Not following an admission of sin or an act of contrition. God s grace was already at work in our lives and in the lives of those around us. Go to the upper room. One who would betray, one who would deny, others who would runaway and hide. Instead, he invites them to eat the bread and drink from the cup.
Grace is a difficult word.
But it is the first and last word of the Bible. The first book is a contribution to the series Christian Mission and Modern Culture, a project of the Institute of Mennonite Studies designed to examine aspects of modern and postmodern culture in relation to the mission of the church. Kenneson observes that the fifteen-century long marriage between the church and secular power in the West is over. The thesis of this book is that the church most faithfully embodies the gospel when it lives as a contrast-society, a community that models a way of life fundamentally different from the life of the world. Kenneson investigates this charge, rejects it, and challenges the church to move beyond sectarianism.