One of Jesus' most in-your-face stories, and a personal favorite of mine, is the Parable of the Dishonest Manager in Luke 16. I would loosely paraphrase its central insight as follows: "If you have the sense God gave a dog, you will realize that you can't hold onto money very long anyway, but you can keep the friends you make by giving it to those in need. You do the math." The passage doesn't say anything about burning sulfur, just about priorities and how to take the long view.

An attractive feature of this parable is that it sets a really low bar for divine commendation. The manager doesn't have sense enough to stay out of trouble to begin with. What's more, even after he has his "friends are friends forever" epiphany, he starts backsliding almost at once: He quickly gives his master's first debtor a 50% markdown, but for debtor number two the manager gets pointlessly stingy and only takes off 20%. He still gets praise for knowing what side his bread is buttered on.

And, because the kingdom of God is so often about taking things way over the top, the final verses go on to radically redefine what honesty and faithfulness are. Good stewardship is supposed to be about accurate accounting and careful saving, right? Not here. Money is inherently "dishonest," and impromptu unauthorized debt forgiveness is "faithfulness." (In fact, the master fires the manager before even seeing his accounting - the grounds for dismissal appear to have been less fiscal irresponsibility and more that he made enemies willing to accuse him).

The Protestant Work Ethic is not invited to this party, and you can virtually hear the groans of the prodigal son's responsible brother if he happens to look ahead from his seat in chapter 15.

Despite this parable, other parts of the Bible suggest to me that it's reasonable to save something for retirement. But I want to combine this conventional form of stewardship with long-view social accounting, which is why I'm excited about the special Web extra to our May issue about faith and finances. In it, my colleague Julie has accumulated a heaping helping of Web sites that can help you figure out how and where to invest retirement savings for the common good (and also where to free your mind with Bible study, teach your teenage kids about money, and plan - and pray over - your household budget).

Check it out – and e-mail it to a friend to share the abundance!

Elizabeth Palmberg is an assistant editor of Sojourners.

[Continued from part 1]

I pondered what I might offer to spotlight the significance of such a dialogue and the future it foretells. Then I ran across this exegesis of Luke's account of the evening of Jesus' resurrection. It's by Debbie Blue.

With the wryest of humor, Blue contextualizes the two men walking the road to Emmaus, which may be tantamount to saying they were heading nowhere fast, considering scholars haven't been able to confirm the existence of an actual town named Emmaus. (What an amazing metaphor for our despair in the face of suffering, and the difficulty of being reconciled to each other and God afterwards.) The two men meet a stranger along the way who asks them why they are aggrieved. Their response is to almost reprimand the stranger's cluelessness: "Do you not know what happened this weekend. We lost hope." To which the stranger replies with reciprocal exasperation, "Did you not know that the whole story has been driving toward this irredeemable act of shared suffering—the death of God—so that the unprecedented hope of resurrection might come?"

Blue says it this way:

Jesus is like, 'Fools and slow of hear to believe. Can't you see that this all had to happen: that the mechanisms of the social order that lead to violence had to be undone, the self-deceptive and ferocious need to make ourselves out as innocent, the rat race, the ladder climbing, the fear of a violent God who demands blood and vengeance? Can't you see that all that had to be undone? You're free! Quit holding onto the bars and rattling them. The cage doors are open; walk out.' Jesus comes back from a wholly different place than they've ever been, and he walks right up to them and he reveals a whole new story. [Yet they don't recognize it.]

He walks with them, and they stop just shy of nowhere. And Jesus doesn't lecture them, judge them, condemn them, dislike them. He doesn't express a sense of betrayal and disappointment. He doesn't talk about how hopeless and ugly the whole lot of humanity is. He breaks bread. And he feeds them. And he tells them to go out and preach mercy to the world.

He becomes present to these people, people totally caught up, as we all are, in the reigning social, political and economic structures, in order to help them see or live or feel an alternative—to help them die and live again. He becomes present so that little by little they will be enabled to walk out of the cages… So that they might be able to tell new stories instead of the same old predictable stories…

The bread has been broken and the bread's been blessed. It may not seem like it, but we're free to get off the road and eat.

Ehrman and Wright may have very different ideas of what suffering in life means and address it with different hopes of what is to come. But like Brian McLaren, I too am immensely glad both men have entered into dialogue—giving us a beautiful example of how to jump off the road to Emmaus, share a meal with a stranger and write new, life-giving stories together.

Melvin Bray is a devoted husband, committed father, learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity, seeker of justice, purveyor of sustainability and believer in possibilities. As founder of Kid Cultivators, he lives, loves, works and dreams with friends in Atlanta, Georgia.

Jesus came with a job to do, to complete the work to which Israel was called. This work, from the call of Abraham onwards, was to put the human race to rights, and so to put the whole creation to rights. As the gospel writers tell the story, this task was to be accomplished by Jesus bringing about the sovereign healing rule of the creator God. Jesus was addressing the question, "What might it look like if God was running this show?" And answering, "This is what it looks like: just watch." And then, "just listen." In what he did, and in the stories he told, Jesus was announcing and inaugurating what he referred to as "the kingdom of God," the long-awaited hope that the creator God would run the whole show, on earth as in heaven.

But the problem was, and is, that other people are still running the show. Other kingdoms, other power structures, have usurped the rule of the world's wise creator, and the forces of evil are exceedingly powerful and destructive. Jesus' task of inaugurating God's kingdom therefore necessarily led him to meet those forces in direct combat, to draw upon himself their full, dark fury so as to exhaust their power and make a way through to launch the creator's project of new creation despite them. That is one clue at least to the meaning of Jesus' crucifixion, though that event, planting the sign of God's kingdom in the middle of space, time, and matter, remains inexhaustible. But let's be clear. As the gospels tell the story, Jesus' death was the culmination of several different strands: a political process, a religious clash, a spiritual war, all rushing together into one terrible day, one terrible death. And in the light of that, according to Jesus himself and his first followers, everything in the world looks different, is different, must be approached differently. With Jesus' death, the power structures of the world were called to account; with his resurrection, a new life, a new power, was unleashed upon the world. And the question is: How ought this to work out? What should we be doing as a result?

If we are to think Christianly, then we must think according to the pattern of Jesus Christ. And that means that the first place we should look for God in the "War on Terror" would be in the smoldering ruins of the Twin Towers, and then in the ruins of Baghdad and Basra, the shattered homes and lives of the tens of thousands who have through no fault of their own been in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the angry superpower, like a rogue elephant teased by a little dog, has gone on the rampage stamping on everything that moves in the hope of killing the dog by killing everything within reach. The presence of God within the world at a time of war must be calibrated according to what Paul says in Romans 8, that the Spirit groans within God's people as they groan with the pain of the world. The cross of Jesus Christ is the sign and the assurance that the God who made the world still loves the world and, in that love, groans and grieves.

But God wants his rebel world to be ordered, to be under authorities and governments, because otherwise the bullies and the arrogant will always prey on the weak and the helpless; but all authorities and governments face the temptation to become bullies and arrogant themselves. The New Testament writers, like other Jews at the time, saw this writ large in the Roman empire of their day. Those with eyes to see can see it in other subsequent empires, right down to our own day.

It is the task of the followers of Jesus to remind those called to authority that the God who made the world intends to put the world to rights at last, and to call those authorities to acts of justice and mercy which will anticipate, in the present time, the future, coming, final victory of God over all evil, all violence, all arrogant abuse of power. And where the world's rulers genuinely strive for that end, the Christian church declares as the ancient Jews did with the pagan king Cyrus, that God's Spirit is at work—whether the authorities know it or not.

Insofar as the last five years have constituted a wake-up call to sleepy western Christians to think urgently about issues of global justice and governance, we can see God, I believe, in that new stirring, warning us that we have a task and that we haven't been doing it too well. In particular, we must face the deeply ambiguous question of the present power and position of America. I am not anti-American when I criticise some policies of some American leaders, any more than I am anti-British when I criticise some of the policies of my own elected leaders. To suggest otherwise is simply a cheap way of avoiding the real questions. The creator God allows societies to rise and fall, empires to grow and wane. And though things are massively more complicated than this, we could see in the rise of America as the current sole superpower some great possibilities for bringing justice and mercy, genuine freedom and prosperity, to the whole world. Empires always carry that possibility. But empires also face the temptation to use their power for their own prestige and wealth. The challenge now is to provide a critique of American empire without implying that the world should collapse into anarchy, and a fresh sense of direction for that empire without colluding with massive abuses of power.

Where then is God in the war on terror? Grieving and groaning within the pain and horror of his battered but still beautiful world. Stirring in the hearts of human beings the desire for a more credible structure of global justice and mercy. Burning into the imagination of human beings a hope that peace and reconciliation might eventually win out over suspicion and hatred, that the world may be put to rights and that we may anticipate that in the present time. The Christian gospel, revealing the mysterious God we discover in Jesus and the Spirit, offers a framework for discerning where God is at work in the midst of the dangers and opportunities that confront us. All of us in our different callings are summoned to this task; some of you, perhaps, to make it your life's work. Jesus is Lord. The Spirit is powerful. God is doing a new thing. Let's get out there and join in.

Dr. N.T. Wright is a New Testament theologian and the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. He is the author of many books, including Surprised by Hope, and Evil and the Justice of God. This post is adapted from his lecture "Where is God in ‘The War on Terror?'" and is used with permission by the author.

I'm on vacation with my family this week, but in reflecting on the significance of Easter, I thought I'd share this passage from one of my books, The Call to Conversion. In a world wracked by war and violence, we are a people whose life and faith are rooted in the resurrection.

What is the good news? When all that sin had done, or could ever do, was laid on Jesus, it did not overcome him. Death could not swallow him. The grave was denied its victory. The witness of history and of his followers is that "he is risen." He is alive. He has triumphed over all. He is the victor over every sin, hate, fear, violence, and death. Nothing is stronger than his victory—nothing past, nothing present, and nothing future.

On Easter morning, and each day of our lives, we celebrate the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which triumphs over every other reality. In the face of the world and its systems, we proclaim the resurrection, saying, "We have seen the Lord." We see him in the lives of our brothers and sisters. We discover him in the faces of the poor, in the faces of all the victims, and in the faces of our children. We see him in the lives of Christians who have suffered and died because they believed. And we see the Lord in the bread and the wine. He shows us, as he did his disciples, the evidence of his suffering. He invites us to reach out, take, eat, and drink; he wants us to remember him, to see him, and to know his victory.

His way is life. The world's way is death. We can now stand before the world's false realities and securities, free to deny them, denounce them, and remove ourselves from them. We stand before the reality of the resurrection and confess with the first disciples that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

We stand before the world as fools. We are foolish enough to believe that Jesus' way is stronger and truer than the way of the world. We rest secure in the knowledge that he has, and will, overcome. We are called to be fools for Christ, a people saved by his cross and converted, finally, by his resurrection.

May God convert us to such foolishness.

Throughout his book, The God Hypothesis, Victor Stenger appears to be obsessed with the need for concrete proof that the son of God was a real man. He feels that if Jesus of Nazareth really walked on the earth, someone would have unearthed his actual bones.

Now, I don't want to get medieval here, but frankly, how many Christians in the 21st century need the bones of Jesus as proof of their faith? After all, according to the resurrection story, Christ transcended matter as Mary Magdalene found an empty tomb, not a body.

During my recent trips to Israel and Jordan, I lost track of the historical discrepancies regarding where a given bit of biblical business occurred. Despite the debates over the exact place where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, the specific church that marks the spot where Gabriel brought to Mary the good news that would change the world, and other historical critical snafus, I seemed to feel the presence of God's saving grace throughout history every time I stepped on a piece of seemingly sacred soil.

Also, look at the Easter story in its proper sociopolitical context for a sec. Right about now, Jesus and his crowd were persona non grata (mild understatement). The so-called leader of this ragtag group of rabble rousers had just been crucified. Unless Jesus rose from the dead, all their years of following him would have been for naught. Before they encountered him on the road to Emmaus, they had no clue if Jesus was the real deal, or if they had just drunk the wrong Kool-Aid by following a false prophet. They were left leaderless and scared for their lives, knowing full well they might be next on Pontius Pilate's hit list. Suffice to say, tensions were running pretty durn high.

As expected, the Romans did everything in their earthly power to prevent this resurrection myth from developing legs. The tomb was sealed, and guards were posted outside the cave 24/7. No way they would have let the disciples steal the body and run around claiming that Christ had risen. No siree. From a historical standpoint, the resurrection story could not have occurred without some kind of divine intervention. Check out a timeline of the early church and it's pretty clear that saying you believed in the risen Christ was a deadly move. Why would so many people risk banishment, torture, and even death for such an elusive myth?

Becky Garrison is senior contributing writer for The Wittenburg Door. Portions of this posting are excerpted from The New Atheists Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail.  Reprinted with permission from Thomas Nelson, Inc.

When I interviewed Phyllis Tickle for Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church, she reflected on the seismic changes she sees occurring in contemporary Christianity. "Evangelicalism has lost much of its credibility and much of its spiritual energy as of late, in much the same way that mainline Protestantism has." Lest anyone find this news so depressing they want to run for cover, Phyllis offers some much needed historical and hopeful perspective. "About every 500 years, the church feels compelled to have a giant rummage sale." During the last such upheaval, the Great Reformation of 500 years ago, Protestantism took over hegemony. But Roman Catholicism did not die. It just had to drop back and reconfigure. Each time a rummage sale has happened, in other words, whatever held pride of place simply gets broken apart into smaller pieces, and then it picks itself up and to use Diana Butler Bass's term, "re-tradition.

As I ride along the religious superhighway, I find I need some new tools to help me navigate this process. For starters, Andrew Jones' blog provides excellent ongoing reflections of the changing Christian landscape from a global perspective, as Proost UK offers worship resources that help refuel me and recharge my batteries. Recently, I caught wind of Tickle's radical yet totally orthodox retelling of the gospel. In The Words of Jesus: A Gospel of the Sayings of Our Lord with Reflections Tickle categorizes the sayings of Jesus into five categories: Public Teachings, Private Instructions, Healing Dialogues, Intimate Conversations, and the Post-Resurrection Encounters.

"Psychologists have demonstrated many times over that what we say is tailored to and informed by the audience to whom we say it. In a sense, in other words, while each of us may be an integer, we have various configurations or arrangements of our "self" that we modify, exchange, and employ according to our perception of those whom we are at any given moment engaging. Jesus of Nazareth, being fully human, followed that same pattern, though once again I had never perceived or even entertained such a possibility until I began listening to Him shift emphases, adapt rhetoric, and fashion varying modes of analogy to fit those with whom He was speaking."

Thanks to Lacey's latest and, unfortunately, last book, The Liberator (a revolutionary retelling of the New Testament), the Inspired by the Bible Experience: New Testament audio CD (nothing says "Oh my God" like Samuel L. Jackson channeling the voice of the Almighty), and Tickle's commentary, I've been immersed in scripture from some rather unique vantage points. Over the past year, instead of trying to memorize scripture and verse, I'm allowing these sweet holy words to fall on my ears and into my mouth. It's like I'm falling in love all over again with this radical love-making, rule-breaking, life-taking Christ.

Becky Garrison is senior contributing writer for The Wittenburg Door. Portions of this posting are excerpted from The New Atheists Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail.  Reprinted with permission from Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Last Friday I was in Santa Barbara, California, to speak at Westmont College - where even on a Friday evening, the gymnasium was packed with students. Before that event I did an interview with The Santa Barbara Independent, a local weekly newspaper, which they titled The Next Great Awakening? One of the questions the reporter asked was, "Do you think Jesus was a politician?" Here is my answer:

Of course not. But he had a vision of the Kingdom of God which was spiritual, personal, relational, social, economic, and yes, political - because it talked about allegiances and loyalties and authority, and if Jesus was Lord, Caesar was not. His confrontation that he provoked in Jerusalem was with the religious and the political leaders. They saw him as a political threat. If they saw him just as a private pietist, why would they worry? [If he was] helping people get their lives together, helping their marriages, making them better parents and make them go to less Roman orgies and drunken parties, why would that have been a threat to the ruling powers? They regarded him as a threat. I remember I was at Wheaton College once and I asked this class, "Why was Jesus killed?" and they had no idea. They just couldn't comprehend the question. And then one young student said, "Well, to save us from our sins." And I said, "So you think Pontius Pilate was sitting there thinking, 'How am I going to save these American evangelicals from their sins? I'm gonna kill this guy and that will do it.'" Albeit that our theological understanding of the cross and our redemption — I'm orthodox on all those questions, but he was killed because he was seen as a threat to the rulers both religious and political. In the book I talk about how Jesus confronted the major political options of his day. All four of them were there, they're always there: One was collaborationist, one was pietist, one was withdrawn — you know, the kind of counter culture — and one was political insurrection, or revolutionary violence. He confronted them all, he rejected them all. There was a fifth option called the Kingdom of God, and that's our option.

Everyday there seems to be some new outrageous charge leveled at Barack Obama. One of the most pernicious is that he is a Muslim who is dishonestly masquerading as a Christian. This charge is so malicious - and so untrue - that it is time to set the record straight.

Barack Obama has never been a Muslim. He has never attended a Muslim school. From about age eight to age nine Obama lived in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country on earth, with more Muslim schools than one can count, yet his parents chose to enroll him in a secular, non-religious school comprised of teachers and students of all faiths. Nor can it be said that during his brief sojourn in Indonesia that his worldview was tainted by Islamic extremism; when Obama lived there, the practice of Islam in Indonesia was still among the world's most moderate.

Another false charge is that rather than using a Bible to be sworn into his elected office, Senator Obama instead used the Qur'an, the holy book of the Muslim faith. That is also a falsehood. The most cursory check of the facts shows that it was not Barack Obama who was sworn in with a Qur'an. It was Keith Ellison, the proudly Muslim congressman from Minnesota.

But by far the ugliest charge is that Barack Obama is lying about his Christian faith. The truth is that for years now, Barack Obama has been a baptized, fully confessed and practicing Christian, not only with his lips inside a church but, more importantly, with his limbs out in the community - striving to help the neediest and the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters of all creeds and colors.

It is correct that Obama was not born into the Christian faith. Rather, Barack Obama made a conscious decision as a mature adult to become part of the body of Christ. One measure of the seriousness of his faith is that he has been an active and faithful churchgoer since he embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ as his own.

Dr. Jeremiah Wright - his pastor - a wise, sensitive Christian freedom-fighter (in the very best sense of the word), and a man deeply committed to his faith in Christ, whole-heartedly attests to this, as does every fellow parishioner who has encountered Obama in his home church - the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. (By the way, the United Church of Christ is a predominately white mainstream Christian denomination.)

But what is also troubling about all the false information being spread about Obama is its obsession with doctrines and creeds to the apparent detriment of any sense of the spirituality of service. This tragically flawed understanding of Christian faith is apparently more concerned with the fleeting testimony of one's mouth than with the abiding testimony of one's walk in the world. If this was not so, if what was really the concern of those seeking to discredit Obama was that one be a Christian rather than simply bearing the name, then why do they not attack the people "of faith" who tell every listening ear that they are Christians, yet everyday spit on the very tenets that Jesus taught by making greed, self-aggrandizement and treating poor people as children of a lesser God their de facto religion? Why not equally publicly indict the rapacious "prosperity preachers" and fake healers who appear in pulpits and on television weekly to steal from the poor so they themselves can live in imperial luxury like the Roman Caesar, the same Caesar whose empire tortured Jesus to death? According to the teachings of Jesus, transgressions like these are what believers should be exposing and denouncing. Indeed, in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus makes it clear that betrayal of the poor and the vulnerable is among the worst sins possible. Moreover, there Jesus reveals that if nothing else will get one banished to Hell, hurting - even ignoring - those he calls "the least of these" surely will.

Also in that Matthew 25 passage, Jesus teaches that if we are to judge each other at all, it must be by the standard of whether we are trying to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless. That is the gospel's paramount measure of faith, not how much one shouts Jesus' name or how often and how loudly one can recite doctrine and creeds. Jesus taught - and modeled - that what is most important for those who follow him is to spend their time and treasure in this world, engaging in loving, self-sacrificial actions with the express purpose of manifesting God's love and justice on earth as in heaven.

For me, that is the standard by which all those who seek to lead or govern us must be judged.

Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., Ph.D. is a professor of biblical interpretation at New York Theological Seminary, the author of The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Teachings of Jesus' Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted

This year, Nov. 11 will be a particularly joyous day for this veteran. Though I will not be attending any events, I can still reasonably expect a few pats on the back or some kind words in recognition of my six years in service to our country. Thankfully, I am past the awkwardness that used to greet me as supporters approached me with their gratitude in airports or shopping malls - seeking hugs and handshakes to express their appreciation for my sacrifice. I have overcome the demons that accompanied me back from Iraq, who insisted the strangers' thanks were idolatrous and superficial. However, I do continue to pray that well-wishers offer "welcome home" in place of "thank you" - the latter often being misunderstood, as many service members do not consider the acts they have committed to be commendable. Beside merely a celebration of patriotism, Nov. 11 is also a day to remember and rejoice in peace. Armistice Day holds a place in history as the day the Allies and Germany signed a treaty in Compiègne, France, ending hostilities on the Western Front. To this day, many people still reserve a moment of silence at 11:00 a.m. to respect the 8 million who perished in WWI.

Though for Christians, the day does not end there. This Sunday the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of St. Martin of Tours, one of the first saints not to be martyred. In fact, St. Martin was one of many to be beatified who, by today's standards, would be identified as a conscientious objector - an individual verifiably opposed to "war in any form." At one time a Roman centurion, Martin came to a "crystallization" of conscience, laying down his sword and declaring, "I am a soldier of Christ, it is not permissible for me to fight." It has been speculated that in 1918, Nov. 11 was chosen as Armistice Day in part due to St. Martin, who is especially the patron of soldiers and chaplains. It is curious to consider that this Christian soldier in fact thought it more Christlike to return to the front lines unarmed than with the sword the empire placed in his hands. David Thoreau, an inspiration to another saintly Martin, believed that a creative, nonviolent minority could serve the state by resisting it with the intention of improving it. Could this in fact be the embodiment of service to the state Paul speaks of in Romans 13? After all, he and St. Martin both were imprisoned for their beliefs…

Finally, I come to the most celebratory story behind Nov. 11 for this war-wearied veteran. Not long after my own road to Damascus conversion experience, I miraculously found a beautiful woman as crazy about Jesus as I was (and still am). An abbreviated courtship ensued, and within seven months, I had proposed. As our relationship developed, we found that our distinct beliefs matured as well. Faced with a similar crossroads regarding her own service to God and country, she too followed the path Martin helped forge so many centuries ago. Not long ago she filed for discharge as a conscientious objector, declaring herself a soldier in Christ's nonviolent army of peace.

Left to decide our date of wedded bliss, my 'better half,' my muse, settled on an otherwise nondescript day in November. This Sunday, we will share in the sacrament of matrimony - the threefold meaning of Nov. 11 is sure to be a fitting celebration of our combined attempts at patriotism, pacifism, and piety. We have high hopes and big dreams of continuing our service to fellow centurions, and with God's grace his gift to us can continue to bless others.

Logan Laituri is a six-year Army veteran with combatant service in Iraq during OIF II and experience with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Israel and the West Bank. He is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and currently resides in Camden, New Jersey, in an intentional Christian community called Camden House, where he continues to seek ways to wage peace wherever he goes. He blogs at courageouscoward.blogspot.com.

The name "Red Letter Christians" is catching on! Increasingly within the Christian community (and even in the general public), people are becoming aware of the growing number of us who are basically evangelical in our theology but who shy away from designating ourselves as "evangelicals." They know us to be Christians with a high view of scripture, who affirm the doctrines of the Apostles' Creed, and who believe that salvation comes from surrendering our hearts, minds, and souls to the resurrected Christ — but are reluctant to call ourselves evangelicals. They realize that is because the label "evangelical" has come to be almost synonymous with the "Religious Right." While holding to the same theology as evangelicals, we do not want to be known as being anti-gay, anti-environment, pro-war, anti-feminist, and pro-gun — all of which have been pinned on all evangelicals (perhaps unjustly) by the secular media.

There are critics who do not like our name, nor agree with our progressive social agenda. In the October issue of Christianity Today, there was an editorial in which the columnist explained what he thought was wrong with becoming Red Letter Christians. What was interesting in his critique was that he got us right! He grasped what we were all about – and with great effectiveness. First of all, he described us as people who, when we go to the voting booth, ask whether or not a candidate's tax policies serve the interests of the rich to the detriment of the poor, whether or not there should be policies to stop global warming, and if he or she supports Bush's war policies. See what I mean? He understands us perfectly! They are exactly the kind of questions we believe Red Letter Christians should be asking when they vote.

The second criticism leveled at us in that CT editorial was that by calling ourselves Red Letter Christians, we were giving priority to the words of Jesus, suggesting that what he taught makes earlier teachings in scripture secondary, if not inferior. Again, he has us right!

We believe that the Sermon on the Mount presents a morality that is superior to the justice proposed by Moses. But then, Jesus himself said as much. He is the one who said that while Moses allowed for divorce and remarriage that he had a higher law, and that while the retributive justice of the Hebrew Testament proposed "an eye for an eye" and "a tooth for a tooth," that his new commandment was to love our enemies and overcome evil with good.

Surely, the CT columnist does not intend to put the purity codes of Moses, with all of their kosher regulations, on par with the morality of the red letters in the Bible.

I think we're on to something, and it may be soon that those evangelicals who do not want to be lumped together with Religious Right ideologies soon will be adopting this new name. There is a growing number of evangelicals who, when they find out what we're all about, will say, "That's what we think, too!"

Tony Campolo is founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education (EAPE) and professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University.

In two recent posts, The Global Church and America's War, and Iraq and Christian Identity, I talked about the difference between the perceptions of U.S. Christians and our sisters and brothers around the world. I recently received a powerful e-mail from a Pastor Kuruvilla Chandy of Grace Bible Church, Lucknow, India, who describes himself as "a born again Christian" who supported the Cold War and "as a believer in prophecy, [is] in general agreement about supporting Israel." Hardly the profile of a left-wing Bush-basher. I'd like to share some of what he wrote.

President George Bush is the darling of most born again Christians in the US of A. But in India many regard him as a liability to the Christian cause. His identification as a believer and his advocacy of the war that the rest of the world regards as unjust has embarrassed Christians who are in a minority in India.

He is not just critical of Bush, but has strong words of both challenge and encouragement for believers in the U.S.:

People will never agree on whether or not Bush is an aggressor. That really depends on political views.... Christians living in America, suffering from fear aroused by 9/11 and desiring their own self-preservation and prosperity will approve of Bush's war against Iraq and look for ways to justify it even from a biblical viewpoint. It is heartening though to see that there are born again Christians, even in the U.S., who are opposed to the warmongering and see the war as something they have been unable to support precisely because of their faith in Christ. However the vast majority of Americans, especially those who describe themselves as born again Christians, are solidly in support of Bush, and even question the Christian identity and commitment of those who disapprove of Bush.

He further describes the connection between Bush's faith and Bush's war:

In effect, Bush has given Christ a bad name. As a Christian writer in India, I wrote an article arguing that Bush's war had nothing to do with his being a born again Christian, and all to do with his being the American President (Times of India April 7, Lucknow, April 21, 2003). The only problem is that somehow his aggressive American-ness has been identified with his being a Christian. But we in India cannot see the war as the work of a Christian. In this regard, I represent the view of most Christians in India.

In my article I essentially defended born again Christianity as what is practiced by Christians who are committed to Christ and take His teachings seriously. I am myself a born again Christian. I did not deny that, just because Bush had made being a born again Christian unpopular. Being a born again Christian has nothing to do with Bush. It has all to do with following Christ faithfully with a desire to make Him known. In the Indian context it was necessary to show what born again Christianity really stood for. I had to demonstrate that being a Christian did not mean approving Bush's war.

Perhaps even more sad than the damage Bush has done to the cause of Christ globally is the response of Christians in the U.S.:

I also circulated the article among Christian friends in the U.S., to share my concern as a Christian from a country where Christians are a minuscule minority. I shared it with my friends in America trying to somehow influence Christian opinion in the U.S. Suddenly I lost friends—not just Americans, even Indians settled in the U.S.

As I reflected on my loss of some of my Christian friends living in America, I sadly noted the great divide that has occurred among Evangelical Christians. I know that Evangelicalism is not White Christianity, but somehow I get the impression that the agenda of White Evangelical Christianity is being thrust on Evangelicals around the world. It would seem that if one is to be accepted as a born again Christian, then one is required to approve of the world's only born again Christian statesman. If you don't approve of Bush, you're not okay.

Most American Christians have put their faith in Bush imagining that he will ensure their safety. If anything, he has made the world more unsafe for Americans and even for those who side with Americans.

Will Christians in the U.S. hear the prophetic challenge from their global sisters and brothers? Or, like the friends Pastor Chandy has lost, will they value their political allegiances above their allegiance to Christ, and to his body in the worldwide church?

When I got an invitation to attend the launch of New York Faith & Justice (www.nyfaithjustice.org), their mission statement caught my eye. Simply stated, their goals are: Following Christ, uniting the church, and ending poverty in New York through spiritual formation, education, and direct advocacy. Grounded in the words of Isaiah 61, this movement envisions a city where New Yorkers are released from the oppression of poverty and the poverty of riches.

I can hear the naysayers now: "Here we go again. Another PC peace and justice group that's all talk and no action. They might spout a bit of scripture but in the end, they're really just a front for the Democratic Party. Been there. Done that. Next."

I understand this kind of cynicism. I've covered too many "religious" justice-oriented gatherings that were full of sound and fury but in the end signified nothing. The power of prayer and preaching about the Risen Christ seemed to take a back seat because God forbid we talk about Jesus and offend our secular counterparts. Also, after satirizing the antics of the Religious Right for more than 12 years, the last thing I want to see is the creation of a Progressive Left counterpart.

So when I read that this group was "ecumenical," I was skeptical at first. While religious leaders whose backgrounds ranged from PCA to ECUSA were invited to participate, would they actually show up? In a post-9/11 New York City, one seldom sees Orthodox, evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and Pentecostals willing to set aside their differences and come together in the name of Jesus.

However, this movement showed all the spiritual signs of being Bible-based and truly nonpartisan from the get-go. You know something is up when 15 students from Intervarsity Fellowship and Union Theological Seminary carry a wooden cross -- literally -- for 5.3 miles, trekking from Trinity Baptist Church, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side, over to the Bronx.

This broad-based ecumenical spirit carried on throughout the evening with prayers offered by ministers representing a broad swath of the Christian faith. Liturgies, worship songs, spoken-word poetry, and visual art were intertwined with speeches by Lolita Jackson from Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office; Rachel Anderson, director of Boston Faith and Justice Network; Dale Irvin, president of New York Theological Seminary; Lisa Sharon Harper, executive director of NY Faith & Justice; and Jim Wallis. If you read the backgrounds of these spiritual seekers, you'll see that these are not cookie-cutter Christians all molded from the same batch of devotional dough.

Unlike some gatherings that talk around poverty issues without offering any concrete solutions, Harper noted how their programs are structured around the three mission points: Following Christ, Uniting the Church, and Ending Poverty. Right now, the program is far too early in its infancy to assess if these points can be sharpened into actual tools for social change. But based on what I saw this evening, I left the launch wondering if perhaps Shane Claiborne is indeed right -- that "Another world is possible." Will this ecumenical momentum continue? One can pray and hope.

Becky Garrison's upcoming book Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church (Seabury Books, October 2007) explores what it means to be the church in the 21st century.

Before it began, many evangelicals were strong supporters of a war with Iraq. As the death and destruction have continued, some are rethinking that view and coming to oppose the war. David Gushee, professor at Mercer University, has an important piece – Our Teachable Moment - on Christianity Today online. Gushee writes:

Such deep public distress about the war makes this a teachable moment for all of us, as Christians and as Americans. It's not enough to find a way out of this war honorably and soon. We have an opportunity to learn some deeper lessons so that we won't repeat our mistakes.

For evangelicals, one of the groups that strongly supported the war initially, one lesson is clear: We must become more discerning when our nation's leaders advocate a military solution. We have biblical resources for doing so, if we will draw upon them.

He concludes:

For me, the next time I am asked to support a war, my default setting will be no rather than yes. As a follower of Christ, I will have to be persuaded that the particular confluence of circumstances is so grave as to require a military solution. Before Christians sign off on another war, we must do our best to figure out whether the government has done everything possible to make peace.

This story in today's Washington Post made my day. As a pacifist Mennonite, I can't count the number of times someone has posed "The Question": If someone had a gun to your loved one's head, and you could use lethal violence to save them, what would you do? This scenario that unfolded in a D.C. backyard doesn't fit that exact hypothetical scene in every detail, but it does help point out the absurdity of it—what are the chances that reacting violently in such a situation is guaranteed to save your loved one and only hurt or kill the "bad guy"?

At the very least, true stories like this one remind us that violence is never our only option:

A grand feast of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp was winding down, and a group of friends was sitting on the back patio of a Capitol Hill home, sipping red wine. Suddenly, a hooded man slid in through an open gate and put the barrel of a handgun to the head of a 14-year-old guest.

"Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he demanded, according to D.C. police and witness accounts.

The five other guests, including the girls' parents, froze—and then one spoke.

"We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, blurted out. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The intruder took a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry and said, "Damn, that's good wine."

The girl's father, Michael Rabdau, 51, who described the harrowing evening in an interview, told the intruder, described as being in his 20s, to take the whole glass. Rowan offered him the bottle. The would-be robber, his hood now down, took another sip and had a bite of Camembert cheese that was on the table.

Then he tucked the gun into the pocket of his nylon sweatpants. ...

"I'm sorry," he told the group. "Can I get a hug?"

Of course, this story (and please, read the whole thing) is ripe with indirect biblical allusions—though the article makes no mention of any spiritual or philosophical motivations for anyone's actions. And of course, there's every possibility that in spite of a nonviolent response, it or similar situations might not have ended as happily—but Jesus never promised as much when he taught us to love our enemies and bless them. In fact, he promised the opposite. Still, it's beautiful when turning the other cheek, giving your shirt, and going the extra mile have the intended effect: confronting our enemies with our humanity—and their own.

Though theological arguments aside, I suppose another moral of the story could be, quite simply: In case of armed robbers, always have a bottle of good wine handy.

Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the web editor for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

We don’t need another election. We need an exorcism. It is this that leads me from vigil to vigil and I burned with it on the evening of March 16, when I participated in nonviolent civil resistance and was arrested with more than 200 others as part of the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq. I shook from it in court some three months later when I pleaded “no contest” to failing to obey a lawful order.

There were 13 disciples in court that day, each with a unique mission. Many spoke beautifully to issues of amendments, traditions, permits, and codes. I ask you, sisters and brothers, what is our message? I wonder: Should we defend ourselves in finite opportunities to testify, or ought we defend the lowliest victims of war?

I stood at the podium that day, my throat dry and my hands cold, testifying to the message of the nonviolent Jesus. I stood and prayed there—as I had in front of the White House on that bitter cold night so many of us remember—strictly to relieve the ringing in my ears: speak for the dead or join them. I could not discuss the First Amendment or the parameters of the permit. Rather, I felt commissioned by God to speak to one truth alone: The frontline in Iraq is everywhere and the children have no place to hide. When I sat down I felt, but for a moment, clean.

Eda R. Uca is a member of Jonah House, an intentional faith-based resistance community in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of Ana's Girls: The Essential Guide to the Underground Eating Disorder Community Online.

The critics of the suburbs say that you and I live narrow lives. I agree. My life is narrow. From one perspective or another, all our lives are narrow. Only when lives are placed side by side do they seem larger. —D.J. Waldie, in Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir

Prompted by the ubiquitous bracelets and bumper stickers, many Christians are asking (or being annoyed by) the question, “What Would Jesus Do?” Thanks to the creative folks at the Evangelical Environmental Network, we’ve also been encouraged to ask, “What Would Jesus Drive?”

So here’s another pithy iteration to ponder: “Where Would Jesus Live?”

If you’re like most Christians concerned about justice and peace, “the suburbs” would probably not appear in your answer. You might say the city, where Jesus could minister to the poor and the oppressed and walk downtown to preach to corrupt politicians. Or perhaps you think of the country, where he and his disciples could raise organic tomatoes and share their free-range chickens with the hungry. But Jesus in a split-level, mowing his lawn on Saturdays and waving to the neighbor kids on their trampoline? Hmmmmmm....

So what about those of us who do live in the suburbs? Are we doomed to live narrow lives of conspicuous consumption, super-commutes, and obsessive lawn care? Or is it possible to be a faithful, broad-minded Christian in a land of housing developments, minivans, and strip malls?

The recent or upcoming publication of several books on Christianity and the suburbs shows that many Christians are ready to begin examining the particular privileges and challenges of the suburbs. While the authors vary in their perspectives, all of them conclude that Christians can live authentic lives of discipleship in the ‘burbs. “The things I am called to practice here in suburbia are the same Christian distinctives of love, witness, mercy and justice that all Christians should embody wherever they may live,” said Al Hsu, author of The Suburban Christian, in a recent interview.

Christians in the suburbs may have more chances now than ever before to practice those works of mercy and justice right where they live: a recent study from the Brookings Institution found that more Americans in poverty now live in suburbs than in cities. And many of them are finding that the suburban communities they now call home aren’t as equipped with services such as public transportation, accessible health care, and job training programs as the cities from which they moved.

This changing economic face of the suburbs may mean that the fabled narrow suburban life might not be quite so narrow anymore. It may remind us to look for Jesus in the suburbs after all....

Valerie Weaver-Zercher is a writer and editor in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Read more about suburban spirituality in the July issue of Sojourners magazine.

Christ is the true philosopher because he embodies in his ministry the welcoming and caring reception of others so that they might more fully be the beings they are meant to be. Indeed, in the Christlike effort to understand, serve, heal, feed, and reconcile the earth and its communities we show forth the highest wisdom.

- Norman Wirzba
excerpt from the essay "Placing the Soul: An Agrarian Philosophical Principle" in The Essential Agraian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land, edited by Wirzba. (c) 2003.

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Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When the young man heard this word, he went