The Christian Witness To The State

"Our purpose is to analyze whether it is truly the case that a Christian pacifist position rooted not in pragmatic or psychological but in Christological considerations is thereby irrelevant to the social order." —John Howard Yoder These words by John Howard Yoder set the course of his pathbreaking treatise, The Christian Witness to the State. Yoder’s novel contribution to the debate concerning the church’s and the Christian’s calling is his starting point. He insists that Christ, through his death and resurrection, is now exercising dominion over the world. God has reclaimed his intention for creation. Thus the structures of the social order has as much potential for good as for evil. The church belongs in this world; it has a mission to and even with society.

George Kalantzis and Gregory W. Lee edit twelve essays that explore the topic of Christian political witness, originally presented at the 2013 Wheaton Theology Conference. Contributors include Stanley Hauerwas, Mark Noll, William Cavanaugh, Peter Leithart and Scot McKnight.

The 2015 Missiology Lectures at Fuller Theological Seminary marked the fiftieth anniversary of the School of Intercultural Studies. The papers from that conference explore the developments and transformations in the study and practice of mission, as contributors chart the current shape of mission studies and its prospects in the twenty-first century.

Christian identity is in moral and political crisis, scandalized by the many ways in which it has been coopted and misrepresented. Addressing this painful reality, Lee Camp writes that Christianity in America has been made into a bad public joke because of “our failure to rightly understand what Christianity is.” From this provocative claim, Camp’s manifesto makes the convincing case that a renewed Christian politic is more essential than ever, one that is “neither left nor right nor religious,” but a prophetic way of life modeled after Jesus of Nazareth. Camp’s robust vision exposes modern parodies of faith—the American concept of “Christian values,” for one—and challenges Christians to rethink who they are and how they participate in the modern world. Authentic gospel truth is a scandal to the American myth, he argues, and we are called to be scandalous witnesses.