One by one, these disciples would infect the nations with grace. It wasn’t a call to take the sword or the throne and force the world to bow. Rather, they were to live the contagious love of God, to woo the nations into a new future.
Look through the prayer books. You’ll see lots of dates. You’ll see names of Native Americans remembered. This was an open-sourcing project among so many people.
This is what Jesus had in mind: folks coming together, forming close-knit communities and meeting each other’s needs – no kings, no major welfare systems, no presidents necessary. His is a theology and practice for the people of God, not a set of suggestions for empire.
One thing that’s clear in the Scriptures is that the nations do not lead people to peace; rather, people lead the nations to peace.
It is the church’s responsibility, the government’s responsibility, and the personal responsibility of every one of us to love.
No one has seen God, but as we love one another, God lives in us.
The love that makes community is the willingness to do someone else’s dirty work.
Little movements of communities of ordinary radicals are committed to doing small things with great love.
As brother Cornel West says, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Believe in miracles. And live in a way that might necessitate one.
When the church takes affairs of the state more seriously than they do Jesus, Pax Romana becomes its gospel and the president becomes the Son of God.
We need good laws, but no law can change a human heart – only God can do that.
Too often we just do what makes sense to us and ask God to bless it.
I don’t know if you’ve read the Bible, and if you haven’t, I think you may be in a better place than those of us who have read it so much that it has become stale.
The time has come for a new kind of conversation, a new kind of Christianity, a new kind of revolution.
The end of war begins with people who believe that another world is possible and that another empire has already interrupted time and space and is taking over this earth with the dreams of God.
It is a dangerous day when we can take the cross out of the church more easily than the flag. No wonder it is hard for seekers to find God nowadays.
We say it is idealistic to think we can continue to live the way we live – with 5% of the world using half the world’s resources, with $20,000 a second being spent on war.
The church is like Noah’s ark. It stinks, but if you get out of it, you’ll drown.
Liturgy and worship were never meant to be confined to the cathedrals and sanctuaries. Liturgy at its best can be performed like a circus or theater – making the Gospel visible as a witness to the world around us.