warning: dangerous book

jesus for president was actually on my reading list for last summer, i ordered it from a third party through amazon and it never came, so i made a point to get through it this summer.

this was a book i had trouble putting down, but at times had to because it became too "heavy". it certainly is "a book to provoke the christian political imagination" and i would recommend it to christians who are willing to be challenged on their view of america and to all people who are not a follower of jesus for some great insight on what christian politics might actually look like from the perspective of jesus and the bible and not the perspective of "christian" politicians.

just a couple excerpts that stuck out:

"jesus is ready to set us free from the heavy yoke of an oppressive way of life. plenty of wealthy christians are suffocating from the weight of the american dream, heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we embrace. this is the yoke from which we are being set free."

"is it possible we can't see the destructiveness of our economy not because we don't know it's terrible but because deep down we feel that it's necessary and that therefore it's hopeless to criticize it?""

"is it possible to submit and to subvert? paul's life gives a clear yes, as does jesus' crucifixion...we find that paul offered a biting critique of pers are a creative path of revolutionary love. we might remember paul urging his friend philemon to illegally welcome back home a fugitive slave."

"christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful."

"to say that we must kill or enemies and join the popular project to 'rid the world of evil' is to call jesus unrealistic."

"as the parable of the weeds and wheat illustrates, jesus understood the destruction of evil to be not in human hands but in God's hands.

"the best way to defeat the kingdom of God is to empower the church to rule the world with the sword."

"the u.s. is arming over 75 percent of the world, while it tells folks to disarm, which is like handing out guns to kids in our neighborhood and telling them not to shoot each other."

"the danger is that we can begin to read the bible through the eyes of america rather than read america through the eyes of the bible. we just want jesus to be a good american."

"evangelicals are getting divorced, and gay folks are wanting to get married, and religionists keep accusing homosexuals of destroying the family."

"it's easy to have political views--that's what politicians do. but it's much harder to embody a political alternative--that's what saints do."

"every culture has a particular way of eating. some folks eat with chopsticks; others sit on the floor. in india we ate with our right hands. how do christians eat? christians eat with poor folks, with the outcasts, the marginalized."

"trusting God made jesus nonviolent"

"i heard iraqi people, even iraqi christians, call the leaders of the u.s. 'christian extremists...one iraqi woman said, with tears in her eyes, 'your government is declaring war and asking for god's blessing, and that is the exact same thing that my government is doing."

"the kingdom of God is not just something we hope for when we die bur something we live "on earth as it is in heaven".

"what the world needs is people who believe so much in another world that they cannot help but enact it."