Shane Claiborne and other younger evangelicals are making the connection between the gospel and peace. Check out the article he posted on God's Politics Blog. When the dominant empire defines and interprets the gospel to theologically justify militancy at the cost of civillian lives and the oppressive use of power to maintain economic and cultural dominance, the gospel ceases to be gospel and becomes something terrifying. How Jesus can be used to justify violence is beyond me. I am not a pacifist, but I believe in nonviolent resistance to oppressive, unjust imperial rules. I believe we are called to speak the truth to power in ways that will inspire repentance. I also believe that Christians must embody the will of the Lord Jesus. And when Jesus calls us to "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," he likely did not intend for Christians to kill them. I often wonder who the enemy is anymore. Now I have not been to war or to a war zone. I am no political expert. But I trust that Jesus, who knew what it was like to live under the rule of a vast empire who used military force to maintain power, had some sense of what t meant to live in opposition to that rule. And he proclaimed an alternative reign, the reign of GOD, had come near in His activities and words.
I suspect that Claiborne and others have grown weary of evangelical collusion with imperial rulers who reject the way of Jesus in favor of world power. What is it to gain the world and lose your souls? Some of us are longing for the soul of America to be saved. And some Christians realize that we need to dismantle atomic bombs as the first sign. Come Lord Jesus!
No comments:
Post a Comment