The Nonviolent God

J. Denny Weaver

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781467439251
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Théologie chrétienne

This bold new statement on the nonviolence of God challenges long-standing assumptions of divine violence in theology, the violent God pictured in the Old Testament, and the supposed violence of God in Revelation. In The Nonviolent God J. Denny Weaver argues that since God is revealed in Jesus, the nonviolence of Jesus most truly reflects the character of God.According to Weaver, the way Christians live -- Christian ethics -- is an ongoing expression of theology. Consequently, he suggests positive images of the reign of God made visible in the narrative of Jesus -- nonviolent practice, forgiveness and restorative justice, issues of racism and sexism, and more -- in order that Christians might live more peacefully.

I The God of Jesus

1 Jesus in Acts and the Gospels

The Earliest Statements: Acts

The earliest recorded statements about Jesus appear in the sermons and orations preserved in the book of Acts. Although Acts was written a generation after the events in question, it preserves the Apostles’ statements about Jesus in the first weeks and months after he was no longer with them bodily.

Six such statements occur: Acts 2:14-39; 3:13-26; 4:10-12; 5:30-32; 10:36-43; 13:17-41. Five are addressed to audiences in Jerusalem and one to those in attendance at the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia. The orations and sermons follow a clear outline. They begin with a statement that, in the fullness of God’s time or as a continuation of the history of God’s people Israel, Jesus came and lived among them. In Jerusalem the audience is told “you crucified and killed [him] by the hands of those outside the law” (2:23) while in Antioch Paul says that “residents of Jerusalem . . . asked Pi-late to have him killed” (13:27-28). The accounts then report that God raised Jesus from the dead, and the speaker includes himself in the story by listing himself as a witness to the events. Finally, there is a statement of response to the oration — people join or sins are forgiven or salvation is part of the story. Along with these common elements appear several other, lesser mentioned statements — details of Israel’s history, performance of signs and wonders by Jesus, Jesus’ burial, or various mentions of the work or presence of the Spirit.

These sermons and orations in Acts tell a story. It is the story that identifies Jesus. When the Apostles were asked in whose name they spoke or in whose authority they dared to act, they replied by telling this story about Jesus. At this juncture, early in our theologizing, it is important to observe that the Apostles identified Jesus in terms of a narrative. That it is a narrative takes on added significance in the course of the argument to follow.

Expanded Statements: The Gospels

The Gospels expand the narrative outline from Acts. As the eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection began to disappear from the scene, it became important to preserve the memories of the story. The New Testament contains four of these expanded accounts, the four Gospels. The following sketch of the narrative of Jesus uses most often the Gospel of Luke, with assistance from other Gospels on occasion. This sketch displays the challenges and confrontations that Jesus’ message and movement posed to the institutions of his time as well as the nonviolent character of those challenges and confrontations. The theologizing of the book in hand develops as reflections on this narrative.

Jesus began his public ministry with an appearance in the synagogue in Nazareth when he read from Isaiah 61:1-2. His words signaled that his ministry had a strong social component, bringing “good news to the poor,” “release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,” freeing of oppressed people, and “proclaim[ing] the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Throughout Jesus’ ministry, his actions give visibility to its social element. Jesus went out of his way to minister to outcasts like lepers and prostitutes. He paid attention to widows, orphans, and strangers — those without representation in the patriarchal society of first-century Palestine. In a society in which a woman’s legal status was dependent on a property-owning man, a widow, an orphan, or a stranger — perhaps today’s equivalent of an undocumented alien — had no legal spokesman or representative.

Comparing the text Jesus quoted with the full text Isaiah 61:1-2 shows an early indication of the nonviolent character of Jesus’ mission. Jesus stopped after the line about proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor. Isaiah’s text completes the thought with an additional phrase about proclaiming “the day of vengeance of our God.” That Jesus omitted this phrase indicates his nonviolent orientation.¹

With this social mission, Jesus was performing what the prophets anticipated, namely radical social change, the bringing down of the mighty and the lifting up of the lowly. One sees that expectation of social change in the words attributed to Mary in celebration of her pregnancy:²

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)

It may be that these words were borrowed from a Maccabean revolutionary poem, and they hold up expectation of a social revolution. However, the difference between Jesus and other “messiahs” and social revolutionaries in attempting to enact this social revolution is that Jesus carried out his social program without violence.

As the Gospels tell the story, Jesus carried on an activist mission whose purpose was to make the rule of God visible. His mission was to live and teach in ways that displayed the reign of God. This ministry had confrontational components. He challenged the religious practices taught by the Pharisees. He plucked grain on the Sabbath (Luke 6:1-5), healed on the Sabbath (Luke 6:6-11; 13:10-17), traveled through Samaria and interacted with a Samaritan woman (John 4:1-38), freed rather than stoning the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), disputed with the Pharisees, cleansed the temple (Luke 19:45-47), and more.

These actions display an element of deliberate confrontation,³ which is easily seen in the account of healing the man with the withered hand in Luke 6. Because of Jesus’ previous activity, the scribes and Pharisees recognized that the setting was right for a Sabbath healing. He knew they were watching, hoping to catch him in a violation of Sabbath restrictions. Certainly some voices around Jesus had suggested that he postpone such activity until the following day when it would not give offense (as in 13:14-15). Most certainly Jesus did not wait. He invited the man to come and stand where all could see (6:8). Then he posed the question, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” (v. 9). Finally he looked around at all of them (v. 10) — a dramatic pause for effect in which he made eye contact with the crowd. Only after everyone was watching did he give the command, “Stretch out your hand” (v. 10). This episode was a deliberate and public breaking of Sabbath holy laws.

In his encounter with the Samaritan woman at Sychar, Jesus confronted prevailing standards in more than one way (John 4:1-38). He had already violated the strict purity expectations by traveling through rather than around Samaria. For the strict Pharisees, Samaritans were a mixed race, and therefore inferior and unclean. People who wanted to travel from Judea (in the south) to Galilee (in the north) without contaminating themselves with the supposed low-class Samaritans walked extra miles to the east side of the Jordan River. They walked north on the east side of the Jordan and then crossed back to the west bank when they reached Galilee. It could add 30 or 40 extra kilometers to the journey. Jesus had already violated that purity standard just by being in Samaria. And then he surprised the woman at the well by his willingness, as a Jew, to accept a drink from her, a Samaritan. The purity code forbade contact with a menstruating woman. Since one could never be certain that a woman was not in the unclean state, the practice was to assume that she was unclean, a condition which also extended to any vessel that she touched.⁴ In their turn, the disciples were equally surprised that he spoke to a woman (v. 27), and on top of that a Samaritan woman.

This account displays Jesus crossing barriers of class and race. It also illustrates how his interactions with women frequently raised their standing and broke the conventions of a patriarchal society. His acts of healing on the Sabbath and his encounters with women are integral dimensions of his mission to make the reign of God visible over against conditions of discrimination and oppression in the social order.

With such actions, Jesus confronted the purity code taught by the religious leadership. These confrontations display vividly in the context of that day the difference between the purity code and the rule of God that Jesus’ actions make present. The reign of God valued women equally with men, valued the despised Samaritans as much as the supposed pure ethnic group, sought restoration of relationships rather than punishment, and more.

Jesus healed people and he cast out demons — actions which show that the reign of God encompasses the created order. He sent out the twelve (Luke 9:1-6) and then seventy (10:1-17) to “proclaim the kingdom of God” (9:2) and to say that “the kingdom of God has come near you” (10:9). The reign of God was near because in his person Jesus made the reign of God present. His acts, such as confronting the purity code, his healings, and his teaching, such as the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), showed the comprehensive character of the reign of God for those who would live within it.

One of the important texts displaying the nonviolence of Jesus occurs in the Sermon on the Mount, in which he tells his followers not to resist an evildoer, to turn the other cheek, to give the cloak with the coat, to go the second mile, and to love enemies (Matt. 5:38-48). Since there is a long tradition of interpreting these injunctions as passive nonresistance, it is important to examine them again in order to see that they too reflect Jesus’ nonviolent but assertive ministry.

The command commonly understood as a passive statement of nonresistance to evil — “do not resist an evildoer” (5:39) — actually conveys a different message. Rather than constituting a command not to resist, it counsels not to resist evil with more evil, that is, not to respond in a way that mirrors evil.⁵ Jesus then provided three examples of how to resist without mirroring evil: turning the other cheek, giving the inner garment with the outer garment, and going the second mile.

Matthew specifies not responding to a strike on the “right cheek.” Since the left hand was the unclean hand and not used in public, a strike on the “right” cheek can only be a backhand slap. Such a slap is not intended to injure; it is a way to rebuke and humiliate a social inferior. By turning the other cheek, the person of lesser status has acted in a way that refuses humiliation and asserts equal humanity. The aggressor has failed in the effort to humiliate. If the aggressor follows up by striking with a fist on the now open left cheek, which cannot be conveniently reached by another backhand slap, the blow with a fist acknowledges equality. Either outcome raises the status of the person slapped vis-à-vis the aggressor.

The context for the coat statement is an often exploitative debtors’ court. Debtors were called to court to give security. Often the poor person’s last item of value was the coat he slept in. The debtor was called to surrender the coat in the morning, but could retrieve it at night for sleeping. To expose the greed of wealthy debt holders in an oppressive system, Jesus suggests that when the poor debtor must surrender the coat as security in court, he should hand over his inner garment along with the outer garment and then walk around naked for the day. Since the shame of nakedness in that society fell not on the naked person but on the one who caused the nakedness, the nakedness of the debtor would embarrass and display the greed of the exploitative debt holder.

Finally, rules for the Roman army of occupation allowed a soldier to compel a citizen to carry the soldier’s pack. However, as relatively enlightened occupiers, to lessen resentment against the forces of occupation, Roman army regulations permitted only one mile of this forced service at a time from any one citizen. Going a second mile would thus transform the citizen from coerced laborer into the decision maker. More significantly, it put the soldier in violation of his own regulations, and he would risk discipline from his commander. One can even envision a complete reversal of requests, with the soldier begging the citizen to put down the pack before the soldier gets in trouble.

This brief analysis of the three injunctions aligns them with the assertive view of Jesus visible in other stories as well. In each case, these are strategies by which a person without power can resist and turn the tables on a more powerful superior.

In discussion of the nonviolence of Jesus, the story usually called “the cleansing of the temple” requires particular comment. Some writers have argued that this story displays Jesus using violence and thus places Jesus in support of the use of violence by Christians. I reject that conclusion. First, I simply point to the prior description of Jesus’ assertive but nonviolent actions and teaching. Throughout the Gospels there is a pattern of assertive or confrontational but nonviolent actions by Jesus. Second, there are several things to notice about the story itself. One is obvious but nonetheless bears pointing out: Jesus did not kill anyone. He used a whip; whips make noise. He used the noise of a whip to chase animals out of the temple. He also dumped over the tables of the money changers. This was an aggressive act, but the surprised money changers would not necessarily even lose any money from overturned tables — although they certainly could end up in embarrassing positions to retrieve it. Jesus clearly caused embarrassment and discomfort to some moneyed people and disrupted a system that greatly enriched the priestly rulers, but he did not launch a terrorist attack and he did not kill anyone. The so-called “cleansing of the temple” was not an act of violence. It is another event that follows the pattern of Jesus’ actions that gave visible and assertive or confrontational witnesses to the rule of God in contrast to the conditions around him.⁶

The high priests who ruled the temple were not leaders of the Jewish people.⁷ In this action in the temple, Jesus was not confronting Judaism. He was confronting an exploitative system of domination that involved both Romans and their clients, the high priests. The priests as temple rulers were appointed by the Romans and served at the pleasure of the Roman occupiers. This system imposed double taxation on the populace, who had to pay taxes to Rome as well as to the temple rulers. Further, the priests claimed divine authority to control access to the temple rituals of forgiveness and access to God, which compelled the populace to spend money in the temple. ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I: The God of Jesus
• Part II: The Reign of God Made Visible
• Index