The Jihad of Jesus (Part 4): A Strong-But-Gentle Struggle for Love and Justice

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Dave Andrews | Monday, 4 May 2015

This series of articles is based on Dave’s upcoming book release, The Jihad of Jesus, which is being published by Wipf & Stock. Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series.

On one balmy Sabbath, at the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus visited the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth, and when he was asked to read a passage from Holy Scripture, he turned to a part, written by the prophet Isaiah, where it says:

The Spirit of God has got hold of me,
And is urging me to take on a special task;
To share good news with the poor,
To free the prisoners,
To help the disabled and the disadvantaged,
And to smash the shackles of the oppressed
 (Luke 4:18–19)

In so doing, Jesus announced, in front of everyone he knew at the time, that he wanted to make this radical struggle, for God’s love and justice, his manifesto, his mission in life.

Jesus grew up with a passionate concern for the welfare of his people, particularly those that no one else was particularly concerned for. He was passionately concerned about the plight of the poor, the victims of the imperial system. He was passionately concerned about the predicament of the prisoners, the disabled and disadvantaged, excluded from all meaningful participation in society by bars of steel and stigma. He was passionately concerned about the condition of the lepers, not only because of the pain of their ulcers, but also because of the pain of their untouchability. And he was passionately concerned about the situation of ordinary people whose hope had all but been destroyed by their soul-destroying circumstances, and who consequently felt consigned forever to long days, and even longer nights, of utter despair.

For Jesus, a passionate concern for people meant nothing less than a passionate commitment to people. He became forgetful of himself, living instead in constant remembrance of those around him who were themselves forgotten. He desperately wanted them to feel fully alive again, to revel in the joy of being loved, and being able to love, once more. He worked tirelessly to set them free from all that might debilitate them, breaking the bonds of exclusivity, poverty, misery, and guilt. He welcomed the outcast, helped the weak, healed the sick, and forgave the sinner, giving them all another chance at a new beginning. He didn’t write anyone off himself, and he encouraged everyone that he met not to write one another off either. He challenged everyone to tear up their prejudices, trash their stereotypes, and just get their act together — the ‘in’ crowd with the outcast; the strong with the weak; the rich with the poor; the saint with the sinner — to support one another in their common quest for their own humanity.

Jesus was painfully aware of the captivity of the political economy in which he lived. He recognized that this captivity was perpetuated by preoccupation with power, position, and property, at the expense of people’s lives. “What the world esteems,” Jesus said, “is disgusting to God!” (Luke 16:15). His critique was universal, but Jesus actually chose to confront this captivity at a national level, rather than an international level. Jesus was concerned more with the mechanisms of control perpetuated by his own people, than with the mechanisms of control perpetuated by others, for unless these domestic mechanisms of control were dealt with, the foreign yoke might be thrown off, but the captivity would continue. So Jesus confronted the people in his own country — the people of his own culture, tradition and religion — with their responsibility for their own captivity, and for their own liberation. “Don’t judge others,” Jesus said. “Judge yourself” (see Matt. 7:1–3). “How sad it is,” he said to them, that “you neglect to do justice!” (see Luke 11:42). “What will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?” (Matt. 16:26).

In the first phase of his nonviolent jihad for love and justice Jesus followed on from John the Baptist in denouncing the exploitation of the poor by the rich. John told the armed forces: “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely — be content with your pay.” And he told the tax collectors: “Don’t collect any more than you are required to”. He said: “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same,” (Luke 3:11–14). Jesus confronted Zacchaeus, an infamous tax collector, personally about his extortion. As a result of this encounter, Zacchaeus promised Jesus to give “half of my possessions to the poor”, and “if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount,” (Luke 19:8).

In the second phase of his nonviolent jihad for love and justice Jesus not only consistently denounced the oppression of the powerless by the powerful, he also actively advocated liberation of disempowered groups of people through the empowerment of the Spirit. Jesus attacked the key religious leaders of the day, as ‘lovers of money’ (Luke 16:14–15), who would maintain a façade of sanctity, by saying long prayers in public, but would “devour widows’ houses”. When he saw a widow “put everything — all she had to live on” into the collection box, Jesus condemned the temple for extorting the last coin from the kind of person it was set up to protect (Mark 12:38–44). Jesus broke the monopoly on forgiveness that the temple had developed through the sacrificial system it controlled. He did this by baptising people in the Spirit and giving them the authority to forgive sins. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and “if you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven.” (John 20:22–23).

In the third phase of his nonviolent jihad for love and justice Jesus advocated communities with leadership that would serve the people rather than oppress them. In his countercultural communities, Jesus encouraged people to liberate themselves from captivity to the political economy, by developing compassion for people that transcended the sick, obsessive, compulsive preoccupation with power, position, and property that characterised society. “God is compassionate,” Jesus said. “Be as compassionate as God” (Luke 6:35–36).

All oppressive forms of politics were denounced. Charismatic leadership, based on experience, was expected to be exercised within a decision-making framework that functioned according to group consensus. “We all know the bosses call the shots, and the heavies throw their weight around,” said Jesus. “But that is not the way we are going to operate. Whoever wants to be the leader of a group, should be the servant of the group,” (Matt. 20:25–26).

All exploitative forms of economics were renounced. Generosity was expected to be exercised, and wealth freely shared by the rich with the poor, in an earnest quest for genuine equality. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed,” Jesus said (Luke 12:15); “Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you,” (Matt. 5:42); “Lend, expecting nothing in return,” (Luke 6:35).

In the fourth phase of his nonviolent jihad for love and justice Jesus created communities that were committed to doing justice to the marginalised and disadvantaged. The dominant value of much of Jewish society at the time of Jesus was purity — but the dominant value of Jesus was inclusivity. While the Jews despised Gentiles, Jesus declared “my house shall be called a house … for all nations” (Mark 11:17). While the Pharisees ostracised sinners, Jesus invited outcasts to his parties (Mark 2:16).

In his countercultural communities, Jesus encouraged people to consider other people to be of enormous importance — not just as producers or consumers, but as people in their own right. The people that were usually considered least important, and consequently pushed to the side, were treated as most important and given a place of respect in these countercultural communities. Jesus said: “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers (sisters, or relatives, or your rich neighbors); if you do, they may invite you back and you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous,” (Luke 14:12–14).

The counter-cultural communities Jesus developed never smashed the political economy to which their society was captive. They never completely reconstructed the political economy in terms of the total liberation that they prayed for. However, they did break some of the mechanisms of control to which they were captive. They managed to reconstruct such a substantial degree of liberated — and liberating — alternative political and economic reality, that their experience has served as an example of true love and true justice ever since. According to eyewitnesses, they all met together, breaking bread in their homes and eating together with glad and jubilant hearts. They had everything in common, selling their possessions and giving support to anyone who asked for help. There wasn’t a single person with an unmet need among them, and all the people spoke well of them (see Acts 2:44–47; 4:32–35).

In the fifth phase of his nonviolent jihad for love and justice Jesus demonstrated active, radical, sacrificial nonviolence that would free people from the cycles of violence and counter violence. He said: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd … and I lay down my life for the sheep. … All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:11–14, 15, 8–10). Jesus turned to his friends and said: ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,” (John 15:13).

Under his guidance the Jesus movement became an active, radical, sacrificial peace movement.[i] And for three centuries, Christianity was more or less a pacifist movement. The Apostles taught Christians the pacifist principle: “Love does no harm to its neighbour” (Rom. 13:10). Paul said to: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge. On the contrary: ‘If your enem(ies).are hungry, feed (them); if (they) are thirsty, give (them) something to drink.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” (Rom. 12:14–21).

Jesus is the Supreme Example of Jihad as a ‘Whole-Hearted Strong-But-Gentle Struggle’.

The choice Christians and Muslims need to make is: will we continue to commit to a ‘clash of civilizations’ — or join Jesus and the Nonviolent Jihad for love and justice.

[i] Glen Stassen & David Gushee, Kingdom Ethics (Downers Grove: IVP, 2003), 152.

Dave Andrews and his wife Ange have lived and worked in intentional communities with marginalised groups of people in Australia, Afghanistan and India for forty years.  Dave is a founder of the Waiters Union; an educator for TEAR Australia; a teacher at Christian Heritage College; an elder emeritus for Servants To Asia’s Urban Poor; and a member of AMARAH (Australian Muslim Advocates for the Rights of All Humanity).

The Jihad of Jesus (Part 3): Jesus as the Supreme Example

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Dave Andrews | Monday, 4 May 2015

This series of articles is based on Dave’s upcoming book release, The Jihad of Jesus, which is being published by Wipf & Stock. Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

Jesus of Nazareth, whom we know as Jesus the Masih, ‘Messiah’ or the ‘Christ’ demonstrates a life of radical non-violent sacrificial compassion as the only way of life that can save us from destroying ourselves and our societies.[i]

As Ahmad Shawqi says: “Kindness, chivalry and humility were born the day Jesus was born. Like the light of the dawn flowing through the universe, so did the sign of Jesus flow. He filled the world with light, making the earthshine with its brightness. No threat, no tyranny, no revenge, no sword, no raids, no bloodshed did he use to call to the new faith.”[ii]

Many Christians, Muslims and Jews use the retaliation advocated in the Hebrew Bible to justify their eye-for-an-eye reactive violence. After all Moses himself said, “if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” (Exod. 21:23–4). But as Mahatma Gandhi has been often reported to have famously said: “An eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth would lead to a world of the blind and toothless.”

Jesus argued for a totally different approach to that taken in the Mosaic Law. Jesus explicitly, specifically and repeatedly contradicted the Mosaic Law that legitimated retaliation. He said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist (or retaliate against) an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matt. 5:38–9). Jesus told his disciples you should always be ready to die for your faith, but never kill for your faith (Matt. 16: 24).

When I asked my dear friend and Jewish Rabbi, Zalman Kastel, what he personally found most confronting in the teaching of Jesus, he quickly replied, without any hesitation, that it was his commitment to unflinching nonviolence in the face of violence, which was based on his commitment to love everyone — friend and foe alike — with no exceptions.

Jesus said,

But to you who are listening I say, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-use you. To him who strikes you on one cheek offer the other cheek also. If anyone takes away your cloak, do not stop him taking your tunic, too. Give to everyone who asks you; if anyone takes away your belongings, do not demand them back again. As you would like men to act towards you, so do you act towards them. If you love those who love you, what special grace is there in that? Even sinners love those who love them. If you are kind to those who are kind to you, what special grace is there in that? Even sinners love those who love them. If you are kind to those who are kind to you, what special grace is there in that? Even sinners do that. If you lend to those from whom you wish to get, what special grace is in that? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to get as much back again. But you must love your enemies; and do good to them; and lend with no hope of getting anything in return. Your reward will be great and you will be the sons of the Most High, because he is kind both to the thankless and to the wicked. Be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful. (Luke 6:27–38)

John the Baptist introduced Jesus at the beginning of his ministry as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29). We know the word ‘Lamb’ is not meant to be taken literally. After all, Jesus was a man not a lamb. However, the word ‘Lamb’ is used to describe the kind of ‘Man’ he was. He was a ‘Lamb’ of a ‘Man’ — pure, simple and peaceable — not deceitful, duplicitous and dangerous like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Jesus, the ‘Lamb of God,’ sought to develop grassroots communities of ‘flocks of sheep’. (John 10:11–16). ‘Sheep’ was a seemingly innocuous but essentially counter-cultural term that Jesus used to describe people who lived with ‘wolves’ (those who preyed on other people) but, who refused to become wolves themselves, even if it meant that the wolves might rip the flock to pieces because of their refusal to join the pack and prey on others.

Jesus said: “I want you to live your lives as sheep, even in the midst of wolves. Be shrewd. But always be harmless,” (Matt. 10:16). “Always treat other people as you would like them to treat you,” he said (Matt. 7:12). “Even do good to those who do evil to you. Love those who hate you and bless those who curse you.” (Matt. 5:44). “Don’t ever be afraid,” he said to his flocks, “of those who can kill the body, but can’t kill your soul,” (Matt. 10:28).

And Jesus, ‘the Lamb of God’, practiced what he preached. He may have been ‘the light of the world’. But the world didn’t want him. “The people loved the darkness rather than the light; because their deeds were evil, and didn’t want anybody to expose them,” (John 3:19–20). So the people decided to scapegoat him. And, as Jesus predicted, they eventually seized him, and he allowed them to lead him away like a sacrificial lamb and slaughter him.[iii]

Jesus said: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). The idea of someone being willing to sacrifice himself on behalf of his friends can be as powerful a metaphor in the twenty-first century as it was in the first century. There is much about the way the Jews might understand this metaphor that non-Jews find difficult to understand. But the idea that Jesus was willing to sacrifice his life for his friends is a powerful story. That, even now, touches people with love, in the deep, dark, hidden recesses of their soul, where they feel most abandoned and most alone.

Gale Webbe, in The Night and Nothing, said, “There are many ways to deal with evil. All of them are facets of the truth that the only ultimate way to conquer evil is to let it be smothered within a willing, living, human being. When it is absorbed there, like a spear into one’s heart, it loses its power and goes no further.”[iv] As M. Scott Peck says in The People Of The Lie, “The healing of evil can only be accomplished by love. A willing sacrifice is required. The healer must sacrificially absorb the evil.”[v]

On the cross Jesus absorbed the evil. He took it into his heart as assuredly as the spear that was thrust into his side. And, it went no further. He cried out “Father. Forgive them. For they know not what they do,” (Luke 23:24). There was no reaction. No demand for revenge or retaliation. There was only grace. And so the cycle of violence stopped right there and then, with him, forever.

According to Khalid Muhammad Khalid, Jesus was the supreme example. He said Jesus “was his message. He was the supreme example he left. He was the love which knows no hatred, the peace which knows no restlessness, the salvation which knows no perishing.”[vi]

[i] It was never Jesus’ intention to start a religion — still less a monopolistic religion that saw itself in competition with other religions for people’s allegiance. Jesus said he simply came ‘to bring life and life in all its fullness’ (see John 10:10). Thus he would affirm all that is life-affirming and confront all that is life-negating in the world’s religions — especially in the religion that now bears his name.

Jesus criticised people of all religions — including his own — for promoting domineering leadership (Mark 10:42-43); acting as closed groups that are not open to others (Matt. 5:47); and practising empty rituals which embody no practical compassion. (Matt.6:7)

Jesus appreciated God was bigger than his religion, and worked in the lives of people of other religions — like Naaman the Syrian, who was healed of leprosy, when many Jews weren’t (Luke 4.16–30). Jesus appreciated that people of other religions could not only have great faith, but could also have greater faith than many people of his own religion — like the Syrophoenician Woman, whose feisty faith he was confronted with (Mark 7:24–30). And Jesus appreciated that people of other religions could be better examples of true religion than even the leaders of his own religion — like the ‘Good Samaritan’ (Luke 10.29–37).

The way Jesus related as a Jew to a Samaritan woman at the well (Jn. 4:4-42) is the way people of different religions, like Christians and Muslims, should relate to each other:

  1. Recognise how much we owe to Jews who came before us. (Jn. 4:22)
  2. Acknowledge particularities — distinct rituals of worship (Jn. 4;19–21)
  3. Affirm universalities — all true believers worship in truth (Jn. 4:23)
  4. Never denigrate others — ‘don’t call down fire’ on them (Lk. 9:54–5)
  5. Take a conciliatory approach — ‘if not against you, for you’ (Lk. 9:50)
  6. Always accept hospitality — share food and drink together (Jn. 4:7)
  7. Practice respectful dialogue — explore the significance of Isa/Jesus as the Masih/Messiah — but not necessarily expect others to change religion (Jn. 4)

Jesus didn’t call his followers to convert others, but to witness to others. Jesus said ‘you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ (Acts 1:8) And he suggested that the best way for anyone to witness was by working whole-heartedly for the common good. Jesus said: ‘let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works and praise your Father in heaven.’ (Matt. 5:16)

[ii] Ahmad Shawqi, Al Shawqiyyat (vol. 2; Cairo: Matba’ah Misr / Matba’ah Lajnah Al Ta’lif Wal Tarjamah, 1939), 12.

[iii] Matt 20:17–19

[iv] G. Webbe, The Night and Nothing (New York: Seabury Press, 1964), 109.

[v] M. Scott Peck, The People Of The Lie (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), 269.

[vi] Khalid Muhammad Khalid, Ma’an ‘ala-l-Tariq: Muhammad wa-i-Masih (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Haditha, 1958), 188–9.

Dave Andrews and his wife Ange have lived and worked in intentional communities with marginalised groups of people in Australia, Afghanistan and India for forty years.  Dave is a founder of the Waiters Union; an educator for TEAR Australia; a teacher at Christian Heritage College; an elder emeritus for Servants To Asia’s Urban Poor; and a member of AMARAH (Australian Muslim Advocates for the Rights of All Humanity).

The Jihad of Jesus (Part 2): Jihad as Nonviolent Struggle

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Dave Andrews | Monday, 4 May 2015

This series of articles is based on Dave’s upcoming book release, The Jihad of Jesus, which is being published by Wipf & Stock. Read Part 1 of this series.

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan says, “God is Peace”. He says “the very word Islam (from the Arabic silm) means peace.” So, “according to the Prophet, peace is a prerequisite of Islam”. He says “a Muslim is one from whose hands people are safe”.[i] And this could be true, for all Muslims and Christians and Jews, if all Muslims and Christians and Jews would only allow ourselves to be born again in the spirit of the Bismillah.

The Bismillah stands for the Arabic phrase Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim, commonly translated, “In the name of God, most Gracious, most Compassionate”. According to Ibn Qayyum, rahman describes the quality of limitless grace with which God embraces the whole of the world and all of those who dwell in it, while rahim describes the general embracing grace of God as it interacts with us in the particular circumstances of our lives, always proactive, always prevenient, always responsive.[ii]

In the light of the Bismillah, Abdul Ghaffar Khan says, we need to remember that if we do have conflict with one another, the ‘weapon of the Prophet’ we should use is sabr or ‘patience’. “If you exercise patience, victory will be yours. No power on earth can stand against it.” He says we need to be mindful that the Qur’an says, “there is no compulsion in religion”; “forgive and be indulgent”; “render not vain your almsgiving by injury;” “whoso-ever kills one — for other than manslaughter — it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.”[iii]

This is completely contrary to the extremist’s idea that for Muslims to be ‘true’ Muslims they need to conduct a jihad, characterised as a ‘resolute, offensive, violent struggle’[iv] by ‘suicide bombing’[v] to eliminate everything non-Muslim from society.[vi]

In his classic book Reconstructing Jihad Amid Competing International Norms, Halim Rane argues we need to wrest the concept of jihad from the control of the extremists and deconstruct and reconstruct our interpretation of jihad in the light of the Qur’an. Rane says if we are to interpret the Qur’an correctly, each verse needs to be interpreted in terms of the text, the language, the meaning it had for the people at the time it was written, and the meaning it has for people reading it in today’s world, in the light of the Bismillah, in the context of the maqasid or ‘overall general objective’ of Islam.[vii]

Quoting Kamali, Rane says the ‘overall general objective’ of Islam is based “in textual injunctions of the Qur’an and the Sunnah” which, he says, are focused on “wisdom, mercy, justice and equity” and directed to “the benefit of mankind”, which, he says, includes “welfare, freedom, dignity and fraternity”.[viii]

One verse which needs to be carefully (re)interpreted in terms of the text, the language, the meaning it had for the people at the time it was written, and the meaning it has for people reading it in today’s world, in the light of the Bismillah, in the context of the ‘general objective’ of ‘wisdom, mercy, justice and equity’ of Islam, is the (in)famous ‘sword verse’ which instructs Muslims to ‘slay’ Christians: ordering them “to slay those who ascribe divinity to aught but God, wherever you may come upon them”, (9:5).[ix]

Rane says “this verse along with Quran 9:29 (which says ‘fight those from among the People of the Book who believe neither in God, nor in the Last Day, nor hold as unlawful what God and his Messenger have declared to be unlawful, nor follow the true religion, until they… agree to submit’) has been quoted throughout Muslim history to justify aggression and aggressive wars against non-Muslims because of their ‘unbelief’’.” Rane says “these verses are among those most commonly quoted by al Qaeda leaders and published on the Internet for recruitment.”[x]

Asad … explains that this verse should be read in conjunction with those that precede it. [In 9:5 it says “As for those who have honoured the treaty you made with them, and have not supported anyone against you: fulfill your agreement with them to the end of their term. God loves those who are righteous.”] Of central importance is that these verses were revealed in the context of ‘warfare already in progress with people who (had) become guilty of a breach of treaty obligation and of aggression.’ … That non-Muslims are to be fought because of their unbelief rather than their act of aggression is doubtful given that [verse 9:5 continues, ‘if they repent, and take to prayer regularly and pay alms, then let them go their way. God is forgiving and merciful,’ and] verse 9:6 commands the Muslims to give protection and security to those among the enemy who seek it. If their unbelief was the basis of fighting against them, this provision would be nonsensical.[xi]

Rane says, “In the context of conflict, the pursuit of peace is paramount to the extent that the Qur’an instructs Muslims; ‘Do not allow your oaths in the name of God to become an obstacle to virtue and God-consciousness and the promotion of peace between people’ (2: 224) … peace should not be rejected, even from a non-Muslim encountered in war (4:94).”[xii]

Rane insists peace not war is the purpose of Islam, and jihad is the path to peace. Rane asserts that in the Qur’an the word for ‘war’ is not jihad but qital, and that the word jihad means ‘struggle’ not ‘war’. He says that there 6,000 verses in the Qur’an, and out of those 6,000 verses, only 35 verses refer to jihad; and out of those 35 verses, 20 times jihad is used ambiguously, 11 times jihad is used unambiguously in terms of peace, and 4 times jihad is used unambiguously in terms of war.[xiii]

Where the word jihad is used ambiguously or unambiguously in the context of war, Rane says, the Qur’an imposes strict ‘rules of engagement’ to temper the use of violence with “wisdom, mercy, justice and equity” in the hope of minimizing “force, suffering, ignominy and enmity” and maximizing “welfare, freedom, dignity and fraternity”. Rane says that according to the Qur’an, the conduct of jihad in war would need to take eight ‘rules for engagement’ into account.

  1. Killing — except in self-defense — is considered a grievous sin.[xiv]
  2. War is only permitted for self-defense and self-determination.[xv]
  3. All wars of aggression are forbidden.[xvi]
  4. If you are not specifically attacked by enemies you should not to attack them, even if they are your enemies.[xvii]
  5. Muslims should never, ever use difference of religion with non-Muslims as an excuse for a war of aggression.[xviii]
  6. In war, Muslims should protect all places of worship, not only mosques, but also churches and synagogues.[xix]
  7. In war, Muslims should protect “helpless men, women and children”,[xx] “even the accidental harm of the innocent is a ‘grievous wrong’ for which those responsible are ‘guilty’.”[xxi]
  8. If peace is offered by your attacker, it should not be rejected, even if the sincerity of the offer is dubious, as God always wants his people to ‘give peace a chance’.[xxii]

Similarly, in Christianity, Ambrose and Augustine developed a set of criteria to call those in power — who make war — to temper the use of violence with ‘wisdom, mercy, justice and equity’. They argued that in order for a war to be conducted according to the principles of justice it would need to meet eight specific conditions.

  1. It would need to be motivated by a ‘just’ cause — and the only cause considered to be ‘just’ was to stop the killing of large numbers of people.
  2. It would need to be administered by a ‘just’ authority — duly constituted authorities had to proceed carefully according to due process before taking action.
  3. It would always need to be a last resort — after all means of negotiation, mediation, arbitration and nonviolent sanctions had been exhausted.
  4. It would need to be for a ‘just’ purpose — to secure the welfare, safety and security of all parties in the dispute, including the enemy.
  5. It would need to be a reasonable risk — not a futile gesture, but a realistic venture, with a reasonable hope of success.
  6. It would need to be cost effective — the outcomes of victory would outweigh the human costs of battle.
  7. That any government intending to go to war should announce their intentions, articulating the conditions that would need to be met to avert it, in order to avoid going to war if at all possible.
  8. That, if the war were to go ahead, that not only the ends, but also the means would need to be ‘just’ — noncombatants must be protected; once combatants surrender, they too must be protected from slaughter; and all prisoners must be protected from torture.

According to these criteria, none of our current wars are ‘just wars’, they are just ‘wars’.

If we are to struggle for justice with integrity, dignity and grace we need to reject all the calls to a violent jihad of Not-So-Holy so-called ‘Holy Wars’ and embrace the nonviolent jihad of the whole-hearted strong-but-gentle struggle for justice against injustice.

Qader Muheideen says “the purpose of jihad ultimately is to put an end to ‘structural violence’,”[xxiii] and we must choose means consistent with that end. Muheideen says for jihadists to end violence we have to choose nonviolent means.[xxiv] He says there are eight cogent Islamic reasons to reframe jihad as a nonviolent struggle:

  1. For Islam, the problem of violence is an integral part of the Islamic moral sphere.
  2. Any violence used must be governed by the ‘rules of engagement’ in the Qur’an.
  3. If any violence used in modern warfare and/or terror campaigns cannot discriminate between combatants and noncombatants, it is quite unacceptable to Islam.
  4. Modern technologies of destruction used in modern warfare and/or terror campaigns, like drones and bombs, render discrimination virtually impossible.
  5. So in the modern world, fighting today’s battles, Muslims cannot use violence.
  6. Islam teaches Muslims to fight for justice against injustice in the light of the truth that human lives are genuinely sacred and taking human lives is a grievous sin.
  7. In order to be true to Islam, Muslims must use nonviolent strategies and tactics in the struggle, such as submission to the will of Allah and civil disobedience.
  8. Islam is a strong resource for a nonviolent struggle because of its tradition of personal discipline, social responsibility, robust perseverance and self-sacrifice.[xxv]

Added to these philosophical/theological reasons are two practical/historical reasons:

  1. The use of nonviolent means is more likely to bring about nonviolent ends, like a democratic society with accountable administration and unarmed opposition.[xxvi]
  2. And the use of nonviolent means and ends are more likely to get the support and approval of the international community ‘amid competing international norms’.[xxvii]

[i] Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, The Prophet of Peace (New Delhi: Penguin, 2009), xi.

[ii] Bismillah al rahman al Rahim, http://wahiduddin.net/words/bismillah.htm.

[iii] Eknath Easwaren, A Man To Match His Mountains (Petuluma: Nilgiri Press, 1984), 117, 209.

[iv] Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 2003), 63–9.

[v] http://www.rrg.sg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15%3Aour-message&catid=2%3Aour-message&Itemid=6&limitstart=2

[vi] Qutb, Milestones, 130, 134.

[vii] Halim Rane, Reconstructing Jihad Amid Competing International Norms (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 165.

[viii] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 168–170.

[ix] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 186.

[x] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 186.

[xi] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 186–7.

[xii] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 193.

[xiii] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 141–2.

[xiv] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 178.

[xv] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 178.

[xvi] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 181.

[xvii] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 190.

[xviii] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 184.

[xix] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 179.

[xx] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 183.

[xxi] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 189.

[xxii] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 193.

[xxiii] Chaiwat Satha-Anand (Qader Muheideen), “The Nonviolent Crescent” in Islam And Nonviolence (ed. Glenn Paige, Chaiwat Satha-Anand and Sarah Gilliatt; Honolulu: Center For Global Nonviolence Planning Project, 1993), 10.

[xxiv] Satha-Anand (Muheideen) “The Nonviolent Crescent,” 11.

[xxv] Satha-Anand (Muheideen) “The Nonviolent Crescent,” 23.

[xxvi] Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare; New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).

[xxvii] Rane, Reconstructing Jihad, 114–126.

Dave Andrews and his wife Ange have lived and worked in intentional communities with marginalised groups of people in Australia, Afghanistan and India for forty years.  Dave is a founder of the Waiters Union; an educator for TEAR Australia; a teacher at Christian Heritage College; an elder emeritus for Servants To Asia’s Urban Poor; and a member of AMARAH (Australian Muslim Advocates for the Rights of All Humanity).

The Jihad of Jesus (Part 1): A Reflection for Christians and Muslims to Consider

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Dave Andrews | Monday, 4 May 2015

This series of articles is based on Dave’s upcoming book release, The Jihad of Jesus, which is being published by Wipf & Stock.

Over the last few years I’ve been involved in some really meaningful Christian-Muslim dialogue. We have talked about there being one God, not many; that God being the God of Abraham; the God of Abraham being a God of compassion; and Jesus — or Isa — as Muslims call him — being the one who embodies that Spirit of compassion best.

My approach to talking with my friends about Jesus has been based on Jesus’ own approach to talking with his friends, whom he called to be with him, without imposing any theological prerequisites, creating a safe space for dialogue and debate about his identity as a prophet, trusting that the ‘Spirit’ could and would lead them into all truth.

Many conversations between Christians and Muslims about Jesus deteriorate from dialogue into debate and from debate into dispute, generating more heat than light on the subject. Often this occurs because both sides want to impose their own particular view of Jesus on the other and are unable and/or unwilling to respect the other person’s particular point of view.

In order to avoid such unproductive disputations, I have conducted my conversations with Muslims and written the following reflections based on those views of Jesus that both the Qur’an and the Injil or the Gospel, as recorded in the Gospels in the New Testament, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, have in common.

While I acknowledge the significant differences Christians and Muslims have about Jesus, I have intentionally tried to focus on those beliefs about Jesus that Christians and Muslims have in common as the place for us to start our conversations, treating ‘common ground’ — not as suspect compromise — but as ‘sacred ground’ — on which we can stand and speak to one another.

Given the significance of jihad as a focus of conflict between Christians and Muslims, my Muslim friends suggested I write a book about Jesus and jihad and what Jesus’ approach to jihad might be. It was suggested I call the book The Jihad of Jesus. It was hoped the provocative title would get a lot of attention, and we could introduce Christians and Muslims to a deconstruction of the extremist’s concept of jihad as a holy war and a reconstruction of the Qur’anic concept of jihad as a sacred nonviolent struggle for justice — in the light of the radical practical peaceful example of Jesus.

In The Jihad Of Jesus I argue that we are caught up in a cycle of so-called ‘holy wars’, but though this inter-communal conflict is endemic, it is not inevitable. Depending on our understanding, our religions can be either a source of escalating conflict, or a resource for overcoming inter-communal conflict; and for our religions to be a resource for overcoming conflict, we need to understand the heart of all true religion as open-hearted compassionate spirituality. In the light of an open-hearted compassionate spirituality, we can reclaim ‘jihad’ from extremists who have (mis)appropriated it as call to ‘holy war’, and reframe it, in truly Qur’anic terms, as a ‘sacred nonviolent struggle for justice’; and we can reconsider Jesus, as he is in the Gospels, not as a poster boy for Christians fighting crusades against Muslims, but as ‘a strong-but-gentle Messianic figure’ who can bring Christians and Muslims together. And, as the book shows, many Christians and Muslims have found Isa (Jesus) and the Bismillah (celebrating the mercy, and grace of God) as common ground on which to base their work for the common good.

The choice Christians and Muslims need to make is: will we continue to commit to a ‘clash of civilizations’ — or join ‘Jesus And The Nonviolent Jihad For Love And Justice’?

Dave Andrews and his wife Ange have lived and worked in intentional communities with marginalised groups of people in Australia, Afghanistan and India for forty years.  Dave is a founder of the Waiters Union; an educator for TEAR Australia; a teacher at Christian Heritage College; an elder emeritus for Servants To Asia’s Urban Poor; and a member of AMARAH (Australian Muslim Advocates for the Rights of All Humanity).

Anabaptist Ethics and Same-Sex Marriage (Part 2)

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Bruce Hamill | Monday, 13th July 2015

Read Part 1 of this series

In the first half of this article, Bruce discussed that New Testament ethics is apocalyptic in nature, characterised by the newness of creation established by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Here he moves to apply this approach to ethics to the topic of marriage.

MARRIAGE IN AN APOCALYPTIC PERSPECTIVE
How then might an apocalyptic and Anabaptist Christian ethic affect our thinking about marriage?

My case for a rethinking of the definition of marriage to permit same-sex marriage comes under four headings: (1) institutional reform, (2) the normativity of eschatology for Christian ethics, (3) embodied salvation: the relevance of biology and psychology, and (4) the role of marriage in sanctification.

The “good newness” of the apocalypse that is the Messiah Jesus had a significant destabilising impact on the social world of Jesus own time. It is a theme of the gospels that Jesus is constantly in conflict with the moral authorities of his Jewish world and ultimately with the Roman world as well. At the heart of this moral revolution lie two ethical moves embedded in both his practice and his teaching: i) his extension of neighbour-love to include enemy-love, epitomised in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and ii) his ethic of non-violent resistance — “You have heard it said ‘an eye for an eye…’ but I say to you do not (violently) resist the evil doer”. In both cases Jesus is confronting ethical and religious orthodoxy head on. The long-term impact of this moral revolution is difficult to overstate.

For the purpose of this argument, what is important to notice, is that this new ‘way’ leads and cannot help but lead to serious institutional reform for those apocalyptic Jews for whom Jesus was Messiah.

1. Institutional Reform
We have noted Jesus’ critical engagement with that most sacred of institutions — Torah. The creative use of Torah in service of the gospel became a feature of New Testament writings. Similarly other institutions did not come off unscathed in their encounters with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ willingness to run-roughshod over purity codes is well known. This in turn was taken up in Peter’s vision in Acts leading to a radical revision of the way ethnic identity was related to the institution of the ‘people of God’. In forming his small community of disciples, Jesus’ approach to the institution of the family could be regarded as subversive. Perhaps most obviously Jesus was an intrepid reformer of the Sabbath and its associated practices.

The question thus arises whether Jesus’ motto ‘the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’ (Mk 2:27) might well apply to marriage.

It is consistent with all of this that the protest wing of the Catholic Church, which calls itself the Reformed tradition, understands itself to be committed to the constant reform of the institutions within which disciples of Jesus seek to live their lives — ecclesia reformata semper reformanda [“the reformed church (is) always to be reformed”]. For them it is first of all a refusal to make idols of our institutions. This is certainly not a license for arbitrary social novelty. But the institutions within which the people of God live their lives are not platonic forms; they are not eternal and immutable simply by virtue of an idea or definition. There is constant pressure from the Triune God for their reform. The working out of the gospel means that the church is always learning how to be the church in ordered and structured ways.

Should we exempt marriage from such reforming processes? It seems to me that the onus is clearly on the traditionalists to come up with a reason.

However before moving too quickly we need to note that the rejection of a platonic view of the institution of marriage is not the same as the abandonment of all definition. We still need to address the question of when a marriage is not a marriage. To put it another way: we need to distinguish between reform and merely changing the subject. To reform an institution is not to reject it but to affirm some purpose for which that institution exists, even if that purpose is itself being rethought in the light of something new.

If, for example, the primary purpose of marriage were procreation there would hardly be a case for reforming marriage to allow same-sex marriage. However as many have observed,[1] in the second creation narrative in Genesis 2 procreation is secondary to a more primary purpose, namely companionship (Gen 2:18–25) and indeed the latter is the explicit reason given for the creation of a complementary partner for ‘adam’. It is this purpose which is developed and redefined in the New Testament in terms of communion, especially the eschatological communion of which the ecclesia, the community of the Messiah, is a foretaste.[2]

2. The Priority of Eschatology
If the institutional reform which so characterised the advent of the new aeon is the outer frame and mandate for an ongoing process of organising all of life under Christ, then the inner frame which guides the logic of Christian ethics is Jesus Christ and his mission.

Here we return to the methodological implications of apocalyptic theology for ethics. Since the ‘good newness’ of this apocalypse is not an evolution of something already immanent within the old aeon, or a logical progression from its premises, it follows that life in Christ, in the ‘time between the times’ cannot be defined by anything other than Christ. The old aeon is the context to which Christ comes but it cannot provide the norm for life in the new aeon. Ethically speaking, this is indeed ‘the year of our Lord’, a time in which eschatology (apocalypsed in Jesus Christ) has a certain logical priority for Christian ethics. The defining moment for history becomes also the defining moment for Christian ethics (its norm).

Thus in Christian ethics, nature and the structures of creation play a subordinate role to the ‘new creation’ in Christ. This is a complex claim, and though it seems a clear outcome of Paul’s gospel it is expressed in mixed and ambiguous ways in his ethics.[3] Eugene Rogers argues that that at least two things are clear for Paul: God can and does, on occasions, work counter to ‘nature’,[4] and, secondly, since grace transforms nature, nature is not normative.

Jeffrey Stout summarises Rogers’ argument well:

Natural Law is an important Christian idea… but an ethic of natural law always runs the risk of treating untransformed nature as normative for Christians whereas the whole point of the body of Christ is to transform the natural. The Christian norm for sexuality is not natural law, it is rather human nature transformed, eros swept up into agape.[5]

This latter point finds its clearest expression in Galatians 3:28 when Paul claims not only that oppositional pairs Jew/Gentile and slave/free (with their correlative institutions, nationhood and slavery) are not determinative of life ‘in Christ’, but also that the complementarity of male/female is similarly subordinated to life ‘in Christ’. His switch of conjunctions from ‘or’ (Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free) to ‘and’ (male and female) is a clear reference to the Genesis narrative (‘male and female created he them’ Gen 1:27). This is worth pausing with. Paul is not merely claiming that, for the purposes of Christianity, it doesn’t matter whether you are male or female. His claim is much broader. The ‘male and female’ structure of creation no longer matters. Clearly Paul is not claiming that either slavery, ethnicity or marriage no longer exist for the people of God, but rather that they are all relativised in the light of their ‘end’ (eschatologically). The great complementarity of ‘male and female’ may still exist, but it does not normatively define life in Christ. Jesus Christ, the one ‘in whom and for whom’ (Col 1:16) we are created provides not merely momentum for change, but a new norm towards which all our practices and institutions ought to be redirected. His form of life defines the forms of life in which we live. The good life is an embodiment of his future made possible now.

Paul understands marriage in precisely this context when, in Eph 5:31–32, he sees the marriage relationship as a sign referring to Christ’s relationship to the church — “’and the two will become one flesh’. This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church.” It is the way in which Paul, on the one hand, talks about marriage in male/female terms (Eph 5:32) as a sign, or perhaps icon, of the mystery of the love of Christ, and on the other hand declares those same male/female terms to be non-determinative of our life in Christ (Gal 3:28) that leads Rogers to argue that other terms and relationships could bear witness to the same reality (Christ’s relation to the church).

What Rogers and Rowan Williams[6] before him are arguing is that the point of marriage, as the church is learning to practice it in the light of the eschaton, lies in our human expression of the divine love, the love of Christ for the church. In becoming ‘one flesh’ we learn in the most bodily way possible what it means to share the love of Christ and thus be his body as we give our bodies to one another, imaging the one who gave his body for us. I will say more on this in a moment.

3. Embodied Salvation: The Relevance of Biology and Psychology
The apocalyptic context and eschatological norm in no way suggests that the Christian life is somehow divorced from the ‘old creation’ or from biology and history after the manner of gnostic ontology. It is for the reorientation and reconstruction of this creation that Christ comes. In seeking to take seriously the biological and psychological context in which marriage is practised, we will rely on relevant scientific disciplines. In the ancient world of the biblical writers there was little understanding that the dynamic processes of human desire might be constrained and structured according to a same-sex orientation as well as a heterosexual one. Inasmuch as science has deepened our understanding of these matters it provides a significant mandate for reconsidering the modes of marital expression that the kingdom of God might take among the people of God.

When Paul in Romans 1 (assuming it is Paul and not the words of a protagonist as Douglas Campbell argues[7]) considers same-sex desire and practices as impure he does not consider them in the context of a Christian couple seeking to discipline their sexual orientation in practices of love. In stark contrast he is thinking about same-sex desire and practice in the context of idolatry and the pagan temple. However, what is most difficult about Romans 1 is that rather than appeal to the gospel of the new creation he reverts to the language of nature and purity in his comments regarding same-sex relations. This and his judgements about men with long hair stand out as exceptions to his normal approach to Christian life and ethics (1 Cor 11:14-15).

In the final section we will do what Paul does not do in Romans 1, namely consider the possibility of same-sex marriage as a practice within the context of the Christian life.

4. Marriage as Sanctification
According to Rogers the biological and psychological context of the Christian life is such that, for some of us, there are some partners who are “apposite without being opposite”. Assuming then that this kind of institutional extension for the sake of such biologically apposite partnerships were possible, does it matter whether the church marries them or not? What matters here, says Rogers, is sanctification (rather than say mere satisfaction). Indeed, what matters are communities of sanctification which are structured as institutions of discipleship. Rogers talks of marriage as a sacrament, rather than an institution of discipleship, as I do, though I think the differences fade provided one’s account of discipleship is communal and participatory. For Rogers the sacramental marriage is a community within the community of the body of Christ, which in turn exists within the communal Trinitarian life of God[8].

Indeed the same passage in Ephesians where Paul talks of the one-fleshness of marriage as a kind of icon of the love of Christ — a living symbol of God’s salvation — he also talks of it in terms of neighbour-love intrinsic to the body of Christ. “He who loves his wife loves himself, for no man ever hates his own flesh…” (Eph 5:28–29). This two-fold aspect of marriage — both as symbolic witness and as formative discipleship — is expressed the 2010 report of the bishops of the Episcopal Church:

Marriage bears witness to both of the great commandments: it signifies the love of God and it teaches the love of neighbour.[9]

This latter aspect treats marriage as the ascetic discipline of learning to love our nearest neighbour as our self. This point is important because, as Rogers stresses,[10] bodies matter in salvation. Because we are being saved as embodied creatures in all the particularity of our limitation, then we should seriously consider revising the limits of our doctrine of marriage.

Rogers describes same-sex marriage as a species of complementarity — not the ‘rigid complementarity’[11] defined by procreative biological pragmatism alone — but ‘Christologically disciplined complementarity’ defined by the process of learning in all the particularity of one’s bodiliness both ‘the love of God and God’s people’.[12]

CONCLUSION
Let me summarise the argument as a whole. Marriage — that ancient institution serving the nurture of companionship and human flourishing in love — has for most of Christian history been assumed to be defined by the biological complementarity of ‘male and female’, although not necessarily by procreation. In Jesus and the apocalyptic Christian writers not only does the coming kingdom relativise the institution of marriage to this ‘time between the times’, it sets it, and all the other institutions within which we live, under the authority and judgement of Christ. In doing this it re-establishes marriage in terms of a new purpose for disciples of Christ — indeed a two-fold purpose — to bear witness to the new creation seen in the love of Christ for the church and to practise the life of that new creation in intimate acts of mutual and bodily self-donation. This ethical revolution reaches its clearest expression when Paul concludes that even creational structures like ‘male and female’ do not define life in Christ. It is thus a small step with the benefit of biological and psychological science to conclude that other creational structures such as same-sex orientation might, for some, provide a more appropriate vehicle for the discipline of marriage.

God, grant us the serenity
To accept the things we cannot change
The courage to change the things we can
and the wisdom to know that we probably don’t know the difference
And that you, our God, are, nevertheless, not limited by our incapacity.
— Modified ‘Serenity Prayer’

[1] Christian Perspectives on Marriage: A Discussion Document (PCANZ: May 2014), edited by the Doctrine Core Group of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. In this document two of the anonymous contributors make this point. c.f. contribution 2, especially p. 11, and contribution 7.

[2] Procreation certainly features in the first creation narrative in association with the creation of male and female, however as the scriptural narrative progresses it plays a minor role, especially in the New Testament. Arguably the task of ‘filling the earth’ as a species’ responsibility is a completed one.

[3] In this respect I am thinking particularly of the role of nature in Romans 1:26-7 on ‘unnatural’ intercourse and 1 Corinthians 11:14-15 on ‘unnatural’ hairstyles for men.

[4] Later in Romans Paul characteris

es the process of grafting Gentiles into Israel as an ‘unnatural’ act of God (Romans 11:21–24).

[5] Jeffrey Stout, “How Christianity Transcends the Culture Wars: Eugene Rogers and Others on Same-Sex Marriage,” Journal of Religious Ethics 31/2 (2003): 175.

[6] Rowan Williams, “The Body’s Grace”, in Theology and Sexuality (ed. Eugene Rogers; Malden: Blackwell: 2002), pp. 309–321.

[7] Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 313–593.

[8] Stout, “How Christianity transcends the culture wars” p. 175

[9] I refer to the 95 page ‘Theology of Same-Sex Relationship’ published in the Anglican Theological Review (Winter, 2011) and cited by Eugene F. Rogers Jr in “Same-Sex Complementarity: A Theology of Marriage” in The Christian Century (May, 2011).

[10] Rogers, “Same-Sex Complimentarity.”

[11] Rogers, “Same-Sex Complimentarity.”

[12] Rogers, “Same-Sex Complimentarity,” writes, “Christ trains — or orients — all desire to God. Saying there is ‘no “male and female”’ denies, therefore, strong forms of the complementarity theory, according to which a woman remains incomplete without a man or a man incomplete without a woman. Taking that theory to its logical conclusion, effectively denies the Christ in whom all things are “summed up” (Eph 1:10)”

Rev Dr Bruce Hamill is the Minister at Coastal Unity Parish, a Presbyterian Church in Dunedin, New Zealand. He has a PhD in Systematic Theology from the University of Otago.

Anabaptist Ethics and Same-Sex Marriage (Part 1)

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Bruce Hamill | Thursday, 9th July 2015

INTRODUCTION
I recently attended a Pastoral Theology conference which had the theme of “discipleship and formation in community”. It was not an Anabaptist conference but it could well have been. ‘Discipleship and formation in community’ is a good summary of the Anabaptist ethic. The Anabaptist tradition is not ‘liberal’ but ‘confessional’. It takes what happened in Jesus of Nazareth in the first century to be the turning point of the world rather than the developments of the 18th century enlightenment. Moreover it sees these events as a theological centre and not merely a historical turning point. For the Anabaptist world the specific reality and history of Jesus of Nazareth is ethically decisive for human existence and life in community.

I what follows I will, firstly, attempt to persuade you, dear reader, that this Anabaptist ethic is helpfully located in the theological tradition of apocalyptic theology — a tradition which is enjoying somewhat of a revival in our time and is arguably the dominant tradition within the New Testament itself. Secondly, I will attempt to show that this tradition provides strong support for extending our institutional practices like marriage in ways that make them available to same-sex couples. Here I will draw on the ground-breaking work of Eugene F Rogers Jr (and others).

NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS AS APOCALYPTIC ETHICS
The revival of apocalyptic theology in our time has been well documented. And I will not attempt to trace the diverse developments of apocalyptic thought that have arisen from the second half of the 20th century to today.[1] For the purposes of this essay I will simply clarify what I mean by apocalyptic theology by summarising New Testament apocalyptic. Obviously this strand of the New Testament is not the only source for understanding the moral life in the New Testament. I will contend however, that as the dominant strand it allows us to see conflicting modes of ethical reasoning in scripture for what they are — exceptions that prove the rule (perhaps the rule of faith encapsulated in the confession ‘Jesus is Lord’?).

In talking of New Testament apocalyptic theology I need to state at the outset that I am not concerned, in the first instance, with a literary genre, but rather with a certain mode of thinking which arises out of core experiences and confessions. To identify these I would begin by distinguishing between the notions of eschatology and of apocalyptic. If the eschaton refers to the end or fulfilment of God’s creative purposes then apocalyptic thought begins at the point where eschatology overlaps with Christology — the point where God’s fulfilment of humanity is revealed (apocalypsed) and arrives in the life, death and resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus. Once the resurrection, a central concept in Jewish eschatology, was aligned with Jesus of Nazareth the apocalyptic trajectory of Christian theology was set in motion. It was only a matter of time and spiritual experience before Paul would conclude that participation in Christ, in his death and resurrection, was nothing less than the arrival of a new creation (Gal 6:15, 2 Cor 5:17). It is this conclusion that defines what I am referring to as apocalyptic, namely, that newness of creation established by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

This realisation finds expression in a range of ways throughout the New Testament. Jason Goroncy has recently observed[2] that in the artistry of Luke (for example) the first proto-eucharistic Emmaus-road meal concludes with a clear echo of Genesis; “and their eyes were opened”. Something like a new creation (perhaps a re-creation) begins, according to Luke, with a reversal of the primal meal in the garden.

In 1 Corinthians Paul describes his readers as those ‘on whom the fulfilment of the age has come’ (1 Cor 10:11). In John’s gospel, Colossians and in 1 Peter this apocalypse is light in contrast to darkness. In 2 Corinthians Paul compares this light in the darkness with the first light of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 (2 Cor 4:4). John’s Jesus describes both perception of and entry into the kingdom of God in terms of a birth from above (Jn 3:3–21). Indeed the New Testament is pervaded by a stark contrast between the world as it is and the new age arriving with Jesus. The ‘anthropological earthquake’[3] that comes with the resurrection of the crucified is not merely anthropological, but at the same time ‘cosmic and historical in scope’[4].

Moreover this contrast that the New Testament highlights is not merely a matter of difference but of animosity (‘the world hates you’, Jn 15:18). This hatred is reflected in their crucifixion ‘of the Lord of Glory’ (1 Cor 2:8). It expresses itself in conflict by different means from both sides (‘the darkness has not overcome it’, Jn 1:5; ‘the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world’, 2 Cor 10:3).

The arrival of a new creation comes as liberation to a world in bondage to ‘principalities and powers’. The unified character of these principalities and powers and the bondage in which they hold the world is seen by Paul to mean that the world can now be envisaged in terms of two spheres — the sphere of Christ and that of Adam. Thus in the apocalyptic perspective the darkness into which Christ comes is seen as having both a differentiated texture (principalities and powers) and a unity (Adam). If to be human is to be part of a world, rather than in some kind of autonomous independence, we find ourselves caught up in this great and world-changing act of liberation.

The epistemological implication of this stark contrast is that a logical gap opens up between the old aeon and the new. In 1 Corinthians (1 Cor 1:18–25; 2:6–8) the new aeon inaugurated by Christ crucified is incomprehensible as foolishness and inexplicable by the standards of the world (1 Cor 3:18). In 2 Corinthians the ‘god of this age’ (2 Cor 4:4) — presumably a reference to the unity of the principalities and powers represented by Satan — is the source of the blindness which defines ‘the present evil age’ (Gal 1:4). Moreover, for John, even the scriptures do not of themselves, apart from the presence of Jesus, provide access to the life of the age to come (Jn 5:37-39). One is reminded of Jesus’ refrain in Matthew 5, “You have heard that it was said … But I say to you”. As the stories of the Emmaus Road and the Ethiopian Eunuch suggest, these scriptures need to be reopened and interpreted from the post-resurrection perspective of the age of the kaine diatheke. With a new hermeneutic comes a transformation of mind (metanoia) as a prerequisite for Christian ethical reflection on the will of God (Rom 12:2).

We will return in the latter part of this paper to the ethical implications of this logical gap. At this point is it sufficient to note that when Christ commissions his disciples to go to all nations (Matt 28:19), it is not for the sake of obedience to Torah that he sends them out, but to ‘make disciples’. A new covenant calls for a life centred on and disciplined by Jesus’ own life and risen presence. For the Christian the moral life is one of discipleship — a process of working out our salvation which is simultaneously the work of the Spirit of Christ within us.

Indeed because, in an apocalyptic perspective, Jesus is not the epitome of what we already knew to be good, the emphasis for Paul in describing the process of discipleship is placed on how we are acted upon rather than on our action. So we read ‘those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first born within a large family’ (Rom 8:29). 2 Corinthians puts the same issues differently when Paul argues that the Spirit who is both Lord and the Spirit of the Lord sets us free so that we who ‘with unveiled faces, reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory’ (2 Cor 3:18).

And, of course, as both of these key passages remind us, this Christ-disciplined life is communal. It is described in the New Testament as a participation in Christ’s death and resurrection and thus a baptism (Rom 6:1–14) into a new common life together — a ‘large family’ — whose life is both enacted and given in a common meal (1 Cor 10:14–17) — a meal that offers a counter-formation to the sacrificial pagan cultus (1 Cor 10:18–21). To cut a long story short it is best described as discipleship and formation in community.

Next instalment: Marriage in an Apocalyptic Perspective

[1] The principle sources of contemporary apocalyptic theology flow through Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonheoffer, William Stringfellow, Rudolf Bultmann, Jürgen Moltmann, John Howard Yoder, Ernst Käsemann, Louis Martyn, Paul Lehmann, Christopher Morse, Nathan Kerr and many other diverse thinkers.

[2] Jason Goroncy, in a private conversation.

[3] James Alison, “Befriending the Vacuum: Receiving Responsibility for an Ecclesial Spirituality” (2009), http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/texts/eng57.html.

[4] Nathan Kerr, Christ, History and Apocalyptic: The Politics of Christian Mission (Theopolitical Visions; Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009), 13.

Rev Dr Bruce Hamill is the Minister at Coastal Unity Parish, a Presbyterian Church in Dunedin, New Zealand. He has a PhD in Systematic Theology from the University of Otago.