A little over a year ago, a book of theology probably saved my faith.
A professional theologian didn’t write the book. It wasn’t even particularly well written. The book was The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Tolstoy. First published in 1893 in Germany – because it was banned in Tolstoy’s Russia – the book radically applies what Tolstoy takes the symbol of the kingdom of God to mean. He offered a complete rethinking of how we order society: an anarchist or at least anti-statist, pacifist and abolitionist vision.
The sheer boldness of Tolstoy’s work shook me.
Here’s how it saved my faith. The sheer boldness of Tolstoy’s work shook me. I imagined that Tolstoy’s readers would have been shocked, much like Jesus’ first hearers must have been when he proclaimed the kingdom of God. That shock prompted me to rethink what I understood the kingdom of God to be. Rather, it prodded me to rethink, resee, reimagine the world according to what the proclamation of the kingdom of God might mean for the world.
In the wake of that realization, I revisited the Gospels’ vision of the kingdom of God. I turned to theologians like Gustavo Gutiérrez and Jürgen Moltmann, for whom the kingdom was a central symbol. I rooted myself in the idea of the beloved community — an idea explored by Josiah Royce, Martin Luther King Jr. and contemporary thinkers such as Joy James. I also read more recent works such as the 2019 book Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice, and the Abolition of Prisons by Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd, who present new abolitionist visions; Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm, Kazu Haga’s 2020 book merging insights from nonviolence and restorative justice; and Carolyn Forché’s What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance, a 2019 book about an activist poet, a nation in turmoil and heroes like Oscar Romero.
But more importantly, as I read all this theology, I allowed it to give me new eyes. I began asking different questions.
Read theology. Do theology. Let your faith shape how you move in the world.
For example, what if we don’t start our conversation about justice reform with the assumption that putting human beings in cages for years at a time is acceptable? What if we instead begin with a theology of the worth and dignity of every human life because the divine image is stamped on each of us? What if we think through how we might repair harm with a theology of grace that declares, with Bryan Stevenson in Just Mercy, A Story of Justice and Redemption, that “Each of us is more than the worst thing that we’ve ever done.”
What if our politics and economics were not centered on dominance? Instead, what if we develop a working theology of the beloved community? What if, as King urged in his 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” speech, we move from a “thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society,” valuing people and community over profit, property and power? Perhaps we would stop trying to solve all our problems with violence and let the vision of the beloved community be our guide.
By now, I’m sure some readers have found my little essay impractical or overly idealistic, so let me close with some practical advice.
First, read some theology.
More importantly, let it shape how you see and move in the world. Pick up some of the books mentioned in this essay. Or read more of the work of the theologians highlighted in the October 2025 Outlook issue.
Then see what you can do to put your newfound theology into action.
Start in your own community. In my area, a faith-based community organizing group is working to obtain childcare and transportation for those with low to middle incomes. One of my passions has been offering educational opportunities to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated persons. Who knows, you might even find opportunities to tell people about your newfound theology. You might tell your co-workers at the urban farm about how a theology of creation inspires your work. The folks at your local mutual aid market might like to hear about God’s preferential option for the poor.
Read theology. Do theology. Let your faith shape how you move in the world.
