How to Read the Bible & It's Violence (eg, "Reading the Heart of Jesus")

ASKING THE HARD QUESTIONS

WHEN READING THE BIBLE

Question #1...

How does Old Testament God of "Thou shalt not kill" come to be conscripted in the OT narrative "passages of violence" to justify the killing of women, children, and men in its war chronicles?

Hmmmm...

Perhaps we should ask this differently of God and the Bible...

Question #2...

How is it then that Jesus in the New Testament of God's "revelation" says to "Love one another?" After 2000 years of church history we know Jesus is both God incarnate (in the flesh) and the Son of God carrying out the Spirit of God's message to love. That is, Jesus is both God and man fully, indivisibly, completely. Simply, God is love. Jesus shows us that. 

So let's examine these statements...

• Is the OT God different from the NT God? (We call this kind of personality "dipolar" to oneself; thus, is God dipolar? More Sphinx-like or Zeus-like? Fickled in all His ways?).

• Perhaps God's people acted according to what they thought was just and right in their day? (Most likely, though I wouldn't call it "God ordained").

• Perhaps an evolutionary form of religion and social justice was still in its raw stages to be learned as an ancient civilization? (More than likely. Justice, freedom, and equality is still being worked out today in our postmodern societies as to what they mean).

• Are the Ideals of God's vision something which comes first ahead of the implementation of God's vision? (Yes. Ideals, or "calls to justice," cannot happen in a vacuum). 

• Why do literalists take the OT so, well, literally? (Likely because they haven't asked the questions of consistency of God's love apart from subjective and violent means and thinking).

• What should a "Law and Order" society actually mean in its execution? (Most probably it means "majority justice" by any means possible to meet majority ideals which really isn't justice so much as it is mob rule).

• Is the term "Justice" another one of those terms which can mean many things to many people except as it should mean? (Most probably; semantics being what they are can mean many things while being quite deceptive by the purveyors of falsehoods and lies).

• So who is God? Does God's justice mean "one thing then another" or did we hear God wrong? (Usually we hear what we want to hear. This is the testimony of Scripture as seen repeatedly throughout Scripture).

• Does the Scripture's testimony deny God's love? (No. It shows to us our unwillingness to love thoroughly. To allow racism, bigotry, tribal zeal to dominate in us over truly loving actions.

• How then should we read the Bible? (We shouldn't read Scripture to copy the actions of unloving or unjust societies but to learn from their failings... which must include the many failings of God's blinded and unrepentant people Israel. This also explains Jesus' anger with those claiming God's name though God "knew them not").

• So what's more true? God's love or our ability to mangle God's love into something it wasnt meant to be? (Yeah, both. The answer is quite self-evident when reading both the Old and New Testaments' narratives of how God's "people" responded to God's commands to love and be just and merciful... don't you think?).

• But I'm told that God told His people to do all these unloving things in the Bible! (The burden is always on us to discern another's words or actions... including our acclaimed "God appointed" preachers and leaders).

• So if God loves, if He loves truth and justice, seeks mercy and compassion, and wants forgiveness, what does this mean? (Quite simply, to do all in love; avoid mistaking love for sinful injustice; to learn humility; and to forgive those whom we've learned to hate).

R.E. Slater

June 18, 2020

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Amazon Link

Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes

Critical Thoughts & Notes

Article Link

E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien. Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes:

Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible. InterVarsity Press, 2012.

[Logos Edition.] (225 pages)

CRITICAL THOUGHTS

This is an excellent introduction for those unfamiliar with the basics of interpretation. I appreciate the authors’ study, experience, and their personal admission of their own biases/lenses by which they read and even write this book. This is a really helpful and accessible guide to entering into another world by exposing one’s own cultural context, and those who embrace this new way of thinking will have a far greater depth of understanding of the world, in addition to the Bible.

There were a few places that I felt they misstepped, and even contradicted their own theses. Those notes are highlighted below in bold and blue.

NOTES

Introduction: Coming to Terms with Our Cultural Blinders

In whatever place and whatever age people read the Bible, we instinctively draw from our own cultural context to make sense of what we’re reading. (11)

…all Bible reading is necessarily contextual. (12)

Another way to say this is that the most powerful cultural values are those that go without being said. It is very hard to know what goes without being said in another culture. But often we are not even aware of what goes without being said in our own culture. This is why misunderstanding and misinterpretation happen. When a passage of Scripture appears to leave out a piece of the puzzle because something went without being said, we instinctively fill in the gap with a piece from our own culture—usually a piece that goes without being said. When we miss what went without being said for them and substitute what goes without being said for us, we are at risk of misreading Scripture. (12-13)

[via: This reminds me of the axiom, “Those who do not study philosophy are the most bound by their philosophies.”]

Our goal is to raise this question: if our cultural context and assumptions can cause us to overlook a famine, what else do we fail to notice? (15)

We hope that Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes will offer a positive corrective by suggesting that there is a discernible pattern by which Western readers read—and even misread—Scripture. Becoming aware of our cultural assumptions and how they influence our reading of Scripture are important first steps beyond the paralysis of self-doubt and toward a faithful reading and application of the Bible. (16)

In short, while this is a book about biblical interpretation, our primary goal is to help us learn to read ourselves. (16)

If our cultural blind spots keep us from reading the Bible correctly, then they can also keep us from applying the Bible correctly. If we want to follow Jesus faithfully and help others do the same, we need to do all we can to allow the Scriptures to speak to us on their own terms. (17)

Richards, E. R., & O’Brien, B. J. (2012). Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (p. 17). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

PART ONE: Above the Surface

Mores are the social conventions that dictate which behaviors are considered appropriate or inappropriate. (26)

1. Serving Two Masters: Mores

Our hierarchy of what behaviors are better or worse than others is passed down to us culturally and unconsciously. (34)

If Thomas (and much of early Christian tradition) overemphasized the significance of celibacy, it should likewise be clear from this passage that it is possible to overemphasize the priority of marriage. (38-39)

John Stott, quoted above, and Catholic writer and minister Henri Nouwen are just two examples of celibate Christian singles who dedicated their lives to the service of Christ and his kingdom. (40)

[via: Nouwen was gay, a note for additional context.]

In Timothy’s church in Ephesus, some women were dressing inappropriately. Again we might assume Paul is concerned about sexual modesty. Contextually, however, a case can be made that Paul meant, “Women should dress economically modestly” so as not to flaunt their wealth. The remainder of 1 Timothy 2:9 reads, “with decency and propriety … not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes.” Paul mentions a triad of trouble (anger, quarreling/disputes and economics) for women here in 1 Timothy 2:8–9. (43)

Where two mores—sex and money—collide, we see which is more important to us. And when we project our own cultural mores onto the original audience of the Bible, we may fail to apply the Bible correctly in our own lives. It is certainly important for men and women alike to arrive for worship in attire that is sexually modest. But we seem to have no trouble turning sacred spaces into Christian country clubs. We see no dangers in the human tendency to assert our status in the way we dress. (43-44)

Start paying attention to your instinctive interpretations as you read biblical passages that have to do with values, in order to uncover which parts may be connected with cultural mores. To do that, take the time to complete these sentences: (1) Clearly, this passage is saying (or not saying) —— is right/wrong. (2) Is (that issue) really what is condemned? (3) Am I adding/removing some elements? The way you answer these questions can help you uncover what mores you take for granted. (48)

Every age has its own outlook. It is especially good at seeing certain truths and especially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.… Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. – C. S. Lewis, “Introduction,” in Athanasius, On the Incarnation (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996), pp. 4–5.

2. The Bible in Color: Race and Ethnicity

The Cushites were not demeaned as a slave race in the ancient world; they were respected as highly skilled soldiers. It is more likely that Miriam and Aaron thought Moses was being presumptuous by marrying above himself. That makes sense of the tone of the passage. “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?” they whined. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” (Num 12:2). In other words: Moses is not the only prophet here. Who does he think he is? (61)

It is possible, though, that the divisions among the churches in Corinth were not theological. We may be failing to note ethnic markers that Paul sprinkled all over the text. Apollos was noted as an Alexandrian (Egyptian) Jew (Acts 18:24). They had their own reputation. Paul notes that Peter is called by his Aramaic name, Cephas, suggesting the group that followed him spoke Aramaic and were thus Palestinian Jews. Paul’s church had Diaspora Jews but also many ethnic Corinthians, who were quite proud of their status as residents of a Roman colony and who enjoyed using Latin. This may explain why Paul doesn’t address any theological differences. There weren’t any. The problem was ethnic division: Aramaic-speaking Jews, Greek-speaking Jews, Romans and Alexandrians. (66)

3. Just Words? Language

But language is much more than words. As we have argued in these first chapters, the most powerful cultural values are those that go without being said. (70)

While it is easy to tell that you are hearing or reading a foreign language, what is not at all obvious is how our language, and our understanding of how language works, affects everything else we think and do. Few of us ever reflect on the mechanics of our native languages or the values and patterns that lie beneath them. These things reside further down the iceberg, under the water. So we are unlikely to recognize what it is about our own language that goes without being said. (71-72)

It is important for us to remember that when we read the Bible in our native language, mostly what has been changed is the words. Behind the words, now in a language we understand, remains that complex structure of cultural values, assumptions and habits of mind that does not translate easily, if at all. If we fail to recognize this—and we very often do—we risk misreading the Bible by reading foreign assumptions into it. Like Procrustes of Greek mythology, who shortened or stretched his guests to fit his bed, our unconscious assumptions about language encourage us to reshape the biblical narrative to fit our framework. (72)

To state our first point simply: Western readers typically believe that if something is important, then we’ll have a word for it. And the more important something is in our culture, the more likely we are to develop specialized language to describe it. (72)

Our cultural value for privacy is strictly a Western value; it is not derived from the Bible. This is not to say that privacy is wrong, just that it is a neutral value. But when we impose it on the text, we can come away with unbiblical interpretations.| What it says is not always what it means. (79)

English is a subject-verb language; it is actor- and action-oriented. We prefer sentences with a clear subject and a clear predicate, and we like it best when the verb is in the active voice. (80)

The whole is more than the sum of the parts. The meanings of words change when you combine them. We know this is true on a basic level. We can define the words up and with. So we can figure out a sentence like, “Put this book up with the others.” We also know that put up with can have a completely different meaning: for example, why we put up with English being so complex is a mystery to us! We instinctively adjust to these flexible meanings in our own language. But when we approach other languages, we tend to look for the literal, dictionary definitions of the words in question. (81)

…when it comes to formal dialogue, or talking about things we consider important (God, for example), English speakers tend to privilege clear, propositional language over colorful, metaphorical language. That concrete, propositional language is better than ambiguous, metaphorical language is just one more thing about language that goes without being said in the West. | So when it comes to communicating the truth, Westerners drift more toward propositions than to artistic expression. Because we are somewhat uncomfortable with the ambiguity of metaphors, we tend to distill propositions out of them. (84)

Once you start noticing the connections between metaphors, you start to see them everywhere. (87)

Classical liberal theologians of the nineteenth century argued that Jesus never claimed to be divine. They missed the crucial point that Jesus made important truth claims—including being God incarnate—through his use of metaphorical language. (87)

There is no real substitute for becoming familiar with the Bible’s original languages. But that doesn’t mean you can’t become sensitive to the difference language makes in the meantime. (88)

PART TWO: Just Below the Surface

4. Captain of My Soul: Individualism and Collectivism

The Japanese never live their lives as individuals. We European missionaries were not aware of that fact. Suppose we have a single Japanese here. We try to convert him. But there was never a single individual we could call “him” in Japan. He has a village behind him. A family. And more. There are also his dead parents and ancestors. That village, that family, those parents and ancestors are bound to him tightly, as though they were living beings. That is why he is not an isolated human being. He is an aggregate who must shoulder the burden of village, family, parents, ancestors.… When the first missionary to Japan, Francisco Xavier, began his labours in the southern provinces, this was the most formidable obstacle he encountered. The Japanese said, “I believe the Christian teachings are good. But I would be betraying my ancestors if I went to a Paradise where they cannot dwell. – Shusaku Endo, The Samurai, trans. Van C. Gessel (New York: New Directions Books, 1982), pp. 164–165.

Roman citizens were required to have a given name (praenomen), a clan/ancestral name (nomen) and a family/tribe name (cognomen). (99)

It is difficult to present the values of a collectivist culture in a positive light to Western hearers. We as your authors often struggle to explain a collectivist worldview without sounding critical. In Western cultures, individual choice is to be protected at all cost. Communities that do not protect it are oppressive; individuals who will not practice it are weak-minded. Conformity, a virtue in a collectivist culture, is a vice in ours. Conforming is a sign of immaturity, a failure to realize your full potential, an inability to “leave the nest” or “cut the cord.” Of course, it is equally difficult to put a positive spin on individualist virtues, such as self-reliance, in a collectivist culture. Non-Westerners often consider collectivism one of their finest traits. Such an individualist in the East is described as someone who “doesn’t get along” or “breaks harmony” or “seeks his own glory” or “is self-important.” Obviously, we prefer the idea that we are “self-reliant.” (99-100)

Six of Paul’s letters indicate they were written with a coauthor, yet we traditionally ignore the other authors (1 Cor 1:1; 2 Cor 1:1; Gal 1:1–2; Phil 1:1; Col 1:1; 1 Thess 1:1; 2 Thess 1:1). (102)

Even if we notice the coauthor in the letter’s greeting at all (Sosthenes in 1 Corinthians and Timothy in 2 Corinthians, for example), we are likely to assume that they were passive participants. Surely Paul is the creative and theological genius behind the letters, we think: the single, solitary, individual source of the letter’s content. Doubtful. It is more likely that the letters were composed with the coauthors actively contributing. (102)

But we can miss this, because a flaw in the English language works together with our love for individualism. In English, you can be both singular and plural. That is, we can’t differentiate formally between you (singular) and you (plural). Most languages don’t endure this ambiguity. And deep down, we don’t like to either. That’s why English speakers in different regions come up with colloquial terms to differentiate between the two: y’all, you’ns, you guys, you lot, youse (Scotland), yous (Liverpool) and even yous guys (parts of New York). Biblical Greek could differentiate between you singular and you plural. But we miss this in our English translations. (108)

Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. – Jessie Kunhardt, “Anne Rice: I Quit Being a Christian,” The Huffington Post, accessed May 15, 2012.

Associating with Christ but not his church is a distinction Jesus would never have made. (110)

[via: I have a difficult time with the Anne Rice example and metaphor. First, most critics–including Richards and O’Brien–gloss over the rationale for Rice’s statement, being more about beliefs, than about the “community” of Christians. Second, “church” also means something quite different today than in Jesus’s day. So, how can we know what Jesus would or would not have supported given the institutionalization of our “contemporary ekklesia?” Did he not also rail against the Pharisees even though he was most in line with that sect?!]

Additionally, make a conscious effort to read the you in biblical texts as plural. Don’t worry if you get it wrong. You’re trying to correct a bad habit, and it’s okay to overcorrect at first. (110)

[via: I’m not sure what I think about this advice. Is “overcorrection” the right response to “misreading” when it comes to hermeneutics. A part of me feels the need to be more accurate and studied.]

5. Have You No Shame? Honor/Shame and Right/Wrong

…the one temptation that no man could resist. The ring made its bearer invisible. With it on, a man could do whatever he wished without others knowing. You may recognize this storyline; J. R. R. Tolkien used it in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The movie didn’t explain, though, why humans found the “one ring” so tempting. Plato knew. “No man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice” if he was free to act without anyone’s knowledge, Plato wrote; “No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market.” (Plato, Resp 2. See also H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man (1897), where the invisible man (Griffin) is unable to resist stealing.) (114-115)

This inner voice is strengthened by the concomitant Western habit of dichotomizing everything, usually into good or bad. In fact, it is more basic than that. We tend to view everything as an “either-or.” Aristotle’s use of syllogisms and, ultimately, the dualism of Descartes have conditioned Westerners to polarize choices into two opposing categories. [Richard Nisbett, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, offers helpful perspective here; see The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why (New York: Free Press, 2003).] (Many readers will be trying to decide if we are right or wrong about this!) Eastern thought, influenced by the Tao and Confucius, the yin/yang, tend to strive for harmony rather than distinction, stressing more a both-and perspective rather than an either-or. (115)

In a shame culture, it is not the guilty conscience but the community that punishes the offender by shaming him. (117)

To summarize, in an innocence/guilt culture (which includes most Western societies), the laws of society, the rules of the church, local mores and the code of the home are all internalized in the person. The goal is that when a person breaks one of these, her or his conscience will be pricked. In fact, it is hoped that the conscience will discourage the person from breaking the rule in the first place. The battle is fought on the inside. In an honor/shame society, such as that of the Bible and much of the non-Western world today, the driving force is to not bring shame upon yourself, your family, your church, your village, your tribe or even your faith. The determining force is the expectations of your significant others (primarily your family). Their expectations don’t override morals or right/wrong; they actually are the ethical standards. In these cultures, you are shamed when you disappoint those whose expectations matter. “You did wrong”—not by breaking a law and having inner guilt but by failing to meet the expectations of your community. For our discussion here, the point to notice is that the verdict comes not from the inner conscience of the perpetrator but from the external response of his or her group. One’s actions are good or bad depending upon how the community interprets them. (118-119)

We typically assume that David was aware of his sin but stubbornly refused to repent. Then, when Nathan confronts David—or, in a sense, tricks him—David’s conscience is pricked, he gives in to his inner conviction and he publicly repents. It is far more likely that David had not given the matter a moment’s thought. (120-121)

God worked through the honor/shame system, but we would err if we implied this was merely a system. God himself is concerned about honor/shame even if we Westerners are not. (127)

Moses doesn’t appeal to God’s sense of justice (“it wouldn’t be right”) but to his sense of honor (“you will be shamed”): “Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self” (Ex 32:12–13). (128)

[via: What is the distinction here, if any, between shame and/or reputation?]

Although Plato predates the New Testament, his influence had not yet shaped Palestinian culture. It was still an honor/shame society. (128)

[via: Stipulated, but not substantiated. Hellenism’s spread was pretty vast and vigorous.]

During his earthly ministry, Jesus worked within the honor/shame system. In the ancient world, there was only so much honor to go around—it was a limited good. Everyone was scrambling for more. Jesus’ opponents understood this well. (129)

[via: Honor/shame as a zero sum game. Is this accurate?]

In Ephesians 4:1, the apostle calls his listeners to “live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (see also 2 Thess 1:11). The word worthy should alert us that honor/shame language is being used. (132)

We deceive ourselves when we think sin is individual and independent of a community’s honor. Our individualism feeds the false sense that sin is merely an inner wrong—the private business between me and God, to be worked out on judgment day. (132)

Ancients didn’t understand the world like we do, but they were good observers. When one person in a group caught a cold, often others in the group got sick. When one person in a group began bad habits or behaviors, often others in the group did as well. We might say that one scenario follows biology (viruses) and the other sociology (one bad apple spoils the whole bunch). Nonetheless, contamination happens. (133)

In the meantime, pay attention to where stories take place in Scripture. If an event or conversation is taking place publicly, there’s a good chance that honor/shame is at stake, such as in the story of Ruth and Boaz. As we mentioned above, the key difference between the questions Nicodemus and Jesus’ disciples asked and those asked by Jerusalem’s Jewish leaders was context: Nicodemus and the disciples questioned Jesus privately (see, for example, Jn 3:2 and Mt 17:19). The Jewish leaders questioned him publicly. You might object that the primary difference was motive: Nicodemus and the disciples were asking sincere questions, while the religious leaders were trying to trap Jesus. That’s true. But context indicates motive. Private questions were not honor challenges. Public questions were. (135)

6. Sand Through the Hourglass: Time

…time is one of the ways cultures are most different. In the West, time is a hot commodity (137)

In the non-Western world, by contrast, the correct time is often connected to a condition or situation. Some call this an “event” orientation, in which, as Duane Elmer writes, “Each event is as long or as short as it needs to be. One cannot determine the required time in advance. Time is elastic, dictated only by the natural unfolding of the event. The quality of the event is the primary issue, not the quantity of minutes or hours.” Relationships trump schedules, so things begin when everyone who needs to be there has arrived. (140)

the biblical authors, like many non-Westerners, were less concerned with clock or calendar time (chronos) and more concerned with the appropriateness and fittingness of events (kairos). You might say they were more concerned with timing than with time. (145)

Western stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. The sequence (chronos) is important. When you tell a story all out of sequence, the story quits making sense—or so we Westerners think. | Not so elsewhere. In the non-Western world, stories often circulate around the event until it coalesces; therefore, orderliness (but not the chronological sequence) is important. (147)

Western readers have a tendency to import our concern for chronology into Scripture. Unfortunately for us, events in the Bible are not necessarily presented in historical, chronological order. (148)

Since Luke uses references to the temple as an organizing theme in his Gospel, for example, the “correct” sequence for Luke is the one that ends where Jesus stood on the pinnacle of the temple and was urged to jump (Lk 4:9). Matthew has every major event in the life of Jesus occur on a mountain. (This sometimes requires referring to a hill as a mountain, as in the Sermon on the Mount.) For Matthew, the “correct” sequence is the one that has the crescendo event on a mountain, where Jesus is taken to a high mountain to view the world’s kingdoms. Either scenario is likely to bother Western readers. Shouldn’t the writers have told the story in the “correct” sequence? I suspect Matthew and Luke would both insist they did. Moreover, they would likely insist the other evangelist did as well. The chronological sequence simply didn’t matter to them in the same way it matters to us.| Please note, however, that the biblical authors were intentional about the sequence in which they presented events, even if they weren’t preoccupied with historical, chronological order. We Westerners can focus so much on the time (chronology) that we miss the timing (the meaning of the sequence) in a biblical passage. (148-149)

Mark likes this storytelling method. He tells us that Jairus comes to request healing for his daughter (Mk 5:22–24). Jesus agrees. On their way to Jairus’s home, Jesus heals a woman who touched the hem of his cloak (Mk 5:25–34). Only after Jairus’s daughter has died does Jesus heal her (Mk 5:35–43). Mark connects these stories in a number of ways. Both the girl and woman are called “daughter.” The girl is twelve years old; the woman has been bleeding for twelve years. Jairus falls to the ground; the woman falls to the ground. Clearly Mark wants us to read the stories together. Most important for our purposes here, Mark’s sequencing of the events connects them. He wants us to interpret them together, compare and contrast the responses to Jesus. We may be inclined to think the story of the bleeding woman is told in the middle of the Jairus story merely because that’s when it happened. In this case, our love for chronology can lead us to miss the kairos of Mark’s point. (149-150)

PART THREE: Deep Below the Surface

7. First Things First: Rules and Relationships

Because Western readers tend to understand relationships in terms of rules and laws, we have a tendency also to understand ancient relationships, including those we read about in Scripture, in terms of rules. (160-161)

Rules define relationships. … In contrast to the modern Western worldview, in ancient worldviews it went without saying that relationships (not rules) define reality. (161)

modern Western exegetes often define patronage—a key element of first-century Roman society—using forensic language. We describe the relationship between a patron and a client as contractual, like a business, rather than as familial. (162)

institutions of society, like family and patronage, went without being said. Everyone knew what the proper behavior was. A good patron solved the problems of his or her clients: assisting with trade guilds, business disputes, refinancing loans and easing tensions with city elders. Ordinary folks like Marcus had neither the clout nor the social graces to negotiate such endeavors. The patron did “favors” for his clients who then fell under his circle of influence and protection. In return, the client was expected to be loyal (faithful) and was sometimes asked to do things for the patron. (163-164)

Patronage had its own vocabulary. Words we usually consider particularly Christian terms—grace and faith—were common parlance before Paul commandeered them. The undeserved gifts of assistance the patron offered were commonly called charis (“grace” and “gift”). The loyalty the client offered the patron in response was called pistis (“faith” and “faithfulness”). Roman philosophers noted that when one received a god’s favor (charis), one should respond with love, joy and hope. When Paul sought to explain the Christian’s new relationship with God, then, one of the ways he did so was in terms of the ancient system of patronage—something everyone understood. In other words, it went without being said that relationship is the premier and determinative aspect of charis, grace. (166)

In the ancient world, rules were not expected to apply 100 percent of the time. Israel did not keep the rules and God complained about it, but we often gloss over the reality that the rules had been broken for centuries. The covenant, however, was broken only when it became clear that the relationship was over (e.g., Hos 1:9). The end came when the relationship, not the rules, was broken. (166)

The Israelites were clearly instructed that upon entering the Promised Land, every Israelite was to get an inheritance (land) and no Canaanites were (Josh 1). Yet the very next story is about a Canaanite who was given an inheritance, Rahab (Josh 2; 6). The story after that tells of the Israelite Achan, who was cut from his inheritance (Josh 7). The stories are woven together around the theme of sacrifices to the Lord. (169)

The trick is that our definitions of natural and supernatural are ever changing. We humans set the line between natural and supernatural. Natural indicates “things we understand.” Supernatural things are things we don’t (yet) understand. Since human knowledge is growing, the line keeps moving. (170-171)

Putting aside the question of whether or not God actually uses lightning to smite people, our point is this: now that we understand the physics of lightning, Westerners remove it from God’s hands. Thunder cannot answer Western prayers. Lightning does not smite Western sinners. Once we understand a rule of the universe, we cut God out of any relationship to it. (171)

We want to be very clear here: your authors are not opposed to scientific inquiry or discovery. We like science. We don’t believe sincere Christian faith and a scientific understanding of the universe are fundamentally incompatible. We do, however, want to caution against naturalism. Naturalism assumes the natural world and its laws (as opposed to supernatural laws) can fully explain the universe. In naturalism, the supernatural—if there is any such thing—has no effect on the natural world. For Christians, science is our friend; naturalism is not. Naturalism tells us that once we understand the rules that govern the world, we have no need for a relationship with its Creator. And naturalism, for most Westerners, goes without being said. (171)

[via: This is going to be problematic, for as Sean Carroll persuasively argues, science will conclude naturalism.]

Our point is not that there is anything faithless about taking medicine. Our point is that at an unconscious level, our expectation that the universe operates according to natural laws excludes the possibility from our minds that God might intervene in our daily affairs. (172)

…does relationship ever trump theology? Such a question could convene a heresy trial in many denominations. But Jesus prayed that his followers would “be one” (Jn 17:11). Does this mean that we must somehow “correct” the theology of all other believers so that, as a result, we can “be one”? (173)

…we have to learn to identify when the Bible is prioritizing relationship instead of rules or laws. | One way to do this is to pay attention to the motivation or rationale a biblical writer offers for a commandment. (174)

8. Getting Right Wrong: Virtue and Vice

We are profoundly influenced by our culture to recognize certain behaviors as virtues and other behaviors as vices. (178)

Can you imagine a Jesus who doesn’t have all his teeth? (179)

Weight control and oral hygiene are Western virtues, not ancient ones—nor, arguably, biblical ones. Nevertheless, in a picture or movie, we need a slender, fit Jesus with a full set of pearly white teeth (flowing hair and blue eyes are a nice touch, too). Virtues and vices, though, are issues far more significant than cosmetic dentistry. While we might grudgingly concede a tooth or two, we are confident Jesus conformed to the rest of our virtues. (179)

…five Western virtues that are either nonbiblical (that do not have support from the Scriptures) or anti-biblical (that directly contradict the teaching of the Scriptures). (183)

• Self-sufficiency
• Fighting for freedom
• Pax Americana
• Leadership
• Tolerance

Self-sufficiency, freedom, “might makes right,” leadership and tolerance are all virtues we will likely teach to the next generation, whether consciously or unconsciously. It should be clear by now that not all our Western virtues come from the Bible, even if we insist that the Bible is our authority for moral conduct. (186-187)

Since, then, the wealth still overflows, it gets buried underground, stashed away in secret places. For (they say), “what’s to come is uncertain, we may face unexpected needs.” Therefore it is equally uncertain whether you will have any use for your buried gold; it is not uncertain, however, what shall be the penalty of inveterate inhumanity. For when you failed, with your thousand notions, wholly to expend your wealth, you then concealed it in the earth. A strange madness, that, when gold lies hidden with other metals, one ransacks the earth; but after it has seen the light of day, it disappears again beneath the ground. From this, I perceive, it happens to you that in burying your money you bury also your heart. “For where your treasure is,” it is said, “there will your heart be also” (Mt 6:21). This is why the commandments cause sorrow; because they have nothing to do with useless spending sprees, they make life unbearable for you. – Basil, “Sermon to the Rich,” in Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne, vol. 31, cols. 277c–304c.

…perhaps the best way to become sensitive to our own presuppositions—what goes without being said for us—is to read the writing of Christians from different cultures and ages. (190)

9. It’s All About Me: Finding the Center of God’s Will

Western Christians, especially North American Christians, tend to read every scriptural promise, every blessing, as if it necessarily applies to us—to each of us and all of us individually. More to the point, we are confident that us always includes me specifically. (193)

At some point in this generation, “Take up your cross and follow me” changed into, “Come to Jesus and he’ll make your life better.” (195)

Much preaching is focused on the felt needs of listeners; this style communicates that the value of the Scriptures, and ultimately the gospel itself, is what it can do for me. This means that while the church has not created the American preoccupation with me, it has certainly reinforced it. If we are encouraged to think about our relationships with God and the church in terms of what’s in it for me, it’s only natural that we approach the Bible the same way. And you guessed it: this tendency can cause us to misread the Bible. (196)

Now, what makes this misreading so tricky is that it is built upon at least two very positive beliefs. First, we assume that the Bible applies to us. One of the important commitments of evangelical Christianity is that the Bible is for us in every age. Every part of the Scriptures, even though they record events that happened in other countries and thousands of years ago, has application for us today. That is to say, we acknowledge that the Bible records history, but it is not only about things in the past. It is also relevant for Christians in the present and, by extension, in the future. A second influential, and accurate, assumption is that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Because his character does not change, we are confident he will deal with us as he has dealt with his people previously. He was trustworthy then; he is trustworthy now. We then extrapolate that promises that applied to his people in the past continue to apply to his people in the present. If they didn’t, we reason, God would be unpredictable. But he isn’t. We trust him because “his compassions never fail” (Lam 3:22).

| We wholeheartedly affirm both of these statements: that the Bible applies to us and that God is not capricious. The problem is that these foundational ideas are tweaked when we view them through the lens of me. The Christian church has always believed that the Scriptures are for us. But our historical location changes what that means. As Eugene Peterson has argued, the original process through which God worked with his people was through speaking-writing-reading (aloud)-listening. That is, until the Reformation, people heard the Scriptures in church—and only in church. That meant the natural question when interpreting the Bible was, “What does this mean to us?” With the double-edged gift of Gutenberg’s printing press, the process is often reduced merely to writing-reading. Now we read the Bible alone in our homes. This allows a communal process to become individualized. Worse, one can ˆ the Word of God (meaning a book), rather than ˆ the Word of God, which is usually a communal act. The act of carrying around a book gives the individual the perception: I have the Word of God. Now instead of asking, “What does this mean to us?” our instinctive question is, “What does this mean to me?” The shift to individual, reader-centered interpretation was natural, post-Gutenberg. But we must never lose sight of the implications of that shift. (196-197)

When we don’t immediately recognize the relevance of a passage—if it’s not immediately clear what I can get out of it—we are less likely to read it. This leaves us basing our Christian life on less than the full counsel of God. (198)

We wonder, If this verse is not true for me, can it be true at all? (199)

…we should determine what the text meant then before we try to apply it to ourselves now. We suggest a better interpretation of Jeremiah 29 runs something like this: even though Israel is in the condition of exile, God will prosper them by prospering those who enslave them (Jer 29:7). Someday he will deliver them from exile, but that will happen well in the future. Until then, Israel is to rest assured that God is at work for their deliverance, even when he does not appear to be. (201)

Perhaps the sensibility runs even deeper. Do we think, Of course, I would be on stage when the world ends. How could God do such a dramatic event without me? We don’t say it so bluntly, but the subconscious reasoning often runs this way: Of course the world couldn’t end before I got here, but now that I’m here, there isn’t any reason for God to wait any longer. (206-207)

This cultural assumption about the supremacy of me is the one to which we Westerners are perhaps blindest. We rightly search for the center of God’s will, but with the unspoken assumption that once we find it, the seat will have my individual name on it. We have hundreds of years of cultural reinforcement driving us to read the Bible with ourselves at the center. There are those who are striving to correct the tendency in certain areas of our theology. (207-208)

Conclusion:

Three Easy Steps for Removing

Our Cultural Blinders?

• EMBRACE COMPLEXITY

• BEWARE OF OVERCORRECTION

• BE TEACHABLE

• EMBRACE ERROR. Whether we like it or not, we learn more when we get something wrong the first time than we do when we are right from the beginning. (215)

• Don’t be afraid of being wrong. Fear only failing to learn from your mistakes. (216)

• READ TOGETHER

RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION

Introduction: Coming to Terms with Our Cultural Blinders

For a great general introduction to the differences between how Westerners and non-Westerners think, see:

Nisbett, Richard. The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently … and Why. New York: Free Press, 2003.

For more on the changing demographics of Christians worldwide and the implications of these changes for biblical interpretation, see:

Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

———. The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Kenneth Bailey’s work in this area is excellent and quite readable. We highly recommend his books for exploring this topic. For an introduction to the ways being unaware of our cultural blind spots has affected the way Westerners conceive of church, see especially:

Bailey, Kenneth E. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2008.

Rah, Soong-Chan. The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2009.

For an introduction to how non-Western Christians (and minority Western Christians) understand the task and challenges of theology (and how that affects biblical interpretation), see:

Felder, Cain Hope, ed. Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991.

Fields, Bruce L. Introducing Black Theology: Three Crucial Questions for the Evangelical Church. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.

Greenman, Jeffrey P. and Gene L. Green, ed. Global Theology in Evangelical Perspective: Exploring the Contextual Nature of Theology and Mission. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2012.

Parratt, John, ed. An Introduction to Third World Theologies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Chapter 1: Serving Two Masters

The best general books on biblical values are:

Pilch, John J., and Bruce J. Malina, ed. Biblical Social Values and Their Meaning: A Handbook. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1993.

Rohrbaugh, Richard L., ed. The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003.

For more specific values, see:

Campbell, Ken M., ed. Marriage and Family in the Biblical World. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2003.

Cohick, Lynn H. Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009.

Ebeling, Jennie R. Women’s Lives in Biblical Times. New York: T & T Clark International, 2010.

Hanson, K. C., and Douglas E. Oakman. Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.

Pohl, Christine D. Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.

Chapter 2: The Bible in Color

A great treatment of the biblical perspective on race and ethnicity is:

Hays, J. Daniel. From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2003.

For specific discussions of race in the Bible, see:

Adamo, David T. Africa and Africans in the Old Testament. San Francisco: Christian Universities Press, 1998.

Bilde, Per. et al., ed. Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University, 1992.

Brenner, Athalya. Color Terms in the Old Testament, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 21. Sheffield: Sheffield, 1982.

Brett, Mark G. Ethnicity and the Bible. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.

Copher, Charles B. “Three Thousand Years of Biblical Interpretation with Reference to Black Peoples.” In African American Religious Studies, edited by Gayraud Wilmore, 105–28. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1989.

Hall, Jonathan M. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Snowden, Frank M. “Attitudes towards Blacks in the Greek and Roman World: Misinterpretations of the Evidence.” In Africa and Africans in Antiquity, edited by Edwin Yamauchi, 246–75. East Lansing: Michigan State University, 2001.

For discussions of race in Western Christianity, see:

Emerson, Michael O., and Christian Smith. Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Keener, Craig S., and Glenn Usry. Defending Black Faith: Answers to Tough Questions about African-American Christianity. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 1997.

McNeil, Brenda Salter, and Rick Richardson. The Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Social Change. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Okholm, Dennis L., ed. The Gospel in Black and White: Theological Resources for Racial Reconciliation. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997.

Pearse, Meic. Why the Rest Hates the West: Understanding the Roots of Global Rage. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Perkins, Spencer, and Chris Rice. More than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000.

Chapter 3: Just Words?

Although the following is a rather technical read, McGilchrist has a great chapter on the nature of language in the Western mind:

McGilchrist, Iain. The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010.

Some readers may find discussions of the biblical languages helpful, such as:

Moule, C. F. D. An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

Chapter 4: Captain of My Soul

We consider fiction to be a great way to gain an understanding of the mindset of collectivist cultures. Here are a few that have been enlightening for us:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor, 1959.

Endo, Shusaku. The Samurai. Translated by Van C. Gessel. New York: New Directions Books, 1982.

This book illustrates the challenge of maintaining a collectivist religious worldview in individualist America:

Potok, Chaim. The Chosen. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996. First published 1967.

There are also helpful treatments of the differences between individualist and collectivist cultures in books on crosscultural communication, such as:

Elmer, Duane. Cross-Cultural Connections: Stepping Out and Fitting In Around the World. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2002.

As for study Bibles, we recommend the following:

NIV Study Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.

ESV Study Bible. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Bibles, 2008.

Chapter 5: Have You No Shame?

For general introductions to the topic of honor and shame and how it affects biblical interpretation, see:

deSilva, David A. Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2000.

Neyrey, Jerome H. Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.

For a brief introduction to the way our Western assumptions about the power of internal conscience affects how we read the Bible, see:

Stendahl, Krister. “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Harvard Theological Review 56 (1963): 199–215.

Chapter 6: Sand Through the Hourglass

Because it is a novel, the following has limited value for explaining a Western view of time. But Vonnegut capitalizes on Western assumptions about the relationship between time (and especially chronology) and meaning:

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death. New York: Dell Publishing, 1991. First published 1966.

A brief attempt to explain an Eastern understanding of time, from an Indian point of view, can be found at:

Nakamura, Hajime. “The Notion of Time in India.” Accessed February 18, 2012, <www.drury.edu/ess/Culture/indian.htm>.

For a technical survey, see:

Aveni, Anthony F. Empires of Time: Calendars, Clocks, and Cultures. New York: Tauris Parke, 2000.

Chapter 7: First Things First

For a technical discussion to assist American attorneys working with the Japanese, see:

Minami, Ken R. “Japanese Thought and Western Law: A Tangential View of Japanese Bengoshi and the Japanese American Attorney,” Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review 301 (1986); <http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ilr/vol8/iss2/4>.

For discussions of patronage, see the books by deSilva and Rohrbaugh listed above.

Chapter 8: Getting Right Wrong

Wright, N. T. After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.

Chapter 9: It’s All About Me

For a general introduction to the process of interpretation that takes seriously the differences between meaning and application, see:

Duvall, J. Scott, and J. Daniel Hays. Grasping God’s Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001.

Richards, E. R., & O’Brien, B. J. (2012). Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (pp. 221–225). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Greg Boyd - The Crucifixion of the Warrior God (to Biblical Violence)

My one comment when reading of the violence in the bible is that we see God through our own images. It is no less different now than it was then - even the biblical writers, prophets, priests, and kings saw God through their own thoughts and beliefs. When God speaks to us it is always disruptive to ourselves, our way of looking at others, and even how we move through life. But disruption does not mean that its "100% correcting" or can homogenize all the peccadilloes we carry within us. As any penitent Christian will tell you, God will spend a "lifetime" bringing us into Christ's image on the Cross but it must first begin with our submission to His Spirit.

No, to encounter the disruption of God is to begin a series of disruptions throughout one's life. Some ginormous and some hardly worth noticing. But to be a person inhabiting change is to be a person open to change, relearning, and retelling the Jesus story to ourselves, our family and friends, and throughout our missional lives.

And so, we hear God through our own images. We write, pray, and sing of God through our own images. The Bible's revelations and messages transform over the ages - even now! - but God's people might not unless they are committed to His Spirit to be transformed. Ironically, even during our more "enlightened" church periods since the 1600's the church still preaches "the Cross in one hand while lifting up the sword in the other." How curious when Jesus Himself used no sword except the sword of the Spirit. No angelic military to bend the world to His way of thinking but the cruciformed lives of His church. No thunder and lightening except that which flashed about His head on the eve of His crucifixion.

Nay, the problem is us. It lies with us and in us. Not God. Us. Not the Bible. Us. It's writers and preachers and listeners. It's interpreters. Even as we come to the book of Revelation the church would rather see God in dynamic militarism against mankind rather than as the One Coming to cease our wars and quiet our murderous hearts. But perhaps it all started with unrepentent believers refusing to bow heart and knee to the peace of Christ in mission, livelihood, and communion with one another. And so we pray dear God this simple prayer, "Save us from ourselves. Save us to do the work of the Spirit by your Cross of love and grace. Amen."

R.E. Slater

January 25, 2017

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The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Volumes 1 & 2

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1506420753/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_rG4GybM1YS0HH

Renowned pastor-theologian Gregory A. Boyd proposes a revolutionary way to read the Bible in this epic but accessible study. His "cruciform hermeneutic" stands as a challenge to the field of biblical studies and to all thoughtful Christians.

A dramatic tension confronts every Christian believer and interpreter of Scripture: on the one hand, we encounter Old Testament stories of God commanding horrendous violence. On the other hand, we read the unequivocally nonviolent teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. Reconciling these two has challenged Christians and theologians for two millennia.

Throughout Christian history, various answers have been proposed, ranging from the long-rejected explanation that these contrasting depictions are of two entirely different "gods" to recent social, cultural, and literary theories that attempt to dispel the conflict.

The Crucifixion of the Warrior God takes up this dramatic tension and the range of proposed answers in an ambitious constructive investigation. Over two volumes, Gregory A. Boyd argues that we must take seriously the full range of Scripture as inspired, including its violent depictions of God. At the same time, he affirms the absolute centrality of the crucified and risen Christ as the supreme revelation of God.

Developing a theological interpretation of Scripture that he labels a "cruciform hermeneutic," Boyd demonstrates how the Bible's violent images of God are reframed and their violence subverted when interpreted through the lens of the cross and resurrection. Indeed, when read in this way, Boyd argues that these violent depictions bear witness to the same self-sacrificial nature of God that was ultimately revealed on the cross.

"In God I Trust and No Other." So Then, "Who Is This God We Trust?" Part 2/2

"In God I Trust and No Other." So Then, "Who Is This God We Trust?"

"The words of Jesus tend to “comfort the afflicted

and afflict the comfortable.” - Rev. Saturnia

"The cross is the end to God’s affirmation of man's power structures through

the installation of God’s chosen Son. The cross is the beginning of a power

that can only-and-always look like weakness. It can only look like defeat. It

is almost possible to say that if we want to be sure to know where God is not,

then we should look not to the one wearing the victor’s crown, [the Roman

crown of victory, but the Jesus crown of shame, of ministry to the despised,

to the powerless, to the oppressed.]" - JRDK / [RES]

Yesterday I asked when people say that they "trust in God" just what kind of God do they trust in? More specifically we are hearing politicians proclaiming God's favor by rallying our nation to a violent, un-Jesus-like gospel. Since when does God favor a nation committed to killing their enemies? I know, I know, we've been preaching a violent bible and a violent end to history (known as end-time eschatology) for centuries. As such, these "good" politicians and their followers are simply following a Bible they have been taught and believe in.

But what if I said we've got it all backwards and inside out? Well, it'd be a scandal right? Many would respond by saying that a God who controls everything by using the means of divine (or angelic) wrath, judgment, and condemnation as His major tools towards obedience, is the right and proper view of Scripture. And yet, for many Christians they are questioning these extremist interpretive dogmas by saying, "Not so!"

Rather than describing God as a controlling God many are now re-describing Him as a non-controlling God. And rather than a God of violence He is being thought of as a very-patient, merciful God who acted very unlike what we humans would have done when challenging violence when sacrificing His own earthly life at the Cross. In beholding God in this way these post-Christians are re-interpreting a violent (OT) Jewish bible through Jesus' presence-filled New Testament acts of charity to the oppressed, despised, and pagan teachings of men and women both then and now.

Perhaps then we must ask if whether Israel had correctly interpreted "God's response to force by using force" in the administration of their kingdom? Perhaps this God they proclaimed was actually their own conscious wish to have an all powerful God full of just fury made in their own image, rather than God's true image?

If so, many Christians today see God through a Jesus-lens and not a so-called "bible-lens." (Thus, instead of reading the bible in a flat, literal fashion it is being read using a more rounded, existential or literary, anthropology. One that is still both narrative as well as instructive.) So then Jesus is the lens which is used to portray God by His life's testimony correcting all our pagan, idolatrous, and mimetic images of Himself. Otherwise this (un)biblical (non-Jesus) G/god was a type of God whom Israel needed in order to 'do to their neighbor the evil in their own hearts" (otherwise known as self-righteousness; the prophet/judge Samson would probably be a good picture of this).

So then, the post-Christian portrait of God is One who is Almighty but who also comes to mankind in humility, weakness, and presence (for those looking for a traditional interpretation here it is... an old interpretation with a new spin). But a God who refuses to control us, or our lives, wishing instead to partner with us in the fullness of His Spirit (again, more traditional teachings but this time given a slant toward "Open and Relational Theism" which is more Arminian based than Calvisinistic). A God who seeks just-justice without implementing a discriminating violent justice.

And if this is so, than our presidential candidates, along with the American nation we live in, must come to terms with which God they wish to follow. If choosing the more violent, unjust God than we may expect to sow what we weep (reap). If a more Jesus-like God than perhaps we as a nation might usher in the very Kingdom of God we have all yearned for throughout our lives. Amen.

R.E. Slater

February 3, 2016

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Ted Cruz delivering his victory speech after the Iowa caucus | Screenshot from YouTube, ABC News

Iowa, Ted Cruz, and the Evangelical Identity Crisis

https://www.ravenfoundation.org/iowa-ted-cruz-and-the-evangelical-identity-crisis/

by Adam Ericksen

February 2, 2016

Comments

Ted Cruz ended last night with a yuuuuge victory over Donald Trump in Iowa. (Sorry, had to do it!) Religion played a big role in Cruz’s victory. The New York Times reports that Cruz’s victory was “powered by a surge of support from evangelical Christians.”

For his part, Cruz reaffirmed his connection with his evangelical supporters by invoking divine favor upon his victory. “God bless the great state of Iowa! Let me first say, to God be the glory.”

But I can’t help but feel uneasy about the God proclaimed by Cruz and his evangelical supporters. That’s because, when it comes to their evangelical faith, they have an identity crisis.

The word “evangelical” has a specific meaning and history. It comes from the Greek word evangelion, which means “good news.”

Evangelical has become a distinctively Christian term, but during the first century it was used predominantly by the Roman Empire. In fact, when Caesar sent his armies off to conquer new land in the name of Roman peace, Roman soldiers would announce military strength as the “Gospel according to Caesar.” Rome waged peace through violence. In his book Jesus and Empire, Richard Horsley states that,

In the Roman world, the “gospel” was the good news of Caesar’s having established peace and security for the world. Caesar was the “savior” who had brought “salvation” to the whole world. The peoples of the empire were therefore to have “faith” (pistis/fides) in their “lord” the emperor. Moreover, Caesar the lord and savior was to be honored and celebrate by the “assemblies” (ekklesiai) of cities such as Philippi, Corinth, and Ephesus.

Now, a good Bible believing evangelical will instantly recognize the politically subversive language of the New Testament. In the face of Roman military that brought the good news of “peace” by the sword, the early Christians delivered an alternative message of good news that claimed “those who live by the sword die by the sword.” Make no mistake, their evangelical message was political. They sought to reorder the world, not through Caesar’s military strength, but through Christ’s nonviolent love.

The early Christians subverted Roman violence through their use of language and their actions. They claimed that the good news was found not in Caesar, but in Christ. Christ, not Caesar, was the “savior” who brought “salvation” to the world. People were to have “faith” in him as their “lord.” Jesus was to be honored and celebrates at assemblies, which would become known as churches.

But for the early Christians, words weren’t enough. They took Jesus’ command to follow him seriously. Jesus didn’t lift the sword to defend himself against the violence that killed him, and neither did his disciples lift their swords. Rather, they continued to challenge the Roman Empire’s “good news” of achieving peace through violence. The disciples claimed that true peace could only be achieved by following the nonviolent way of Jesus, whose evangelical message commanded that his follower love everyone, included their enemies, including those who sought to persecute them. In following Jesus their Lord, the disciples were murdered, just like their Lord and Savior.

Jump ahead about 2,000 years to last night in Iowa and we discover that Ted Cruz and his evangelical supporters have an identity crisis. They claim that Jesus is their Lord with words, but not in action. Cruz promises to “carpet bomb” America’s enemies. He promises to beef up the American military, a military that spends roughly the same amount as “the next nine largest military budgets around the world, combined.” The U.S. military is already the strongest military that the world has ever seen.

René Girard wrote in his apocalyptic book Battling to the End that Christians must make a decision about violence because Christ has left us with a choice, “either believe in violence, or not; Christianity is non-belief.”

Christianity is non-belief in violence because it believes in the one true God who on the cross responded to violence not with more violence, but with nonviolent love and forgiveness.

“To God be the glory,” a victorious Cruz proclaimed to a cheering crowd in Iowa. But I can’t help but wonder – what God is Ted Cruz and his evangelical supporters talking about? Because “Hey! Good News! We just carpet bombed the hell out of you,” sounds a lot more like the gods of ancient Rome than the God of Jesus Christ.

As long as evangelicals proclaim faith in Jesus as their Lord, but continue to believe in violence as the way to peace and security for the United States, they will suffer from an identity crisis. And rightfully so, because that combination is not the Good News.

A Christian Message to the Violent Reading of the Bible

The problem is that instead of following Jesus, people follow the Bible. The Bible

is good if you see it as a progressive, incremental revelation of God finding it’s

fullness in Jesus (meaning that all revelation before him was inferior). Jesus IS the

point. He IS God incarnate. If there is something in the Old Testament that seems

to contradict Jesus, always go with Jesus. - Jacob Wright, 12.19.15

Three cheers and a hearty welcome to Jacob Wright's thoughtfully produced vision of why we should read the bible with a Jesus-lens and not proceed with our own religious group's boundary thinking version of God.

Violence in the OT is one of the ways we can see this type of "outcome theology" which produces "outcome politics" as we stated in a recent article. If a bible reader comes to the bible treating all parts of it with equal authority-and-force than this is what is known as a "flat reading or projection of its parts across its breadth." A flat reading does not distinguish societal era, cultural event, or humanitarian movement under this kind of interpretive microscope. Rather, it equally weights biblical teachings about God from a society's "outcome-based" theological perspective preferring one's own interpretation of God and the world over other interpretive frameworks.

Importantly, the bible is not only a "book about God" (theology) but it is also a "book about people" (anthropology). It tells us of our motives, our struggles, our sin and our self-righteousness by projecting our actions upon a God whom we define through the lenses of ourselves. When Jesus came to humanity in the NT He declared to His people that the only lens of God you will ever need is Jesus' own interpretation of God by His gospel teachings and examples of sacrificial ministries to others. This is a very important observation to make. It should stop us cold in our minds and hearts demanding of us to hear Jesus and do this very thing.

As a result, Jesus is the new standard bearer for interpreting the Old and New Testaments. For example, how might we read the Book of Revelation? If from a flat, literalistic perspective we might read it as a violent apocalyptic led by a bloody Jesus forcifully imposing His rule upon an unwilling mankind. But if from a Jesus-centric reading we might rather think of God's Lamb as warring upon the sin and ruin bourne within our souls in a metaphorical sense. Which thus asks the further question as to what kind of freedom might God allow? Is God ultimately in the business of meticulously controlling us or, if not, than what kind of freedom does God allow for a divine-human cooperative to exist?*

If we read the bible through a Jesus-lens then we must allow this understanding to challenge our doctrines and dogmas of God, the church, and even mankind itself by asking the following questions... "Did God really proclaim the things we read of Him in the OT or were they re-interpreted by His people as something else? Or, "did Yahweh's eager followers mis-proclaim Yahweh's divine love for divine violence upon their neighbors?" More so, the OT shows us the progression of God's people from an ancient society built on violence to a more conscientious society seeking the social graces of peace and mercy upon all. Or, if not, of failing altogether in this task, even as we in the church of Jesus Christ do today - both now, as well as in ages past of the historical church.

Much like the rainbow in Noah's sky promising "never again," Jesus has become the cleft-in-the-rock-of-mankind whom we must now see God through (sic, even as God protected Moses from His glory by placing him "in a cleft in the rock" so God protects us through Jesus). Effectively, even in the task of God revealing Himself to Israel in the OT they still comprehended one thing for another thing. As counterweight to this fallen/sinful comprehension, the very God Himself came by flesh and by bone to reveal Himself once again as clearly as He could to a people dull of hearing and readily blind of mind and purpose. A dullness and blindness of mind and heart portrayed in Israel's theologic scholars of their day as they proclaimed Jesus as Satan's false devil to then later unjustly/mercilessly crucify Him with the criminals of His day.

Without Jesus as our guide and interpreter we are left with the many assorted versions of the God of heaven which we read of in the OT. Hence, for myself, as for many, when interpreting the bible we must now remember to read it anthropologically and existentially. If so, we will begin to ask questions like, "Why was the bible written in this way? What does it reveal to us about God's followers back then and their comprehension of God in their ancient times? In what way is this picture of God helpful (or unhelpful) to Israel's pursuit of the living God?" Or even, "How does this new understanding of God change my doctrines and dogmas I've held so dear over the years?" and so forth.

It removes a flat reading of a literal bible methodology by moving it up the evolutionary scale of societal examination socially, spiritually, and personally by using not only context, grammatical, and historical tools, but also anthropologic and existential tools of societal/biblical examination. It is but one more layer to God Himself and why our misunderstanding of His will-and-ways seem so incomprehensible to the simpler tools of literal interpretation when not applied. Outcome theology, like outcome politics, is all in the eye of the beholder. Let us then be the more humble before God refusing to declare what is untrue of Him by our own wisdoms and worldliness when seeing the truth in Christ so plainly revealed in the NT.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

December 21, 2015
edited December 22, 2015

*Regarding "God's Sovereinty"... we've asked these questions before under the topics of "divine determination" vs. "divine insistence." This latter speaks to God's oneness/presence with(in) a fallen creation in process to congruency with His personage, will, and decrees. In essence, God has granted to His creation (us) "maximal freedom" based upon who He is, which would necessarily include both the weak and strong anthropic principles (go to these links here, here, and here) - both scientifically (WAP) as well as philosophically (SAP). We've also argued this position from a "weak theological" perspective using Arminianism (Wesleyan theology) as versus the "strong theological" perspective of Calvinism (Reformed theology) using Relational-Process Theology and Radical Theology (both the anti-Christian and post-Christian variants which argue for a religionless Christianity centralized in Jesus as the gatekeeper to any faith) as divine "maximal-freedom" conveyance systems. Obviously this discussion of biblical interpretation can become both ontologically and metaphysically technical so I have deferred it to this subsection here.

Jesus Is The Antidote To Our Delusions Of A Violent God, Made In Our Own Violent Image

http://brazenchurch.com/jesus-violence-old-testament/

by Jacob Wright

December 19, 2015

Comments

Since the beginnings of Christian theology, people have recognized the tension between some of the violent portraits of God in the Old Testament versus the revelation of God in Christ.

We like to pretend that these views are not contradictory. We’ve created a dance of fancy theological footwork to merge the image of violence with the image of peace. We try to say it’s not “contradiction”, and use words like “paradox” and “mystery” instead. We say things like “God’s ways are higher than our ways.”

All the while, we know it doesn’t add up. The reality is that we see two opposing portraits of God in the scriptures: a violent God of wrath slaughtering his enemies and commanding his people to do the same, and Jesus… saying his Father is kind to the ungrateful and wicked, saying he loves his enemies and commanding us to do the same.

While I can’t claim to perfectly resolve this dilemma, my goal today is to provide a compelling case for why Jesus is, as Paul describes, “the image of the invisible God,” and THE standard by which all other images of God must be held accountable.

A God Made In Our Image

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” – 1 John 4:181

For a while now, I’ve been trying to sift my way out of all the confusion that comes from a flat reading of the Bible, where everything every biblical author over thousands of years says about God is equally true.

With such a conglomeration of opposing divine portraits, I had no peace of mind. I never knew how God felt about me. He loves me infinitely but also plans to destroy me if I don’t live right? This view held me in fear my whole life. In fact, the majority of people I see holding this view are also enslaved by fear, incapable of thinking reasonably about the nature of God or love.

“God’s love is a different kind of love then ours” is confusing and just another way of saying God isn’t loving. If we remove divine love from what we relate to as love, then it becomes something else and there is no use in calling it love. Such “love” has no power to cast out fear.

Today and through history, I see the this dichotomous view of God breeding self-righteousness and fear. I see people using whatever portrait of God they can find on the biblical smorgasbord of divine portraits to excuse whatever kind of violent and unloving attitude they have against people they hate or disagree with. I see condemnation of others who have different views as “heretics” and no general consensus on the truth of God’s nature.

The Bible has been used throughout history to excuse slavery, war, genocide, torture, vengeance, capital punishment, and the superiority complex of the “chosen”. The reality is that all of this can be found in the Bible. And yet, these things are the opposite of Jesus.

This is not an exclusively religious problem, nor is it a reason to think low of the Bible. Atheists are good at pointing out the violence in the Old Testament and making the Bible into an immoral, unethical book. However, the violence of the Bible is a human problem, a case study in primitive ethics and human violence which were projected onto “the gods” throughout history, our God included among them.

The Bible reveals anthropology just as much as it reveals theology

The Bible shows the Spirit at work within our messy societal evolution, as he progressively leads us out of our delusion and into the revelation of Christ. I believe the Bible reveals that God’s love is big enough to allow humanity’s violent projections, as he works with us where we are at to bring us into a higher revelation of truth and love. After all, the Bible also inspires the most powerful visions of compassion, social justice, kindness, peacemaking, and love of enemies.

So I’ve had to wrestle into a new understanding of God, where the higher way revealed by Jesus trumps the violent projections of mankind onto the God of their forefathers. I have resolved to simply focus on Jesus, since I believe he is the highest revelation of God – a God who gives me peace and hope and yet never lets me be comfortable in sin or apathy. A God who demonstrates reckless, furious, self-giving love and pro-active empathy for humanity and is dedicated to justice for the oppressed and victimized. A God who is with us and for us. A God like Jesus.

There are several ways that we can make a God of our own liking instead of the one found in the gospels. Many accuse those who believe in a nonviolent God of making a God in their own image, but those who believe in a nonviolent God are getting their views first and foremost from Jesus, who as Paul describes, is the perfect “image of the invisible God.” Since their faith is based first and foremost in Christ rather than the Bible – since they are called “Christians” rather than “Biblians”, this is commendable.

Yes, we get Jesus from the Bible, but on this matter Brennan Manning hit the nail on the head:

"I am deeply distressed by what I can only call in our Christian culture the idolatry of the Scriptures. For many Christians, the Bible is not a pointer to God but God himself. In a word – bibliolatry. God cannot be confined to a leather-bound book. I develop a nasty rash around people who speak as if mere scrutiny of its pages will reveal precisely how God thinks and precisely what God wants.

"The four Gospels are the key to knowing Jesus. But conversely, Jesus is the key to knowing the meaning of the gospel – and of the Bible as a whole. Instead of remaining content with the bare letter, we should pass on to the more profound mysteries that are available only through intimate and heartfelt knowledge of Jesus."

– Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus, 1996, p. 174-175

It is never okay to quote the Old Testament to endorse something that Jesus clearly forbids

Those who easily dismiss and rationalize away the radical, counter-cultural teachings of Christ by quoting random Old Testament scriptures are not followers of Jesus; they are followers of whatever they happen to get from the myriad of conflicting images they can find in the Bible.

If someone cuts them off in traffic, maybe they can follow the “love your enemy” verse, but if someone physically threatens them, it’s time to take their pick from the smorgasbord of examples of retribution in the Old Testament (or at least the apocalyptic symbolism of the book of Revelation!). By doing this, they are able to create a God exactly in their own image by choosing whatever image of God fits what they need in the moment.

We have done this all throughout history. As Brian Zahnd so aptly put:

"Even if we restrict our inquiry into the nature of God to the Bible, we are likely to find just the kind of God that we want to find. If we want a God of peace, he’s there. If we want a God of war, he’s there. If we want a compassionate God, he’s there. If we want a vindictive God, he’s there. If we want an egalitarian God, he’s there. If we want an ethnocentric God, he’s there. If we want a God demanding blood sacrifice, he’s there. If we want a God abolishing blood sacrifice, he’s there. Sometimes the Bible is like a Rorschach test — it reveals more about the reader than the eternal I AM.

– Brian Zahnd, from his forward to A More Christlike God by Brad Jersak

A nonviolent God is really hard to make in your own image, particularly because all humans naturally see violence as an acceptable or even glorious means of shaping the world. Violence is the foundation of civilization and comes instinctively to us. This is what is so ironic about the accusation that believing in a nonviolent God is making a God in our own image.

If we want a God in our own image, a nonviolent God is NOT the way to go.

Jesus says God loves his enemies, and that we are to emulate him in this. If that does not rule out God killing and torturing his enemies, then there is no reasonable thing we can conclude from Jesus telling us that God loves his enemies, nor is there any example we can follow as to what loving one’s enemies might actually look like.

Jesus tells us to be like our Heavenly Father who is “kind to the ungrateful and wicked”, and THEN we will be his true children.

Old Testament Portraits Vs. Christ

“Kill them all. Men, women, children, and babies. Show them no mercy.”

– God in Deuteronomy 7 and1 Samuel 15

“Love your enemies. In so doing, you will be like your Father, who is kind to the

wicked. Be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful.” – Jesus in Luke 6

Here we have juxtaposed two images of God. One is an image of God in the Bible from thousands of years before Christ and one is the words of Christ himself who is “the image of the invisible God” and the “exact representation of God’s being.” Like it or not, this demonstrates a black and white contradiction.

The answer is not to throw out the Old Testament, as Marcion did in the 2nd century. Because the Old Testament has the second voice too: an ever progressing understanding of Gods unconditional love – how he pleads the cause of the victim and hates violence.

Rather, the answer is to acknowledge the obvious problem and recognize two views of God wrestling with each other in the people of God and the writers of scripture, culminating in the higher way revealed in Christ.

The Son, not the Bible, is the perfect representation of the Father. You cannot overemphasize Jesus. You cannot believe in Jesus too much. Don’t try to “balance” Jesus with other stuff. Believe in him. This is the Son, with whom God is well pleased. Listen to him!

The writings of numerous authors over the changes of thousands of years within one religious tradition which we call “the law and the prophets” or “the Old Testament” by no means presents a univocal view of God. There is a conversation going on [in the OT] – a progressive, evolving understanding of the divine. Later writings sometimes critique earlier writings, and later prophets critique earlier prophets.

Just as we see the progression and evolution of ideas and awareness throughout human history, so too do we see a progression in the Jewish people’s revelation of God

When the time was right, the Messiah came forth into history, and while many prophecies foretold him, he represented the fullness of truth in a way that went far beyond the limited, immature framework Israel had received and processed revelation through. Christ respected the law and the prophets because he recognized and affirmed the progressive revelation of God, and they, through the limited framework they knew, were inspired by the Spirit to come into agreement with the righteousness and truth of God being established on the earth.

Jesus was the fulfillment of this progressive revelation. This is why he said in Matthew 5:18, “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

In Christ, the Law was fulfilled. And in Christ, the prophets’ framework of righteousness and truth being established through violence became an allegory for the “violent” aggression of God’s inescapable love.

The law of Moses helped humanity progress out of the law of the jungle – the primal, survivalist humanity bent on conquest, where the powerful subjugated the weak. A more primitive humanity which followed the survival instincts of conquest needed a strict code of conduct, with the threat of punishment, in order to progress. It was their paradigm. It’s what they understood.

This is the beginning of bringing humanity out of a reality where violence was the foundation. The law was a product of its time, and therefore reflects that time. Its values were actually quite progressive for the day they were written. It served as a stepping stone. It sent them on a trajectory towards a societal order that valued justice for all instead of survival of the fittest.

As Israel progressed, we see the prophets giving an increasing voice to the oppressed. We see mercy and justice becoming the greater focus. We see the vision of a tribal God who demands sacrifice fading and becoming the God who “desires mercy and not sacrifice” (a phrase Jesus quoted twice) – a God who loves the nations and desires to be a father to all peoples, just as Abraham had envisioned in the beginning.

While the law put us on a progressive trajectory, it was ultimately unable to usher in the true image of God. Only love could do that. Only love incarnate could show us that

The law therefore set us on a trajectory towards societal order and justice, finally concluding in the revelation of our need for the rebirth experience through Christ. The law is therefore perfected in love. The law is fulfilled by the indwelling Christ who through us shapes a new humanity – the kingdom of God. Those who are led by the Spirit of grace are revealed as the children of God.

As Peter Enns says:

"The New Testament leaves behind the violent, tribal, insider-outsider, rhetoric of a significant portion of the Old Testament. Instead, the character of the people of God–now made up of Jew and Gentile–is dominated by such behaviors as faith in Christ working itself out in love, self-sacrifice, praying for one’s enemies and persecutors."

Having a “biblical” defense for anything is easy. You can have a solid biblical defense for slavery, genocide, war, polygamy, nationalism, sexism, and racism. But when we hold these things accountable to the image of God revealed in Christ, we find them to fall short.

When people hold the nonviolent teachings of Jesus to be the truest image of God, it doesn’t make sense to say, “You’re trying to make God into your own image! His ways are higher than ours!” In truth, these short-tempered, violent, demanding portraits of God look strikingly similar to you and me, or at least, how we would be without Jesus.

[Facetiously,] it seems that the God many of us believe in needs to ask Jesus into his heart!

God’s Ways Are Higher

Violence is not a way that is higher than man. Violence is exactly like us. It is perfect altruism that is so much higher than our ways and our thoughts.

A God who slays his enemies, we can relate to, but a God who dies for his enemies… that is incomprehensible.

And a God that commands us to do the same? This is where it starts getting uncomfortable for us.

Jesus is the way of God that is so much higher than sinful man. In fact, in Isaiah, when God declares that his ways are higher than ours, it is in the context his lovingkindness and mercy, which is so unlike our human ways.

“’Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:7-8

The chapter literally goes on and on in extravagantly describing the outlandish lovingkindness that God has for us, detailing the overflowing peace and joy we’ll have – for the mountains will burst forth in joy before us and the trees will clap their hands for us – when we turn back to him.

So how are God’s way higher than ours? He has outrageous mercy and he freely pardons.

In fact, when Jesus finishes teaching us to love and do good to our enemies, he then says, “Then you will be children of the MOST HIGH who is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” This is the only place Jesus calls God the “Most High”. In other words, you can’t get any higher above human thought than this, and it is against all natural violent human instincts of selfishness and survivalism and revenge.

This reveals, without question, God’s core essence of love: the Most High is kind to his enemies. If someone were to strike God on the cheek, God would turn to them the other cheek. If someone were to kill God, God would not fight back. He would submit. And his submission would be his triumph over all powers. This is Jesus. This is the way of the cross. This is the high way of God.

Allow me to suggest that God never deviates from this highest way. God never deviates from being like Jesus. God is the high way. God is like Jesus.

The title “Most High” is used in the Old Testament to speak of God’s power, particularly his power over the nations as well as over all other powers and “gods”. Jesus usually spoke of God in terms of his Abba, Father, but when Jesus speaks of God in terms of his power as the “Most High”, he does so in terms of loving enemies and being kind to the ungrateful and wicked. This is typical of Jesus – subverting our ideas about God and about power.

“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” – Luke 6:35

This is how God is the Most High. This is how God has power over the nations and above all spiritual powers: God loves his enemies and is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. In the way of the world, power is who has the biggest muscles, the biggest bombs, the most resources that can do the most destruction, who has the most skill, etc.

But as 1 Corinthians 1 says, it is the cross that is the power and wisdom of God.

God’s power is greater than the power of the world, not because he operates in the same manner only with bigger muscles, but because he operates in the opposite manner: humility, servanthood, kindness, forgiveness.

This is the tenacity and strength of the truth. This is Jesus. This is the cross. This is how the kingdom comes.

Children Of The Most High

But Jesus not only says that is how God is the “Most High”, but that is how we are children of the Most High. In other words, we are participants in this power. When we love our enemies, we become examples of the Most High’s nature.

Scripture even goes as far as to describe us as “gods” in this sense. Yes, when Jesus used the phrase “children of the Most High”, there is one other place that phrase is used, “You are gods; you are all children of the Most High.” – Psalm 82:6

When we learn the way of love and the Christ-heart takes form within us, it causes us to become peacemakers in a world of hostility – to reject tribalism, enmity, and retaliation – to have such an empathy for humanity as to seek the best for even our enemies. This is when we become like “like gods”. We become images of our Maker – children of the Most High.

There is a theme in Jesus’ thinking concerning this idea of being “children of God” or “sons of God.” (The phrase “children of God” and “sons of God” is interchangeable. Some use “children” instead of “sons” to be gender inclusive).

First, Jesus says if we love our enemies then we are children of the Most High. And again, in theSermon on the Mount, Jesus makes the connection: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

Sonship is not just a small part of the gospel. It IS the gospel

John says that “To all that received him, he gave the power to BE CALLED SONS OF GOD.” Where else did we hear that phrase? Who will “be called sons of God”? Peacemakers.

So here we have receiving Christ made synonymous with becoming a peacemaker. The gospel, after all, is the gospel of peace and the good news of the kingdom of God, of “peace on earth and good will toward men”. Christ is the Prince of Peace. Jesus says the most prominent feature of the sons of God is peacemaking. To all that received the Son, he gave the power to be called sons of God – to be peacemakers – to usher in the kingdom of God.

Paul also uses this phrase “sons of God” in Romans 8, when he says all of creation is eagerly anticipating the revealing of the sons of God, for within this revelation creation will be liberated into glory. The renunciation of hostility towards our fellow man and the fostering of the Spirit of God within, of such great love, humility, and compassion, that we become peacemakers: creating family, destroying hostility, standing against the powers of injustice in the power of the Spirit, laying our lives down, shaping a new world, liberating this creation into the Fathers kingdom.

Peacemakers. This is when the righteous shine like stars in the kingdom of our Father.

Regarding peacemaking, why don’t we as Christians take this seriously, when Christ emphasized it over and over? Why do we not seek to live out the commands of Jesus, who we profess to be our Lord. “Why do you call me Lord and not do what I say?” – Luke 6:46

Good question, Jesus, let me think about that.

Violence is easy, instinctual, and natural. It’s all of our default. It takes but a quick glance at the world to know this is true. But as Jesus said, loving our enemies and bringing peace is what makes us true children of God.

Being a peacemaker is challenging. It takes far more creativity, imagination, and sacrifice than violence ever required.

And yet I love how Jesus gives us zero outs on this. Nowhere does he endorse or demonstrate violence. The best people can come up with is the temple episode, where we see Jesus at his most intense, but nowhere does it say he inflicted injury on anyone’s person.

So then it’s back to the Old Testament to vindicate our violence. Or at least the extreme apocalyptic imagery of Revelation! Yes, we can use that metaphorical apocalyptic imagery to vindicate our not taking Jesus seriously! John the Revelator to the rescue! Whew.. Almost put us in a bind there, Jesus. (For a better way to read the book of Revelation, click here)

Even with zero “outs” from Jesus, we are fishing, fishing, fishing, for some way… ANY way… to excuse our violence. We have a western world full of professed followers of Jesus, 99% of whom completely ignore his blatant command to love one’s enemies and renounce violence – who see peacemaking as weak and “not pragmatic”.

In this way, our “Christianity” has become like the Pharisees Jesus spoke so forcefully against, who “look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead.”

The Sword Jesus Came To Bring

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” –Matthew 10:34

Many people seem to think this verse throws a giant monkey wrench in the idea of a peaceful Jesus. Only in a world of one-line, out-of-context verse quoting is this the case.

In this verse, Jesus is not suddenly contradicting his ENTIRE message. Obviously! He is not discussing a literal sword, but rather, the sword of his mouth, just as the book of Revelation portrays.

This sword is his message of the kingdom of God, that wages war on the principalities and powers, the mindsets and ideological strongholds in people and cultures which individually and collectively form strongholds of oppression over humanity. As the apostle Paul said,

“We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” –Ephesians 6:12

The message of God’s humanity in Christ and his solidarity with the marginalized and victimized is a seed that begins to grow and infiltrate the thinking of this world, deconstructing ideologies of violence and injustice, and bringing into reality the angelic announcement that came with Christ’s arrival into the world, “Peace on earth and goodwill towards men.”

Christ’s command to peacefully love our enemies forces us to see common humanity in our rivals. It overturns tribal scapegoating, condemns the oppressive hoarding of wealth, and teaches us to care for the poor. Jesus demonstrated purity of heart, union with Abba, reconciliatory cosuffering, the ethics of peacemaking, and what it means to lay down one’s life.

When we enter into the message of Jesus, it begins a radical transformation within us and becomes a prophetic announcement of the kingdom of God in this world. In births in us a new way of being human… truly human. Human as Christ is human, as sons and images of Abba, who do what they see the Father doing.

This is how the lamb and his community of followers “wage war” and triumph over the beastly systems of this age, by the peacemaking blood of the lamb, by the testimony of those who have become like the lamb, and by those who have embraced the sacrificial, nonviolent love of the lamb, even if it means their own deaths.

The image of God on the cross deconstructs all images of a violent God. The Crucified God simply hangs lifeless, bloody and marred, as a symbol to humanity, drawing out empathy, exposing victimization, condemning violence, demonstrating forgiveness, making peace, deconstructing false images of God, casting down powers, and creating a new humanity with resurrection life.

Summary

Nothing makes me desire to be merciful more than knowing my Father is like that. My desire is to emulate him. Like Jesus, I want to do what I see my Father doing.

If my Father smites his enemies and pours retribution upon them, I will view my own enemies through that lens. Rather than responding with Jesus’ radical compassion and mercy, I’ll gleefully think about how those I dislike will be destroyed or tortured eternally.

But if, as Jesus said, my Father loves his enemies, is kind to the wicked, and gives to them without expecting anything back, then I will find myself hoping the best for my enemies, looking for the gold within them, keeping no record of wrongs, and seeking redemption in their lives.

In an odd twist to the “imago dei”, we become made in the image of the God we worship. The God you worship will be the God you become like.

A violent god is not the God we see in Christ. It’s a god fashioned in our own image. A nonviolent God is so very unlike us – so much higher – calling us into our true image.

Our violent God does not exist. But neither does our easy-going Jesus exist. His love is both tender and furious. It comes to level the mountains and raise up the valleys. It comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. It continuously shakes us out of our delusions to expand our awareness of the cross’ divine wisdom – kenosis (self-emptying of one's wisdom for another's) and theosis (coming into union with God) – self-emptying love and partaking in the divine nature. It lures and pushes us forward to become peacemakers and lay down our lives for one another – to grow into the true image of God – children of our Father. This is the kingdom come. This is peace on earth, good will toward men.

A violent and retributive God makes followers who don’t take radical forgiveness and peacemaking very seriously. Jesus is not that God. Jesus lays down his life for his enemies.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that instead of following Jesus, people follow the Bible. The Bible is good if you see it as a progressive, incremental revelation of God finding it’s fullness in Jesus (meaning that all revelation before him was inferior).

Jesus IS the point. He IS God incarnate. If there is something in the Old Testament that seems to contradict Jesus, always go with Jesus.