Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Who and How We Are

"...Christianity should be the defining identity against which all others-nationalism, class, race, gender, kinship, and the rest-should be measured." "...Baptism signifies a decisive break with one's previous desires and priorities (1 Pet 1:14). It calls people to reconfigure prior allegiances to caste and kin, country and gender, as part of what it means to join the Body of Christ, the symbolic prefigurement of forgiveness, mutual assistance, service, and worship that the Creator will bring to fruition in the promised Kingdom of God. The vocation that comes to Christians is inseparable from the church, the material and sacramental reality that testifies to Jesus' commitment to a new way of being in the world, one that does not rely upon domination and killing..." from The Church as Counterculture, edited by Michael L. Budde and Robert W. Brimlow.