Rick Ufford-Chase > Quotes

“Too often, and in too many ways, we remain timid when we should be bold, fearful when we are called to be unafraid, and beholden to the principalities and powers when both the prophets of scripture and the prophets of today exhort us to rethink our allegiances. We have become the church of the Empire, the very thing Jesus urged both Jews and Gentiles of his own time to rise up against. We go through great theological contortions to prod the gospel into a justification for our comfort and complacency, and fail to recognize the vast spiritual pit that we dig for ourselves in the process.”
― Rick Ufford-Chase, Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions for the Church in a Time of Empire

“our commitment to social witness has too often happened in spite of the lack of support from local congregations rather than because of their encouragement. Most of our congregations appear to have forgotten that we are the church of Jesus, or we have so badly convoluted the meaning of Jesus’ story as to make it meaningless. This”
― Rick Ufford-Chase, Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions for the Church in a Time of Empire

“What if we re-defined Christian Mission to be the task of accompaniment – standing with partners in our communities and around the world who have committed themselves to resist the inhumanity of Empire and practices of domination that impede Jesus’ vision of what real community can look like?”
― Rick Ufford-Chase, Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions for the Church in a Time of Empire