The Center for Prophetic Imagination

The Center for Prophetic Imagination our work weaves together experimental education, contemplative practice, and creative social action In solidarity, we find community.

A Manifesto

The Center for Prophetic Imagination works to subvert the existing social order through deep discernment culminating with creative action. In the tradition of the prophets, we long for a world where all walls of alienation are torn down and we all live justly with one another, with the land, and with the Spirit of Life. Towards this end, our work weaves together experimental educatio

n, contemplative practice, and creative social action, driven by these deep convictions:

1 Jesus reveals a path to life amidst a death-dealing social order.

2 The Spirit of Life that worked in Jesus’ ministry works in and among us to subvert our own systems of death.

3 Through the practice and posture of discernment, we notice the ways the Spirit opens new possibilities for subversive action.

4 The deep discernment to which we are called can only be found by sharing in the lived experiences of those experiencing marginalization and oppression—including but not limited to those who are people of color, queer, trans, femme, gender nonconforming, Muslim, formerly and currently incarcerated, cash poor and working class, disabled, undocumented, and immigrant.

5 Our struggle against oppression is both outward and inward. We confront not only the institutions and systems and structures that hem and constrain our material lives, but also the myths, beliefs, and ideas that shape and bind our imaginations.

6 In discerning the work of the Spirit and following the example set by Jesus, we join in the prophetic vocation: to expose and confront forces of alienation and call people to abundant life.

7 There is joy in the struggle. In discernment, we experience the Spirit of Life. As our praxis deepens, our prophetic imagination grows to show us a new world is possible.

8 Liberation cannot come through self-negation. Discernment touches upon our deepest longing. And we become most like Jesus when we bring our full selves and our deepening creative capacity into the work of co-creating the new world.

"If girls' bodies have to be policed to protect girlhood, then something has already gone wrong. If a society needs a fi...
07/02/2026

"If girls' bodies have to be policed to protect girlhood, then something has already gone wrong. If a society needs a fifteen-year-old's disappearance in order to keep its categories intact, the problem is not the child, but the categories." (go to makiashe.substack.com for the entire essay)

12/18/2025

Precarity kills more liberatory imagination than censorship ever has.

This is oft-cited information but bears repeating: There are enough empty homes in the United States for every unhoused ...
12/17/2025

This is oft-cited information but bears repeating: There are enough empty homes in the United States for every unhoused person to have 20 homes each. Our political and economic system values property over people and spends a lot of energy lying to us about it.

"Once it is concluded that Christianity is infected with 'Whitianity,' once it is granted that a racist doctrine of the ...
12/14/2025

"Once it is concluded that Christianity is infected with 'Whitianity,' once it is granted that a racist doctrine of the tradition has been perpetuated, the tradition must be scrutinized in the most radical and comprehensive manner."

12/13/2025

The Center for Prophetic Imagination has formally closed as an organization.

Starting in the new year, this page will shift accordingly. It will no longer speak as a nonprofit or use that language. Instead, it will function as a place where I share my own writing, analysis, and ongoing work under my own name.

I also want to name something related and real: in 2026, I will be relocating outside of the United States. This decision is shaped by the current political climate and the increasing precarity it creates, particularly for trans people and those working openly at the intersection of power, religion, and resistance. It’s a move made for safety, sustainability, and the ability to keep doing this work at all.

I will also occasionally use this space to amplify work by colleagues whose thinking I respect, including work by people connected to organizations I care about and by writers like Kalie May, whose work many of you encountered through CPI. I'm open to the possibility of this space becoming of collaboration of like-minded content creators. But that is something to discern after I've resettled.

I'm the meantime, there are no programs, campaigns, or institutional plans ahead. Just work in public, shared with care, across borders if necessary.

If that’s not what you’re here for, it’s completely okay to step away. If it is, you’re welcome to stay.

Peace and Resistance,

Maki Ashe Pendergast
Former Director of the Center for Prophetic Imagination

12/13/2025

Faith in Transition: Interviews on Spirituality and Queerness # 7

An interview with Peter Hu. Peter is a 45 year old entrepreneur, native to Singapore. Peter has been a Christian since his teens. His faith is evolved, and evolving.

"To limit humanity to gender binaries would limit the expression of God in the world. It would mean creating a god that ...
12/13/2025

"To limit humanity to gender binaries would limit the expression of God in the world. It would mean creating a god that reflects our limited perceptions."

12/12/2025

People aren’t just dense.

Institutions train people to perform density. It is a defensive maneuver, a way to dodge the weight of another person’s reality by retreating into policy, procedure, or polite vagueness. Bureaucratic language becomes a shield that lets someone say “nothing is wrong here” while quietly stepping around whatever is actually happening.

For someone living in precarity, this isn’t neutral. It is death by a thousand administrative and interpersonal cuts. None of them outrageous enough to call out in isolation. None of them obvious enough to rally support around. Just a steady drip of small dismissals, non-answers, delays, and procedural brush-offs that accumulate into real harm.

From the outside, it looks like incompetence. Or oversensitivity. Or someone “freaking out over nothing.” That is how this kind of violence works. It hides in civility. It masquerades as normal. It leaves no single moment you can point to and say, “Look, this is where the harm happened.” But the pattern is unmistakable when you are the one absorbing it.

Anyone who belongs to an oppressed group knows this texture in their own context. You learn how aggression gets naturalized, how avoidance becomes policy, how harm is laundered through politeness. And if you are not living inside that pressure, it is easy to dismiss it all as a personal failing instead of the structural weather someone is walking through every day. Hell, even when you are living inside the pressure, you are conditioned to treat it as your own personal failing instead of a structural problem.

This is how oppression maintains itself without ever raising its voice. Not through spectacular moments of cruelty, but through the ordinary performance of not understanding what is perfectly legible.

Address

2420 11th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN
55404

Website

, , ,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Center for Prophetic Imagination posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category