More juicy morsels from Hauerwas’ The Peaceable Kingdom:

we cannot do that which promises “results” when the means are unjust.

p.104 The Peaceable Kingdom

RESULTS. That which “works”. The “real world”. These kinds of statements, especially the last one, give a good indication of just the kind of distinction the Christian story has made between “the world” and “The Kingdom of God”. A whole new way of thinking (actually an ancient way, but a revolutionary new one in opposition to the much newer “tradtions” and realities of our age.

Christian social ethics, therefore, is not best written from the perspective of the Secretary of State or the President, but from those who are subject to such people

p.106 The Peaceable Kingdom

This is why “secular” works such as Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and Chomsky’s (and Herman’s) Manufacturing Consent are important bits of history and serve to inform us about the possible distortions to which we have been subjected as “trusting subjects” of our governing powers, our news organizations, and our educational institutions. Our Christian story should (and this is often NOT the case), but SHOULD be an apriori preparation of our minds to see conflicts between the way we are taught to view reality and “the way it is” by the world and the powers that be, and the “realities” for which our narratives in the Christian tradition have forewarned us about, and , if the Church is doing its job, have prepared us to offer an alternative way of viewing this world.