the Jesus Manifesto - Latest Comments in Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

markvans — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:20:23 -0000

Denny Weaver's done some work on this (check out his book "the Nonviolent Atonement"). You can also read Green and Baker's "Recovering the Scandal of the Cross."

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

kevin — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:03:57 -0000

I would love to read a more detailed examination of the myth of redemptive violence viz. propitiation and substitutionary atonement. I've been thinking through this lately and found my generally conservative theology at odds with my commitment to non-violence.
Thanks for the article though, and your comments as well, Bill.

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

wmcdivsdnt — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:26:02 -0000

Thanks Joet. There are certainly a lot of falsehoods in the book of Job, too, aren't there? So as interpreters, we have the high task of trying to discern what the message of Scripture actually is. That means taking it book by book, rather than word for word. In a book like Job, with so much falsehood and then so much figurative language on top of that, I would still want to argue that as a package it is still canonical for us; it's God's word. That gets even harder with Joshua--I feel you there.

As for the traditionally orthodox teaching on eternal punnishment, I can identify with your concerns. The subject doesn't come up in this paper. I guess it could be said, as you wrote, that the violence of hell is not redemptive and so it would not be evidence for a "myth of redemptive violence" in Scripture. Personally, I have argued against the traditional view on hell, opting instead for an annihilationist perspective like John Stott, another evangelical who is conservative on scripture but also a pacifist. By the way, this position I've taken means I must search for ministry positions outside my current denomination, so if you hear of anything...

Scripture describes God as being all knowing and all powerful but also genuinely saddened at human violence in Genesis 6. I don't have it figured out, but I also don't limit that divine saddness to simply figurative language. As you say, he is outside of history, but he is also inside of history, getting bounced around with humanity, acting and reacting and moving things toward his intended conclusion.

As far as the vengeful sacrifice thing goes, there are several ways that the Bible describes the atonement, and they're not all violent. Jesus is our example, our champion and conquerer, our purification, our sacrifice and substitution. The Old and New Testaments borrowed from but then transformed the concepts of propitiation present in the cultures around them. Christianity, and Hebrew religion before it, do not teach that an angry God demands payment but a loving, merciful Jesus steps in the way and takes the violence upon himself.

After the liberation of the Exodus, in his covenant with Moses, the God of Israel promised to deliver his people from imperialistic oppression if they remained faithful but to allow them to fall into the hands of their enemies if they did not. That is what happened in the exile, and that is the state Israel still felt they at least partially were in when Jesus showed up. By dying as a victim of injustice at the hands of the Romans and Israel's corrupt leadership, Jesus took the punnishment promised in the Mosaic covenant--not direct divine violence, but temporary divine abandonment to human imperialistic violence--so that he could win for Israel the right to full liberation (and conquer death along with the one who held power over people through the fear of death). That liberation, he taught, would not come by killing Greeks and Romans or feeling morally superior to them, but by loving them and bringing them into the people of God free of charge.

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

joet — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:35:05 -0000

I didn't look closely to the image until you pointed it out, Bill. I'm not sure it has much to do with redemptive violence - presumably those alluded to were not looking for any kind of redemption. It didn't bother me, maybe it should have.

Regarding your other points. First, I find the notion that conservatives 'accept all Scripture as God's word' disingenuous. There are bits which cannot be from God - eg words of Satan.

On punishment: however evil and bad you have been, nothing deserves an eternal (ie never-ending) punishment. It cannot be just as the punishment simply bears no relation to the crime. And if there is no parole, it is also pretty pointless. Nobody gets any better in an eternal hell, there is no hope of any improvement.

On God's plan: if God is omnipresent, omnipotent and outside of time, how can he have been surprised at the results of his actions and/or have acted in a way that he knew would not produce the desired results?

From my point of view, the God who demands a vengeful sacrifice is not the God of Love and Justice. If our atonement theories make it sound like that, they are wrong. Equally, the God who encourages the faithful to take part in acts of barbarity and war cannot be the God we see in Christ the Prince of Peace who calls all who follow to lay down their lives not to lay down other's lives to protect our own standard of living.

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

Bill McLellan — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:24:10 -0000

I have to say, I find the photo attached to our article distracting and unnecessary. Yeah, it's edgy, but it exploits an actual tragic event for maybe a few extra readers. I'm sure it was put there with the very best of intentions. I hope I'm not being too much of a pansy!

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

Bill McLellan — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:09:25 -0000

In response to Mountainguy, I'd say it's hard among theological conservatives even to oppose specific wars as unjust , not to mention opposing Hegelian ideology that promotes war as the driving force in making this world a better place. For those who don't have any room in their "gospel" about Jesus for social transformation (it's all about getting into heaven when you die), then there doesn't seem to be anything anti-Christian about looking to war for our social salvation on earth. I'd say that's a very anti-Christian thing to do, because Jesus came to bring God's peaceful rule into the very same world we live in. All of this makes us fit rather uncomfortably among much of the theologically conservative world when it comes to talking about war, even though only Bill here fully identifies with the pacifist label.

What makes us more theologically conservative--and this might answer some of Isomer's thoughtful critique--is our commitment to accepting all of Scripture as God's word, even though it contains so much violence. Here we have two of the best most recent pacifists on our side, Yoder and Hauerwas, though we might want to emphasize the substitutionary character of Christ's atonement more than they have (they do too). God is love and desires all people be saved, and yet he avenges the innocent sometimes violently. For some, this works as the perfect justification for war. But I think that it actually weakens the argument for Christian pacifism to drive too hard a wedge between Jesus and the God who punishes wickedness and brings justice to the oppressed. Jesus actually brings us what we hope to get from war without it; but he was the same God incarnate who previously destroyed the world in the flood (however one might interpret that narrative from a scientific perspective). A crucial point about divine violence in the Bible comes out of that story: God's killing of almost all humans accomplished nothing to move forward his plan for the world. People were still just as wicked. He would have to hang up his bow in the clouds and embark on another course of action, redeeming humanity.

So violence in the Bible moves its redemptive narrative backwards, while only love can move it forward. Why God chose to allow and even command these setbacks so frequently is a mystery to me I wish I could resolve, but it seems clear that with Jesus something new did begin to happen: with the arrival of God's king bringing with him God's rule, the story of redemption started to move full steam ahead. War, or politically motivated violence, was no longer a viable option for the corporate people of God (definitely!) and probably not for individual Christians either (representing my own opinion).

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

mountainguy — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:31:58 -0000

Mr Jennings and Mr McClellan:

Both of you state that you're theologically conservatives. How much difficult is "lobbying" for pacifism with conservative christians? Is there something we could call "christian-conservative pacifism"?

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

Bill McLellan — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:28:50 -0000

Bill here. I appreciate the feedback on our essay. I would have to say that while I consider myself a pacifist and do not believe in the possibility of a just war for any reason, I have spent just about all of my ecclesiastical life with people who do, and they're not all bad. There is a lot of room for collaboration between serious adherents to just war theory and pacifists, as Yoder tried to show in "When War is Unjust." One such area of collaboration is opposing imperialism justified with Christian language, the creation-fall-redemption structure of the Christian gospel, and an appeal to the myth of redemptive violence. So many of my just-war friends get just as excited about this problem.

As to the existence of a myth of redemptive violence present in Scripture and orthodox Christianity...

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

TomDuregger — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:33:24 -0000

Bill and Nelson,

You use the term of Just Peace, suppose that means that you also embrace the false doctrine of Just War as well. Jesus calls His own to be ambassadors of His Kingdom and to conduct themselves according to the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, thus being heralds of Christ, living outside of human violence as we demonstrate confidence in His promises and the future hope set befor us. Those who take up the sword and sent their young into carnal warfare are not demonstrating the faith of committed disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. The crucifiction of Christ was a result of the world's rejection of His message and very being. His resurection is God's declaration that carnal warfare cannot succeed against the Kingdom and Kingship of His Dear Son. We are to follow in the footsteps of the Messiah, lining up with His teachings and His example. This is the vital message that the followers of Christ need to hear and embrace in this hour.

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

lsomers — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:59:10 -0000

What was ignored by this author is that the heart and soul of much of what is considered traditional Christian theology is a theology of redemptive violence. The liturgy and hymnody of the Christian churches, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant are filled with images of a violent and vengeful God wrecking havoc and inflicting misery on everyone from the myth of the Garden/Fall, to the great redemptive story of the Exodus - filled with the blood and suffering of the enemies of the Jews both the guilty and the innocent, to the obscenity of a god demanding the torture and death of his only son to satisfy the 'debt' owed by sinners.

Each and every one of these stories individually and collectively reinforce the concept that redemption is only available by some kind of violence perpetrated either by God or God's agents. This is part and parcel of the problem of the sanctification of violence and part of the reason, I do not doubt, that of all western nations surveyed recently the USA was one of the nations where only 53% of the respondents thought that all torture ought to be outlawed; you cannot outlaw redemptive methods - torture.

If torture is salvific, as was glorified in the monstrous movie, The Passion of the Christ, then why not allow it? The USA which claims the largest percentage of Christian identified people of any western nation and has the largest number of regular church goers is also the one where state sponsored murder called capital punishment is supported by the majority of the population.

The major metaphor of salvation for most Christians is the shedding of the blood of Jesus which washes the sinner clean - think of all those hymns about being 'washed in the blood', 'power in the blood' and all of the other horrific images of salvation by torture, murder and death. And then you ask why this is such a violent country? Christianity as it is preached to millions of people every Sunday of the year is a major contributor to the problem not the solution.

Christians need to reject salvation by violence as blasphemous against the God whose other name is Love and understand the Cross in a different light. The Cross is the instrument of the power of God only in the resurrection story. That is when the God of Love rejects the evil of mankind's murder of Jesus, summarized in his torture and death at the hands of the Empire the the Religious elite and affirms the salvific power of love in the face of hatred, murder and slaughter.

It is not the Cross that is God's will but the Resurrection of the Faithful One and his glorification at God's right hand that is God's final and triumphant will - the triumph of love, compassion, justice and mercy in the face of the worst mankind can do - inflict suffering and death on its victims.

Re: Striving for a Just Peace without the Myth of Redemptive Violence

Paul Maurice Martin — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:02:48 -0000

It truly is a strange thing to see a literally crusading mentality emerge among some Christians in our own time.