“Seek the peace and prosperity of the city,” he wrote. “Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jer. 29:7).
“It hit me during that moment that rather than lots of individual hands on me, it really felt like a blanket of support, and that was really, really meaningful,” Rupp said in an Oct. 15 interview.
The destination he reached — a revolution of simplicity and repentance for collusion with worldly powers — is outlined in his new book, Radical Spirituality: Repentance, Resistance, Revolution (Orbis).
Storbakken is cofounder with his wife, Vonetta, of the Radical Living Christian community in Brooklyn, N.Y., and chapel director of The Bowery Mission, which serves homeless people. He is ordained through Mennonite Church USA’s Atlantic Coast Conference, where the Radical Living intentional community is a member.
To one of the worshipers, the disconnect between words and actions symbolized a problem.
“We say things that we don’t do,” said Cherith Fee-Nordling, a professor of theology at Northern Seminary . . .
The voting options, to stay or to withdraw, are being submitted by the conference’s Executive Committee. Leaving MC USA would be a constitutional change and require a two-thirds majority.
No conference has withdrawn from MC USA in the denomination’s 12-year history.
