If you would like to read more about Christian nationalism we highly recommend Postcards by Babylon from Brian Zahnd. Team this up with Compassion (&) Conviction by Justin Giboney and you have a solid foundation to build a Christian framework for political participation. Scandalous Witness is a great book to have as a reference for political engagement, especially in regards to nationalism, but also for information on why the church must be separate and distinct from a nation-state. “When we reduce the political possibilities for the Christian church to being either a liberal liberal or a conservative liberal, we’ve bought hook, line, and sinker into the rhetoric that gives us a bastardized form of Christian hope,” Lee writes. His honest, direct, and sometimes provocative language, repeatedly condemns the American church’s obsession with power and nationalism while calling on the church to be “neither right nor left nor religious.” “To live by faith, to live proleptically, entails risking that resurrection and life have broken into human history, captivity taken captive by this man upon the cross, and that we are thus free to live accordingly, by love and mercy and graciousness ourselves,” Camp says. We are called to be political, but never partisan. We are called to help and advocate for the poor and the vulnerable. Practically, this means living in the world with hope and purpose because as Christians we know the meaning, direction, and end of history. Throughout the book Camp calls Christians to live proleptically (“a grammatical term in which a future event is so sure to come, so sure to be the case, that it is spoken of in the present tense”) in hopes of changing the nature of Christian witness in America. Scandalous Witness consists of a collection of fifteen treatises, ranging from 6-13 pages, starting with a summary where Lee states what he is going to argue and finishing with a exposition where he explains his reasoning to back up his summary. “It is dependent on a God who has revealed the ways of suffering love, vindicated in the resurrection, and now calling together a people not bounded by geographical boundaries, a people who will sow the seeds of such hope and possibility into the rich soil of human possibilities.” ![]() “The hope of the world is not dependent on any geographically bounded nation-state, not dependent on any king or prime minister, any congress or supreme court,” author Lee Camp writes. ![]() Therefore it is sobering that a large part of Scandalous Witness takes aim at patriotism being conflated as a Christian orthodox principle. ![]() Trust in Jesus. Most Christians would unequivocally agree that those two statements are an important part of being a Christ follower.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |