Not until we realize that we do not deserve all that we have can Christians ever begin to get a grasp of the biblical vision of economics. (p.183)

The passage … so oft-cited by those who disparage the notion that the church must be concerned with gracious economic behavior, is in its original context a reason for ongoing service to others: Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’ (p.185)

… “do this in remembrance of me” … Jesus here counsels not mere cognitive recall, but the kind of “remembrance” that always accompanied the Passover meal – a renewed participation in the redemption wrought by God. (p.190)

In most churches today, we cannot see the significance the “Lord’s Supper” … had to the early church … The “Lord’s Supper” was indeed “supper,” or a meal, in which believers came and shared their lives and possessions. The meal was at once a practice of thanksgiving … for the redemption offered in the new covenant, in the body and blood of Jesus; simultaneously, the meal was an economic practice of “communion” with fellow believers, sharing their means. (p.192)

Why fall prey to the myth that more is always better, always seeking to capture more of the market share? (p.201)

If the good news is the presence of the kingdom of God, then “evangelism” is much more than “saving souls.” … Evangelism is not selling Jesus, but showing Jesus; evangelism is not mere telling about Christ, but about being Christ. (p.208)

… living by faith means living dangerously. To heed God’s call, to obey God’s command, to walk in God’s way requires a willingness to move beyond a cold, calculating prudence. (p.165)

… for many Christians, utilitarianism often becomes a sly, subtle way to set aside our calling to faithful obedience. “Effectiveness” or “realistic expectations” or “what is possible” or “what is safe” or “whatever is necessary” – all these catchphrases subtly rely upon a human calculation of intended results, trusting that human wisdom can determine the best course of action, even if it means setting aside faithful witness to the way of the kingdom. … In fact, precisely when it appears that obedience is irrational, when obedience could not possibly be “effective,” when obedience could not possibly lead to the “good guys” winning – precisely then is obedience lauded as worthy of honor. The “Faith Hall of Fame” in Hebrews 11 points to just such an expectation – precisely when we cannot see how our deeds of faithfulness can possibly effect good, then we are to obey. (pp.166-167)

What we need are not better consequentialist models of predicting social phenomena in order to maintain a coercive “peace,” but unceasing prayer that God will act to consumate the kingdom, and that we, in the meanwhile, might bear faithful witness to the kingdom already present in our midst. (p.171)

In our consumerist, individualistic age, prayer can become yet another outlet for exercising our discretion of “choices.” We lay before God what we want God to do for us, telling God how we want God to run the world and fix our problems and provide simple solutions for what ails us. … But this fails to account for the true heart of prayer: laying ourselves before God, submitting our will to God’s will. (p.173)

… we seek God, striving to offer the entirety of our lives as a prayer itself. (p.178)

Simply practicing adult believer baptism as an end or point of righteousness in itself misses the point. … That is, “be baptized” once one reaches the “age of accountability” serves simply as a cultural or familial or ethnic expectation, thus ignoring the countercultural intent of transcending family, culture, gender, race, and ethnic. (p.153)

… many (most?) Christians in the Bible Belt apparently consider patriotism, and its first cousin, nationalism, to be manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit, a “natural” consequence of our love for our awesome God.. … ultimately the problem with patriotism is its very limited, sectarian nature. In baptism, Christians become part of a community that transcends race, ethnicity, gender, or citizenship. … In nationalism, our ultimate identity lies in being “American.” In baptism, our ultimate identity lies in being disciples of Christ …” (pp.157-158)

When Paul asserted that all fundamental markers of identity, particularly those that buttress separation or estrangement, must be submitted to our identity found in Christ, he included three of the most powerful sources of estrangement in his day: ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic class. Since Paul wrote before the advent of the modern nation-state, we should add “nationality” to the list, for it is, in the contemporary Western world at least, the most revered source of identity and separation from others. … Perhaps Hitler better understood than many Christians the allegiance Jesus required of his disciples when he declared, “One can either be a good German or a good Christian. It is impossible to be both at the same time.” (pp.158-159)

“I fought in the war so you can have the liberty to stand up there and preach about nonviolence,” some retort. Well, no, quite to the contrary, Jesus died to free us from fear and self-centeredness, and our faith in his resurrection frees us to preach nonviolent love of enemy. (pp.158-159)

The believer’s cross must be, like his Lord’s, the price of his social nonconformity. … It is not … an inward wrestling of the sensitive soul with self and sin; it is the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to come. (quoting John Yoder, p.83)

Faith is not belief in spite of evidence but a life in scorn of the consequences. (quoting Clarence Jordan, p.83)

… the cross proclaims that we need no longer die as a consequence of our sins, and yet we must die, or be willing to do so, because of the world’s sins. (p.83)

“The world” schools us in self-preservation, self-maximization, and self-realization; “the world” trains us to live and die, to kill and wage war for the “American way of life.” But imagine the radical implications of a community that refuses to bend the knee to such systemic training in self-preservation. (pp.121-22)

All extant Christian writings prior to the fourth century reject the practice of Christians killing in warfare. … They rejected killing in warfare, in short, because it violated the way and teaching of Christ. (p.134)

This is a great irony of American Christianity: exalting the nation that affords us “freedom of religion,” we set aside the way of Christ in order to preserve the religion we supposedly are free to practice. We kill our alleged enemies in order to “worship” the God who teaches us to love our enemies. The most important question about our pledge of allegiance is not whether we pledge allegiance to a flag under “one God,” but to what god we are pledging our allegiance. Perhaps it is, after all, not the God revealed in Jesus Christ we are worshiping, but the god of the nation-state, the god of power and might and wealth. (p.140)