Leithart, Theopolitan Mission - further jottings

 Hopefully a review in The Global Anglican in due course but some further favourite bits following on from the jottings on chapter one:

“Jesus the Carpenter makes Peter according to the blueprint of the Word, which is the pattern of Jesus. Like Jesus, Peter is scripted by Scripture.” (26)

“the statistically average Christian today is a black woman, not a white European male.” (34) 

“we white northern believers need to be prepared to take a subordinate role as deck hands on an ark captained by strangers who have become brothers.” (36) 

Jesus makes his people kings like Noah and Jesus. God’s mission is more than church planting: “the church aims to turn the mis-made world “upside down” (Acts 17:6), which means the right-side up.” (37) 

The Church is a civilisation, a City, with her own customs and ethos. No earthly city has unlimited resources. And all exclude some. Not so the City of God. Here there are no small people and no small gifts. The gift of administration may not seem as whizzy as preaching or healing or... But believe me, as one who has led in a church with and without one, administrators are needed! All serve the commonwealth and all are rich. All build up the body of the church. And not only so, together we must go and slay the giants in the land too! (chapter 3)

"If you want a painless and comfortable life, it's best not to board the ark of the crucified Savior.... There's no mission without the cross. The church must be as crucifiable as her Lord. Jesus' self-building ark is constructed from the wood of the cross." p71

The seeds of the gospel healings and the church's anointing of the sick grew into an unprecedented concern for health care. "Pagans have their medical philosophers like Galen, just as they have their own gods of healing. But the Christian mission of healing is qualitatively different. Like Jesus, Christians are "incarnated" among the sick. When plagues and pandemics hit Roman cities, pagans fled, including Galen. Christians stayed to nurse the sick to health. Over time, they developed institutions like the hospital and techniques of healing which were unknown in the ancient world. In the sanctuary-ark of the church, Jesus nourishes new forms of compassion, which, over the centuries, have transformed the world." p81f

"We transform culture by bearing witness, which is always risky. If we're not prepared to suffer professional or vocational death because of our witness to Jesus, if we're not prepared to accept a lower place in the rankings, we have no business putting on the regalia in the first place. If we're not prepared for vocational martyrdom, we despise the table of the Lord, and our makings are nothing worth." p88

"To transform the city of man, the church needs only to do what she does, to be what she is. She needs only to teach, preach, sing, pray, break bread. Within the ark of Christendom, she need only keep the customs of the apostles, and all will be changed." p96

“The West has turned from Jesus to the false gods of Science, Reason, Power, Progress, and Mammon, or to the equally false gods of Equality and Choice” and can expect the judgement of God (100). 

“Jesus will steer the ark of his church through the storm” and we must continue faithfully looking for a new creation and preserving what we can (100). 

“The Carpenter of Nazareth will pilot His ark until it rests on a new Ararat, a new Eden, the garden-city where the river of life flows.” (101)