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Redefining Essentialness Apart from Capitalism

Intersections of Economy Ecology and Religion

 

A Training Built from the Liberating People and Planet Series

Welcome you to “Redefining Essentialness Apart from Capitalism: Intersections of Economy, Ecology, and Religion” a training from the Liberating People and Planet Series. In this traiing, we’ll put the areas of economics, ecology, and religion in conversation in order to identify sources of deep solidarity among humans and nature. Throughout we’ll turn to a few experts in the field who appeared in our Liberating People and the Planet webinar series that aired during the summer of 2020. To find that entire webinar series, be sure to take a look at this video’s materials for further reading. The central question of this asynchronous training is: “How can the two forces of people and the planet work together to seek alternatives from big money?”

The video to the left is the introduction to the training. Below, you'll find the remaining three sessions in the training.

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Redefining Essentialness

Below are the individual session videos for this specific Training

 

SESSION 1: What do we need to be liberated from?

The first module addresses the question central to the Liberating People and the Planet webinar series: What exactly is it that we—the people and the planet—need to be liberated from? What is big money and how does it impact workers and the environment?

Further Resources:

  • Be sure to check out the Liberating People and the Planet Webinar series. See the button below.

Discussion Questions:

Want to use this video in your church or class as a discussion tool? Unsure about how to begin? Not to worry! Try these discussion questions out as ways to get the conversation going:

  1. What does the Bible say about our relationship with nature? How is that connected to what the Bible tells us about how to be in relationship with other humans?

  2. What is your church’s relationship to nature? How about to people in the broader community?

  3. In what ways does your church perpetuate dualistic logics and hierarchies?

  4. Dr. Joerg Rieger talks about not just economic or political liberation from capitalism and colonialism, but spiritual liberation. What does that mean? How are we spiritually captive to capitalism and colonialism? How do they effect/implicate our spirit?

Watch the LPP Webinar Series Here!

SESSION 2: Can Christianity be a source of liberation?

While Christianity has often been part of the problem, how can we reclaim Christian values to motivate and reinvigorate solutions? Module 2 will focus specifically on this religious component.

Further Resources:

  • Read our Interventions forum on Liberating People and the Planet: Read more here!

  • Check out a related Interventions piece by Dr. Joerg Rieger’s: “Fooling Americans is Becoming More Difficult: COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and What Is and Isn’t Essential.” Available here.

Discussion Questions:

Want to use this video in your church or class as a discussion tool? Unsure about how to begin? Not to worry! Try these discussion questions out as ways to get the conversation going:

  1. What are the images of God that you were taught? How might they have been problematic? How do you think about God now?

  2. Dr. Rieger says that God is actually anti-emperor. What are examples that you see of that, both in the Bible, and in your own lifetime.

  3. Dr. Jeremy Posadas says in the video that “Solidarity requires taking sides,” but that a lot of churches often shy away from taking sides, because they are focused on unity. How does Jesus take sides and also bring people together?

  4. How does your church “take sides” (or not)?

 

SESSION 3: How can we challenge big money’s exploitation of people and the planet?

 

This training aims to equip participants with tangible alternatives, and this is the focus of the third session. How can we challenge exploitative forces, seek liberation, and reevaluate the way we claim and give value?

Further Resources:

Discussion Questions:

Want to use this video in your church or class as a discussion tool? Unsure about how to begin? Not to worry! Try these discussion questions out as ways to get the conversation going:

  1. What is the reproductive labor that keeps your church going? Who does that labor?

  2. Who are the people that you depend upon to go about your daily life?

  3. What would it look like to transform our society to see and treat “essential workers” as essential outside of the capitalist definition? What would need to change?

  4. What is the role of the church in building that world? How can you get engaged in that work (not just on an interpersonal level, but on a societal and structural level)?

 

Want More Exchanges?

Check out our other trainings in religion and labor; community organizing and the church; Bible and Economics, and more!

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