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From Country Roads to Mean Streets Ched Myers Lecture The story of Christ appearing incognito to two disciples on the road to Emmaus is a familiar, almost sentimental one to anyone brought up in the church. Showing a famous 19th century painting of three men on a country road, with a backlit sky at sunset, then a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lying dead on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968, social justice theologian Ched Myers claimed that “the context for this story is far more like what might’ve been experienced by Dr. King’s lieutenants 24 hours after he was assassinated than like a nice stroll through the park.” Taking the Bible “out of Disneyland, some world unlike our own,” and showing a world “like our own, where there are tyrants, political revolution, terrorism,” Myers spoke of the acute relevance and significance of the Bible’s message in modern times. Ched Myers is co-founder and program director of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries in Los Angeles. A long-time social change activist, he is a board member and past contributing editor of Sojourners magazine and a leader of the American Friends Service Committee. |