Christian convictions do not poetically soothe the anxieities of the contemporary self. Rather, they transform the self to true faith by creating a community that lives faithful to the one true God of the universe. (Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, p.16)

As much as I endeavor to inform myself about the actual habits and aims and policies (if they can be called “policy”) of the Bush administration, and strive to apply what I perceive to be my Christian theological assesments to them, in the end, it is this Christian community which is the locus. And this is the major rub for my life in the Church this past decade or more. This community is virtually non-existent in terms of practice in the world of the visible Church today.

Bonhoeffer talks about the Church as this community out of which our practice comes; it is a place of forgiveness, of celebration of the reception of God’s word, and the embodiment of that Word for the world. But Bonhoeffer noticed that “the cinema meets the need to celebrate better than the Church” (from The Nature of ths Church, in A Testament to Freedom: Essential Writings, p. 85). This seems to making a similar complaint to what I expressed above. I notice how much of the political dissent which I base upon my Christian theological convictions are more often and better articulated and researched in the secular media (the “alternative media” , that is) than they are in the Churches, where it would be assumed that such ethical/moral/theological implications would be explored. But such is not the case. It seems that much of this reflective work is happening in “para-Church” or ecumenical settings (which can certainly be construed as one outpost of the Church, I suppose) such as Sojourners Community, and various blogs which I read and continue to discover, who write with the purpose of seeing this world through the lens of God’s Kingdom as over and against; in contrast to, this world’s attempts to order itself. Blogs such as Eric’s Tasty Morsels, ICTHUS, Jesus Politics, The Village Gate (aka The Right Christians), Gutless Pacifist, Tread Lightly, A Jewish God-Fearer, Non-Violence.org., American Bodhisattva, etc.