other authors in the series will include Scot McKnight and Diana Butler Bass). McLaren’s book [...]