New Evangelical Manifesto [5] A story to challenge us.

Steve Martin writes a chapter called Kingdom Community. He begins with an appreciation of the hard work and prayerful care of thousands of pastors and for the work of the Holy Spirit in the church down the ages. He tells of leaving the pastorate having discovered that he could not be prophetically challenging -concretely in finding himself unable to challenge the Iraq war though convinced of its wrongness. It is from what he interprets as a wilderness perspective that he writes.

I liked his candour here though I retain my caution having seen too many 'prophetic' voices pouring forth their own dyspepsia rather than  what seems to be an authentic word from God. That said, the humility Martin's writing seems to show makes me less suspicious than in some other cases.

In considering the 'community' dimension of the title, he mentions the things that one would expect, but then adds a conclusion that a church worthy of the name and calling would be one that produces at least a few people capable of living out the most challenging of Christ's teachings, for instance 'love your enemy'.

I warm to this in the sense that there is an implicit recognition that discipleship is something we grow in and into; that people enter into discipleship with varying backgrounds and predispositions to different aspects of discipleship. The danger of that is to let some off the hook that require the challenge -indeed the potential is there for people to duck challenge on the basis that someone else is doing it.

There follows a discussion of enemy love moving beyond the personal to the corporate: loving those designated enemies of our society. And this moves into a look at the parable of the sheep and the goats, noting along the way that churches are not good at risking ministries of justice while ministries of pastoral care are relatively uncontroversial. Yet the message of the parable is clear enough: God wants us to care for others; for the strong to care for the weak. Illustrating this he tells the story of Elisabeth Schmitz who stood up for Jewish people in Nazi Germany, concerned that the Church was failing to do or say anything. She protested against the Kristallnacht violence, and resigned from her job teaching history, declaring that she could no longer teach according to the Nazi curriculum. She went on to be involved in rescuing Jews from the regime. She loved those her State declared enemies -at great cost. She fulfilled the implied agenda of the parable of sheep and goats.

I loved this chapter because that's where it ends: not with a blueprint for a church, just a reminder that loving neighbours and enemies is a radical act and that our churches need to be incubators of people who can do this.

Amen.