...it is clear that action for justice and peace in the world is not something which is secondary, marginal to the central task of evangelism. It belongs to the heart of the matter. Jesus' action in challenging the powers that ruled the world was not marginal to his ministry; it was central to it. Without it there would be no gospel. But Jesus' challenge was not in the name of an alternative way of exercising power. he did not offer an alternative government. He did not repeat the story of which history has so many illustrations, the story of the victim of oppression who, in the name of justice, dethrones the oppressor and takes his seat on the same throne with the same instruments of oppression. The manner of Jesus' challenge, the way that led through his own death to resurrection and the sharing of a new life with the community he formed to go the same way through history to it send, opened up a new route through history along which every human rule would stand under both the judgement and the mercy of God.
Lesslie Newbigin, page 137-8 in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
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