Exiles in the Empire: Believers Church Perspectives on Politics

Papers presented at the Fifteenth Believers Church Conference, September 2004

The reference to exile and empire in the title of this book is meant to invoke the themes both of settledness and of pilgrimage, of permanence and transience that have long been part of God's work in human history. To use the term empire clearly does go beyond the biblical promise of homeland, prompting unsettling questions about exploitation, domination, and idolatry. This book is prepared our of the sense that many Christians in the United States are disturbed by the troubling paradoxes of their country's appearing to be both imperial and Christian. Being committed to proclaiming and living the gospel authentically, while also being citizens in an imperial superpower, can result in a sense of being strangers in one's own homeland. Being compelled to prophesy to what many call Christian America can result in a sense of being exiles in the empire.