I think in the end, God's justice is redemptive, it's restorative, it's about giving life, not taking life.

One by one, these disciples would infect the nations with grace. It wasn't a call to take the sword or the throne and force the world to bow. Rather, they were to live the contagious love of God, to woo the nations into a new future.

With the early Christians you couldn't have God as your father unless you have the church as your mother. This isn't accepting the church as a perfect thing.

It's not that hard to say slavery is wrong after we've abolished it.

We can ignore suffering no matter where we live. There are people who live a few miles from me who never see much poverty or the injustices that live on our doorstep.

It's impossible to separate our contemporary practice of the death penalty from our history around race and slavery, and specifically, lynching. Where lynchings were happening 100 years ago is where executions are happening today. And that's a haunting and eerie thing.

The early Christians felt a deep collision with the empire in which they lived, and with politics as usual. They carelessly crossed party lines and built subversive friendships. And we should do that too.