Are You A Revolutionary?

I stumbled across a great website the other day called The Other Journal. There are lots of terrific articles - including one on the mythology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which as most of you know thrills me - and I just read one by Curtiss Paul deYoung titled "Are You A Revolutionary?".

He looks primarily at three faith-inspired revolutionaries, Malcolm X, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and talks about the lost notion of revolution in the 21st century. What really jumped out at me was one sentence though, that turns the whole 'ends justifies the means' thing on its head. He says:

Those who call for a revolution of the spirit know that the end will reflect the means.

It made me think of so many things, including (of course) social justice and all of the issues that he's raising directly in the article, but also the state of things in the church itself. We spend a lot of time here at l'abri discussing the many critiques of the church that students - and workers - bring. I think the critiques are valid, but it also seems so easy to fall into an utter disdain for the institution and withdraw into cynical arrogance. We know we need to treat our brothers and sisters with love, but I know that for myself it is easy to 'love' condescendingly, with a wink and a nod towards the more 'enlightened' members of the family.

So I wonder, what would it take for us to revolutionize the church? And for the church to step up to the task at hand and revolutionize society? I'm pretty sure there's a book about that somewhere...