General Theology
N.T. Wright quote from Following Jesus
by Steven Crawford
I have been reading N.T. Wright’s book Following Jesus recently, and I ran across this gem (there were plenty others):
The Church, ironically, has usually lurched between the two options which Jesus refused in Gethsemane. There have been times when it has been a crusading Church, turning the sword of the gospel into the gospel of the sword, thinking to spread the kingdom of love by the weapons of hatred. God forgive us that we have turned the cross, the great symbol of suffering love, into a symbol which some in the world still have cause to fear. Then there have been times when the Church has withdrawn, has retreated into the private sphere, has thought of its religion as purely a matter between the individual and God, or at best between the Church and God, with nothing to say to the rest of the world. This may sometimes have been a necessary corrective against the crusading arrogance of the first option, but its is not the way of the Servant King.