Question 1

Howard Voss insists that nonviolence “is not optional” but also “is not a strategy”; where do you feel the pull in your own thinking to justify enemy-love mainly because it “works,” and what does it reveal about what you believe God is like when you need guaranteed outcomes?

Accepted Answer

**Direct Answer**
The transcript pushes back against justifying enemy-love because it “works,” and it suggests that needing guaranteed outcomes reveals a desire to stay in control rather than trusting God’s way of conquering evil. When we require results, we may be acting like God is not really in control—or not trustworthy unless He proves it.

**Support from Transcript:**
• The speaker says Voss insists nonviolence “is not optional,” but “is also not a strategy.”
• Nonviolence is “not a way to improve the world…[or] end war,” and it “doesn’t always work in a worldly point of view.”
• It is “the fruit of being faithful to the way of Jesus,” not a technique to secure success.
• The speaker emphasizes, “We don’t have to be in control. God is in control.”
• Violence comes when “we feel it’s up to us to make things right,” implying a demand for control and predictable outcomes.

**Discussion Follow-ups**
How might your need for measurable success reveal where your faith is placed—“in control” or “in the one who…restores all things through the cross”?

Question 2

The speaker says nonviolence is “the fruit of being faithful to the way of Jesus” and that it “can also bear great suffering”; what do these statements assume about how God conquers evil, and how does that reshape the way you interpret the cross in everyday decisions?

Accepted Answer

**Direct Answer**
These statements assume God conquers evil “through the cross”—through self-sacrificial love rather than coercive force—and that faithfulness may include suffering without visible “success.” That reshapes everyday decisions by making the cross (not quick victory) the pattern for how Christians respond to conflict and evil.

**Support from Transcript:**
• Nonviolence is “the fruit of being faithful to the way of Jesus,” meaning it flows from discipleship rather than being a tool.
• The speaker says it “will bear fruit, but it can also bear great suffering,” with “no guarantee” of worldly outcomes.
• He states, “this is how God conquers evil,” and links it to trusting God’s rule rather than our control.
• God “restores all things through the cross. He doesn’t skirt the cross. It’s always through the cross of self-sacrificial love.”
• The contrast is between desperate measures to “make things right” and faith in God’s cross-shaped restoration.

**Discussion Follow-ups**
Where are you tempted to “skirt the cross” in daily choices—seeking speed, control, or payback instead of self-sacrificial love?

Question 3

The speaker contrasts taking up arms with trusting that God “sovereignly…restores all things through the cross,” saying we use violence when we feel “it’s up to us to make things right”; where do you see that same “need to be in control” showing up in non-military forms (arguments, pressure, manipulation, social media), and what would repentance look like?

Accepted Answer

**Direct Answer**
Based on the transcript, the “need to be in control” shows up anytime we rely on coercion—ways of forcing outcomes—because we think it’s up to us to fix things. Repentance would look like returning to cross-shaped faithfulness: relinquishing control, refusing coercion, and trusting God’s sovereign restoration.

**Support from Transcript:**
• The speaker says, “We don’t have to be in control. God is in control.”
• He connects taking up arms to feeling “it’s up to us to make things right,” leading to “desperate measures.”
• God restores “sovereignly…through the cross,” not through bypassing suffering or forcing outcomes.
• The speaker later describes Jesus’ politics as rejecting “coercion or having power over.”
• Instead, the way is “humble service,” “considering the interest of others above our own,” the opposite of power politics.

**Discussion Follow-ups**
What are your most common “coercion” tools—tone, pressure, online shaming, withdrawal—and what would it mean to lay them down as an act of trust?

Question 4

“We don’t actually…follow nonviolence. We follow the way of Christ.” How does that reframe the danger of making nonviolence into an identity marker, and what practices would keep “following Christ” central rather than a moral cause?

Accepted Answer

**Direct Answer**
The transcript reframes nonviolence as a consequence of following Jesus, not the center of our identity; the danger is turning nonviolence into a badge or “cause” rather than obedience to Christ. Practices that keep Christ central would be worshipful allegiance and Christlike humility and service, not merely defending a principle.

**Support from Transcript:**
• The speaker corrects the framing: “We don’t actually don’t follow nonviolence. We follow the way of Christ. We follow Christ.”
• Nonviolence is “the fruit of being faithful,” which implies the root is discipleship to Jesus.
• He warns it’s “not a strategy” and not followed for guaranteed results, which guards against pride in “our method.”
• Jesus “models the politics…He takes up a towel…and washes feet,” linking faithfulness to humble service.
• Worship is described as “full allegiance” to Jesus’ reign, expressed “in very public, social, concrete ways.”

**Discussion Follow-ups**
If nonviolence became your main self-description, what might you stop talking about—Jesus, the cross, enemy-love, humble service—and why?

Question 5

The speaker says loving the enemy is “the way to win the enemy” and also “an unconditional…witness,” even if the enemy is never won; how does that challenge common evangelical instincts about effectiveness, results, and “closing the deal,” and what changes if God—not you—decides the outcome?

Accepted Answer

**Direct Answer**
The transcript challenges effectiveness-driven instincts by making enemy-love faithful witness rather than a technique to secure conversion or compliance. If God decides the outcome, your task shifts from “closing the deal” to offering unconditional love that reflects God’s love while leaving results to Him.

**Support from Transcript:**
• The speaker says the way to “win the enemy…is to actually love the enemy.”
• He immediately qualifies: “Whether they are won by that love or not is up to God.”
• Enemy-love is described as “an unconditional…way to give witness to…the love of God.”
• He roots it in God’s prior love: “While we were yet sinners, God loved us.”
• Earlier, he stresses nonviolence “doesn’t always work” by worldly measures, reinforcing that obedience is not outcome-based.

**Discussion Follow-ups**
Where do you confuse faithfulness with effectiveness? How would your approach to opponents change if you truly believed outcomes belong to God?

Question 6

In what ways would the earliest Christians—formed by Jesus’ teaching, foot-washing, and the cross—have expected their congregations to embody enemy-love publicly, and where does modern Christianity tend to privatize it into “personal piety”?

Accepted Answer

**Direct Answer**
The transcript suggests earliest Christians would expect enemy-love to be embodied publicly through humble service, non-coercive community life, and concrete social practices that display allegiance to Jesus’ kingdom. Modern Christianity, by contrast, often treats worship as “highly personal and removed,” privatizing what should shape public community life.

**Support from Transcript:**
• Jesus “models the politics…He takes up a towel…and washes feet,” presented as “the beginning of God’s politics.”
• The community does not solve problems “by way of coercion or having power over,” but through “humble service” and putting others first.
• Worship is “itself a politics,” not “just a pious set of exercises…highly personal and removed.”
• Allegiance to Jesus “will incarnate itself in very public, social, concrete ways,” sometimes conflicting with “governments of man.”
• The speaker includes community ordering: “how we live together…how we handle money…how we make decisions together.”

**Discussion Follow-ups**
What parts of your church life are treated as “private spirituality” that the transcript treats as public kingdom practice (conflict, money, power, allegiance)?

Question 7

Howard Voss’s line, “To worship Jesus is itself a politics, a politics that subverts the status quo,” challenges the idea of being “apolitical”; what forms of “status quo” does worship subvert in your context, and what would it cost your church socially to live that out?

Accepted Answer

**Direct Answer**
According to the transcript, worship subverts the status quo by rejecting self-interest power politics, refusing Christian nationalism, and embodying a kingdom community marked by humility and economic/social leveling. The cost could include social misunderstanding and even conflict with the state if the church’s witness is perceived as a threat.

**Support from Transcript:**
• Voss: “To worship Jesus is itself a politics, a politics that subverts the status quo.”
• The speaker contrasts God’s politics with voting “according to…self-interest,” calling it “the exact opposite of the world’s politics.”
• He says Voss is “very critical of any form of Christian nationalism,” because allegiance is to “King Jesus and the Kingdom of God…transnational…[including] all peoples.”
• Worship is not merely private; it expresses allegiance publicly and “will incarnate itself in very public, social, concrete ways.”
• This can “come into conflict with the governments of man,” depending on whether the state views it as “a threat.”

**Discussion Follow-ups**
Which of these status quos—self-interest politics, nationalism, class divisions—most shapes your church’s reputation, and what

Question 8

The speaker describes Jesus’ “politics” beginning with taking up a towel and washing feet, rejecting “coercion or having power over”; what are concrete examples where your church handles conflict, leadership, or decision-making in ways that look more like coercion than towels?

Accepted Answer

**Direct Answer**
The transcript’s standard is towel-and-basin humility rather than “coercion” or “power over,” so any leadership or conflict style that pressures, dominates, or protects self-interest would contradict Jesus’ politics. The specific examples in your church aren’t given in the transcript, but the criteria for identifying coercion are.

**Support from Transcript:**
• Jesus “takes up a towel…washes feet,” described as “the beginning of God’s politics…the way of humility.”
• The speaker says we do not solve problems “by way of coercion or having power over.”
• Instead, the pattern is “humble service” and “considering the interest of others above our own.”
• He defines politics as “how we live together…how we make decisions together…how we navigate a social life together.”
• He contrasts this with “power politics” and “partisan politics,” implying churches can unintentionally imitate those forms.

**Discussion Follow-ups**
Where do leaders or members in your setting use leverage (position, information, money, majority votes) rather than service? What would foot-washing look like in that exact scenario?

Subversive Politics Begins with Foot Washing - Charles Moore

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