books on "subversive"

In Champaign almost two weeks ago, I spoke on "In Search of a Subversive Heart" where we spoke about structural evil, power, and King Jesus who rules over them and calls us to subvert them his way. And we reached into the deep story of elderly Mrs. Ntonsheni, the wise victim of South African apartheid.

"Christians are subversive, they think about power upside down," we said.

More on the talk later (the audio will be available at some point soon). But already I've gotten many questions on the related books, some I relied on or recommend for further reading. So for students and friends that were at SNG:

Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals Shane Claiborne is the guy best known for living a "neo-monastic" lifestyle in Philadelphia. But his thoughts on Jesus' subversiveness in this book are really nicely done. A sweet looking book too - every page is customized! Although this isn't a resource I read much directly for our talk (I'm still reading it), If I was going to pick just one book for someone "to know more" - this seems to be it.

The Powers That Be by Walter Wink. Wink is the theologian who has done much work on power and structural evil (and one of the guys Shane Claiborne read). He wrote a more detailed trilogy of books before this one, which acts as somewhat of a summary. He's classified in "liberal" school of theology, which means I'm going to read him cautiously because our assumptions about Jesus and the scriptures may not be the same. But I think he's got some stuff that's really worth the thought. I have some previous posts on him.

The Boy Child Is Dying: A South African Experience. by Judy Boppell Peace. I read from this book when telling the story of Mrs. Ntonsheni. It appears to be out of print - I was lucky to find it - but there a few available used online. A very short book, but very powerful pictures of daily apartheid.

Some of the images we saw together were used with permission from the United Nations photo archive.