Vaughn Thompson over at ICTHUS just chimed in on my previous post and reminded me of “Babylon” as an empire worthy of list. Definitely. In fact, one of my favorite passages that expresses the sense of “sojourner” and “exile” is the one where the Psalmist asks:

By the waters of Babylon , we sat down and wept. How can we sing the Lor’d song in a strange/foreign land?” Ken Medema’s song (“By the Waters of Babylon”) further impresses upon my consciousness the sense of exile and yet community that we ,as Christians, must strive to rwalize today , as Jesus calls us to a faithful witness in the face of an aggressive and destructive empire.

The following post, and this particular section, from IcThus’s blog, echoes the theme that Hauerwas was exploring when he said “Ethics IS Theology”.
ICTHUS

Christians are those people whose reflections on its life start with theology and ministry in the Church (its who we are and what we do), move to hermeneutical description, and then speak to the world. Mind you, this is not the linear process that english composition makes it out to be, but let me be clear that a perceived epistemological crisis should not set the agenda for theology!
So, Memorandum to all you Emergering folks who are planting really hip churches:
Do “Faithful” theology and stop talking about postmodernism as if it mattered. Live your reconciled church life as you should, read the Bible, care for orphans and widows, and do distinctly “Church” things, speaking in Christian parlance.