We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Where are the Blessed Peacemakers?
Religion Dispatches Magazine posted an article recently on embracing non-violence in the Christian tradition. In it, Elizabeth Drescher argues that the violent imagery in Paul’s writing accounts for a great deal of the violent posturing going on in churches today, but she also argues that these images have been misapplied and misunderstood. She challenges us that, “It is time…for Christian churches to atone for their own role in the culture of violence within which we all suffer by standing actively against it week upon week upon week in the pulpit and on the street.”
From the article:
The “armor of God,” too often turned to violent purposes, is comprised of truth, righteousness, and peace. Paul’s “helmet of salvation”—that which protects the center of human thought and reason—and “sword of the Spirit” are not of course acts of aggression, but words. Hence, likewise, the sword of justice wielded in the Revelation of John (Rev. 19:11-15)—the New Testament book most often cited in violent, apocalyptic Christian fantasies—extends from the mouth of the white-robed representation of the risen Christ. He slays the forces of cosmic evil not with physical aggression, but with the same “Word of God” that Paul calls out as the fundamental instrument of Christian faith, righteousness, and peace.
Christians, we seem to forget in all the clucking over the extent to which fried chicken sandwiches do or do not represent ideological preferences, are meant to use words, and to use them in particular for peace. This peace—the “Peace of Christ” in Christian tradition—is the heart of Christian teaching and practice, upon which rests everything from faithful stewardship of creation, to economic justice, to the rejection of violence as a solution for personal, familial, social, or political disagreements.
Image by Jayel Aheram. Sourced via Flickr.
Category: General
Tags: Non-Violence, Peacemaking
Related Reading

Does Romans 13 Condone Government Violence? (podcast)
Greg deconstructs problematic interpretations of Romans 13. Episode 649 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0649.mp3

The Myth of Redemptive Violence
Check out Shane Claiborne’s excellent piece on the problem of violence posted yesterday on Huffington Post. Money quote: “Christian theologians have said Jesus teaches a ‘third way’ to interact with evil. We see a Jesus who abhors both passivity and violence and teaches us a new way forward that is neither submission nor assault, neither…

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…

Sermon: Blood and Water
In this sermon clip, Greg Boyd talks about how question in baptism and communion have cause division in the church throughout history. In the rest of the sermon he discusses why baptism and Communion are important sacraments to the Christian community. Greg also shows us how the Anabaptists understood these sacraments and how Woodland Hills…

The Cleansing of the Temple and Non-Violence
Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple is the most commonly cited example of those who allege that he did not absolutize loving enemies or refraining from violence. I submit that this episode implies nothing of the sort. First, it is important that we understand that this episode was not an expression of unpremeditated anger on Jesus’…

Eye for Eye: That Time Jesus Refuted An Old Testament Teaching
One of the most surprising aspects of Jesus’ teaching is that, while he clearly shared his contemporaries’ view of the Old Testament as inspired by God, he was nevertheless not afraid of repudiating it when he felt led by his Father to do so (Jn. 8:28; 12:49-50; 14:31). For example, while the OT commands people…