"In a world of selves born and overwritten with a plethora of governing political discourses (and with accompanying dominant practices), one result of giving SNCC's practices too little expressive deliberation and development was that the practices were increasingly misunderstood and assimilated to more established modes of ruling....many of those who continued to vaguely resist the assimilation of SNCC to ideologies of exclusion, force, and hierarchy were left without—or with too little—language."
—From "To Make this Tradition Articulate" in Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary
While it is crucial that the church preaches the gospel "without words," as St. Francis might say, it is also necessary that we engage in the deliberative work of framing our actions theologically, using the language of scripture and tradition to locate our practices within the structures of the kingdom. Otherwise, they will be too easily misunderstood and co-opted.
