Search Results: non-violence
Does the Bible teach total non-violence?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Christian Life, Peacemaking, Q&A, Social Issues, Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
I wouldn’t say the whole Bible teaches non-violence, for you find Yahweh engaging in quite a bit of violence in the Old Testament. But I would say that the whole Bible clearly presents non-violence as God’s dream for humanity, and I would most certainly say this dream is realized in…
Satan and the Corruption of Nature: Seven Arguments
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Problem of Evil, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Creation Care, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict, The Problem of Evil
…one can get around the implication that God’s ideal creation was, and is, non-violent. That non-violence was part of God’s original design for creation is reiterated when God makes a new covenant with humanity after the flood. The covenant of Gen. 9:1-4 parallels the covenant of Genesis 1 very closely,…
Revelation and the Violent “Pride Fighting” Jesus
Category: General
…having been doing a lot of research on the book of Revelation as part of a book I’m writing on the topic of non-violence in the New Testament (tenatatively titled, A Questionable Peace: Responding to Alleged Violence in the New Testament). It will serve as a prequel to my book…
Suggested Further Readings for MYTH OF A CHRISTIAN RELIGION
Category: General
Tags: Books, Creation, Myth of a Christian Religion
…the Christian stance of non-violence. This book was one of the works that first inspired me to consider committing to unconditional non-violence. Yoder, J. What Would You Do? (Herold Press, rev. ed. 1992). The most commonly asked questions of people committed to non-violence is, “What would you do if an…
Should Christians really only use non-violent resistance to things like war/genocide?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Non-Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence, Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
…non-violent manner. If you’d like to do further reading on this, check out, York Tripp, ed. A Faith Not Worth Fighting For. It addresses all the major objections people raise against pacifism and includes essays by Brian McLaren, Shane Claiborne and a dozen other advocates of non-violence, including myself. …
Why I’m a Vegetarian
Category: General
Topics: Creation Care
…antithetical to love. I have found that my commitment to non-violence has helped me wake up to all of the violence I have in my thoughts and speech, which in turn has helped me get free from this ugly violence. And this, in turn, has deepened my capacity for love….
VII Christian Living
…(Herald, 2012) 2 Centrality of Self-Sacrificial Love See also: III New Testament: Centrality of the Cross III New Testament: Centrality of Non-Violence IV Church History: Non-violence of the Early Church VII Christian Living: Pacifism/Peacemaking L. C. Allen, The Cruciform Church (Abilene Christian University, 1990) 2 G. Boyd, Myth of…
Part 2: Disarming Flood’s Case Against Biblical Infallibility
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Biblical Authority, Book Reviews, Derek Flood, Disarming Scripture, Jesus, OT Violence, Paul
…reason that Flood feels the full gravity of the problem posed by the Old Testament’s violent portraits of God and violence-advocating narratives. And given the centrality of love and non-violence in the New Testament, I can only applaud Flood’s denouncement of Christian violence as the worst heresy imaginable (77). Unfortunately,…
Is the New Testament Ambiguous About Non-Violence?
Category: General
Tags: Bible Interpretation, Cruciform Theology, Non-Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
…could interpret these passages as depicting God in ways that promote violence, it must be conceded that the NT depiction of God is not unambiguously enemy-loving and non-violent. In response to the alleged violence in some sections of the NT, I argue that the revelation of God in Christ, thematically…
The Argument from God’s Non-Violent Creational Ideal
Category: General
Topics: Creation Care
…grant that there’s room for debate over how literally or figuratively these passages should be interpreted. But even if one sees these chapters as mostly, or even totally, figurative, I don’t see how one can get around the implication that God’s ideal creation was, and is, non-violent. That non-violence was…
I Bible Interpretation
The Development of the Canon F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (InterVarsity, 1988) 2 C. A. Evans, E. Tov, eds., Exploring the Origins of the Bible (Baker Academic, 2008) 2 M. Hengel, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation into the Collection and Origin…
Reviewing the Reviews: Derek Flood
Category: General
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Derek Flood, Disarming Scripture, Reviews
…the cross and to explain why God is depicted as “a perpetrator of violence” in the OT but “a victim of violence on Calvary.” I argue that, whereas God stooped to bear his people’s sinful conceptions of him as a perpetrator of violence in the OT, on the cross God…
What Would You Do If Someone Attacked Your Family?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Kingdom Living, Non-Violence, Q&A
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
…the attacker, or even to take his life. What would such a person do in this case? I think it is clear from Jesus’ teachings, life and especially his death that Jesus would choose non-violence. So, it seems to me that a person who was totally conformed to the image…
The Teleological Exegetical Principle and O.T. Violence
Category: General
…to nationalism and violence (they are inseparable) in the Old Testament. Divinely sanctioned nationalistic violence initially looked like it could establish the Kingdom of God, but it failed. The nation of Israel tried to live by the sword but it ended up dying by the sword (as Jesus said would…
Why Don’t We Practice Non-Violent Love
Category: General
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Why in the history of history of the church has enemy-loving non-violence so rarely been attributed to God and so rarely been espoused as the defining characteristic of kingdom people? In light of the fact that the New Testament makes cruciform love the central characteristic of who God is and…
The Cruciform Center Part 4: How Revelation Reveals a Cruciform God
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, Jesus, Lamb of God, Non-Violence, Revelation, Self-Sacrificial Love
Topics: Apologetics, Atonement and The Cross, Christology, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
…books that advocate a non-violent reading of Revelation) R. Bauckham., The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark) —- The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) M. Bredin, Jesus, Revolutionary of Peace: A Nonviolent Christology in the Book of Revelation…
The “Third Way”: Seeing God’s Beauty in the Depth of Scripture’s Violent Portraits of God
Category: Essays
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, Non-Violence, Picture of God, Third Way
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
…so helpful. He basically argued that we simply have to decide which conception of God we’re going to believe while offering a number of reasons why we should prefer the non-violent conception of God. This is what I consistently find among authors who grasp how important non-violence is for Jesus’…
The First Fruit of the Coming Non-Violent Creation
Category: General
Topics: Creation Care
…and (3) experience the intrinsic worth of all living things. I now want to share a theological reason that I feel supports my pledge to refrain from all unnecessary violence. 4. The First Fruits of the Coming Non-Violent (and thus, non-carnivorous) Creation Scripture teaches that God originally gave vegetation and…
What I’ve Been Reading Lately
Category: General
…is the ideal of self-sacrificial love that unconditionally forbids violence toward enemies. Any religion that doesn’t put the principle of love and non-violence ahead of ALL other principles will sooner or later justify violence.*** And finally….. P. Nobel, The Canonical Approach. I have read parts of this work on several…
The Violent “Church Triumphant”
Category: General
Tags: Augustine, Constantine, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence, The Church
In light of how central enemy-loving non-violence is to Jesus’ teaching and to his cross-centered revelation of God, we have to wonder why the church has refused to listen to its head and instead condoned violence, as pointed out in the previous post? Christian theologians have used OT’s violent portraits…