Life at the End of Us Versus Them Quotes

“Jesus' answer to violent reasonableness is an unreasonable love. It is not reasonable to counter imperial violence with a Cross-shaped love. It is not reasonable to say, with Dr. Cornel West, that every child's life is worth the same--that a brown child's life is as precious as a white child's to a Palestinian child's life is as precious as an Israeli child's. It isn't reasonable to ground a society on such a vision, because there has never been a human order grounded on such a vision. It isn't reasonable, but it's right.”
― Marcus Peter Rempel, Life at the End of Us Versus Them: Cross Culture Stories

“In the gospel of Matthew, the ninety-nine sheep are left behind by the shepherd to seek the one that is missing. This narrative undermines the majority perspective. None are truly free until all are free. The majority is unwhole until the minority finds its place in the circle. We see this concern for "all" again in 2 Peter 3:9:"The Lord...is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance." Theologian James Alison highlights this passage in 2 Peter as indicative of the apostles' dawning realization that the kingdom Jesus reveals is finally non-sacrificial. The New Testament undoes majority reasoning with a glimplse of universal love--a love that cannot be contained, begetting a beloved community opening ever outward. In the mind of God, which holds all things, there is only this all. The membership of the community opens out into infinity: What of the stranger, the enemy, the orphan? What of the trees, the rivers, the plankton? Who is now my neighbour?”
― Marcus Peter Rempel, Life at the End of Us Versus Them: Cross Culture Stories

“It is not a safe time. But it is a time when the womb of "the religion of the end of religion" can push us out into true faith
. I wrote the following song after my friend Blake told me about how Central American Christians taught him not to pray for safety, but for strength in the trials that Jesus said would come. It is a prayer for my daughters to love, rather than fight, until the end:
Beautiful soldier what can I pray for you my child when the world is running wild?
I cannot pray for safety when our master promised fire
I cannot pray for riches he prayed we not desire
I can't pray for my own renown when he was spat on by his own
and I can't pray for success when he named the poor the blessed....
oh I pray that you become a beautiful soldier in the revolution of love.”
― Marcus Peter Rempel, Life at the End of Us Versus Them: Cross Culture Stories

“We see again a mutation of the Christian Gospel, both of its notions of salvation and sin. In an orthodox understanding, sinners are not the enemies of Christianity. They are its members. Sinners are unwell and in need of healing (a state for which conversion is never a final solution, but a continuous process of self-recognition and repentance--one never leaves the category of "sinners" when one joins the community of the "those who are being saved").”
― Marcus Peter Rempel, Life at the End of Us Versus Them: Cross Culture Stories