"The Church can provide a space away from the violence of our culture, if it learns once again to be a truly alternative community, "called out" from the wider culture, proclaiming the Reign of the God of Peace – instead of the reign of the nations, the reign of violence.
"The Church will function as the "school for peace" only if it tells stories and habituates practices that allow peaceableness to shape our lives. These are the stories it has always told: of God's grace, of repentance and forgiveness, of kindness and mercy, of care for the other. These are the stories of the creation of the world, of the building of the temple, of the good Samaritan and the prodigal son. Above all, it is the story of Christ; of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus – and of their sufferings, both upon the Cross and at its foot. Lives that are shaped by these stories are peaceable lives. But if these stories are seen merely as a sideline to the living of a life – merely as something engaged briefly on Sunday mornings, and not allowed to shape our very existence – then we will instead be shaped by the stories of the world: stories of warfare and hatred, of revenge and murder. These are not the stories of the God of peace." - David S. Cunningham, THESE THREE ARE ONE: THE PRACTICE OF TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY. Blackwell Publishers, Malden, Mass. 1998. p. 267-68
