Wonderful article by Jim Kumfer discussed last night at the Newbigin Group. (We didn’t get there, having locked ourselves out of the car and house as we were about to leave. D’oh.)
Kumfer uses Yoder’s Body Politics to suggest that we need to combine the approach of Shane Claibourne and Jim Wallis. Shane Claibourne and his Simple Way community are living out the kingdom in amongst the homeless and the poor and the broken. They tend to think the system’s so broken there’s limited use engaging it.
In contrast, Jim Wallis (apparently) is these days spending most of his time in suit and tie trying to influence government policy to make it resemble the kingdom more. (I’ve only read his old stuff when he sounded more like Shane.)
Kumfer looks at how Yoder calls for the church to embody the new social practices as models for the whole world. Thus binding and loosing as peacemaking is a model for the world to use mediation rather than fighting things out in court. As a small example.
