Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16In Search of aCity The church, Scripture teaches, is where God’s politics becomes reality: it’s a city governed by the Sermon on the Mount. But does any such place exist? C H A R L E S E . MOOR E At the outset of my Christian journey,   I was taught to keep politics and    religion separate. Jesus came to save sinners, not society. Our citizenship is in heaven, not here on earth. It’s the soul that counts, not the body. What matters is one’s eternal destiny, not social betterment. This attitude may be appealing to some, but the good news is good because it holds promise not only for the next life (which it does) but also for this life and how we live it now. After all, Jesus healed bodies as much as he forgave sins, and he shared everyday life with his followers – eating and drinking and traveling with them – as much as he prayed alone in the wilderness. He announced the arrival of God’s politics, which means the end of politics as usual: good news for the poor at the bottom, bad news for the power-elites on top (Luke 6:20–26). The 2016 presidential campaign made two things painfully clear: Christians do not agree Charles E. Moore, a Bruderhof member, teaches at the Mount Academy in New York. He is the editor of a new Plough book, Called to Community: The Life Jesus Wants for His People. on how to apply the gospel to political issues, and when Christian leaders do get involved in partisan politics, the consequences are hardly benign. Compromise is inevitable, and political intrigue is always close at hand. How, then, to do politics Christianly? The Activist Temptation When Ron Sider’s seminal book Rich Chris- tians in a World of Hunger appeared in 1979, the call for Christian social engagement had an explosive effect on the evangelical world of my youth, which emphasized personal salvation to the exclusion of all else. Today such ideas have become commonplace. Believ- ers from across the theological spectrum seek to end sex trafficking, world hunger, homelessness, environmental depredation, the prison-industrial complex, the death penalty, and a host of other ills. They have marched, petitioned, rallied, advocated, organized, and even peacefully resisted in order to make