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A Revolutionary Kiss
Amidst the violent protests calling for a revolution in Egypt we find a reminder of the utterly unique kind of revolution Jesus calls us to. Love, bless, pray for, do good to — and yes, even KISS — our enemies (Lk 6:27-38).
Peace
Greg
Category: General
Tags: Non-Violence
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Memorial Day
For Memorial Day, we thought we would repost Greg’s thoughts from 2007. In this post, Greg expresses his conflicted feelings over this holiday and gives a brief defense of Christian pacifism. *** Hope you all had a happy Memorial Day. (Isn’t that something of a misnomer — a happy time remembering people killed in war?) Memorial Day…

Jesus and the “Eye for an Eye” Command: A Response to Paul Copan (#10)
As I noted in my 9th response to Paul Copan’s critique of Crucifixion of the Warrior God (CWG), Copan argues that Jesus merely repudiated wrong applications of OT laws in his sermon on the mount, not any OT law itself. He thus thinks I’m mistaken when I argue that Jesus placed his own authority above…

Is Non-Violence a Key to Christian Discipleship?
For the first three centuries of the church, Christians understood that forgoing the use of violence and expressing God’s self-sacrificial love was central to discipleship. However, this mindset changed after the Church acquired power in the fourth century. Entire theological systems have been developed to support the use of coercive power. However, contrary to that…

Podcast: Are the Militaries of the World Established by God?
Greg considers what Paul meant in Romans 13:1-2 when he says “whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has established.” PART ONE: http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0128.mp3 PART TWO: http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0129.mp3

Violent Thinking
When most people think of violence, they think of physical violence. But the truth is that our actions are only violent because our hearts and minds are violent first. For this reason, Jesus emphasizes purging violence from our minds as much as from our physical behavior. In Matt 5:21-26, he reminds us of the OT…

Jesus and Nationalistic Violence
Throughout the Old Testament, we find Israel spoken of as God’s “chosen nation.” The Israelites were to be a nation of priests whom God wanted to use to unite the world under him (Ex 19:6). Since nationalism and violence inevitably go hand in hand, as Jacque Ellul and others have noted, the covenant God made…