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"The Christian family
through the centuries and across cultures provides rich resources
for your journey through life. There are heroes and saints whose
lives inspire. As well, many rich resources come via the
embarrassments and tragedies we Christians have experienced and
perpetrated through the years. You can learn a lot from others'
mistakes if you don't distance yourself from them too quickly.
Whether through heroes or catastrophes, you'll find much you need.
And you'll find that you are needed, too. Because the story isn't
over, and the family isn't complete." (p. 18-9)
"In my readings and
travels, I have been exposed to many committed Christians who
believe that Marxism and Communism were filling the gap that should
have been filled by Christians - Christians who understood the
revolutionary social and political implications of the teaching and
example of Jesus, whose gospel was good news to the poor, along with
a challenge toward generosity for the rich.
"Because Christians failed to preach
and practice this dimension of the gospel, secular movements arose
to fill the gap. ...
"Jesus confronts the corrupt,
compromised religious system and violent, unjust political and
economic powers of his day through nonviolent resistance. ... Humanity is oppressed by corrupt powers,
systems, and regimes. Jesus commissions and leads bands of activists
to confront unjust regimes and make room for the shalom of
God." (p. 62-3,65)
"The surface causes
of environmental carelessness among conservative Christians are
legion. including subcontracting the evangelical mind out to
right-wing politicians and greedy business interests. Too often we
put the gospel of Jesus through the strainer of
consumerist-capitalism and retain only the thin broth that this
modern-day Caesar lets pass through. We often display a reactionary
tendency to be against whatever 'liberals' are for." (p. 233)
"God sent Jesus into
the world with a saving love, and Jesus sends us with a similar
saving love - love for the fatherless and widows, the poor and
forgotten to be sure, but also for all God's little creatures who
suffer from the same selfish greed and arrogance that oppress
vulnerable humans. ... So, as the old system of church-as-chaplain/baptizer/servant-of-state-and-commerce
gives way to a new prophetic role ... For increasing numbers of us
who consider ourselves post-liberal and post-conservative, 'sacred'
words such as private (meaning personal and
individual), ownership (meaning autonomous personal
and individual control), and enterprise (meaning
autonomous, personal, individual control over projects to use God's
world for our purposes) seem to fly in the face of kingdom values
like communal (meaning seeing beyond the individual to
the community), fellowship (which means sharing,
holding in common with eh community, not grasping as 'mine!') and mission
(meaning our participation in God's projects in God's world
for God's purposes.
"I must admit that, apart from a
miracle, I see no human power capable of standing up to the
expanding empire of global consumerism, which author Tom Beaudoin
ominously calls 'theocapitalism.' But as a Christian, miracles
aren't out of the question for me. It is very possible that a
biblical stewardship that celebrates God's ultimate
ownership could someday fuel a new grace-based economy - just as
private ownership currently fuels our greed-based consumerist
economy." (p. 238-400
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