Counter culture Jesus

 Scot McNight

What does the counternarrative of Jesus look like? Here is an extensive quote that could be printed out and displayed in a church foyer for all to read:

In teaching to turn the other cheek Jesus shamed Violence No. 1.

In teaching enemy love, Jesus disrupted Violence No. 2.

In teaching the things that make for peace, Jesus stymied Violence No. 3.

In proclaiming freedom for prisoners, Jesus interrupted structural violence.

In practicing inclusive table fellowship, Jesus flustered cultural violence.

In including women among his disciples, Jesus disoriented symbolic violence.

In proclaiming good news to the poor, Jesus undermined economic caste systems.

In eating with tax collectors, Jesus practiced enemy love.

In speaking woes to the rich, Jesus condemned hoarding wealth.

In blessing peacemakers, Jesus contested the efficacy of violent resistance.

In healing the diseased, Jesus showed the limitations of state and military power.

In forgiving sins, Jesus redefined power.

In publicly dying on a Roman cross, Jesus exposed the spiral of violence.

In rising from the dead, Jesus publicly disarmed and made a public spectacle of the pax Romana.”

The counternarrative who is Jesus cannot be simplified into an individualistic gospel, it must center the Gospels, it requires thinking about the world through the lens of Jesus and his kingdom, and it envisions the ethic of Jesus being embodied in his followers who live out that ethic in the public sector. It was the ethic of Bonhoeffer, whose primary political opponent was Christian nationalism under the leadership of Adolf Hitler.