Discussion Questions

Dean describes East Germans—his “enemy”—offering help and even a thermos of hot coffee, and he connects it to Romans 12 (“heaped burning coals upon my head”); what does this moment expose about how easily Christians can be discipled more deeply by propaganda than by Scripture? JumpstartAnother way to ask: When East Germans showed Dean kindness, it shocked him like Romans 12 says. How does this show that Christians can be shaped more by propaganda than by what the Bible teaches?

When Dean asks, “Should my love for others await the order of human authority? Or has an even higher authority already caught a truce and broken down these walls?”, what specific “orders” or permission structures (political, cultural, church-based) function like your personal checkpoint that determines who you’re allowed to love? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What rules or “permission systems” (from politics, culture, or church) act like a checkpoint for you, deciding who you think you’re allowed to love?

Dean says that “in reality, nothing had changed” except that “a small group of global leaders…made a decision, and suddenly my enemy had become my friend”; how does that observation challenge the way you instinctively assign moral categories (enemy/ally, safe/dangerous, righteous/evil) to entire people groups? JumpstartAnother way to ask: If a leader’s decision can suddenly turn an “enemy” into a “friend,” what does that say about how you label whole groups as good or bad, safe or dangerous?

Dean claims that “in Christ, those walls had already been torn down 2,000 years ago” and then quotes Ephesians 2:14–16 about Christ abolishing enmity to create “one new man”; how would the earliest Christians—living under Rome, surrounded by ethnic hostilities—have assumed this new identity should reshape daily life and loyalty? JumpstartAnother way to ask: If Christ tore down hostile walls long ago (Ephesians 2:14–16), how would early Christians under Rome think that should change their everyday choices and loyalties?

In describing Old Testament Israel, Dean says national pride and elitism were “a historical and biblical fact,” but that in Christ the promises and even “genealogical lineage” reside in Jesus; what does this imply about how God relates to nations now, and where do you feel resistance to that implication? JumpstartAnother way to ask: If God’s promises and family line are now centered in Jesus instead of a nation, what does that mean for how God relates to nations today, and why might you resist that?

Dean says Christians are “citizens of this Christian kingdom” who live in earthly kingdoms “as a stranger and pilgrim”; what concrete choices (news consumption, political speech, voting identity, relationships, military/police involvement, social media posture) most reveal whether your “true citizenship and belonging are in Christ”? JumpstartAnother way to ask: If you belong to Christ’s kingdom but live in an earthly one, what daily choices most show where your real loyalty is (news, voting, speech, relationships, job roles, social media)?

Colossians 3:10–11 is quoted to emphasize “neither Greek nor Jew…slave nor free,” and “Christ is all and in all”; where do you see modern Christianity quietly rebuilding the dividing wall with new labels (party, class, ethnicity, nation, ideology), and what would it cost your community to refuse those labels as primary? JumpstartAnother way to ask: Where do Christians today rebuild walls by treating labels like party, class, ethnicity, nation, or ideology as most important, and what would your church lose or risk by refusing to do that?

Dean admits that this realization felt like “losing all that had been dear” and that losing national/political/familial identity threatened to “unravel my very moral fabric”; what identities, if stripped away, would most destabilize you—and what does that reveal about where you’ve been seeking moral grounding apart from Christ? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What parts of your identity—nation, politics, family, or something else—would be hardest to lose, and what does that show about where you look for right and wrong besides Christ?

Dean wrestles with whether the longing for acceptance and belonging was “old man” carnality or a God-given drive that needed “redirected,” and he lands in Hebrews 11 (seeking a homeland/city God prepared); how do you distinguish between sinful craving for tribal belonging and a holy hunger for God’s kingdom—and what practices actually redirect that hunger? JumpstartAnother way to ask: How can you tell the difference between a sinful need to “fit in” with a group and a good desire for God’s kingdom, and what habits help turn that desire toward God?

Near the end Dean asks how the church justified wars despite “Love your enemies,” and he says he went searching for “just war” origins and was shocked; before looking ahead, what arguments would you instinctively use to defend Christian participation in war (or political hatred), and how does this chapter already pressure-test those arguments? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What reasons would you naturally give to defend Christians going to war (or hating political enemies), and how does this chapter already challenge those reasons?