Dispatches: Roundtable Discussions at the Murray Peace House

Michael HowardJanuary 13, 2020

David Wallace-Wells and the Several Myths of Climate Change

The most important thing to know about climate change is the first sentence in David Wallace-Wells’s second paragraph: “None of this is true."

A Just Society is Our Divine Calling!

To build that just society we were promised generations age we must begin by believing that in the soul of America, at the core of our humanity, it is in our divine calling to build a just society for that works for the well-being of all of us.

Kentucky Needs the Green New Deal's Just Transition

Kentucky is filled with smart, bold, and creative people. We have the resources to change things. What we lack is the political will. It’s time to change that!!!

It is Time to Sound the Alarm!

God's good Creation was under attack, and the fate of human civilization as we know it was in jeopardy. As we move into the sixth major mass extinction of species in the planets history because of the destruction of human inaction, I pray it is said of me that when I came to understand the threat we face, I was not afraid to sound the alarm.

The People Want Jobs & Community Investments

It is time that we own up to the truth that the economic structure of our communities is a spiritual issue. Our faith communities can no longer rest on the sidelines watching as people organize to take back their communities. We must join in the fight, providing spiritual and other resources. We are long past the moment when we can ask people to join our faith communities and offer their time, talent, and treasures while we watch large corporations and a decaying democracy take those same things away from them without investing into their quality of life. If our faith has anything to offer, if Christianity is going to matter to the up-and-coming generation, it will be because we found ourselves on the sidelines with them fighting for the future of their community.

OrganizingMichael HowardFebruary 14, 2019Community Organizing, NYC, Amazon

Prayer for Elected Leaders and Public Servants (2019)

“To to put it in these terms, you have called on me tonight to lead you in calling on God to bless tonight’s meeting, a ceremonious way of marking our collective calling as a community.”

Michael HowardJanuary 4, 2019Prayer of Confession, Prayer, Public Theology

Organizing Against Individualism

Prophetic, faith-based, deep organizing gives people in crisis a new way of seeing themselves and a more profound understanding how the world works. This helps construct a kind of solidarity that can last long beyond the current moment and create the kind of people-power that brings real systemic change.

OrganizingMichael HowardJanuary 2, 2019Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr., Individualism, people power

The Importance of Community Organizing

Diplomatic leaders know that their decisions affect people. That is why the skills that mobilize and organize communities are the most essential to effect change.

Pastoral MinistryMichael HowardNovember 12, 2018Leadership, Diplomacy, Authority, Community Organizing

Reflections on Philip Guston's The Tormentors (1948)

“The Tormentors invites us to see that things are not as they seem, that the world is not as clear as we imagine, that our greatness is not in our ability to control, that the lines we have drawn are not the building blocks of reality, and that there is life to receive from the world when we let the the deep love at the heart of the universe teach us how to see what it is trying to teach us.”

ArtMichael HowardSeptember 26, 2018Social Realism, Expressionism, Parker Palmer, Philip Guston, The Tormentors

A Letter to Fellow Affirming Clergy Serving Non-Affirming UMC Congregations

I am convinced that when religious communities exclude others, leaving them to believe that God has abandoned them, they have excluded God. These communities have abandoned their Creator to worship their religious institutions.

A letter to my friends at the UCICC

“When our policy makers publicly use the Bible to support any kind of violence, especially violence against children, I believe we have a responsibility to lead our faith communities to speak back: “You can’t use our sacred texts that way!” When we do so, we stand in the good company of folks like Moses, Daniel, John the Baptist, Jesus, the Apostle Paul, Gandhi, and Dr. King.”

Martin Luther KingMichael HowardAugust 1, 2018UCICC, Social Justice, Biblical Interpretation, Letters

Hate is an organizing force!

Hate is not just a feeling, it is an organizing force that works to destroy the world. That is what we all should be working to eliminate within ourselves and our world.