Variety: Philippians 2v15

The foundation of Jesus’ social program is what I will call non-idolatry, or the withdrawing of our enthrallment from all kingdoms except the kingdom of God. This supports a much better agenda than feeling the need to attack things directly. Nonattachment (freedom from loyalties to human-made domination systems) is the best way I know of protecting people from religious zealotry or any kind of antagonistic thinking or behavior. While there are certainly things we are against, we must keep concentrating on the big thing we are for!  

Paul tries to create some “audiovisual aids” for this big message, which he calls “churches” (a term Jesus used only  twice, found in Matthew 16:18 and 18:17). Paul knows we need living, visible models of this new kind of life to make evident that Christ’s people really follow a way different from mass consciousness. They are people who “can be innocent and genuine … and can shine like stars among a deceitful and underhanded brood” (Philippians 2:15). To people who asked, “Why should we believe there’s a new or better life possible?” Paul could say: “Look at these people. They’re different. This is a new social order.” In Christ, “there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).  

Rather than being people who live almost entirely in the world, fully invested in its attitudes toward money, war, and power—and sometimes “go to church,”  in Paul’s thinking, we were supposed to live inside of an alternative society, almost a utopia, and from such fullness “go to the world” to live Christian values.  

Richard Rohr