A Response to Pastor Mark on God and Pacifism

I cannot say all that I want to say in response to Pastor Mark Driscoll's piece, chiefly because I lack the time, the space, and the expertise to address it in the way it deserves. Nor do I want to start a war (literal or metaphorical) with the dear Christian brothers and sisters who think differently than I do about this complex issue. So, please: don't see this as me picking a fight. I can't possibly finish it if I did.

This is me thinking out loud...giving my string of tweets a bit more nuance. When I think about the Driscoll's piece, I think these things:

1. Asking if God is a Pacifist is the Wrong Question. We do not come to God because He lines up with our values or ideals. We see God in the face of Christ and ask what we now must do with this Jesus: follow Him or crucify Him.
   
   Pacifism is an ideal, a way of thinking about issues. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does not deal in abstract categories. He is the tri-personal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
   
   Pacifists follow an ideal and look for it in Jesus; Christians follow Jesus and discover a Way that is surprising, impossible, and compellingly beautiful.
   
   For all these reasons and more, it is more helpful to speak about what "Christian Non-Violence" is, rather than the "leading-the-witness" question Driscoll frames his piece with.
   
   
2. The Book of Revelation Must Be Handled Carefully. The first thing my Fuller Seminary prof pointed out about Revelation is that it is not a book of prophecy. I know: this can sound like heresy to all the end-times folks, but Revelation says of itself that it is a work of...wait for it...revelation. It fits very well in the apocalyptic literature tradition. 
   
   What is the difference, you ask, between prophetic literature and apocalyptic literature? Prophetic literature is designed to tell you something about what's coming so you can adjust your actions accordingly. Joseph interprets Pharoah's dream about the 7 years of plenty and the 7 years of lack so they can prepare for the years of drought. But apocalyptic literature is not designed to predict; it's designed to reveal. It pulls back the curtain and says, "This is what is really going on in the world."
   
   Revelation shows that contrary to the evidence of Christians being slaugtered in Rome, Caesar is not in fact ruling the world; Jesus is. Jesus-- the one who absorbed the most hideous blow of death, the one who was raised from the dead to show that this way of violence and death does not, in the end, win-- is Lord.
   
   Is it possible that Revelation borrows imagery from Roman conquests to show God's ultimate triumph? Is it possible that judgment is not the same as violence? Revelation does indeed show a God who will in the end hold evildoers to account; and, yes, sin stirs up God's wrath. But that is not the same as saying that Jesus will be angry and violent when He returns.
   
   The central image of Jesus in Revelation is of a "Lamb standing, as though it had been slain". This is in contrast to the Dragon. What's the difference between a lamb and a dragon? One is the victim; the other the perpetrator. This image resonated with early Christians, who were always the victims. Yet this death was not the end.
   
   
3. Christian Hope is Not Grounded in Eschatological Violence. Some Christians act like the hope offered in the book of Revelation is something like, "Don't worry, God's gonna nuke them in the end!" Listen: God will hold evildoers to account. There will be judgment. But judgment, with God, may not always be as we suspect.
   
   Moreover, the great hope-- from God Himself!-- at the end of the Book of Revelation is not, "Don't worry I killed them all"; it's, "Behold, I am making everything new!"
   
   He will wipe away every tear-- that means He will heal all the pain and hurt of all who grieve, all who have been victimized, all who have been broken by the violence in our world.
   
   And death will be no more.  There it is: Christian hope is not grounded in God's alleged future violence; it is grounded in the belief that death does not win. Jesus has the last word, not the Beast. Jerusalem-- the city of peace!-- is the new eternal city, not Babylon-- the city of rebellion and violence.

Now, the question is: How does a person who believes that death does not win live now? How does a follower of Jesus the Crucifed and Risen Lord, the Lamb who was slain (read: the victim, by the world's estimation, not the victor) live here?

These are all better questions to me than, "Is God a Pacifist?"

Comments

[T_owens]

Thank you. Kind, wise words.

[Gary]

The post made me think of at least a couple things.

One thing I thought of was the historical story of the emergence of monotheism in ancient Israel and specifically the historical period having the identity of Yahweh as a tribal war god prior to the conflation or identification with El, the chief god of the pantheon. Your post made me think of that vs. "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." More closely, I wondered about the relationship with the doctrine of the Incarnation, the hypostatic union, and what it might really mean to believe that Jesus, God the Son, is of the same Essence as God the Father and what it might mean to accept that into one's heart to be Lord of one's life. There seems to be not only various conceptions of God and God's Nature in popular Evangelical Christianity, but even in Holy Writ as well too. The Lamb of John of Patmos who slays the Dragon has a depth of literary and theological compare-and-contrast with the YHWH who slays the Leviathan. Apocalyptically, there are additional reasons that asking whether or not God is a pacifist is a malformed question.

Another thing I couldn't help but wonder about too was the emergence of altruism and such in the real world in which we live. While, sure, asking how something works isn't nearly the same as contemplating the teleological, I couldn't help but wonder about way the universe is constructed that's enabled at least altruistic behaviors to emerge. I wondered, perhaps in borrowing a dated language, what Natural Revelation tells us about the Nature of the Divine related to a question such as whether or not "God is a pacifist." Couldn't help but think of Daryl Domning, Frans de Waal, EO Wilson, Teilhard de Chardin, and even Irenaeus. (Can an Evangelical have an Irenaean view of the Fall and thus God and still be considered Evangelical?) I still don't understand why Reformers (early or present) have retained so much dominance of the implicit influences of Augustine and Aquinas in some of these matters. Somehow, through the imago Dei, there is a theological anthropology at play in discussing the question at hand. Can the conversation itself be engaged outside the bubble of popular Christian-ese? In a broader context of thought, the question--as stated--of whether or not God is a pacifist seems even more bizarre.

Related, I haven't read a lot of Hauerwas. I wonder how your thoughts here compare and contrast with his.

John Haught's "What is God?: How to Think about the Divine" looks quite interesting. As does John Hick's "Evil and the God of Love."

And I don't think there's much benefit for any of us to pick fights in these nominally controversial matters. The End, at least to me, seems as obvious as it is inevitable.

[Dan]

I read this- "Pacifists follow an ideal and look for it in Jesus; Christians follow Jesus and discover a Way that is surprising, impossible, and compellingly beautiful."

-and it reminded me of something Pope Francis said recently:

"The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements… The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of [sic] the Church of the people. But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians."

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The central image of Jesus in Revelation is of a "Lamb standing, as though it had been slain". This is in contrast to the Dragon. What's the difference between a lamb and a dragon? One is the victim; the other the perpetrator. This image resonated with early Christians, who were always the victims. Yet this death was not the end -

Are you familiar with James Alison (Catholic theologian) and his new series of books in which he sets the Christian out under the theme - "Jesus, the Forgiving Victim?"
http://forgivingvictim.com/about-james-alison/

[Gary]

Dan, I had thought of the same and that had also reminded me of the warnings of the sheep and the goats of Mt 25 as well as the Lamb of Rev 5. Who ever would have believed it's a lamb on the throne that is the lion of the tribe of Judah?

[Tony]

Yeah I'm late to this conversation but will still throw in my 2cents.

I don't think it's a matter of better questions to be asked. I think it's a question of when questions need to be asked.

It appears to me that Driscoll is directing his piece towards those with a small understanding of the Christian faith. As a conversation starter can we say he's asking the wrong question? Perhaps not.

Once that conversation has begun will Glenn's questions become into play? I think so. The conversation has deepened, there is a greater basis of agreement/understanding between the two parties.