Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile

by Brian Zahnd

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late. Let’s remember again the radical profession that we Christians make. We confess that Jesus is the world’s true king. We confess that Jesus is Lord...right now. The rightful ruler of the world is not some ancient Caesar, not some contemporary Commander in Chief, but Jesus Christ! Jesus is not going to be king someday, Jesus is King of Kings right now! Christ was crowned on the cross and God vindicated him as the world’s true king by raising him from the dead. This is what Christians confess, believe, and seek to live. We have no king but Jesus. And our king has nothing to do with violent power. Our king has no use for nuclear weapons. Why? Because you can’t love your neighbor with hydrogen bombs. Our king said his kingdom does not come from the world of war, which is why his servants do not fight. Jesus told Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my servants would be fighting.”[9] The kingdom from heaven that Jesus brings into the world does not come riding an M1 Abrams tank. In the kingdom of the Prince of Peace, we study war no more, we turn swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, we turn tanks into tractors and missile silos into grain silos. Our task is not to turn the world into a battlefield, our task is to turn the world into a garden. Our goal is not Armageddon, our goal is New Jerusalem. We’re marching to Zion, the beautiful city of God. Of cours...