God is pro-peace

By Aaron D. Taylor

On January 31st 2004, the late Jerry Falwell wrote an article for the World Net Daily called God is pro-war. While the article was intended to rally support for President Bush and the invasion of Iraq, for many it left the indelible impression that evangelicals are uber-nationalistic war- mongers, willing to plunge the world into endless conflict in order to fulfill their apocalyptic fantasies. As a person who (loosely) identifies with the evangelical tradition, allow me to make a clear, unambiguous, declaration:

God is pro-peace!

You may be thinking, “Just how exactly does a guy who claims to believe in the inspiration of Scripture arrive at the conclusion that God is pro-peace? Has this guy even read the Bible? Or maybe he’s one of those amnesia-type Christians, the ones that read through the Bible every year as part of their daily devotions, and every time they get to the slavery and genocide passages, their mind goes______________.

Maybe it wasn’t those exact words, but believe me, I get it!

What about the Canaanites? The Jebusites? The Amalekites? That verse in the Psalms about babies that nobody wants to talk about? And the one about women being forced to marry their—oh my! Did Moses really command the Israelites to march into towns and kill everything that breathes? What about hell? The infinite inferno that evangelicals believe awaits everybody (except for them) after they die? The god that evangelicals worship, the one that allegedly hates gays, Muslims ,socialists, and feminists—is pro-peace?

I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t agonized over some of the awful things that are in the Bible, as well as the picture of God that many associate with the evangelical tradition, but at the end of the day my faith isn’t about who gets into heaven and who doesn’t, it’s not about whether hell is literal, metaphorical, or temporal; it’s not about which political system God likes more than others, and most importantly, it’s not even about which system of Biblical interpretation is the right one, whether the Bible is factually inerrant in every detail or whether vast sections of the Bible can be understood as allegorical, these are all important questions, but they all miss the point. At the heart of the evangelical tradition (and indeed, the Christian faith), is the conviction that God’s character is fully and finally revealed in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

This is why I can say that God is pro-peace….Because Jesus is pro-peace.

Jesus said, “Love your enemies” and “Blessed are the peacemakers.” He refused to participate in violent insurrection against the Romans even though, by all standards, throwing off the Roman occupiers would have been a “just war.” As the Roman soldiers were piercing his flesh and crowning him with thorns, his response was “Father forgive them.”

The New Testament boldly declares that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God”, “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” (Colossians 1:15 and Hebrews 1:3) Notice the word exact. Exact is a strong word that leaves no wiggle room for deviation. God is exactly like Jesus. This means that whatever image of God I might have, whether it comes from my circumstances or life experiences, whether it comes from my imagination or even my own religious tradition, if the image of God in my head can’t be reconciled with the man who loved, blessed, and prayed for his enemies even while they were crucifying him—then that image is wrong!

Today the drumbeats of war are sounding again, and this time the anti-Christ du jour is Iran, the country (ironically) strengthened by our last invasion. If you’re wondering if evangelicals can summon the resources within their faith to encourage proactive peace making, the answer is a clear and unambiguous yes. If God is like Jesus, then God is pro-peace.

I pray the message is clearer this time around.

A version of this article is on God's Politics

Jesus forbids sectarianism!

By Aaron D. Taylor

The term evangelical Christian and I share a love/hate relationship.

On the one hand, I believe in the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection and desire to share the implications of this news with others. The problem is that for most people in America, the term evangelical Christian is loaded with political undertones, so unless I’m in a situation where calling myself an evangelical Christian gives me greater influence to work towards peace and justice in the political sphere, I usually drop the evangelical part, except when I’m in Muslim countries where the word Christian means “people that drink, party, and fornicate.”

I’ve also tried calling myself a “follower of Jesus”, but most of the time I’m not very good at following Jesus, so now I’m thinking I should just say, “My name is Aaron Taylor….And I’m a guy trying to follow Jesus.”

How’s that for a business card?

As a guy trying to follow Jesus, the four gospels are like earth, wind, fire, and water. My spiritual life would be non-existent without them.

I’d have a hard time choosing a favorite between Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but if I absolutely had to choose; I’d choose Luke. Had it not been for Luke, terms like the “good Samaritan” and the “prodigal son” would have never made it into popular culture.

In Luke are also found the two- to- three verse stories that often get over looked. Stories such as this one:

“Now John answered and said, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side.” (Luke 9:49-50)

It would be easy to look at this story and condemn John for his narrow-mindedness, but let’s look at things from John’s perspective. Jesus had already handpicked his 12 disciples at this point, and this guy wasn’t one of them.

Who does this guy think he is, casting out demons in Jesus name without bothering to get his permission first? I mean, didn’t Jesus make it clear that his organization had a chain of command that people had to go through to get to him?

In John’s mind, the power structure that Jesus had ordained looked something like this:

Jesus

The 12 Apostles

Everyone else

Excuse me Mr. Demon-caster-outer, but if you want to be in Jesus’ in crowd, you have to go through us. We’re the true followers of Jesus. So either move aside, or join our group. Those are your two options. You’re either with us or against us….Because Jesus is one of us.

Except that Jesus isn’t.

Fast-forward a couple thousand years and my how things have not changed! We still have thousands of groups claiming that they’re the true followers of Jesus.

Growing up charismatic, I knew that the Baptists weren’t as spiritual as we were because they didn’t speak in tongues, just like the Baptists knew that most Catholics probably aren’t saved because they’ve never prayed the “sinner’s prayer.”

Some groups believe that a Christian can serve in the military; others believe that Jesus categorically rejects violence in every circumstance. Some Christians are gay-affirming; others are … well, obviously not.

With all the different groups out there claiming to follow Jesus, how do we know which ones Jesus would claim as his own?

Is it possible that Jesus would claim both liturgical Christians and free-wheeling holy roller Christians?

What about liberal Christians and conservative Christians? Is the tent that Jesus pitches big enough to include people like Dorothy Day and Jerry Falwell?

I’m 33 years old, and I’ve been following Jesus — or should I say trying to follow Jesus — for as long as I can remember. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned after all these years, it’s that as soon as I think that my friends and I have a corner on Jesus, Jesus reminds me that He’s bigger than any organization, doctrine, or philosophical system that I can wrap my brain around.

The more that I follow Jesus, the bigger my world should get.

I think that’s what Jesus was trying to tell John. Jesus is fine with his followers gathering together into groups of like-minded believers helping each other along in their spiritual journeys. That’s necessary and good. The problem is when groups of people claim Jesus as their exclusive possession, as if any one group has a monopoly on Jesus. That’s called sectarianism, and Jesus explicitly forbids it.

If I can’t see Jesus at work in the lives of people that don’t look, talk, or think the way that I do, then I’m the one with the problem, not Jesus. I don’t own Jesus.

The question is: Does Jesus own me?

Are Christians the only children of God?

In the film “Dead Man Walking”, shortly before Matthew Poncelet (played by Sean Penn) is executed, there’s a scene where Poncelet confesses his crime of rape and murder. Up until that time, Poncelet had showed little remorse to his spiritual advisor Sister Helen Prejean (played by Susan Surandon) even though earlier he declared confidently that he knew that Jesus would take care of him on judgment day. What did Helen Prejean—a Catholic nun—tell Poncelet in his final moments that caused a hardened criminal to face the truth about his sinful condition? She called him a child of God. Tears of contrition flow, as Poncelet responds, “Nobody ever called me a child of God before.”

As touching as the movie’s climax may be, a thorny question remains. Is it theologically sound to call someone who hasn’t confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior a child of God? If we take our cues from standard evangelical theology, the answer would be a resounding no! After all, according to standard evangelical theology, there are two types of people in the world: children of God and children of the devil. It takes a conversion experience to go from the latter to the former. After all, didn’t Jesus make it clear that disbelievers are “of their father, the devil” (John 8:44)?

While it may be comforting to divide the world between “us” versus “them”, the moral implications of this worldview is nothing short of monstrous when carried to its logical conclusion. If it takes becoming one of “us” to liberate a person from their status as “child of the devil” then what we’ve effectively done is demonize—literally—everyone except “us” the saved ones. To demonize is to dehumanize, and to dehumanize is to provide a mental justification for all kinds of atrocities against those perceived as the “other.”

Think about all the crimes perpetrated in the name of Christ throughout Church history, or even the suffering inflicted on others today when Christian faith is mixed with blind nationalism. When it comes to formulating an appropriate response to Islamic terrorism, too many Christians schooled in the classic us/them dichotomy of American evangelicalism have little choice but to resort to a theology that says convert them or kill them. Is this really the best way to read the Scriptures?

I don’t think so. At the same time, I admit that I don’t have all the answers when it comes to how to formulate a theology of evangelism that’s both morally defensible and Biblically credible. I think a good start would be for evangelicals to take a closer look at the passages of Scripture that emphasize God as the Father of humanity, not just the Father of Christians. Perhaps the best known passage is Acts 17:29 where the Apostle Paul affirms a pagan quote to show that the idol worshiping Athenians are indeed the “offspring of God.”

There’s also the story of the prodigal son that Jesus told in response to the Pharisees that accused Him of “eating with sinners.” In the story, sinful humanity is portrayed as a son that has gone astray, but a son nonetheless (See Luke 15:1-2, 11-32). Jesus also taught the masses to think of God as a “Father in Heaven”, even to pray to Him as “our Father.” Clearly out of all the masses that He taught, not everyone in His audience would have fit the bill as being in the “in” crowd, yet this didn’t seem to bother Jesus as much as it might bother today’s fundamentalists.

And by the way, that passage where Jesus supposedly calls disbelievers “of their father, the devil”, He was talking to the Pharisees, the people that set themselves up as religious leaders yet were spiritually clueless enough to call Jesus a “Samaritan” and a “demon” (John 8:48). Is this really a proof-text for us/them Christianity or is Jesus addressing a specific grievance aimed at the religious leaders of His day? The answer to this question could mean the difference between a theology of love and a theology of hate. Choose wisely.