Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile

by Brian Zahnd

The sword is never really countercultural, but the cross always is.

And once we untether Jesus from the interests of empire, we begin to see just how countercultural and radical Jesus’ ideas actually are. Enemies? Love them. Violence? Renounce it. Money? Share it. Foreigners? Welcome them. Sinners? Forgive them. These are the kind of radical ideas that will always be opposed by the principalities and powers, but which the followers of Jesus are called to embrace, announce, and enact.

The violence of the cross is not what God does, the violence of the cross is what God endures.

God does not employ and inflict violence; God absorbs and forgives violence.

A church in bed with empire cannot credibly call the empire to repent.

Every story is told from a vantage point; it has a bias. The bias of the Bible is from the vantage point of the underclass.

If I can accept that the Bible is trying to lift up those who are unlike me, then perhaps I can read the Bible right.

We should always remember that the ends never justify the means; rather, the means are the ends in the process of becoming.

You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can’t bomb the world to peace.

The limitation of tyrant kings is that they can only control those who are afraid.

If it threatens the wellbeing of children, followers of Jesus oppose it. Nothing less is truly pro-life. This is why a consistent pro-life Christian ethic opposes the death-friendly practices of abortion, capital punishment, torture, war, predatory capitalism, environmental exploitation, unchecked proliferation of guns, neglecting the poor, refusing the refugee, and keeping healthcare unaffordable for millions.

As Augustine suggested, evil is only a hole in the fabric of goodness.

Truth is a long hard road and you have to walk it