Unconditional Forgiveness is not the end goal as if it were simply the long sought pardon of legal charges, as if this forgiveness were somehow synonymous with salvation. Forgiveness is not the end of a journey but its beginning. It is an invitation back from that in which we have gotten ourselves lost. It is an invitation to salvation, healing, and restoration for both victims, the one who committed the wrong and the one who was wronged. And in all reality it is more than "invitation" as well. It is the "means" whereby we ourselves are healed.

The Kingdom of God is without coercion. It is not advanced by force of any kind, legislative or otherwise. The Kingdom of God persuades by love, witness, spirit, reason, rhetoric, and if need be martyrdom. But NEVER by force.

Christ's Kingdom is a radical reorientation of how we do life based on radical paradigm shifts in how we see God, ourselves and others.

Jesus embodies nonviolence and is the reference point for a theology of nonviolence.

Jesus was not promoting the arrival of a religion but a kingdom.

Paul was not a sinner who found religion, but a religious person who found Jesus. And I would add an adherent of religiously sanctioned violence who met the nonviolent Jesus.

Those who were part of the Jesus movement of the first century were not primarily concerned with holding Rome accountable to her own laws, but rather calling the world, including Rome, to a new way of doing life rooted in nonviolent, enemy love.

The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did not teach "nonresistance." To the contrary, he taught "nonviolent, noncooperation." There is a world of difference. Overcome evil with good.

Wanna test if you're a Jesus-follower or just a Christian? Take away heaven and hell from your world view and see if you can keep following with no questions ideologically, ethically, OR motivationally.

The gospel is not a story about sinners in the hands of an angry God, but a God in the hands of the religiously angry.