Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Ellul

...the intervention of the Holy Spirit is not dependent on man and his choice, any more than the revolutionary character of the Christian situation depends on man. It is not because men choose Christ that they become Christian, it is because Christ has chosen them. It is not because Christians choose to go out into the world that they work there, it is because Christ sends them there. They are not revolutionary because they feel the urgent need for revolution; it is for another, independent reason....The situation of the Christian is revolutionary for other than intellectual or self-chosen reasons: it is revolutionary of necessity, and it cannot be otherwise so far as Christ is acting in his Church. This situation is part of the work of the Church in the world, and it is true to say (as a simple fact) that during the greater part of its history the Church has, indeed, been in a revolutionary situation....Here the concern is not essentially to change the form of the State, or of an economy, but the very framework of a civilization....

Jacques Ellul The Presence of the Kingdom (from the chapter Revolutionary Christianity)

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