To Baghdad and Beyond

'To Baghdad and Beyond' is the story of a young evangelical couple who followed the conviction of their faith into a war zone and discovered an alternative to the violence of empires and the complicity of quietism in the ""third way"" of Jesus's beloved community. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes of his journey from a rural Southern Baptist church to Iraq in a time of war to a Christian community of hospitality in an urban neighborhood. Excited by ways that Christian hope is taking concrete form, Wilson-Hartgrove describes a new monastic movement that is witnessing to a world at war that another way is possible. ""Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove takes us with him on a journey, a trip toward the biblical 'Babylon, ' helping us to see the truth about ourselves and our culture. Here is a retrieval of truly evangelical Christianity - truthful, prophetic, vibrant, apocalyptic, and by God's grace, hopeful. What a great trip "" Will Willimon, Bishop, the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church ""'To Baghdad and Beyond' tells of a voyage beyond the horizon, to an embattled city. But the story is no simple excursion into the unknown. It tells of inner transformation, from collusive silence and inertia to an energetic torrent of service - from a cultural dead end, defaulting and self-defeated, to a biblical 'third way, ' the way of Jesus, of nonviolent resistance. Let the 'official' churches fret and turn in their sleep. A new dawn approaches. Its signature is Hope."" Daniel Berrigan, S.J. ""When Christians in the early church read the book of Revelation, they understood its symbolism. They realized that Babylon, the wicked city described in the latter part of this book, referred to the dominant societal system in which they lived. It referred to the Roman Empire. ""As contemporary American Christians read the book of Revelation within the dominant societal system in which we live, we must ask ourselves whether or not our own nation-state has become the modern equivalent of the Roman Empire. We must ask, 'Has America become Babylon?' That is the question that Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove endeavors to answer."" Tony Campolo, From the Preface Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove lives with his wife, Leah, and other friends at the Rutba House, a new monastic community of hospitality, peacemaking, and discipleship in Durham, North Carolina. (www.newmonasticism.org)