On Faithful Resistance
Reflections from the 2026 Ekklesia Project Gathering
Earlier this month, we gathered with friends here at Englewood Christian Church for the annual Ekklesia Project Gathering. The Ekklesia Project first grew many decades ago out of the shared interests and concerns of a group of Stanley Hauwerwas’s students. This ecumenical and multinational group is animated out of a “shared hope in the vision of God’s good shalom. From across the ecclesial spectrum we gather virtually and in person, supporting each other and our communities in the beautiful, vexing, imperfect work of bearing witness to the non-violent way of the Cross. Together as members of Christ’s borderless body, and committed to our own conversion and to unlearning habits of domination, we find courage to profess our unwillingness to be at home in structures and systems rooted in the economics of scarcity and the politics of fear.”1
Last year, I asked different members of the Englewood community who had attended the conference shared some thoughts and reflections about what they experienced. We wanted to do the same this year, and in the days since the gathering, there has been a great deal I’ve been mulling over, feeling curious about, and feeling provoked/animated/ by. I wanted to share some of those reflections here.2
These thoughts are very much in-process, somewhat incomplete and perhaps likely to change. But as I’ll unpack more below, that may be the point.
1. Resistance is contextual.
The theme of the gathering this year was, “Sustaining Witness: Faithful Resistance in Troubled Times.” A significant portion of the conversations revolved around if Christians are called to resistance and, if so, what does it look like? Did Jesus resist? And how? What does faithful resistance look like for each of us?
When you spend a lot of time on the internet, it’s easy to absorb the idea that we resist by having the right ideas, or that there are particular, specific issues that everyone on your side of the political aisle must speak out about in concert. But in conversation with so many at the gathering, I was reminded of how contextual these things really are. When our resistance is motivated primarily by love of neighbor, it will be in response to the needs of our particular people and place—those given to us by God to love. Resistance emerges out of both who and where we are.
2. Lamentation requires repentance.
In biblical stories, lamentation is a significant part of the lives of God’s people. The early church, for example, publicly lamented Stephen’s death. Lamenting over the way God’s world falls short of God’s dream is part of how the church witnesses—but our lament must be tied to repentance. As we lament what is wrong out there, we must also faithfully acknowledge the ways we have fallen short in here—in our lives, hearts, homes, and communities.
3. God holds things together in an order that is love.
Dr. Rodney Sadler said that love is not just ethical or even interpersonal—it is social, and therefore, it can be the source and foundational principle of our politics. Love is a societal reorientation; it is a true revolution, in that it requires turning around.
In regards to our current political situation, Kelly Johnson said, “This is the state we are in, but is it not the reality we stand on.” She went on to articulate how when we think about God “holding things together” (Colossians 1:17), we must remember that we are talking about something more profound, more powerful, more alive than the way we might bring order to a spice drawer.
A disordered or broken love of order and control can hold us back, hindering our work in the world by an intense desire to get it right. But love—rooted in God’s spirit— must always be our animating force.
4. We are called to create more than to resist.
Resistance is important and it has its place, especially when it involves loving, protecting, and advocating for the least of these. At the same time, we do well to remember that our loyalty is to Jesus. The message and way of Jesus defang the narratives of empire, and his narrative was primarily about embodying God’s kingdom, which requires creating alternative communities of love. And at the same time, whenever we resist, we must always be aware of our call to love our enemies. Does an ethic of resistance require the creation or maintenance of enemies?
As the church, we are asked to build and create because we bear the image of a God who also creates. Beyond reacting to the political and imperial powers that be, we must continue to build faithful communities that embody the Sermon on the Mount.
5. There is much value in public wrestling and wondering.
An interesting thing happened over the course of the gathering, which was that multiple times, our speaker said something like, “I haven’t quite figured this out yet,” or, “I’m still tweaking my talk and ideas.” I got the sense that our speakers would have preferred to have their ideas and talks set in stone, but the way they showed up was a gift. It is so rare to see someone from a pulpit or other position of authority say, “I am still in process.” Their humility and curiosity allowed us, the attendees, to enter conversation and dialogue with them, and that, too, was a gift.
Further reading:
Our Cultivating Communities series of books is published in collaboration with The Ekklesia Project. Steve Fowl, who wrote The Form of the Word was one of the plenary speakers at this year’s gathering. Learn more about this series here.
ICYMI:
Plough recently republished an older article from C. Christopher Smith about the practices of stability, conversation, and Sabbath, and how they help us become a people who embody the Sermon on the Mount. Read the article here.
At The Englewood Review of Books, we published our list of our Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2026.
On this Substack, Josh Hayashi shares some interesting questions worth considering in conversations about church closures.
We are quickly approaching the end of our series about Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. In the most recent post, we considered romanticism and art.
Quote borrowed from the Ekklesia Project website: www.ekklesiaproject.org/
EP typically makes recordings of the plenary’s available; I look forward to sharing those with you here in the future when they become available.
"Beyond reacting to the political and imperial powers that be, we must continue to build faithful communities that embody the Sermon on the Mount."
I really appreciated this - resistance often feels so much easier because there is a definite entity to stand against, whereas creation by its nature involves the indefinite and unknown, and requires an ability to sit with uncertainty about what exactly will come from our efforts. Thank you for the challenge!