Radical Forgiveness
Brian Zahnd

When Jesus calls his disciples to take up their own cross and follow him, he means that his disciples are not merely to admire him, but to actively imitate him. And what did Jesus do? He voluntarily abandoned the option of violent retaliation, responding to deep injustice with nothing but forgiving love. On the cross Jesus absorbed sin that was violently sinned into him, refusing to call for the “twelve legions” of retaliation. Instead, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgiven them, for they know not what they do.” With this act of radical forgiveness Jesus broke the bloody cycle of violent revenge. Jesus shed his own blood rather than shed the blood of his enemies. By the blood of Jesus we have been redeemed from sin — the sinful way that Cain and his successors organized human civilization. This act of cruciform love is the epicenter of Christianity. The cross gives the world a new organizing principle. Instead of being organized around an axis of power enforced by violence, the world has now been re-founded around an axis of love expressed in forgiveness. This is what we mean when we speak of the salvation of the cross.

Our own imitation of this kind of cruciform love is demanding, but nothing less than this is authentic Christian discipleship. Sadly, for the most part, the world is still waiting to see this kind of radical discipleship taught and lived out with any consistency by the Church. This should also make it clear why any talk of being a “Christian nation” — whether claimed by Russia, Spain, England, Germany, the United States, or any other body politic — is sheer propaganda. For if as a matter of policy an institution is committed to violent retaliation, whatever else it may be, that institution by definition cannot be called Christlike.

BZ

PS:

My book Unconditional? The Call of Jesus to Radical Forgiveness is now out in paperback under a new title and with a new cover: Radical Forgiveness: God’s Call to Unconditional Love

The post above is not an excerpt from the book, but a 300 word thought that came to me today while giving a radio interview on the subject of radical forgiveness.

For some reason it also made me think of this…

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Windbag Speeches: The Cruelty of Talking Too Much
by Brian Zahnd

The only detailed story of the satan in the Old Testament is found in the tragedy of Job. In the first two chapters the satan accuses Job before God and trouble shortly ensues. In three thunderclaps of horror Job loses his wealth, his health, and his children.

After the first two chapters in the Book of Job the satan disappears from the narrative. Or does it? What actually happens is the satan is channeled through Job’s three annoyingly religious friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.

Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar initially come to comfort Job, but end up tormenting Job’s already shattered soul. I think the three amigos intended well, but in their obsession to explain they became satanic agents of accusation and cruelty.

Basically, Larry, Moe, and Curly had a “Proverbial Theology.” One of the dominant themes of the Book of Proverbs is that if you fear God and live righteously good things will happen. And this is true. We all know it’s true. To fear God and live righteously leads to a blessed and happy life. It’s true. Except when it isn’t.

The Old Testament is immersed in a spirited Jewish debate with itself. For example: The priests insist that God wants ritual sacrifice. But the prophets say, “I’m not so sure about that. Let’s talk about it.”

Proverbs says, “Fear God and live righteously and good things will happen.”

Job says, “Well, I’ve got a story to tell you!”

Tom, Dick, and Harry tell Job, “We know that good things happen to the those who fear God and live righteously. The Bible says so. And since bad things have happened to you, it must be because you do not fear God and have not lived righteously.”

To which Job replies, “Yeah, well, I’m glad you have it all figured out, but there’s only one problem: You’re wrong! I do fear God and I have lived righteously! What has happened to me happened for no good reason!”

And around and around and around the debate goes.

What’s going on here?

Much.

For one thing, the Three Musketeers of Certitude felt compelled to give tidy explanations, not for Job’s sake, but for the sake of their own sense of security. As eyewitnesses to a wrenching human tragedy they want to reassure themselves that this could never happen to them. They cling to their Proverbial security blanket of “nothing-bad-happens-to-the-righteous.” Their own sense of well-being depends upon their ability to give a theological explanation for why this bad thing has happened to Job.

Or perhaps these three iron age theologians were Calvinists, convinced that Job deserved his misfortune “for general purposes.” The “T” on the tulip was reason enough to tell Job to shut up and quit complaining.

But…

Does “total depravity” exonerate God? For the death of Job’s children? For the Holocaust? For Sandy Hook? For Plaza Towers Elementary School? (There’s a reason why Ivan Karamazov made the suffering of innocent children the crux of his argument for “returning his ticket.”)

This much I am sure of: The satan has reappeared in the story in the form of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Their insistence on talking and explaining has inevitably led to accusing and tormenting blameless Job. Finally Job can stand it no more and explodes…

I’ve had all I can take of your talk.
What a bunch of miserable comforters!
Is there no end to your windbag speeches?
What’s your problem that you go on and on like this?
(Job 16:2-3 MSG)

Yeah. Windbag speeches. What is your problem? Why go on and on like that?! It’s just plain cruel.

A cruelty rooted in defending the false comfort of theological certitude.

Or was it just the cruelty of talking too much?

And just in case you’re somehow inclined to defend the Eliphaz gang, don’t forget this…

After God had finished addressing Job, he turned to Eliphaz the Temanite and said, “I’ve had it with you and your two friends. I’m fed up! You haven’t been honest either with me or about me — not the way Job has.” (Job 42:7 MSG)

And how does God defend himself in the “whirlwind speeches”?

As far as I can tell he doesn’t — unless it’s by way of implication. Is God implying something like this: “Look, I’m the Creator. And if there is something wrong, I know about it and I’ll do something about it. I know the buck stops here.” Is that what God is implying? Perhaps. I’m not sure.

I am convinced that the closest thing we have to a Christian theodicy is simply this:

The world is full of unjust suffering. This is true. But God has not exempted himself from it. In Christ, God has joined us in the reality of human suffering. If the question is “Where was God?” — the Christian answer is, “There, upon the cross, joining us in solidarity with our suffering.”

I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer was on to something when he said, “Only the suffering God can help.”

Then there’s Easter with its promise of New Creation — a world imagined by the prophets as beyond tears, beyond death, “beyond the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.”

In the meantime, it’s probably best that we refrain from windbag speeches that attempt to explain too much. For in the attempt to explain we are liable to become little satans and agents of cruelty.

Love more.
Talk less.
Sorrow freely.
Explain rarely.

“Love alone is credible.” -Hans Urs von Balthasar

Amen.

BZ

(The artwork is The Suffering of Job by Trenét Worlds)

PS: Here’s something really good from Walter Brueggemann…

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THE ONION

“Once upon a time there was a woman, and she was wicked as wicked could be, and she died. And not one good deed was left behind her. The devils took her and threw her into the lake of fire. And her guardian angel stood thinking: what good deed of hers can I remember to tell God? Then he remembered and said to God: once she pulled up an onion and gave it to a beggar woman. And God answered: take now that same onion, hold it out to her in the lake, let her take hold of it and pull, and if you pull her out of the lake, she can go to paradise. The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her: here, woman, he said, take hold of it and I’ll pull. And he began pulling carefully, and had almost pulled her all of the way out, when other sinners in the lake saw her being pulled out and all began holding on to her so as to be pulled out with her. But the woman was wicked as wicked could be, and she began to kick them with her feet: ‘It’s me who’s getting pulled out, not you; it’s my onion, not yours.’ No sooner did she say it than the onion broke. And the woman fell back into the lake and is burning there to this day. And the angel wept and went away.”

(From The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky)

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Let’s think about this onion in Dostoevsky’s parable.

Is this “salvation by works”? Oh, please. (Don’t put undo pressure on a parable.) I think we can all agree that being pulled out of hell by an onion is grace! The lesson is this: In saving you, God is looking for something he can work with — and God can work with something as insignificant as an onion. The point of the onion in the parable is that it was the one tiny modicum of unselfishness in the wicked woman’s self-centered life. It was the point from which God could work toward her salvation. What God cannot work with is selfishness. Selfishness works against saving grace.

The object of salvation is you. Not your status or your afterlife, but you! God wants to save you from falling into a black hole of self-destruction brought on by a self-centered life. Jesus calls you to let go of yourself and be drawn into the his saving orbit. Jesus is at work to save you from yourself. But the moment you start thinking selfishly about your salvation, the onion breaks and the saving work is undone.

The bad can be saved as long as they are humble.
The proud cannot be saved, no matter how good they are.

Jesus does not divide the world into good and bad — Jesus divides the world into proud and humble.

We should think like this: “If I am to be saved, then surely lots of others will be saved too.”
When we start thinking, “No doubt I am among the few to be saved”…the onion breaks!

I worry about those who are certain of who is going to be in hell.
It invariably turns out to be those they dislike — the despised “them.”
For the self-centered soul, hell is imagined as the final solution for “them.”
The attitude of “heaven is for me and hell is for them” is a dangerous thing.
It’s me who’s getting pulled out, not you…and the onion breaks!

Salvation is not the final triumph of hatred and prejudice.
At last me and my kind are vindicated and those awful others get what they deserve.
No! That’s the very opposite of salvation!

When you try to kick others into hell, that’s when the onion breaks and you find yourself back in the self-induced hell of loving no one but yourself.

Listen to what the wise Elder Zosima says to the young Alyosha Karamazov about hell…

“What is hell? I maintain it is the suffering of no longer being able to love.” -Elder Zosima, The Brothers Karamazov

Hell as the suffering of being incapable of love? That sounds about right if God is love.

Jean-Paul Satre said, “Hell is other people.”

No. Hell is being unable to love other people.

So…

If I have an arrogant assurance of my own salvation while savoring a secret delight in others going to hell…the onion is about to break.

Selah.

The Lesson:
God can begin his saving work at any point in your life, as long as it isn’t self-centered…
Even if it’s only an onion.

A Prayer:
Jesus, find the onion you can work with and pull me out of the self-inflicted hell of my selfishness.
And I promise not to kick at others who are being pulled out too.
Amen.

BZ

(The artwork is Dostoevsky by Daniel C. Griliopouls)

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“I will give him a new NAME.” -Jesus (Revelation 2:17)

“It causes all to be marked with the NUMBER.” -Revelation 13

The Lamb gives you a NAME.
The Beast gives you a NUMBER.

Is the Lamb analog and the Beast is digital?

The Lamb is personal
The Beast is impersonal.

The Lamb is all about persons.
The Beast is all about numbers.

(One of the few direct mentions of the satan in the Old Testament is when the satan moved King David to number the people.)

Be suspicious of things that are too obsessed with numbers.

Be nervous when churches are too obsessed with numbers.

Be wary of dehumanized forms of communication that turn everything into 1′s and 0′s.

(Is this why it’s so easy to behave beastly on Facebook and Twitter?)

A “virtual” world is a Gnostic world — not the good Creation of God.

I use digital communication. A lot. Obviously.

But I’m also suspicious of it. I think it’s inherently dangerous.

Turning names into numbers. It’s a kind of mark of the Beast.

Calling things by their names is the way of the Lamb and the first vocation of man. (Genesis 2:19)

So go for a walk. Outdoors. See some birds and trees. Learn their names.

Have a conversation. With a human being. Face to face.

We are names, not numbers.

The Beast gives us a NUMBER.
But the Lamb gives us a NAME.

BZ

(The artwork is The Eye of Sauron.)

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Dallas Willard
(September 4, 1935 — May 8, 2013)

In another lifetime, before I became the man I am today, I was searching…searching for I didn’t quite know what. I was utterly weary of a paper-thin Christianity propped up by cheap certitude recycling tired clichés. I was yearning for something deeper, richer, fuller. Yes, I was searching, but I hardly knew where to look. I was embarrassingly ignorant of “the good stuff.” With nowhere else to turn I began reading the Early Church Fathers, philosophy, and classic literature. Maximus the Confessor, Søren Kierkegaard, and Fyodor Dostoevsky were a big help, but I needed something contemporary — I needed a well dug in my own time.

One afternoon I was in my library. I was deliberately looking for a book that would “give me a breakthrough.” I couldn’t settle on anything. So I prayed: “God, show me what to read.” And I sensed…nothing. I went downstairs feeling a bit agitated and slumped into a chair. Within a minute or two Peri walked into the room, handed me a book and said, “I think you should read this.” She knew nothing of my moments ago prayer, but she had just handed me a book, and told me to read it. This was my Augustine-like “take and read” moment. It sent chills down my spine. The book was Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy. The strange thing was Peri had not read it and had no more idea who Dallas Willard was than I did. Neither of us were sure how the book had even made its way into our house. But, oh my, was it ever an answer to prayer!

The next day I was on a flight to who-knows-where and I took out the book given to me by an angel named Peri. I began to read. And my life changed forever. Hyperbole? No. Stone cold fact. Reading Dallas Willard’s Divine Conspiracy was like having a door kicked open in my mind. It opened my eyes to the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is, well, everything!

Here’s what Richard Foster says about The Divine Conspiracy…

The Divine Conspiracy is the book I have been searching for all my life. Like Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, it is a masterpiece and a wonder. I would place The Divine Conspiracy in rare company indeed: along-side the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and John Wesley, John Calvin and Martin Luther, Teresa of Avila and Hildegard of Bingen, and perhaps even Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. If the parousia tarries, this is a book for the next millennium.

In one way or another — directly or indirectly — Dallas Willard was my gateway to “the good stuff.” Over the next few years I completely read myself into a new (and much better!) place. In short order I would find N.T. Wright, Walter Brueggemann, Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, René Girard, Frederick Buechner, Thomas Merton, Miroslav Volf, Scot McKnight, Hans urs Von Balthasar, David Bentley Hart — like I said, all the good stuff. But it all began with dear, dear Dallas Willard, my beloved divine conspirator.

Jesus, I never had the opportunity, so please tell Dallas I said thanks.

BZ

PS: Here’s a picture of what most every page of my well-worn copy of The Divine Conspiracy looks like. My barely legible scrawl at the bottom of the page says, “preach this.” And believe me, I did!

Here’s a picture

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Belong
(Antidote for Gnosticism)

Let Christ inform all of life
Don’t be a religious cliché
Be a real human being
Belong to the human race
Belong to the woods
Belong to the city
Go for long walks
Learn to appreciate art
Take up the violin
Cultivate culinary skills
Read War and Peace
Laugh more than you do
Weep now and then
Listen to live jazz
Pray
Eat a peach
Do something ridiculous
Go dancing
Stop judging
Start loving
Plant a garden
Climb a mountain
Memorize a long poem
Learn some astronomy
Become a bee-keeper
Go back to college
Take up a new hobby
Make some new friends
Read the Bible
In a new translation
Get rid of bumper stickers
Learn a foreign language
Watch a foreign film
Change your mind
Drink only good coffee
Trust the sommelier
Talk to your neighbor
Not about religion
Go to church
Go to the circus
Don’t confuse them
Be human
Belong

BZ

(The artwork is Saturday Morning, Painted by Anthony Duce.)

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“Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” –Jesus (Luke 12:32)

The kingdom of God is what it’s all about. The reign and rule of God. The government and politics of heaven. God’s alternative structure for human society. This kingdom is how God saves the world from all that has gone wrong. Idolatry and injustice. Pride, greed, and lust. Poverty and disease, oppression and war. And ultimately, death itself. All of these human ills are what we are saved from through the reign of Christ. And get this…

It’s all a gift!
We cannot build the kingdom of God, much less fight for it.
We can only perceive the kingdom by faith and receive it as a gift.

How the kingdom of God comes is what the kingdom of God is.
If it comes by hierarchies building it or by armies fighting for it—
It’s not the kingdom of God.
The means are the ends in the process of becoming.

It’s All A Gift

In the midst of the human catastrophe — human civilization gone wrong from the very start, where Cain kills Abel and builds the first city — God has acted. Imagine a vast sheet — a sheet as vast as the world itself. This is human civilization. Now imagine God penetrating that vast sheet with a single pinpoint. This is the Incarnation. From this infinitesimal point — the birth of a peasant child in out-of-the-way corner of the world — God entered human civilization…and this changes everything! From that single life the kingdom of God comes.

It’s all a gift.
If you try to build it…it’s not the kingdom of God.
If you have fight for it…it’s not the kingdom of God.
We can only perceive it and receive it — we cannot build it or fight for it.

But this so hard for us to comprehend. It can only be done by faith. It’s hard to comprehend a kingdom that cannot be built or fought for, because human history is mostly about building and fighting. Think about it. What are empires? They are the greatest accomplishment of human civilization. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome… (I’ll stop before I hit too close to home.) How did these empires become what they became? By building and fighting. We call it “History.” And because we are completely scripted to admire the great achievements of civilization, we think all the great things are what we build and fight for.

But it’s a lie.

The kingdom of Christ is the Father’s loving gift to humanity.
It cannot be built.
It cannot be fought for.
It can only be perceived and received.
It’s all a gift.

Bricks and Horses

Have you ever noticed that the Bible has a rather poor opinion of bricks and horses? (Of course, it’s not masonry technology and equestrian arts that the Bible takes issue with, but what they represent.) Bricks represent empire-building and horses represent war-waging.

Brick technology is first mentioned in the story of the tower of Babel — a story representing the birth of empire and its intrusion upon the sovereignty of God.

“Come, let us make bricks and build a city with a tower reaching into the heavens.” –Genesis 11:3

God was not pleased and thwarted their empire-building. But the imperial desire persisted and empires were built. Brick by brick.

By “empire” I mean rich and powerful nations that will not stay in their allotted place, but seek to expand their borders and enforce their will upon weaker nations. Empires are malignant nations seeking to grow without regard for the common good. A cancer, if you will. Growth for growth’s sake. The domination and exploitation of weaker peoples justified by self-interest (Manifest Destiny) is not something God blesses — despite what the imperial anthems always say.

In the Biblical narrative the imperial project is born at Babel with the advent of brick-making technology. Babylon then becomes the image of empire all the way to the Book of Revelation.

The second mention of brick-making is in Exodus. As the Egyptian Empire was being built, we’re told…

“Pharaoh ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves, and made their lives bitter with mortar and brick.” –Exodus 1:13, 14

Pharaoh thought the Egyptian economy was more important than the well-being of foreign workers. Empires always think that the national economy is more important than anything. “It’s the economy, stupid” — that’s the mantra. For Pharaoh brick-making was more important than the welfare of the immigrant labor force. Pharaoh treated the brick-making Israelites as bricks. In the interest of empire people had become things. All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall.

God’s surprising adoption of an immigrant labor force languishing in the shadows of the Egyptian empire as his own people is the great love story of the Old Testament. The dominant picture of salvation in the Old Testament is the Exodus — Yahweh delivering Israel from their bondage. This is the event commemorated in Israel’s covenant meal. So that the God who raised Jesus from the dead is the God who first raised Israel from Egypt.

Then there’s horses. Horses were military technology. Egypt and Babylon loved their horses and chariots! And what did God overthrow in the Red Sea? Horses and chariots! Later God forbade the kings of Israel to multiply horses. Which is to say God forbade the building of a military-industrial complex. As the people of Yahweh, Israel was to trust in God…not in horses.

Some trust in horses and some in chariots,
But we will trust in the name of the Lord our God.
–Psalm 20:7

The Hebrew prophets criticized the kings of Israel and Judah for relying on horses and chariots purchased from Egypt. These faithless kings didn’t want to trust in God, they wanted to rely upon the conventional weapons of war. Their Gentile-styled obsession with conventional security eventually led to their demise — Israel was exiled to Assyria and Judah to Babylon.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, he refused to ride a horse, choosing instead to ride a donkey. This was powerful prophetic theater. In rejecting the warhorse in favor of the farm animal, Jesus is signaling that it’s time to turn swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks. Jesus is announcing that the time has come for the nations to “study war no more.” Selah.

To summarize…
Human civilization reaches its apex in empire.
Empire is characterized by building and fighting.
Thus building and fighting become what we honor and admire most.
We swoon at the feet of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar.
We’re convinced that the best things are obtained by building and fighting.

But Jesus says something else—

“Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

It’s all a gift!
We can’t build it.
We can’t fight for it.
The moment we try to build it and fight for it—
It’s not the kingdom of God.

Jesus builds the kingdom. Not us. When we try to build the kingdom, we inevitably create hierarchies that dominate people. We create priestly castes and make others second-class citizens. We integrate our systems of class, ethnic, and gender stratification through hierarchical domination. That’s empire stuff, not kingdom stuff!

We can’t build the kingdom.
And we can’t fight for it either.
As Jesus told Pontius Pilate…

“If my kingdom were from this world, my servants would be fighting…but my kingdom is not from this world.” –John 18:36

If we’re fighting for it, it’s not the kingdom of God.
(Did you hear that, culture warriors?!)
The kingdom of God is without coercion.
Behind the law is the gun — and the kingdom doesn’t come by the gun.
A legislated Christianity is just another religious empire—
It’s not the kingdom of God!

So if we can’t build it or fight for it…what can we do?
We can perceive it by faith and receive it as a gift.
We see it by rethinking everything in the light of Christ.
Unless we take it from the top and rethink everything we’ll never see the kingdom.
(This is what Jesus told Nick at night.)

The kingdom of God is here — if we have eyes to see it. And where is it?…

It’s where the poor are blessed, instead of the rich.

It’s where the brokenhearted are comforted, instead of those happy to be on top.

It’s where the meek get their share, even though they never fought for it.

It’s where those hungry for justice are finally satisfied.

It’s where mercy triumphs over judgment.

It’s where the pure-hearted see what the cynical never will: God is with us.

It’s where the children of God are making peace — undoing the works of the devil.

It’s where these children of God are being persecuted by those who just don’t see it.

It’s where the Jesus way is replacing the way of empire-building and war-making.

You don’t have to strive to be a success.
You don’t have wage a holy war.
You can be at peace.
It’s all a gift.

BZ

(The artwork is Happy Embellished Tree by Gloria A Petrey.)

The post It’s All A Gift appeared first on Brian Zahnd.

Let’s play a little game. I’ll ask some questions and you answer them. OK?

First question: Did God tell Abraham to kill his son?

You say, yes? (Adding that God didn’t actually require Abraham to go through with it.)

Next question: Did God tell Joshua and Saul to kill children as part of the “ethnic cleansing” of Canaan?

Is that a hesitant yes I hear — like walking in untied shoes?

My next question is simple and straightforward: Does God change?

No?

Well then, since God doesn’t change — and you have already acknowledged that in times past God has sanctioned the killing of children — is it possible that God would require you to kill children?

You say you don’t like this game? I understand. I don’t really like it either. But stick with me, I have one more question.

If God told you to kill children, would you do so?

I know, I know, I know! Calm down.

Of course you answer without hesitation that under no circumstance would you participate in the killing of children!

Yet in answering with an unequivocal no to the question of whether or not you would kill children are you claiming a moral superiority to the God depicted in parts of the Old Testament? After all, God commanded the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites, including children…didn’t he? Yet you obviously find the very suggestion of participating in genocide morally repugnant.

So what is going on here? Is genocide something God used to do, but now he’s changed?

But you already told me God doesn’t change. God is immutable. God doesn’t mutate.

So if God used to sanction genocide and God doesn’t change…

Aauugghh!!!!

Yes, you’ve been painted into a corner. And something has to give!

So where do we go from here?

Our options are limited.

1. We can question the morality of God.

2. We can question the immutability of God.

3. We can question our understanding of Scripture.

For me, the first two options are off the table. I cannot believe God is immoral or mutable.

If you suggest that I go with a variation of the first option by claiming that when God commands genocide it’s not immoral, that is asking me to violate my own conscience. I cannot do it. I will not do it. Genocide is immoral. I know this. And you know it too! Furthermore, such a position opens the door for all manner of evil to be justified in the name of God — something the human race has a long, tragic history of doing. For me, any variation of the first option is unacceptable.

Perhaps you are comfortable with the second option — a mutating God who is in the process of learning and growing. I am not. The immutability of God is foundational to my faith. If God is subject to change, how do we know that somewhere down the line God won’t mutate into an omnipotent malevolent monster? (I am aware of theologies that basically have such a god, but since I believe God is fully revealed in Christ, I reject the theologies of a monstrous deity.)

This leaves us with only the third option. We have no choice but to revisit how we understand Scripture — particularly the Old Testament.

Let’s begin by asserting that it is Jesus Christ who is the true Word of God. Christians confess that Christ is the Logos (divine logic) made flesh. This is the theme of John’s majestic gospel as he asserts over and over again that it is Christ who finally and fully reveals to humanity what God is really like. This is a whole subject in itself, but let’s move on.

So if we don’t want a god who occasionally commands genocide or a god who is mutating, how do we view the Old Testament. Something like this…

The Old Testament is the inspired telling of the story of Israel coming to know their God. But it’s a process. God doesn’t mutate, but Israel’s revelation and understanding of God obviously does. Along the way assumptions are made. One of these assumptions was that Yahweh shares certain violent attributes with the pagan deities of the ancient Near East. These assumptions were inevitable, but wrong. For example, the Hebrew prophets will eventually begin to question the assumption that Yahweh desires blood sacrifice. Jesus was fond of quoting Hosea’s bold assertion that Yahweh doesn’t want sacrifice, he wants mercy.

So let’s just say that between the allegedly divine endorsement of genocide in the conquest of Canaan and the Sermon on the Mount something changes! What changes isn’t God, but the degree to which humanity has attained a revelation of the true nature of God. The Old Testament is telling the story of Israel coming to know God…but don’t stop! Keep going until you get to Jesus! It isn’t Joshua the son of Nun who gives us the full revelation of God, it’s Yeshua of Nazareth! It isn’t the warrior-poet David who gives us the full revelation of God, but the greater Son of David, Jesus Christ! We understand David as a man of his time, but we understand Christ as the exact imprint of God’s nature! (see Hebrews 1:1–3)

OK, let me put my cards on the table. The whole point of this exercise has been to dampen enthusiasm for using the Old Testament to justify the use of violence. This is a dangerous practice that must be abandoned in the light of Christ. For if you want to occasionally revert to the Old Testament to justify the use of “appropriate” violence, how do you know you won’t be using the Old Testament to justify genocide? This is a legitimate question.

This very kind of justification was used by European Christians during the Native American genocide of North America. In 1637 the English colonial leadership in Connecticut wanted to launch a war of aggression against the Pequot tribe for the sole purpose of possessing their land. When some of the colonists expressed moral qualms, the matter was referred to their chaplain, Reverend John Stone. The good reverend spent the night in prayer and in the morning reported that God was “clearing the title” for his chosen people, the English, to possess America. The next day armed colonists attacked the Pequot settlement at Mystic and seven hundred men, women, and children were killed in the span of an hour. Captain John Mason described the slaughter in these words.

“Thus was God seen crushing the enemies of his people, burning them up in the fire of his wrath and dunging the ground with their flesh. It was the Lord’s doings and it was marvelous in our eyes.”

When some colonists questioned the morality of the slaughter, saying, “shouldn’t Christians have more mercy and compassion?” — Mason responded thus:

“I would refer you to David’s wars. Sometimes the Scripture declares that women and children must perish. We had sufficient light from the Word of God for our proceedings.”

(The Mystic Massacre is well documented. My primary source is The Earth Shall Weep by James Wilson pp. 89–95.)

This is the problem with reading the Bible as a flat text where every passage carries the same weight of authority. In such a reading the Bible can be used to justify every kind of violence including genocide. It’s been done before. This is why we must interpret Scripture in the light of Christ who is the true Word of God.

And so I assert…

The kingdom of Christ is without coercion. (And certainly without violence!) As Christians we persuade by love, witness, Spirit, reason, rhetoric, and if need be, martyrdom, but never by force. Christ followers are called to embody the peaceable kingdom of the Lamb.

Amen.

BZ

PS

For the philosophers and theologians among us: Let me say that though I love Kierkegaard, I find his description of Abraham as a “knight of faith” who achieves a “suspension of the ethical” in the sacrifice of Isaac anachronistic and ultimately unhelpful. Abraham didn’t “suspend the ethical” when he set off for Moriah, rather Abraham attained the ethical when he put down the knife. Abraham gained the revelation that, contrary to the assumption of the age, God does not want human sacrifice. If Abraham is the father of monotheism, he is also the father of the abolition of human sacrifice. It seems Kierkegaard missed this in Fear and Trembling. For my taste Kierkegaard’s knight of faith who suspends the ethical if far too close to Nietzsche’s Übermensch who is “beyond good and evil.”

(The artwork is The Sacrifice of Isaac by Marc Chagall.)

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Gitmo Is Killing Me
By SAMIR NAJI al HASAN MOQBEL
Published April 15, 2013 in the New York Times

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba

ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.

I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity.

I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.

I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I was a “guard” for Osama bin Laden, but this was nonsense, like something out of the American movies I used to watch. They don’t even seem to believe it anymore. But they don’t seem to care how long I sit here, either.

When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I’d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try.

I was wrong to trust him. There was no work. I wanted to leave, but had no money to fly home. After the American invasion in 2001, I fled to Pakistan like everyone else. The Pakistanis arrested me when I asked to see someone from the Yemeni Embassy. I was then sent to Kandahar, and put on the first plane to Gitmo.

Last month, on March 15, I was sick in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. A team from the E.R.F. (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear, burst in. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray.

I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone.

I am still being force-fed. Two times a day they tie me to a chair in my cell. My arms, legs and head are strapped down. I never know when they will come. Sometimes they come during the night, as late as 11 p.m., when I’m sleeping.

There are so many of us on hunger strike now that there aren’t enough qualified medical staff members to carry out the force-feedings; nothing is happening at regular intervals. They are feeding people around the clock just to keep up.

During one force-feeding the nurse pushed the tube about 18 inches into my stomach, hurting me more than usual, because she was doing things so hastily. I called the interpreter to ask the doctor if the procedure was being done correctly or not.

It was so painful that I begged them to stop feeding me. The nurse refused to stop feeding me. As they were finishing, some of the “food” spilled on my clothes. I asked them to change my clothes, but the guard refused to allow me to hold on to this last shred of my dignity.

When they come to force me into the chair, if I refuse to be tied up, they call the E.R.F. team. So I have a choice. Either I can exercise my right to protest my detention, and be beaten up, or I can submit to painful force-feeding.

The only reason I am still here is that President Obama refuses to send any detainees back to Yemen. This makes no sense. I am a human being, not a passport, and I deserve to be treated like one.

I do not want to die here, but until President Obama and Yemen’s president do something, that is what I risk every day.

Where is my government? I will submit to any “security measures” they want in order to go home, even though they are totally unnecessary.

I will agree to whatever it takes in order to be free. I am now 35. All I want is to see my family again and to start a family of my own.

The situation is desperate now. All of the detainees here are suffering deeply. At least 40 people here are on a hunger strike. People are fainting with exhaustion every day. I have vomited blood.

And there is no end in sight to our imprisonment. Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made.

I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.

Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, told this story, through an Arabic interpreter, to his lawyers at the legal charity Reprieve in an unclassified telephone call.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

This sickened me.

It made me mad.

And made me think.

In his prophetic denunciation of empire Isaiah criticizes Babylon for holding foreign prisoners indefinitely; for the injustice of not letting foreign prisoners return home. (see Isaiah 14:17)

Prophets are never popular with empire and it keepers.

Click here to read my thoughts on Isaiah 14 and Empire.

BZ
Lisbon

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The World After Easter
by Brian Zahnd

He Who Sits Upon The Throne says, “Look here! I am making all things new!”

This is the only time in Revelation where we hear the voice of Him Who Sits Upon The Throne.

There are only three other times in the New Testament when we hear the voice of God the Father:

At Jesus’ baptism: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

At the Transfiguration: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased — listen to him!”

Before the Paschal Mystery: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

These occurrences of the Voice of God emphasize that Jesus is the Word of God — the incarnation of the Logos/Logic/Love of God sent into the world to redeem humanity from the dominion of Sin and Death.

When He Who Sits Upon The Throne says, Look here! I am making all things new! — he is doing it through his eternal Word, his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

This is what was promised in Abraham.
Foretold by the Prophets.
Born at Bethlehem.
Inaugurated on Easter.
The making of all things new!

God’s solution for a Creation marred by Sin and Death is not to abandon it, evacuate it, condemn it, or destroy it, but to remake it — to make it new again! This is what was inaugurated on Easter!

Easter is not just a happy ending to the Gospel story. In the world after Easter all things are in the process of being made new.

Now think…

Have you ever noticed that while the Gospel writers go into great detail about the crucifixion, they do not attempt to describe the resurrection…at all?! Have you noticed this? No description, just the declaration that it happened. The reason the Gospel writers don’t attempt to describe the resurrection (as they do the resurrection of Lazarus) is because they simply cannot do it. They can describe crucifixion, because it belongs to the old age of Death. But resurrection belongs to the age of New Creation. Imagine the difficulty of trying to describe the Internet to stone age people. Times ten! It can’t be done because there is not enough shared vocabulary. The resurrection of Jesus does not belong to this age, it belongs entirely to the age to come. As such it defies description. The resurrection of Lazarus has virtually nothing in common with the resurrection of Jesus. Lazarus was resuscitated back into the old world of Death. (A kind of really impressive CPR.) Jesus was resurrected in a way that opened the Universe to a world beyond Death. In his resurrection Jesus becomes the door into a parallel universe of Eternal Life.

In the world after Easter the Universe is no longer a closed system bounded by Death.
The Universe is now open to the infinite possibilities of Life.

The idea that the Universe is a zero-based closed system is the foundation of all our fears — this is the fear of death. If the Universe is a zero-based closed system, what is lost is forever gone. Infinite sorrow. But God has acted and Easter is the breakthrough that opens the Universe and drains our fear!

The resurrection of Lazarus was only a “sign” (this is the word John uses) that points to the greater reality. That greater reality is the New Creation inaugurated by Jesus’ resurrection. In the world after Easter a door has been opened that leads beyond the bleak and limited land of Death.

When we think and speak of God (theology), we tend to do so with reference to the past.
We speak of God in philosophical terms as the “Prime Source” or “Unmoved Mover.”
We speak of the God of Genesis, the God of Creation, the God of History.
And he is. But…

He Who Sits Upon The Throne is he who was, and is, and is to come.
He is the God of Revelation, the God of what will be, the God of New Creation.

God is not only behind us as the source from which all things spring—
God is also before us, holding forth the possibility of that we can become.

Ever since the Fall (or whatever you want to call the catastrophe referred to in Genesis 3 & 4)—
God has been calling humanity to move toward him.
As we move toward the Truth of God, God appears to change—
But God does not change, it is our perspective of God that changes.
(Our perspective of God must change, for it has been greatly distorted by the fog of war and empire.)

The Living God who is the Eternal Father of Jesus is the God of the Future, he is the God of New Creation, the God of New Jerusalem. He is ever out in front of us calling us away from the tyranny of the false ways of Death. The Word of God (Christ) is saying, “Come on, human race, this is the way!”

When the Spirit of Truth comes,
He will guide you into all Truth…
He will declare to you the things that are to come.

When Jesus says the Spirit “will declare to you the things to come” — he doesn’t mean the prediction of particular events. Rather, Jesus is talking about the inspiration of New Creation possibilities.

In the world after Easter the Spirit of Truth says, Imagine a world beyond violence, beyond war, beyond greed, beyond poverty, beyond disease, beyond exploitation, beyond the tyranny of economic self-interest, beyond the wreckage of ruthless competition…and move in that direction. Because that is the future!

The way civilization has been arranged from Genesis 3 & 4 onward has been according to the lies of Lord Death. But Easter is the declaration that the Prince of Life has overthrown the Lord of Death and opened a new door — a door that leads out of the Land of Death and into Resurrection Country. (Or as John the Revelator calls it, New Jerusalem.)

Jesus is the Door that leads to the alternative world of New Creation possibilities!

When someone says, “Violence and war and greed and dog-eat-dog competition are just the way the world is — it is proof that they have not yet seen Jesus as the Door to New Creation.

Don’t think of Jesus as merely the Door to an after-life heaven in a far-off place…
Think of Jesus as the Door to New Creation possibilities right here and now!

What is a Christian?
Someone who believes Jesus is the Door—
And has dared to walk through that Door.
A Christian is someone who refuses to live according to the lies of Lord Death and call it “Truth.”
(This was the “truth” of Pontius Pilate who thought the only truth in the world is the power to kill.)

A Christian is someone who has discovered that in the world after Easter we can live beyond the closed system of Death.

Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to inspire us to imagine how things can be…
And then move in that direction!
The Holy Spirit will guide us into the things that belong to the future…
The world of the New Jerusalem.

In the world after Easter Christians should always move in the direction of Life.
We are to be truly pro-Life…in every way!

As the Holy Spirit (who is the Imagination of God) shows us the things to come…
Let us seek by faith to be there now!
Let us no longer collude with the outmoded and disgraced ways of death…
Let us seek to embody here and now the possibilities of Easter.

Amen.

BZ

(The artwork is Edge of a Wheatfield with Poppies by Vincent Van Gogh.)

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