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. The Church, as Christ's representative in the world, is the firstfruits of the Kingdom-despite what ...Wauzzinski said. This suggests, as ...Noyes notes, contrariness-contra mundum. Let us not forget that the distinguishing feature of the Hebrew witness was not their Jewish perspective on work, but their rest-refraining from work. This is what affirmed Yahweh's lordship. For those of us living in between the times, this suggests the continued primacy of the worship and the eucharistic practices of Christ's Church; as such, my job in the world becomes very different.

. . . While I see no virtue in separatism for its own sake, I feel there is deep purpose in being a holy nation called out from among the pagan peoples of the earth. In terms of Niebuhrian typologies of Christ & Culture (which I find flawed), again I believe Christ transforms culture inasmuch as the Church itself exists as a transformed culture serving as an alternative polity and embodied dissent to the powers and principalities. This is why I feel worldview talk is so dangerous. It divorces Christian thinking and resultant action from the people and practices of the (visible) Church, which I take to be formative and constitutive of the transformed Christian mind. I cannot talk or think about whole-life discipleship without thinking out from and through my participation in a eucharistic community, and my union with the sovereign Lord thereof. The Church is epistemologically prior to the world, contra reformational belief in universally accessible creational norms. While common grace and general revelation may suggest certain realities about a creator, or divine being, these do not lead to the triune God. Nor do notions of fairness and goodness lead to shalom. Simply put, those outside the Church cannot possibly apprehend what justice is. This limits and restrains what I can ever hope to achieve in transforming the pagan culture of the Liberal nation-state.

To combine the metaphors of ...Yoder and ...Hauerwas, we are given as a sign and blessing to the nations inasmuch as we stand apart from and against them as a holy nation-what Giroux calls a "fugitive culture." Barth refers to this reality in terms of our "solidarity with and distinction from" the world, the latter always being an expression of the former. In terms of salt, light, and leaven, I take these as references to the collective presence of the Church in the world-not as normative descriptions of our individual intersection with the culture. As far as academic, professional, or whole-life discipleship go, it is just that-discipleship. It is the result of our confession transforming our lives and practices to conform to the eschatological norms of the coming Kingdom, represented and mediated in this present age through the Church. Dennison describes this, echoing Augustine and Vos. We are "committed to union with Christ in the heavenly places" (Calvin's "real presence" and "mystical union"), and we "intrude the heavenly ethos into the earthly culture," knowing all the while that "this age/culture is under final judgment."

I find additional resource for living out this intrusion of the heavenly ethos in the Hebrew notion of family, and the Law describing this. For a Jew, everyone in the nation of Israel was family, and was to be treated as such. Hence the notion of the kinsman redeemer embodied by Boaz and ultimately fulfilled through Christ. These same notions ground and center the Jubilee laws. Like the Hebrew witness, ours is a witness of family-only our family extends to every kindred, tribe, and tongue gathered unto our Lord. Furthermore, the same treatment is to be extended to enemies as well. I resist war, racism, slavery, sexism and oppression, not because I think I can extend the lordship of Christ into the pagan culture, but as an act of solidarity with those family members who are the victims thereof. Inasmuch as I would not let a pimp turn my sister to the streets as a prostitute, neither will I let Calvin Klein objectify women and commodify sexual desire. I would not assist my neighbor in shooting my parents; likewise, my government will not have my blessing to bomb my brothers in Iraq-every war is a civil war; and the casualties are family, not foes.

. . . In terms of John 3:16, Christ died to save, not churches, but the (invisible) Church. While the creation will be blessed in our redemption, as it was cursed in our rebellion, let us not equivocate between blessing or redemption and transformation. While there are wheat and tares, salt and light in the earthly culture of this age, these do not equate to justice and transformation. What we accomplish in banking or politics is always something less than justice; it is something short of transformation. The prophetic witness of nay-saying to the powers and principalities is not Kingdom-building. We must choose whether we teach our students to transform the culture (world), or instead teach them to live as transformed persons in this world. Christ is indeed lord of Creation and King of the age to come. However, in between the times, his lordship is manifested in and through the (visible) Church. In order for bankers, builders, bakers and bureaucrats to be transformed, they must join a new nation; they must have their minds transformed by the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit; the sovereignty of the principalities and powers must be broken; they must be formed in the covenant people of God and called to self-sacrificial suffering. In short, as Chris Noyes recommends, they must become the exiles of a fugitive culture.

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In order for bankers, builders, bakers and bureaucrats to be transformed, they must join a new nation; they must have their minds transformed by the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit; the sovereignty of the principalities and powers must be broken; they must be formed in the covenant people of God and called to self-sacrificial suffering. In short, as Chris Noyes recommends, they must become the exiles of a fugitive culture.

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