Maybe I am too naive, but I think that the message of Jesus was deeply subversive. That it was not something people had heard or necessarily thought before in the way Jesus presented it, so therefore, it caused at first minor ripples, which turned into massive waves, crushing the messenger, i.e. Jesus himself. Jesus' own family saw something about his message which was subversive, and attempted to distract him from proclaiming the kingdom. His mother probably was saying, "Jesus, you are creating discomfort for the leaders, you are going to get in trouble for saying what you are saying, so be a "good" citizen and stop!" (Of course this is my translation). The amazing part of Jesus' message was that he was attempting to offer mercy and forgiveness to an entire nation of people, which would in turn offer mercy and forgiveness to the entire Cosmos in his name. How is that not being a "good" citizen? This is the reason that theologians such as N.T. Wright are so popular, not because every 'jot and tittle' of their theology is without criticism, but because they present Jesus' message within the context of 1st century Judaism where it belongs. This enhances our understanding of Jesus' resurrection as his defeat of sin and death. If we only read our worldview, i.e. Western culture, division of church and state, Deism, materialism, consumerism into our understanding of Jesus, we have made Jesus into our own IMAGE. That is serious, because we will end up losing out on the incredible offer of participation with the God who cares deeply for all things in this world.
We will limit God to only being able to work within our thoughts and culture. Jesus' proclamation was not accepted in his day as it not in our day, because I suspect that it was thought of as weakness. At least the apostle Paul thought that it was weakness. That weakness was what would have saved an entire nation from possible destruction. (Matthew 5) Does it make a difference today? Why are we afraid of weakness? If we deny our weaknesses, insecurities, fears, we will only rely on violence to bring what we think is peace. That is what Rome was. We have to remember that if we rely on violence, the stronger will always defeat the strong in the paradigm of violence. I think that Jesus thought that violence never defeats the violent. He thought that the cross defeats the manifestation of evil, which is violence.
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I read another Stanley Hauerwas article about Bonhoeffer and found this quote, which I thought was amazing:
The mistake of Anglo-Saxon thought is the subordination of truth and justice to the ideal of peace. Indeed, such a view assumes that the very existence of peace is proof that truth and justice have prevailed. Yet such a view is illusory just to the extent that the peace that is the reality of the Gospel is identified with the peace based on violence. No peace is peace but that which comes through the forgiveness of sins. Only the peace of God preserves truth and justice. So “neither a static concept of peace (Anglo-Saxon thought) nor even a static concept of truth (the interpretation put forward by Hirsch and Althaus) comprehends the Gospel concept of peace in its troubled relationship to the concepts of truth and righteousness.” 15
Jesus came to conquer the Yankees.
i think that you are talking about two different kinds of peace. First of all, peace with God is something that only Jesus can give. The Psalmist started to talk about it when he said in Psalm 46:10, "Cease {striving} and know that I am God;". The first step i need to take as a believer is to stop trying to be God and allow God to be God. That is the first step to peace. The second step to peace with God is a principle of Galatians 2:20 (coincidentally, the name of my blog!). It says, "Therefore, i have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer i who live but Christ who lives in me." If i no longer live for myself, but live for Christ, i am living for His ideals. i think that peace also has to do with the Biblical idea of "rest" or "entering His rest", i.e. the promised land. In the New Testament, rest brings a different meaning. Jesus says in Matt. 11:28-29, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Clearly, Jesus was suggesting that He was that much coveteted rest that the Jews were searching for. Not all, but most of humanity, is searching for peace and rest and that is what Jesus offers.
This brings us to the other kind of peace, the social-economic peace. In societies, there will always be have's and have-not's. As long as there is greed in this world, there will be people who will not rest and will continue to strive for peace through strength. Strength of weapons, strength of power and strength of money. I think you would agree with me that there are people in this world that use those things for ill gain. That there are people in this world that if they had the weapons, power and money would commit genocide on many different groups of people. You and i would also agree that this needs to be stopped. But at what cost? Do we (as the USA) say, "Hey Mr. Warlord, please stop using the food that we are giving you to feed your starving people to buy more guns," or do we say, "Hey Mr. Warlord, stop selling the food we are giving you for guns or we are going to forcibly remove you from power so that your people will be fed properly and have a chance for life." I am not sure we can ask WWJD on this one but we can ask ourselves, "Which is more compassionate?"
The bottom line, Paul, is that peace cannot be acheived apart from Christ. I get the feeling from your blog that you believe that peace can be attained socio-economically apart from Christ. If i am mistaken, please correct me. My goal, and i pray your goal is too, is to bring as many people to Christ as is possible. Only through humanity coming to Christ can we have true peace on Earth. Now THAT is a cause worth fighting for.
I think one of the most perceptive aspects of your post is the link you draw between fear and violence. I think that human beings are fundamentally driven by fear, specifically fear of nonexistence or nonbeing. This is a strong statement I don't have time to defend, so I'll just have to illustrate it for now.
Consider relationships. It is probably safe to say (at least here on your blog) that as human beings we are fundamentally communal, part of which is to say that we constitute our identities - our sense of "self" - in relation to others. We look to other people to help us define who we are. Our existence is wrapped up in our relationship to them. This is why the closer we get to people, the more risk is involved. The further in we allow someone to come, the more weight we give them in helping to define us, the more of a threat they become. And the more likely we become to act violently (violence of whatever variety - physical, verbal, etc) towards them, so as to protect ourselves.
This is getting long and tangential, so let me come back to the point. Fear is the root of violence, for we wouldn't perceive the need to eliminate someone else's existence unless we perceived them to be a threat to our own (which we apparently assume is not ultimately secure).
This is true, for example, of both nation-states in the 21st century and spouses in a marriage. This is why the resurrection alone enables the Christian community to faithfully (i.e. nonviolently) strive for real peace. This is also why the resurrection is the key to "successful" marriages. In both cases we can live and love in faith that we need not ultimately protect our identities. The one thing that could finally cease our existence, namely, death ("the final enemy"), has been defeated. Now we need not fear our husbands or wives and therefore can truly love them. Now we need not fear Iraqis (or Americans) and therefore can truly love them too.
Peace and Love
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P.S. I'd love to hear your thoughts on and contributions to my latest post ("Confession Time") whenever you get a chance. Peace out
Hey Michael, thanks for the post. I could not agree more with the statement, "Now we need not fear our husbands or wives and therefore can truly love them. Now we need not fear Iraqis (or Americans) and therefore can truly love them too."
This is the argument of a lot of people because we also fear that which we can not control. If I can control something, then I can manipulate it to fit into my purposes, but once I relinquish control, I have to trust "the other" (God or people). This can be scary sometimes. This is one of the reasons why we only have friends that look like us, because that is something I can control. Once I move outside of that, I realize that I have to accept cultural, ethnic differences, which means that I myself have to allow my identity to assimilate into another, that is not always comfortable.
I read your blog post, and will comment about it later. I thought it was really good.
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