Jonathan Russell

“Idolatry happens when we make some good thing an ultimate thing, in which case it becomes a destructive thing. Given our tendency to make good things into ultimate things, it would be naive to think idolatry can’t creep into our justice pursuits.”
― Thaddeus Williams, Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice

“The greatest difference between present-day Christianity and that of which we read in these letters, is that to us it is primarily a performance; to them it was real experience. We are apt to reduce the Christian religion to a code or, at best, a rule of heart and life. To these men it is quite plainly the invasion of their lives by a new quality of life altogether. They do not hesitate to describe this as Christ "living in" them.

Mere moral reformation will hardly explain the transformation and the exuberant vitality of these men's lives -- even if we could prove a motive for such reformation, and certainly the world around offered little encouragement to the early Christians! We are practically driven to accept their own explanation, which is that their little human lives had, through Christ, been linked up with the very life of God.

Many Christians today talk about the "difficulties of our times" as though we should have to wait for better ones before the Christian religion can take root. It is heartening to remember that this faith took root and flourished amazingly in conditions that would have killed anything less vital in a matter of weeks.

These early Christians were on fire with the conviction that they had become, through Christ, literal sons of God; they were pioneers of a new humanity, founders of a new kingdom.

They still speak to us across the centuries. Perhaps if we believed what they believed, we might achieve what they achieved.”
― J.B. Phillips, Letters To Young Churches: A Translation of the New Testament Epistles

“Christians should be known less as culture warriors and more as Good Samaritans who stop for battered neighbors, whether they are black, white, brown, male, female, gay, straight, rich, poor, old, young, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, atheist, capitalist, socialist, Republican, Democrat, near, far, tall, short, or smaller than a peanut.”
― Thaddeus Williams, Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice

“Social Justice B advocates find free markets repulsive because they lead to different outcomes for different people. Because different people with different priorities making different decisions experience different outcomes, any system that maximizes people’s freedoms to be their different selves will end up with different outcomes. If we believe that different outcomes are a priori evidence of injustice, then freedom itself is unjust.”
― Thaddeus Williams, Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice