N.T. Wright & Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the powers: Christian political witness in an age of totalitarian terror and dysfunctional democracies, p. 77-78:
We must live luminously visible lives that appear odd to others because of our allegiance to Jesus and adopting a life patterned after Jesus. Christians are not distinguished from others by language, food, dress or convention, but by their 'peculiar way of life' and the 'strange character of their own citizenship." Abbreviate those differences as faith, love, hope and virtue if you like, but they are exercised in the public square and for the sake of the world. Augustine understood that the 'city of God' was not spatially separate from the 'earthly city', because the city of God was not a place but a pilgrimage within this world.
We must live luminously visible lives that appear odd to others because of our allegiance to Jesus and adopting a life patterned after Jesus. Christians are not distinguished from others by language, food, dress or convention, but by their 'peculiar way of life' and the 'strange character of their own citizenship." Abbreviate those differences as faith, love, hope and virtue if you like, but they are exercised in the public square and for the sake of the world. Augustine understood that the 'city of God' was not spatially separate from the 'earthly city', because the city of God was not a place but a pilgrimage within this world.
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