But this paper is only a preface. We have only begun to explore what our posture should be towards revolutionary movements. Our most important exploration, and most incisive reading of the Bible, will continue to take place in the crucible of revolutionary situations themselves, where enemies jump out of the Psalms to stare menacingly at our new friends and, sometimes, at us.

Tragically, the local churches with whom we also identify -- home and in the Two-Thirds World -- sometimes offer as much practice as support for the task of learning to oppose our enemies with Christlike love. The church too often mirrors the class divisions in society. Or worse, upwardly-mobile churches may become party to privilege and sympathetic to its protectors.

Identification with the poor may not have the same urgency for them as it does for the foreigner who sees the crossing of geographical, cultural and class barriers as his or her most fundamental challenge. What is more, it may in fact be an affront to those who are just now putting a lower class identity behind them. To move from service to the poor to identification with them and their demands, may take the social conflict into the heart of a church agency's working relationships.

Tragic -- yet somehow appropriate. The tragedy confronts us with the fact that the church is still so far from God's desire that it show itself the first fruit of that justice, fraternity and self-giving that God intends for all creation. The tragedy also confronts field workers and outside agencies with the thorny dilemma of presuming to judge who really is being the church within a revolutionary situation: The church with whom we may even share a name? Or the church that the poor may be creating in unexpected ways in the midst of suffering?

Yet appropriately, one way the church proves itself first fruit of a new creation, is by serving as capsule and test case for the process of change, conversion and hard-nosed reconciliation that will be necessary if society's justice is ever to be more than vengeful judgment for past injustice. We will not dare make claims about lovingly opposing the oppressors if we are not practiced at processing conflicting interests and diverging visions within the church.

We know that we can never put more than a most provisional, contingent trust in policies and policy-makers, and we know that "taking sides" will always be as fraught with dangers and temptations as it is necessary. When we do have the privilege of identifying with a church that is committed to immersing itself in its reality rather than escaping it, our own immersion will be less likely to take us in over our heads. Our identifying will be all the wiser. And we will be investing in people who will continue living for "the people" long after we leave.

Finally, there may still be times for not taking sides, occasions for not identifying too closely with any one cause, in order to position ourselves as nonpartisan mediators. Such a posture, however, would have very different reasons than those usually given for not taking sides. They would be technical reasons based on a more thorough understanding of conflict, not pseudo-theological reasons for avoiding conflict.

What should be clear is that we will only discover the appropriate postures to take if we are free to ask not only whether to take sides, but when and how.