The Unkingdom of God: Embracing the Subversive Power of Repentance

Christianity is carrying a lot of baggage. Two thousand years of well-intended (and sometimes not so well-intended) attempts to carry forward the good news of God with us have resulted in some murky understandings of the teachings of Jesus and the culture of God’s kingdom. To embrace Christianity, sometimes we have to repent of what we’ve made of it. In The Unkingdom of God Mark Van Steenwyk explores the various ways we have failed our mission by embracing the ways of the world and advancing our own agendas. He shows us that the starting place of authentic Christian witness is repentance, and that while Jesus' kingdom is not of this world, it remains the only hope of the world.

Mark Van Steenwyk is cofounder of the Mennonite Worker, a Christian intentional community in Minneapolis. Mark is an editor at JesusRadicals.com and the producer and cohost of the Iconocast podcast. Mark has led retreats, facilitated workshops, presented at conferences and taught several seminary courses. He is currently working on an alternative theological educational project (the Rootworks). With the support of the Central Plains Mennonite Conference, Mark has nurtured and networked with groups around North America that are exploring the radical implications of Jesus' life and teaching.

David E. Fitch (PhD, Northwestern University) is the B. R. Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary. He is also the founding pastor of Life on the Vine Christian Community, a missional church in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He is the author of The Great Giveaway and The End of Evangelicalism? and is the coauthor of Prodigal Christianity. Fitch coaches a network of church plants in the Christian & Missionary Alliance and he writes, speaks and lectures on issues the local church must face in mission including cultural engagement, leadership and theology. He has also written numerous articles in periodicals such as Christianity Today, The Other Journal, Missiology as well as various academic journals.