Our Violent World And The Ethics Of Jesus

This book is driven by forty years of study on 1700 years of Christian violence. The historical section, Part 1, opens with, "Christianity is the most homicidal religion in the history of the world...Half a Billion men, women, children, infants, elderly, sick, and disabled slain." You read how Christians were and are taught to obey their governments more than Jesus Christ, whether killing as soldiers, torturing for governments, or harming innocent citizens as police. You read the words of Christian European Kings, Queens, and Popes to their Christian explorers sent into world, "Discover, subdue, and conquer."

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. ""Inviting us to 'live the story of Jesus' and to 'join the conversation' the Bible poses about the character and identity of God, Denny winsomely guides us in reading the Bible as revealing a nonviolent and loving God. This is a wonderful book for Sunday School or discussion groups--accessible and compelling in its presentation of a coherent theology that resonates with the best of our contemporary values."" --James Rissler, Pastor, Atlanta Mennonite Fellowship ""Denny Weaver pulls together various strands from his long-term, fruitful project of reconfiguring theology in light of biblical nonviolence. This accessible and forceful call to a substantive engagement with nonviolence challenges us to embody Jesus' way of peace in thought and deed--consistently and practically. A timely and coherent message for the twenty-first century."" --Ted Grimsrud, Author of Instead of Atonement: The Bible's Salvation Story and Our Hope for Wholeness ""Drawing upon his groundbreaking work in narrative theology in The Nonviolent Atonement and The Nonviolent God, J. Denny Weaver has now written a practical, accessible guide for ordinary Christians on its implications for the most important issues of our day: economic justice, racism, gender equality, and care of creation. This book is a must-read for any serious Christian concerned about living the way of Jesus in the midst of our violent world."" --Scott Anderson, Executive Director, Wisconsin Council of Churches ""In this fresh and superb work, J. Denny Weaver challenges the church to loop back, again and again, to our Christian roots found in the story of Jesus. By some miracle he was able to write an accessible resource and also intertwine several of his key theological contributions from former books into one text. Read this book with others, and expect a meaningful conversation to open around how we can embody the narrative of Jesus for our time."" --Drew G. I. Hart, Assistant Professor of Theology, Messiah College; Author of Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism J. Denny Weaver is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Bluffton University, Ohio. Among his recent books are Becoming Anabaptist (2nd ed., 2005); Defenseless Christianity (co-authored, 2009); The Nonviolent Atonement (2nd. ed., 2011); The Nonviolent God (2013); and John Howard Yoder: Radical Theologian (co-authored, 2014).

"Kingdom Ethics is arguably the most significant and comprehensive Christian ethics textbook of our time.” — Michelle A. Clifton-Soderstrom, North Park Theological Seminary Christian churches across the spectrum, and Christian ethics as an academic discipline, are often guilty of evading what Jesus actually said about moral life, focusing instead on other biblical texts or traditions. This evasion of Jesus has seriously malformed Christian moral witness—which Jesus said is tested by whether we put his words “into practice.” David Gushee and Glen Stassen’s Kingdom Ethics is the leading Christian introductory ethics textbook for the twenty-first century. Solidly rooted in Scripture—and uniquely focusing on Jesus’s teachings in the Sermon on the Mount—the book has offered students, pastors, and other readers a comprehensive and challenging framework for Christian ethical thought. Writing to recenter Christian ethics in Jesus Christ, Gushee and Stassen focus on the meaning of the Kingdom of God, perennial themes of moral authority and moral norms, and all the issues raised by the Sermon on the Mount—such as life and death, sexual and gender ethics, love and justice, truth telling, and politics. This second edition of Kingdom Ethics is substantially revised by Gushee and features enhanced and updated treatments of all major contemporary ethical issues—including updated data and examples, a more global perspective, gender-inclusive language, a clearer focus on methodology, discussion questions for every chapter, and a detailed new glossary. Kingdom Ethics is for readers anywhere wanting a robust, comprehensive understanding of Christian ethics that is founded on the concrete teachings of Jesus and will equip them for further exploration into the field.

If Christians follow the Prince of Peace, why do they often behave so violently? What can be done to transform the church so that it looks more like Jesus? Eric Seibert explores these questions in this important and timely study. He builds a biblical and practical case for living nonviolently in all areas of life and urges Christians to reexamine their most fundamental attitudes toward violence, warfare, and killing. Through true stories and careful analysis, Seibert demonstrates that it is possible to resolve conflict, correct injustice, and stop oppression without resorting to violence. Many nonviolent alternatives are discussed throughout the book, alternatives that can be used in a wide range of situations, from dealing with an unwanted intruder at home to removing a dictator from power. In a world filled with so much violence, hate, and fear, alternatives like these are desperately needed. This book offers hope that a better way is possible, one that has the potential to transform the church and change the world. So read on and join in!

What does it mean to follow the Prince of Peace in a world plagued by war, violence, and killing? Can the foundational convictions of Christianity, and the experiences of Christians around the world, contribute to a more adequate practice of the faith in contemporary times on matters of war, violence, and peacemaking? This volume addresses these important questions with contributions from Christian scholars and practitioners from across the Majority World (including El Salvador, Brazil, Kenya, and the Philippines) and from the United States and Europe. They include proponents of Christian pacifism and just war theory, advocates for varieties of “just peacemaking” frameworks, and people pursuing slow, modest steps toward reconciling enemies without the use of overarching theoretical frameworks. What holds them together is a sense that the world and the church would benefit from a robust and gospel-based commitment to nonviolence as an alternative to lethal business as usual in addressing conflicts great and small. The topics they consider include constructive aspects of a Christian theology of nonviolence; case studies of gospel nonviolence and pastoral work from violent conflicts around the world; women as victims of violence and makers of peace; and theopolitical questions of just war, armed intervention, and Christian nonviolence.

The Crusades. The Conquest of the Americas. U.S. Slavery. The Jewish Holocaust. Mention of these events evokes a variety of responses from Christians, including guilt, defensiveness, and bewilderment. Given such a tangled historical relationship to aggression and injustice, how can Christians answer those who argue that our faith is inherently violent, or that Christian doctrines inevitably lead to sacrifice, conquest, and war? In Must Christianity Be Violent? editors Kenneth R. Chase and Alan Jacobs have gathered pointed essays that provide specific responses to these arguments. Divided into histories, practices, and theologies, the essays explore the historical causation of Christian violence and discuss practices that promote what one contributor calls just peacemaking. The contributors explore the history of Christian violence and advocate the need for an uncompromised biblical theology in our search for peace. This timely collection will appeal to readers of Christian history, ethics, and theology, and those who want to better understand the specifically Christian response to violence and cultivation of peace.

For many years many Christians have exhibited bumper stickers and wrist bands challenging themselves to live up to WWJD—What Would Jesus Do? Now Andrew Fiala, a professor who has encountered many such students in his classes, objectively assesses just what it actually is that Jesus does (and doesn't) say about the essential moral issues that face us today. Andrew Fiala appreciates Jesus as a moral teacher with an ethical vision centered in love, generosity, forgiveness, tolerance, and peace. But he argues that it is often difficult to determine exactly what Jesus would say or do about tough contemporary issues, such as abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, war, homosexuality, and politics. Hence, Fiala believes we need to engage in philosophical reflection and critical thinking to arrive at answers to today's ethical questions that Jesus never anticipated, such as those involving technology, scientific discoveries, ethical advances. The book shows how philosophers and psychologists—from Kant and Mill to Nietzsche and Freud—struggled to make sense of the ethics of Jesus. The book concludes by arguing that we cannot pretend that Jesus and the Bible provide all the answers to our ethical dilemmas, although Jesus does provide perennial moral wisdom. Thus, Fiala shows that Jesus' moral teachings must be filled out with contemporary ethical reflection to determine what Jesus, as a moral ideal, would really do today.

Is nonviolence irresponsible? Is peacemaking naïve? From one of the most respected and prophetic voices in Christianity today comes Speak Your Peace. Ronald J. Sider, author of the influential Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, plumbs Scripture, building a persuasive case that Jesus meant what he said when he commanded us to love our enemies. With candor and logic, Sider takes on enduring questions about violence and nonviolence, showing how the contemporary church in a warring world has largely set aside Jesus’ call to love our enemies and traded its birthright in Christ for a stew of nationalism and militarism. But ignoring what Jesus said about killing is a huge theological mistake. Returning us to the inescapable call of the Son of God, Sider reminds the church of its true vocation in a world of hatred and war.