_awakening

Foundations of the Just War [Chapter 1].

Brimlow begins his exploration of the issues of violence and nonviolence, but taking a look at the historical and philosophical foundations that gave rise to Augustine's thoughts on just war theory. He rightly notes at the very beginning of the book something that I think often goes unnoticed in the overall conversation; namely, that at least for the first two centuries CE, the early Christian church was exclusively pacifist. So much so that Brimlow notes "there is no record of any Christian writer approving of Christian participation in warfare until the time of emperor Constantine, circa 330, and no evidence of Christians serving in the army of the Roman Empire until 173." [p. 22]

So how did this consensus change? Brimlow points to Augustine as perhaps the first to begin to consciously formulate a justification for Christian involvement in warfare. Quoting Augustine's Contra Faustum:

"What is the evil in war? Is it the death of someone who will soon die in any case, that others may live in peaceful subjection? This is mere cowardly dislike, not any religious feeling. The real evils in war are love of violence, revengeful cruelty, fierce and implacable enmity, wild resistance and the lust of power and such like; and it is generally to punish these things, when force is required to inflict the punishment, that, in obedience to God or some lawful authority, good men undertake wars..." [Contra Faustum, 22, 74]

It is here that Brimlow proposes that Augustine makes what he calls a "fundamental mistake." For Augustine it is "the internal disposition of the soldier that makes warfare either right or wrong." In taking this position, according to Brimlow, Augustine "introduces a division in our conception of persons and what it means to be a disciple of Christ that plagues the church to the present." In the end "what matters, on Augustine's view, is the Christian's internal disposition: all is permissible if only we are disposed the right way." [p. 30]

Contrary to this position, Brimlow introduces Matthew 5.39 [also offering Augustine's interpretation, which at least according to Brimlow's rendering, is awkward at best]. While Augustine sees the words of Matthew 5.39 as not needing to be taken literally, but speaking to an internal disposition, Brimlow notes that what Jesus is doing is actually antithetical to Augustine's position. Jesus is rendering a new way of seeing retribution. "The internal disposition that the law recognized as making violence against the evildoer permissible is no longer valid. There is, therefore, no internal disposition that transforms violent responses to violence into permissible ones. Violence is not an option for Christians." [p. 31]

While I am not in complete agreement with Brimlow's understanding of the law and of Matthew 5.39, I do think he makes a pretty valid point. Augustine's thoughts on just war seem, at least on the surface, to be antithetically opposed to the teaching of Jesus. The thought I kept coming back to while reading was this: Augustine appears to be arguing for just war more from the position of a good Roman citizen, rather than on the basis of being a good disciple of Jesus. His argument is fundamentally based upon a philosophical standpoint, which sees the government as wholly good and just. If I'm reading Augustine correctly, when someone threatens what God has instituted as "good" or "just", then the Christian is required to act, even with violence. The question I had was this: Is the government always "just" in its motives?

Thoughts?

According to the Scriptures.

For the Lenten season, I've decided to do a bit of reading and reflection on the death and resurrection of Jesus. One of the books I've been looking forward to getting some time with was Geza Vermes' recently released The Resurrection: History and Myth. I'll post a more substantive look at the book later, but until then, here's something to chew on.

Vermes makes the point thorughout the book that the idea of the Resurrection is quite foreign to most writings in the Second Temple Period. He notes that truly the only Jewish tradition that is attested to have a functioning belief in a resurrection from the dead would be the Pharisees, of which Paul claims heritage. He quotes Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.3-8, where Paul, in recounting what has been passed on to him, states that "he [Jesus] was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures..."

Vermes adds:

In 1 Corinthians 15.3, Paul firmly asserts that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day "in accordance with the scriptures," yet contrary to his custom, he fails to back his statement with a citation. It is possible that the post-biblical Jewish representation of Genesis 22, the voluntary self-sacrifice of Isaac, in which the death and resurrection of the victim on Mount Moriah is figuratively contemplated, kept on haunting Paul's creative imagination. However, only the deutero-Pauline letter to the Hebrews furnishes positive support for this theory:

By faith Abraham... offered up Isaac... He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead; hence, figuratively speaking, he received him back. (Heb. 11.17-19)

Nevertheless, the absence of an actual Bible quotation in favor of the Resurrection of the Messiah suggests that there existed no established tradition among the Jews about a dying and risen Christ. [pp. 127-128]

So this has got me thinking. What "scripture" is Paul actually referring to? Is there a text, whether from the Hebrew Bible or some other authoritative writings, that the resurrection of the Messiah is spoken of?

Wrestling Together.

So my copy of Robert Brimlow's book, What About Hitler?: Wrestling with Jesus's Call to Nonviolence in an Evil World, showed up yesterday and as promised, after checking out the book, here's the plan.

The book is divided into nine chapters, with each chapter beginning with a scriptural meditation followed by some of the author's thoughts. I thought that perhaps the easiest thing to do an initial post here on Sunday night exploring the scriptural meditation and thoughts, adding a few insights and questions, and then let it roll from there for the week. We'll look at a chapter a week, so the entire process will take us nine weeks. Make sense?

For those of you who do not have the book yet, or are still thinking about joining the conversation, here are the nine meditations/chapters which will guide our nine weeks together:

First Meditation - Luke 4.5-13
Foundations of Just War

Second Meditation - 1 Samuel 8.4-9
The Just War in Contemporary Thought

Third Meditation - Isaiah 6.1-10
The Good Wars

Fourth Meditation - 1 Corinthians 5.9-13
Terror

Fifth Meditation - Matthew 7.21-27
The Men Behind the Hitler Question

Sixth Meditation - 1 Corinthians 1.18-29
Success, Failure, and Hypocrisy

Seventh Meditation - Luke 12.22-32
The Christian Response

Eighth Meditation - Romans 7.14-25
Elaboration

Ninth Meditation - 2 Corinthians 4.7-12; 5.14-18
Elaboration Upon the Elaboration

Now for a few things to keep in mind for the discussion. Karen Winslow, one of my professors at APU, instilled in us the realization that the scriptures are filled with tension, meaning that the scriptures do not contain one monolithic voice, but do in fact present various perspectives that need to be held in tension with one another. This is perhaps no more true than with the issue of nonviolence in the text. That being said, be sure to show hospitality and grace to one another as there is bound to be opinions and thoughts expressed that not everyone agrees with.

Okay?

Alright. Our first post will be this Sunday. If you have the book already or it's on its way, great. If you just want to follow along and jump into the discussion on the blog, sweet. Let's see how this goes...

A Little Reading Together, Perhaps?

Judging by the amount of hits over the past few days, as well as the discussion that followed, the post The Cross Lost seemed to arouse a bit of interest in the issue of non-violence...

So here's an idea.

Clint Walker brought up the book What About Hitler?: Wrestling with Jesus's Call to Nonviolence in an Evil World as a possible interesting read on the subject. Anybody up for reading the book together and then opening it up for a discussion here on the blog? Here's the description of the book from Amazon:

Must Christians always turn the other cheek and resist violence? Is it ever justifiable for Christians to retaliate in the face of evil? Philosopher Robert Brimlow struggles with these questions in What about Hitler? The author skillfully integrates meditations on scriptural passages, personal reflections on his own challenges to live nonviolently, and a hard-hitting philosophical examination of pacifism and just-war doctrine. Both Christian pacifists and defenders of just-war theory will appreciate this book.

I just ordered my copy. Anybody with me?

Was Moses High?

Yup. You read that right.

According to an article from AFP, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is apparently proposing just that. Here's a quote from the article:

High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Now here comes the real kicker...

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the "burning bush," suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

Okay, so why am I not surprised at that last statement. Unreal, is it not?

[HT: Chris Brady, who apparently was turned down for a research grant to substantiate the professor's findings.]

Is Our Gospel Too Small?

Scot McKnight recently tackled this question in a piece for Christianity Today. Scot is a good scholar, well-thought out and balanced. The piece is fantastic...

Our problems are not small. The most cursory glance at the newspaper will remind us of global crises like AIDS, local catastrophes of senseless violence, family failures, ecological threats, and church skirmishes. These problems resist easy solutions. They are robust—powerful, pervasive, and systemic.

Do we have a gospel big enough for these problems? Do we have the confidence to declare that these robust problems, all of which begin with sin against God and then creep into the world like cancer, have been conquered by a robust gospel? When I read the Gospels, I see a Lion of Judah who roared with a kingdom gospel that challenged both Israel's and Rome's mighty men, gathered up the sick and dying and made them whole, and united the purity-obsessed "clean" and the shame-laden "unclean" around one table. When I read the apostle Paul, I see a man who carried a gospel that he believed could save as well as unite Gentiles and barbarians with Abraham's sacred descendants. I do not think their gospel was too small.

I sometimes worry we have settled for a little gospel, a miniaturized version that cannot address the robust problems of our world. But as close to us as the pages of a nearby Bible, we can find the Bible's robust gospel, a gospel that is much bigger than many of us have dared to believe...

Scott proposes eight marks of what he calls a "robust gospel" which envision the gospel as something that addresses the robust problems of this world with a grand vision of the Kingdom story. I especially appreciated McKnight's emphasis on the role of the resurrection in the gospel story, something I think gets lost in the "transactional" gospel that is proclaimed so widely today.

Money quote:

The little gospel promises me personal salvation and eternal life. But the robust gospel doesn't stop there. It also promises a new society and a new creation. When Jesus stood up to read Isaiah 61 in the synagogue at Nazareth, then sat down and declared that this prophetic vision was now coming to pass through him, there was more than personal redemption at work. God's kingdom, the society where God's will is established and lived, was now officially at work in his followers. That society was overturning the injustices and exclusions of the empire and establishing an inclusive and just alternative... Any gospel that is not announcing a new society at work in the world, what the apostle Paul called the church, is simply not a robust gospel.

You can read the rest of the piece here.

The Tribe of God.

Adam Walker Cleaveland has been running a guest blogger series on the Kingdom of God which continues today with Phyllis Tickle offering her thoughts. With trademark grace, fluidity and beauty, she envisions the Kingdom as this:

There is a tribe, I believe… a people dispersed around the globe, driven from the center of their beginning, but held to one another and to the dream of the center in their hearts by mutual miracle and affection and longing. They were, in the beginning, a pair in a garden that became a family that moved among humanity and that, in time, became a tribe. A tribe chosen of God and then, by a singular intervention, expanded to a membership of millions. Like any tribe, this one has its common heritage and shared stories and its symbolic rituals of bonding and mutual recognition. And as with any tribe, its members are citizens of nowhere and everywhere, because theirs is not a citizenship of geography, but one of communal blood, of allegiance to an ancestral promise, and of a familial spirit housed within them and functioning there.

The kingdom of God, I think, is that tribe… a tribe of migrants moving through from the beginning to the end that will never be because, outside of the restraints of time, endings can not be since there are no beginnings. The scenery of the Kingdom - the landscapes of the migratory moves - may change, but that is all that changes. The tribe is. It is beyond the concept of either "now" or "later," for like endings and beginnings, now and later are artifices of time, not reality. Thus it is, Father, that we pray that Your kingdom come and Your will be done in this landscape as it is in the center. Amen.

You can read the rest of her thoughts here.

More Odds and Ends.

Here's the latest installment of things of note floating around the blog world. Enjoy.

Adam Walker Cleaveland's guest blogger series on The Kingdom of God hits full stride with postings by Josh Keaney, Melissa Johnson Bills, and Brian McLaren. Fascinating thoughts by people of various viewpoints who are wrestling with the implications of what it means to be a part of God's Kingdom here on earth.

Oxford Press recently decided to make one of their releases available for free download in a pdf format. Understanding the History of Ancient Israel, edited by H. G. M. Williamson, which usually lists for $99 is available for free download here. You need to download the chapters individually, but it's well worth the time and effort. The Oxford website offers this short description: "In popular presentation, some treat the Bible as a reliable source for the history of Israel, while others suggest that archaeology has shown that it cannot be trusted at all. This volume debates the issue of how such widely divergent views have arisen and will become an essential source of reference for the future." [HT to Todd Bolen at BiblePlaces Blog for the heads up.]

From Guardian Unlimited in the UK, Sean Dodson offers up his list of the top ten bookstores in the world. The list includes architectural marvels, as well as unique locations. It even includes on from Los Angeles. Who would have thought?!? [HT to Andrew Sullivan]

The Kingdom of God.

With the advent of a new year, Adam Walker Cleaveland over at Pomomusings is launching into a new series on the Kingdom of God utilizing guest bloggers. [To see a full listing of guests, go here.] The issue of the Kingdom is something that has captured many people's imagination lately - as a much needed corrective to the gospel of personal salvation that seems to be propagated today. Judging from the list of guest bloggers, the posts and comments will be quite interesting and well worth following.

First guest up? Tony Jones, who begins his post this way:

Maybe you’ve seen this before: some well-meaning evangelist spray-paints “jesus is the answer” on the side of a railroad bridge. Then some smart aleck comes by later and adds “so what’s the question?”

You can read the rest here.

The Way of Jesus.

During January this year, I did a bit of reading and reflection on the issue of Jesus, non-violence, and "the third way." I read a few thing by Walter Wink, Mark Kurlansky, and MLK [to name just a few]. You can get caught up on some prior musing here, here, here, and here.

Well, recently there have been two really thought provoking posts on the subject I thought I'd pass along...

First up, Greg Boyd tackles the timeless question of Why Did Jesus Say "Buy a Sword"? Greg is a fantastic thinker with much to say on the subject. Well worth your time to read, wrestle, and comment on.

Secondly, Ron Sider has a fantastic article out on the Christianity Today website, entitled Courageous Non-Violence. Again another great read.

In the midst of my thinking and reading. I've been hit with a simple irony. I was driving with Josh one day and we found ourselves talking about the Iraq War. Josh made this observation:

Hey Dad, why doesn't someone tell them the same thing you and Mom tell us... that hitting someone back never solves anything.

Err...