71 Quotes by Brian Zahnd

Jesus didn’t seem very interested in exposing symptomatic sinners – tax collectors, drunkards, prostitutes, etc. Instead Jesus challenged the guardians of systemic sin – the power brokers of religion and politics.

Feed on a lot more Philippians and a lot less Fox News. Feed on a lot more Luke and a lot less Rush. If like Daniel and his friends we refuse the fare of the empire’s propaganda, it will be evident that we are far healthier than those feeding on the fear-inducing menu of Mammon and Mars. Those who feed on faith, hope, and love stand out in a culture characterized by fear; they are distinguished by the healthy glow of a robust peace.

The tragedy of growing up is not that we put aside childishness, but that we lose the capacity for childlike wonder.

Lord Jesus, help us to see the beauty in the gospel of forgiveness as you have proclaimed it, and liberate us from our wrong ideas about an angry, violent, and retributive God. Amen.

The cross is shock therapy for a world addicted to solving its problems through violence. The cross shocks us into the devastating realization that our system of violence murdered God!

The cross is the beauty of Christianity because it is at the cross that we encounter cosuffering love and costly forgiveness in its most beautiful form.

The problem with our “change the world” rhetoric is that it is too often a thinly veiled grasp for power and a quest for dominance – things that are antithetical to the way Jesus calls his disciples to live.

I saw the cross as the place where Jesus refounded the world. Instead of being organized around an axis of power enforced by violence, at the cross the world was refounded around an axis of love expressed in forgiveness.

At the cross a world of sin is absorbed by the love of God and recycled into grace and mercy. This is what the cross is about! This is what Christianity reveals. Christianity.