This Holy Week, Jesus will change the whole world. His revolution is bigger than Wall Street and the United States and can withstand them falling apart.
A great discussion of the real “bottom line” in all this, rather than Wall St’s and DC’s versions. That said, and this may mainly be my own preoccupation, the Christian world has seemingly never really figured out how to use and/or respond to state power without being utterly corrupted by it. An alternative has never been implemented that I’m aware of, but I’m a relative newbie.
It seems like the historical Mennonite approach, to self-marginalize to minimize interactions with the state, wasn’t done primarily from a position of transcendent love (though that’s certainly present in its peace theology), but political and economic weakness relative to the big denominations’ power brokers.
The times may be calling upon us to come up with something more robust, while also remaining faithful to our commitment to real discipleship. What that actually looks like, though, is very unclear. Hoping you might have some thoughts on it.
I'm afraid I don't have specific evidence- I perhaps wrongly assumed it was a common understanding. It's just something I absorbed from a course I took on early Anabaptist history, with discussions around stances that early leadership took in response to very strong state repression, supported by both Lutherans and Catholics depending on the location. What I was hoping you might address a bit more would be around what a non-repressive political power might look like if exercised by Christians trying to avoid the mistakes of the past.
A great discussion of the real “bottom line” in all this, rather than Wall St’s and DC’s versions. That said, and this may mainly be my own preoccupation, the Christian world has seemingly never really figured out how to use and/or respond to state power without being utterly corrupted by it. An alternative has never been implemented that I’m aware of, but I’m a relative newbie.
It seems like the historical Mennonite approach, to self-marginalize to minimize interactions with the state, wasn’t done primarily from a position of transcendent love (though that’s certainly present in its peace theology), but political and economic weakness relative to the big denominations’ power brokers.
The times may be calling upon us to come up with something more robust, while also remaining faithful to our commitment to real discipleship. What that actually looks like, though, is very unclear. Hoping you might have some thoughts on it.
I don't know that the reason we didn't engage with the state was because we were too weak. That claim needs evidence.
I'm afraid I don't have specific evidence- I perhaps wrongly assumed it was a common understanding. It's just something I absorbed from a course I took on early Anabaptist history, with discussions around stances that early leadership took in response to very strong state repression, supported by both Lutherans and Catholics depending on the location. What I was hoping you might address a bit more would be around what a non-repressive political power might look like if exercised by Christians trying to avoid the mistakes of the past.