God Without Violence

Following a Nonviolent God in a Violent World

Weaver

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781498294133
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Playing off a five-year-old boy's question concerning whether parents would put their son to death on a cross, this book plunges headlong into the ongoing debate about the character of God. Following the historic faith confession that God is revealed in Jesus, the book's first chapter sketches the life and teaching of Jesus. That life, which reveals Jesus' rejection of violence, calls for an understanding of God in nonviolent terms. Weaver thus invites us to embrace a nonviolent atonement image, which stands as a direct challenge to the inherited atonement images.Deriving theology from the narrative of Jesus also leads Weaver into discussions about the very nature of theology, the character of the Bible, the divine violence in the Old Testament (as well as the purported divine violence in the book of Revelation), and a rethinking of historic Christology. Each of these discussions has implications for life today--implications for economics, forgiveness, violence, gender discrimination, racism, and more. The book is thus an introduction to foundational issues of theology and ethics, suitable for church discussion groups and introductory college classrooms.

1

The Story of Jesus

The designation “Christian” comes from Jesus Christ. Stated most generally, a Christian is anyone who recognizes Jesus Christ as a primary source of truth. This definition encompasses numerous kinds of Christians. It includes understandings of “Christian” that focus primarily on beliefs as well as those that would be oriented around actions. With this general definition of “Christian” in mind. I will use representative events from Jesus’ life to sketch the story of Jesus from whom all Christians take their name.

The interpretations of the individual elements of the story of Jesus in this chapter are not particularly original. However, their integration into a comprehensive story is my particular synthesis. It is done in a way to emphasize that Jesus and the reign of God witness against injustice in the world.

This book demonstrates the integral relationship of Christian theology and Christian ethics, namely the link between what Christians believe about God and about Jesus, and how Christians should act. Stated with a different focus, living in the story of Jesus means that Christians today continue his presence in the world, and extend his mission to testify to the reign or the rule of God on earth. In this way, the story of Jesus becomes a contemporary story.

Jesus’ Birth

What we know about the life of Jesus comes from the New Testament. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke each have a story about the birth of Jesus. Matthew’s version contains the familiar story of the wise men who came to visit the baby, born in Bethlehem. King Herod learned about the purpose of their visit, and asked them to inform him where the baby was located. Herod felt threatened by the announcement of another king, and wanted to kill the baby. The wise men were warned about Herod in a dream and left the country without reporting to him. When he heard nothing from the wise men, to eliminate the possibility of a new king coming to power, Herod commanded that all male children around Bethlehem under two years of age should be killed. Meanwhile, the story says that an angel warned Joseph about the threat to the baby Jesus. Joseph took Mary and Jesus to Egypt where they hid until Herod died. When they returned to Palestine two years later, Joseph settled the family in Nazareth.

Luke’s Gospel contains the well-known story of the visit by shepherds who came to see the baby Jesus, newly born in Bethlehem. Joseph lived in Nazareth, but went with Mary to the home of his ancestors in Bethlehem when the emperor decreed universal registration. With the heavy travel to Bethlehem at this time, Joseph could not get a room in the inn. The baby was born in a stable, wrapped in blankets, and placed in a manger. Meanwhile, an angel, accompanied by a heavenly choir, announced the birth to the shepherds tending to their flocks outside of Bethlehem. The shepherds went to find the baby, worshipped him as new king, and returned to the fields with their flocks. Eight days later, it was time to circumcise the baby and he was given the name Jesus. Mary and Joseph took him to Jerusalem for a ceremony of dedication in the temple, where he was recognized and worshipped by Simeon and Anna, two devout visitors to the temple. Following these experiences in the temple, Joseph took the family back to his hometown of to Nazareth.

Many popular paintings and manger scenes show both shepherds and wise men gathered around the manger with Mary and Joseph. However, the wise men are only in Matthew’s story and the shepherds appear only in Luke’s version. It is not possible to harmonize Matthew’s account of the family’s stay in Egypt for two years with Luke’s story of a brief stop in Jerusalem and then taking eight-day-old Jesus to live in Nazareth.

However, we do not need to probe these differing details in order to see that the two accounts agree on elements that are significant for the development of theology. Both stories locate the baby Jesus in the real world of first-century Palestine. He is born at an identifiable time in the history of the Roman empire and the history of Roman occupation of Palestine. Both stories situate his birth in Bethlehem, and both place his growing up years in Nazareth, whereby he was eventually called a Nazarene. Both versions identify Jesus as a descendant of King David. These items affirm that Jesus belonged to the real world that we live in. And most importantly, they identify Jesus as a Jew, a man who was heir to and a continuation of the story of Israel, the people whose beginning the Bible links to the patriarch Abraham.

Both elements are important—that Jesus was human and in the real world, and that he was identifiably a Jew, who inherited the traditions of Israel. For the moment it is sufficient to say that locating Jesus in our historical world is necessary in order for Christians to see how to identify with and to live in Jesus’ story. Stated another way, the link between Christian theology and Christian ethics begins with understanding that Jesus lived in our historical world.

Jesus’ Life

Beginning His Ministry

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus began his public ministry with a rather dramatic reading and statement in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:16–39). He was given the scroll containing the writings of the prophet Isaiah, and he read the section listed in our Bibles as the first one and a half verses of chapter 61:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

When Jesus had finished the reading, he announced, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

At first, the audience was enthralled with how well he spoke. However, his additional comments, about a prophet not being accepted in his own country, made them angry, and they attempted to throw him off a cliff to kill him. He escaped. The response of Jesus’ audience to his announcement, swinging from adulation to an attempt to kill him, foreshadows the reception of his entire career, which did in fact end with his death.

Jesus used these words from Isaiah to signal that his mission was to proclaim the presence of the reign of God on earth. Speaking about good news for the poor, releasing captives, healing the blind, and freeing the oppressed, all signal that the focus of his mission has a clear social component, which would challenge the status quo of his society. This challenge had a clear economic component as well as aiming at political and social injustice.

Where he stopped reading from Isaiah also signaled something important. He broke off the reading just before Isaiah wrote of proclaiming “the day of vengeance of our God” (61:2b). I read Jesus’ stopping place as an indication that the rejection of violence was an intrinsic characteristic of his career and thus of the reign of God.

Jesus’ message was that the reign of God had come. Jesus preached that message himself. And when he sent out his followers to preach, sometimes the twelve and another time seventy, their message was that the “kingdom of God has come near” (Luke 10:1–16; 8:1; Matt 9:35—10:15). In his teaching and in his person, Jesus was making the reign of God present to people. Incidents reported about Jesus portray what the reign of God looks like—calling followers, healing, restoring.

Jesus called disciples. We might say that he was creating a new community to carry on the mission of making the reign of God visible, as when he sent out the twelve and the seventy. The church today, and followers of Jesus wherever they are, are the continuation of this community created by Jesus. As the church, we make Jesus’ mission our own mission and we continue the presence of Jesus in our world.

Healings and Restorations

The Gospels contain many stories of people that Jesus healed. Healing gives visibility to the restorative power of God’s reign. These healings inspired the common people, but raised opposition among the religious leaders. When Jesus forgave the sins of a paralyzed man whom he also healed, the scribes and Pharisees accused Jesus of blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins, they claimed (Luke 5:17–26). In actuality, Jesus was threatening the temple establishment, through which the priestly class made a lot of money from the sacrifices in the temple. If people could find forgiveness from Jesus without paying for a sacrifice in the temple, that threatened the sacrificial system itself, and its demise would cost the rulers a lot of income.

In addition to healings, the Gospels also contain stories in which Jesus restored people to life who had died. One time he was on his way to the village of Nain, followed by a large crowd. As he neared the city gate, a crowd from the city was taking the body of a dead man for burial. He was the only son of a widow, who was weeping. Jesus felt sorry for her. He approached the bier and said, “Young man, I say to you, rise.” The man sat up and was restored to his mother (Luke 7:11–17). Another time a synagogue leader came and begged Jesus to come and heal his twelve-year-old daughter who was dying. But Jesus got delayed by another healing. Before he arrived at the leader’s house, word came that the little girl had died, and thus Jesus need not be bothered. But Jesus said, “Only believe, and she will be saved,” and he continued on to her house. There he found mourners weeping. Because they knew that the girl was dead, they laughed when he said that she was only sleeping. Then he took her by the hand and said, “Child, get up.” She got up, and he suggested that they feed her (Luke 8:40–56).

The stories of healing make an important point about God. The God of Jesus does not kill and take life. God is a giver of life and a restorer of life.

That Jesus restores life and that the God of Jesus restores rather than taking life is an important point for Christians who live in the story of Jesus. This restoration of life is one dimension of the nonviolence of God who is revealed in Jesus. This means that followers of Jesus will likewise refuse to take life and to do harm and will live in ways that restore and heal. Readers should reflect on ways to bring Jesus’ mission of healing and restoration into our world today.

Another time Jesus healed in direct defiance of the purity code practiced by the scribes and Pharisees. In the synagogue where he was teaching on the Sabbath was a man with a “withered hand.” If Jesus healed on the Sabbath, it would be a violation of the provision against unnecessary labor on the Sabbath. But the scribes and Pharisees knew what Jesus might do and were watching, hoping to catch him in a violation. Jesus knew their plan, but instead of avoiding a confrontation, he called the man to come and stand by him where everyone could see what would transpire. Then Jesus asked those watching, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” Then he looked around at them, making eye contact so that he had their attention. And with every eye on him, Jesus commanded the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did, and was healed. The religious leaders were furious (Luke 6:6–11). The original purpose of the Sabbath was for healing and restoration. Laws that prevented healing actually promoted harm. By healing on the Sabbath, Jesus defied those laws, but he was returning the day to its original intent of healing and restoration.

Along with the rules about Sabbath observance, Jesus challenged other purity rules as well. His crossing of racial and ethnic boundaries with Samaritans and gentiles violated several purity rules at once. His interactions with women also violated purity rules and challenged the secondary status of women in his society. In these interactions, Jesus’ breaking of the rules of the purity code were akin to practices today that might be called civil disobedience. Jesus was not a passive observer of his society. He performed actions ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Story of Jesus
• Chapter 2: The Story of Jesus and Atonement
• Chapter 3: Atonement and God
• Chapter 4: New Testament Teaching and Nonviolence
• Chapter 5: Atonement and Forgiveness
• Chapter 6: Jesus and Economics
• Chapter 7: Racism, Ethnicity, and Gender
• Chapter 8: The Omnipotence of God
• Chapter 9: The Nonviolence of God’s Creation
• Chapter 10: God of the Biblical Narrative: Violent?
• Chapter 11: God of the Biblical Narrative: Nonviolent?
• Chapter 12: God of the Biblical Narrative: A Resolution
• Chapter 13: Reading the Bible Again
• Chapter 14: Interpreting Revelation
• Chapter 15: Looking at the Past in Revelation
• Chapter 16: Looking Ahead in Revelation?
• Chapter 17: Does Theology Change? Christology
• Chapter 18: Does Theology Change? Atonement
• Open-Ended Conclusion
• Discussion Questions
• Bibliography