Just Julie

Publications

Struggling with (Non)violence

September 2020

Ignoring the complexity of what constitutes violence is where the (non)violent thought and praxis represented by white, liberal Christians in the United States falls short. In this book, twelve scholar-activist interviewees share perspectives and effective practices that destabilize traditional rationalizations of violence, including those from the institutions and practices of a dominant Christian theology.

The author calls on communities committed to (non)violence to invest in a model for social change which:

1) roots itself in contextual, historical analysis;

2) includes other-than-human lives as necessary partners;

3) values practices that dismantle violence over theological abstractions; 

4) emphasizes creative communities of active, counter-cultural resistance over individualism;

5) experiments with diverse, disruptive tactics; and

6) urges a self-critical solidarity that welcomes differences regarding various means of social change.

The Interviewees: Rita “Bo” Brown (B♀), Ward Churchill, John Dear, Vincent Harding, Dolores Huerta, Derrick Jensen, Kathy Kelly, Alice Lynd, Staughton Lynd, Katherine Power, Sarah Schulman, Akinyele Umoja

50: Thorns and Blossoms

October 2019

Julie Marie Todd, educator, activist, journalizer, and theologian, shares 50 of her writings. Most pieces are in a poetic prose style – a predominantly long-form, stream-of-consciousness writing from journal entries and writing groups – alongside a few lengthier prose essays and previously published works. The author explores her own inner emotional terrain and spirituality and how life in both solitude and community generates creativity, vulnerability, and change. She shares much of her journey from life as an institutional church leader to a wider embrace of spiritual leadership beyond hierarchy and traditional religion. From sweet odes to plant life to encounters with ancestors, from confessions of addiction and abortion to body love and self-hatred, from ongoing self-examination of the author’s own complicity in white, Christian supremacy to rants against racism and heteropatriarchy, many readers will find Julie’s writing compelling, provocative, and relatable.

Nothing About Us Without Us: LGBTQ Liberation and The United Methodist Church Paperback

November 8, 2017

This resource uses the critical, analytical writings of the United Methodist direct action group Love Prevails to critique the theorizing of missio Dei as a meaningful concept to address the United Methodist Church’s (UMC) ecclesiological crisis related to the categorical discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) persons. Rev. Dr. Todd uses a liberationist methodology that emphasizes the experience, action and reflection of LGBTQ persons themselves—those most impacted by the violence of the UMC’s anti-queer institutional policies and practices. The author argues against the prioritizing of the theological abstraction of missiology-as-unity over against the practice and pursuit of equality and justice for LGBTQ persons as a central “missional” demand. This paper supports, therefore, the removal of all anti-LGBTQ language in The United Methodist Book of Discipline as the primary missional activity necessary to enable a United Methodist witness to the love of God in Christ in any local, national, or global context.