If Christ came to Chicago ....

I was brought up to believe that Christianity is about what's happening here and now; it's not just nostalgia for some long-lost times. And that Christ is alive and visible in our world today: that is the meaning, for me, of the Resurrection.

The first time in recent memory this was brought home to me was when I found myself at a book event about Guantanamo lawyers on Good Friday, 2010.

I thought about it most recently this morning when I wrote about the relationship of the Crucifixion to drone killings.

I thought about it several weeks ago when we held a screening and discussion at the church I attend in which we compared the pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the contemporary resister Bradley Manning.

I thought about it several months ago when the questioning of a friend led me to realize: "WWJD? Occupy!"

I haven't always been satisfied with the performance of the Church in dealing with the problems of the world. But I'm more and more convinced that Christ is alive and moving in our world. Let's wake up, and live and move with Him.

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Image: Interior of the Gedächtniskirche, Berlin: "The original church on the site was built in the 1890s. It was badly damaged in a bombing raid in 1943. The present building, which consists of a church with an attached foyer and a separate belfry with an attached chapel, was built between 1959 and 1963. The damaged spire of the old church has been retained and its ground floor has been made into a memorial hall. ... The walls of the [new] church are made of a concrete honeycomb containing 21,292 stained glass inlays."