Product Description
by Sean Palmer (Author), Scot McKnight (Foreword by)
Shunned. Condemned. Controlled. Describing church, believers and nonbelievers deploy stinging terms to define an imperial, culturally privileged, and powerful American force. Church has become synonymous with shame, exclusion, and hostility. This is not the church of Jesus. American Christians are victims of a deliberate and shortsighted scheme designed to identify and defeat religious, cultural, and sexual Others. From the language of "makers and takers," to "if you're not for us, you're against us," to the continual suggestion that we are soldiers in a constant series of wars--the war on women, the war on the family, the war on Christians, the war on Christmas, the war on terror, and much more--Christians are near the heart of enmity. The New Testament, however, seeks to create an alternative community--a community devoid of fear, wherein God's love and acceptance are mediated to all people through the grace of Jesus. In Unarmed Empire, Sean Palmer reclaims the New Testament's vision of the church as an alternative community of welcome, harmony, and peace. Unarmed Empire is for everyone who's been misled about church. It's for everyone who feels blacklisted by believers, everyone who has been hurt. It's for everyone longing for a purer experience of church.
Author Biography
Sean Palmer is a thoughtful, provocative writer, speaker, and podcaster who has been named by Christian Standard magazine as one of its "40 Under 40" leaders. Sean is the Teaching Pastor at Ecclesia Houston, a multi-site church in Houston, TX. You can read more from Sean at www.missioalliance.org, listen to his podcasts, Not So Black & White, and follow him on Twitter (@seanpalmer).