A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor’s Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace― Brian Zahnd

“In short the problem is this: far too few who believe in the risen Christ actually believe in his revolutionary ideas. There is a sense in which we create religion as a category to keep Jesus from meddling with our cherished ideas about nationalism, freedom, and war.”

War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity― Stanley Hauerwas

“From time to time it may find it useful to send out missionaries, but its first missionary task is to be a witness in and to the worlds in which it finds itself. All missionary tasks are in that sense local.”

Christian Pacifism: Fruit of the Narrow Way―Michael Snow

“Pacifism is not passive. The Christian refusal to participate in any warfare knows nothing of inactivity. Ours is a positive pacifism, combating the very roots of war through the display of God’s love and concern for every person in this alienated world.”

The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church ― Gregory A. Boyd

“Jesus came to establish the kingdom of God as a radical alternative to all versions of the kingdom of the world, whether they declare themselves to be “under God” or not.”



In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth―Richard M. Gamble

“The search for the city on a hill leads to a story of what men and women, some famous, some obscure, did to a metaphor. Only incidentally is it the story of how an idea made Americans into who they were as a people.”

Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History ―Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, Barry R. Weingast

“This book lays out a set of concepts that show how societies have used the control of political, economic, religious, and educational activities to limit and contain violence over the last ten thousand years.”

Structure and Change in Economic History ― Douglass C. North