I finished Sider’s Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience last week, and it was certainly a sound warning to the compacency and inadequacy of today’s Church,. the evangelical Church in particular.

The Evangelical Scandal – Christianity Today Magazine

But historic biblical faith understood the church as a new community. The basic New Testament images of the church are of the body of Christ, the people of God, and the family of God. All these stress the fact that we’re talking about a new community—a new, visible social order. That new community in the New Testament was living so differently from the world that people would say, “Wow, what’s going on here?” Jews were accepting Gentiles. The rich were accepting the poor and sharing with the poor. Men were accepting women as equals. It just astonished people because the church was so different from the world. It was countercultural.

Furthermore, [the New Testament church] understood that being a member of the body of Christ meant that you were accountable to each other. If one suffered, you all suffered. If one rejoiced, you all rejoiced. There was dramatic economic sharing in the New Testament, and there was church discipline.