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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).

A Prophet of God’s Justice: Reclaiming the Political Jesus (Part 2.2)

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Chris Marshall | Tuesday, 9th June 2015

Read the previous part of this series here.

In the previous instalment, Chris began by describing Jesus' two-fold political strategy as the prophetic denunciation of the injustices and social evils of the prevailing social order on the one hand, and the calling together of an alternative community to live according to the standards of God’s kingdom of justice and peace on the other. He also discussed two aspects of this strategy—1. a rejection of social discrimination, and 2. a critique of economic exploitation. Here Chris continues his discussion of aspects of Jesus' political strategy.

JESUS’ TWO-FOLD POLITICAL STRATEGY (continued)

3. A mistrust of governmental power: The ministry of Jesus was conducted in the context of an occupied country. Ultimate power resided in Rome but indigenous rulers were allowed to exercise jurisdiction over their own territories, as long as they did so in the interests of the empire. In Jesus’ day, Galilee was controlled by Herod Antipas, while Judea was controlled by a Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, although internal affairs were administered by the Jewish Sanhedrin.

As a result, Jesus was confronted by three main forms of institutional or political power: the spiritual and domestic authority of the Jewish religious leaders, the civil authority of Herod and the Herodians, and the imperial and military authority of Rome. And he was critical of the way all three exercised their power.[1] The basic presupposition of his political critique was that sovereignty or kingship belongs exclusively to God. God alone possesses ultimate authority in human affairs, and God’s justice must be the measuring rod against which the exercise of all human authority is to be evaluated.

(i) Throughout his ministry Jesus was frequently opposed by Jewish religious leaders, both scribal and priestly. Jesus responded to their opposition with blistering denunciations of their conduct and role in society.[2] The most extensive example of this is found in Matthew 23. A careful reading of this chapter shows that it was not their theological views Jesus objected to; it was their misuse of religious power to entrench injustice. They used God’s law to “lock people out of the kingdom of heaven” and to overburden the weak without lifting a finger to help (vv 1–4,13–16). They abused their sacred trust to accrue personal prestige and kudos (vv.5–7). They presented themselves as paragons of virtue, but were full of extortion and greed within (v 25). They condemned the violence of the past, but were more than ready to shed innocent blood themselves (vv 23–39). Most tellingly, they majored on legal minutiae at the expense of what matters most to God: justice, mercy and faithfulness.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! (Matt 23:23–24).

(ii) The Herodian elite were also threatened by Jesus and sought to destroy him (Mark 3:6; cf. 12:15). When some sympathetic Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod Antipas is out to kill him, Jesus sends a message of defiance back to “that fox” (Luke 13:31–33). Later when tried by Herod, he refuses to co-operate with his interrogation (Luke 23:6–12).

(iii) Jesus was also critical of Roman power. It is true that Jesus never voiced direct opposition to Roman rule, and he never called for the violent expulsion of the Romans from the holy land. But this does not mean that he was indifferent to Roman control or secretly approved of it. Several considerations show he was not detached from this issue. To begin with, Jesus’ entire mission presupposed a repudiation of the Roman boast that they had already introduced the Golden Age of “peace and stability”. His proclamation of the kingdom of God was tantamount to a rejection of the Pax Romana [“Roman peace”] as the order God intended. As Wengst observes, “anyone who prays for the coming of the kingdom of God, expects it very soon, and sees the sign of its dawning in his own action, has no faith in the imperial good tidings of a pacified world and human happiness in it; he does not regard this situation as the peace that God wants, but is certain that it will end soon”.[3] Jesus regarded the Roman Pax as a pseudo-peace and he refused to give his blessing to it.[4] Indeed he recognised that his mission would destabilise the present “peaceful” order because it was based on oppression and injustice.[5]

As well as this, Jesus’ ethical teaching and whole manner of life constituted an implicit criticism of the abusive use of power by Rome. The gospels present a Jesus significantly at variance with the values and the patterns in terms of which the Romans built their empire. Jesus opts for the sick and the poor; the Romans despised the weak and rewarded the strong. Jesus stresses humility and service; the Romans took pride in their own superiority. Jesus stresses the sharing of surplus possessions; the Romans enacted oppressive taxes in order to increase the wealth of the metropolis of Rome and its predatory elites. Jesus emphasises the sovereignty of God; the Romans affirmed pagan gods and the persona of the emperor. Jesus rejects the use of the sword; the Romans built an empire based on horrendous violence.[6]

Consistent with this, there are also several places where Jesus explicitly criticises the Roman authorities for the way they exercised their power. In one saying, which Luke significantly places at the Last Supper immediately prior to his arrest, Jesus underlines the coercive and self-serving nature of Roman rule.[7] In another he speaks disparagingly of the material trappings of Gentile rule and says that greater respect is owed to the least in the kingdom of God than to kings and rulers.[8] In yet another he anticipates violence and murderous opposition to the gospel from Gentile governors and kings.[9] Jesus’ most important statement on Roman authority occurs in the so-called Tribute Question, which I have already commented on.[10]

As well as speaking critically of the abusive use of power in surrounding society, Jesus required his discipleship community to turn prevailing patterns of power and greatness upside down. In this new society, there is to be no hierarchy of status, as prevailed in the contemporary religious community.[11] There is to be no domination of the weak by the powerful, no lording it over one another in the manner of Gentile rulers.[12] True greatness is shown by striving to be of least account![13] Leadership is servanthood.[14] And the wider social impact of the new kingdom community is not dependent on possessing human clout and influence, but on power of dependent faith, prayer and forgiveness.[15]

4. A repudiation of violence and war: Jesus knew full well that the existing system sanctioned violence to achieve its ends. He was well aware of the brutality of Roman rule. He spoke of Pilate’s ruthlessness, and of how the Romans domineered their subjects.[16] He knew that he himself would face torture and death at Roman hands,[17] and that his followers also faced the prospect of persecution and crucifixion.[18] He spoke gravely of the time ahead when the Romans would employ the dreadful horror of siege warfare against Jerusalem.[19] He also knew the violence that seethed beneath the surface of Jewish society.[20] Jesus was no starry-eyed idealist when it came to the subject of political violence.

Aware that the established order would use lethal force to oppose his kingdom-initiative, three existing options were available to him. He could take the Zealot option and strive to bring in the kingdom by military force. Or he could take the Qumran option and advocate the complete withdrawal of his messianic community into the desert away from the corruption of surrounding society. Or he could take the Establishment option and seek to make the best of a poor situation by co-operation or collaboration. Jesus rejected all three. Instead he chose the way of non-violent, sacrificial love and required the same of his followers (Matt 5:38–48). Jesus totally rejected war and violence as having any place in the exercise of God’s rule. To fight for the kingdom with the weapons of the enemy was to lose the kingdom by default. To fight for the kingdom by turning the other cheek, going the second mile, praying for one’s persecutors, loving one’s enemies, was to achieve true victory over satanic evil. It was a revolutionary way of being revolutionary. As Wright observes:

Anyone announcing the kingdom of YHWH was engaging in serious political action. Anyone announcing the kingdom but explicitly opposing armed resistance was engaging in doubly serious political action: not only the occupying forces, but all those who gave allegiance to the resistance movement would be enraged.[21]

It is here that Jesus’ exorcisms carried an important political message. It was common in Jesus’ day for people to ascribe the abject suffering of God’s people under Roman rule to the activity of superhuman demonic forces standing behind their pagan oppressors and their indigenous quislings. One manifestation of this spiritual tyranny was the susceptibility of vulnerable individuals to demonic possession. When Jesus cast out demons, therefore, he was not only healing the victims of societal dysfunction; he was symbolically challenging and defeating the spiritual authorities standing behind foreign repression. This is made extremely clear by the military language and imagery used to describe the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5:1–20, where a “legion” of demons is “dismissed” to enter a “troop” of unclean pigs, who then “charge” headlong down a slope and are “drowned in the sea”.[22] This episode is perhaps intended to underscore that personal and social liberation from the debilitating impact of colonial control is not to be achieved by military rebellion, and is not dependent on the violent expulsion of the Romans, but is available even now to those who embrace the renewing and peace-making power of God’s kingdom made available in Jesus.

Arguably it is by their compromise with military violence that the Christian credentials of so much conservative Christian politics are most open to question. It could not be sadder for Christian witness today that the two leading architects of the invasion of Iraq and the two most unapologetic proponents of the so-called war on terrorism are both confessing Christians who claim divine endorsement for their trust in the “tumult of war” (Hosea 10:14) instead of the “gospel of peace” (Eph 6:15) in their quest for international security.

CONCLUSION
Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God was a political gesture that impinged directly on the major dimensions of social and political life—the use of wealth and power, the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged from full participation in the wider community, and the employment of lethal violence to protect the unjust status quo. Jesus was critical of the prevailing social order and called for communal repentance (cf. Matt 11:20–24). He also laid down a new ethic for his followers so that they could serve as an instrument of societal renewal. In his messianic community, the weak are to be honoured, wealth is to be shared, leadership is to take the form of servanthood, and the way of non-violent, sacrificial love is to prevail. The vision of the coming kingdom and its justice is to be the supreme concern of its existence (Matt 6:33). That is to say, the primary formative power over its way of life is not the past or the present but the future, the new day coming, the time when God will put all things to right. As a colony of the age to come planted in the midst of the old order, the kingdom community is to serve both as an alternative expression of human community that summons mainstream society to change (a city set on a hill, Matt 5:14), and as a subversive force for change within the existing socio-political order (salt and light, Matt 5:13, 16).

Such is also to be the concern of the Christian community today, even if its social and political matrix is very different to that of first-century Palestine, and even though the task of translating Jesus’ political vision into concrete policies today is extremely difficult. But in broad terms, inasmuch as the biblical vision for the kingdom of God is the setting up of a universal realm of peace and justice on earth, the church as the community of the kingdom is called to a twofold political task. On the one hand, it is to proclaim the breakthrough of God’s new order by giving visible expression in its own life to the peace, justice and righteousness of God’s kingdom. On the other hand, it is to work tirelessly for peace and justice in surrounding society, to struggle against the forces of the old age—forces of nationalism, militarism, materialism, sexism and racism—which Christ has dethroned and which one day shall finally yield to God’s glorious future. Such is the politics of Jesus.

This article originally appeared in On The Road 32.

[1] For a brief summary see M. Hengel, Christ and Power (Dublin: Christian Journals, 1977), 15–21; James D.G. Dunn, Christian Liberty: A New Testament Perspective (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1993), 27–52. More fully see Alan Storkey, Jesus and Politics: Confronting the Powers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 1–94.

[2] See e.g. Mark 7:6–23; 12:1–12, 41–44; 13:9–10; Luke 11:42–44; 16:14-15; 18:9–14.

[3] Wengst, Pax Romana, 55.

[4] Cf. John 14:27; 18:36.

[5] Cf. Matt 10:34f; Luke 23:1–2.

[6] See R. J. Cassidy, Jesus, Society and Politics: A Study of Luke’s Gospel (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983), 17.

[7] Luke 22:25 cf. Mark 10:42/Matt 20:25.

[8] Matt 11:18/Luke 7:25.

[9] Mark 13:9f/Lk 21:12–13; cf. Matt 24:9.

[10] Mark 12:13–17/Matt 22:15–22/Luke 20:20–26.

[11] Matt 23:8–12

[12] Mark 10:42–43

[13] Mark 9:33–37/Matt 18:1–6/Luke 9:46–48; Mark 10:13–16/Matt 19:13–15/Luke 18:15–17.

[14] Luke 22:26

[15] Mark 11:20–25. On this passage, see Marshall Faith as a Theme, 159–74.

[16] Luke 13:1; 22:24–27.

[17] Mark 10:33–34/Matt 20:17–19/Luke 18:31–34.

[18] Mark 13:9–10/Luke 21:12–13; Mark 8:34–38.

[19] Luke 19:41–44; 21:20–24; 23:27–31.

[20] Matt 23:29–36; Luke 9:7–9, 19; 13:31–35; Mark 13:9–13.

[21] Wright, Jesus and Victory, 296, cf. 450, 465, 564–65.

[22] On this see Richard Dormandy, “The Expulsion of Legion: A Political Reading of Mark 5:1-20,” Expository Times 93/10 (2000): 335–37; Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1988), 190–94; Horsley, Jesus and Empire, 99–104.

Prof Christopher Marshall is the Diana Unwin Chair in Restorative Justice in the School of Government at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. He specialises in New Testament theology and ethics, peace theology and practice, and restorative justice (both theory and practice), and is an expert in the study of contemporary Anabaptist theology. His books include Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime and Punishment and Compassionate Justice: An Interdisiciplinary Dialogue with Two Gospel Parables on Law, Crime, and Restorative Justice.

A Prophet of God’s Justice: Reclaiming the Political Jesus (Part 2.1)

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Chris Marshall | Thursday, 4th June 2015

Read the previous part of this series here.

In the introduction to Part 1.1 of this series, Chris said:

“In this paper I want to offer an appraisal of some of the political themes that emerge in the gospel accounts of the ministry of Jesus. My thesis is radically simple (as well as simply radical) – it is that Jesus was an overtly political figure, that he had an identifiable political platform, and that the political values, commitments and priorities we see displayed in his teaching and praxis ought to play a determinative role in shaping and directing all subsequent Christian engagement in the political process.”

Having argued that "Jesus’ message of the dawning kingdom of God had significant political implications," Chris changes focus in the remainder of this series to discuss the positive dimensions of Jesus' political strategy.

JESUS’ TWO-FOLD POLITICAL STRATEGY
Broadly speaking Jesus’ political stance was characterized by a prophetic denunciation of the injustices and social evils of the prevailing social order on the one hand, including a strident declaration of divine judgment on the existing centres of power responsible for oppression and injustice, and, on the other hand, by the calling together of an alternative community to live according to the standards of God’s kingdom of justice and peace and thereby to model and effect the renewal of Israel as a whole. Commentators often underestimate the potential societal impact that such a “contrast society”, planted in the heart of mainstream society, is capable of. But, as Gerhard Lohfink observes, “the anti-social and corrupt systems of a dominant society cannot be attacked more sharply than by the formation of an anti-society in its midst. Simply through its existence, this new society is a more efficacious attack on the old structures than any program, without personal cost, for the general transformation of the world”.[1]

This twofold strategy of judgment and renewal, of confrontation and reconstruction, of political resistance and social revolution, is evident in at least four major areas of contemporary social life addressed by Jesus.[2] And, to reiterate my underlying thesis, it is the priorities, values and commitments we see at work in Jesus’ activity here that ought to furnish the normative framework for all subsequent political engagement in his name.

1. A rejection of social discrimination: Supremely characteristic of Jesus was his orientation to the social margins—the destitute, the weak, social outcasts, women, children, Samaritans, the physically deformed, those in prison, the sick and the possessed. The dawning of the kingdom of God, insisted Jesus, was good news for the socially disadvantaged.[3] It brought to them both the present comfort of knowing God’s acceptance and blessing despite their social exclusion and often self-blame, and the reassurance that God was now at work, through Jesus and mission, to end their suffering and restore them to freedom and wholeness.

Jesus combated social discrimination at two levels. He openly criticised the self-righteous arrogance of the religious experts,[4] and knowingly antagonized them by seeking intimate fellowship with sinners and outcasts.[5] At the same time, he assembled a new inclusive, egalitarian community in which the poor were to be given preference,[6] the sick and the imprisoned cared for,[7] women accorded dignity and equality,[8] children esteemed as models to be emulated,[9] and Samaritans and Gentiles embraced as equal objects of God’s favour.[10] From this it follows that any modern political programme that marginalises racial, ethnic or social groups, and which ignores or exacerbates the plight of the weak and downtrodden to promote the interests of the strong, even if it calls itself a “Christian” option, is diametrically opposed to the politics of Jesus.

2. A critique of economic exploitation: It is surely impossible to read Luke’s Gospel without sensing Jesus’ profound hostility to materialism and the relational and societal damage it causes. As an alternative source of security, the pursuit and hording of surplus wealth creates a barrier to radical trust in God and his kingdom.[11] Moreover, in a patronage-based economy the concentration of massive riches in the hands of a few was evidence of structural injustice in society. The rich prospered at the expense of the poor. Jesus’ words “for you always have the poor with you” should not be taken as a sign of his passive acquiescence to poverty in society.[12] They are, in fact, an implied rebuke, for according to Deuteronomy 15:11 enduring poverty was evidence of a failure to keep the laws of the covenant by practicing mutual sharing and collective responsibility.

Jesus’ use of the intriguing term “mammon of injustice” (Luke 16:9) may even imply that he saw in the single-minded pursuit of wealth an inherent tendency towards injustice. This is confirmed in his overt attack on the greedy rich of his day. “Woe to you who are rich now, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall hunger” (Luke 6:24-25). Jesus criticised the rich for three related evils: for accumulating unneeded surplus,[13] for ignoring the needs of the poor,[14] and for corruption and exploitation of the weak.[15] It is in this connection that we should probably understand Jesus’ climactic confrontation with the Temple establishment—which was undoubtedly his most overt and daring political-prophetic action.[16] There is no time to explore this extremely important episode here, but it was probably the way the Temple system had become integrated into the imperial system of domination and exploitation that Jesus most strongly objected to.[17]

By contrast, Jesus pronounced beatitude upon the poor. “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger, for you shall be full. Blessed are you who weep, for you shall laugh” (Luke 6:20-21).[18] Jesus is not here turning poverty, hunger and tears into “spiritual values” in themselves. The poor, the starving and the sorrowful are not blessed because of their condition but because God intends to reverse their situation. When God’s kingdom comes in its fullness, poverty and pain will be no more. In the meantime, God’s kingly power is at work in Jesus and his followers to bring healing and liberation and to create a new community to work against poverty, hunger and misery. Thus, as Klaus Wengst observes:

…the beatitudes prove also to be declarations of war against poverty, hunger and tears: they are concerned for radical change. They look to the coming kingdom of God for this change ... But this expectation is not just to be waited for; it has a reality in behaviour to match. When Jesus turns to those on the periphery, in his fellowship with his followers, people are already filled, already laugh, who would otherwise be pushed aside and have nothing to laugh about ... the hungry are filled and ... the domination of one person by another has come to an end.[19]

Not only were the poor and hungry to find dignity and acceptance within the new community, but a whole new attitude to material possessions was to prevail therein. Following Jesus entailed a commitment to share one’s material resources with those in need.[20] A lifestyle of simplicity,[21] material dependence[22] and constant vigilance against the “deceitfulness of riches” (Mark 4:19) are to be the hallmarks of the new community. In these ways, Jesus’ followers were to live ‘as if’ the provisions of the biblical Jubilee were being enacted in their midst.[23]

How very different is the prevailing political landscape of global capitalist society today, which makes an idol of market forces, promotes consumerism as a means of political survival, and, while mouthing platitudes to the contrary, exacerbates the plight of the poor and dispossessed in pursuit of an ever-greater concentration of wealth and power.

Read the final instalment in this series here. This article originally appeared in On The Road 32.

[1] G. Lohfink, Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith (London: SPCK, 1985), 95. So also John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 40.

[2] For the section that follows, see, more briefly, my Little Book of Biblical Justice (Intercourse: Good Books, 2004), 49–64. No attempt will be made to assess the authenticity of the various sayings ascribed to Jesus, nor to delineate the redactional interests of the individual evangelists. The themes reviewed here are sufficiently pervasive in the gospel traditions to be confident that they substantially reflect the perspective of Jesus, even allowing for sometimes extensive redactional shaping of the materials by the gospel writers.

[3] Luke 4:18–20; Matt 11:2–6/Luke 7:18–35.

[4] See e.g. Matt 9:13; 21:31; Luke 6:24f; 16:15.

[5] See e.g. Mark 2:15–17/Matt 9:10–13/Lk 5:27–30; Matt 11:19/Luke 15:1–2; 19:1–10.

[6] See e.g. Luke 14:12–24.

[7] Matt 25:31–46

[8] See e.g. Luke 8:1–3; 10:38–42; Mark 14:3–9; 15:40–41; John 3:7–38, etc.

[9] Mark 9:36,42/Matt 18:1–5/Luke 9:46–48; Mark 10:13–16/Matt 19:13–15/Luke 18:15–17.

[10] See e.g. Mark 7:24–30/Matt 15:21–28; Mark 11:17; 13:10; Matt 8:5–13/Luke 7:1–10; Matt 12:18; 21:43/Luke 20:16; Matt 28:19–20; Luke 9:51–55; John 4:7–42.

[11] Mark 4:19/Matt 13:22/Luke 8:14; Mark 10:17–31/Matt 19:16–30/Luke 18:18–30; Matt 6:21; Luke 12:16–21; 14:1–14; 16:13.

[12] Mark 14:7/Matt 26:11/John 12:8.

[13] Luke 12:15–21; 16:19; 21:1–4; Matt 11:8.

[14] Luke 10:25–37; 16:19–27.

[15] Mark 11:15–19; 12:40/Luke 20:47; Matt 23:23/Luke 11:42.

[16] Mark 11:15–18/Matt 21:12–13/Luke 19:45–46; John 2:14–22.

[17] The literature on this episode is now substantial, but see especially Herzog, Jesus Justice, 112–43, 191–99.

[18] On this see my essay “The Moral Vision of the Beatitudes: The Blessings of Revolution”, in Faith and Freedom: Christian Ethics in a Pluralist Culture (eds. D. Neville & P. Matthews; Sydney: Australian Theological Forum, 2003), 11–33.

[19] Klaus Wengst, Pax Romana and the Peace of Christ (London: SCM, 1987), 65.

[20] See e.g. Mark 10:17–30; Matt 6:2–4; Matt 7:7–11; Luke 6:35, 38; 8:1–3; 12:32–34; 19:1–10; 14:25–35; John 12:6; 13:29.

[21] Matt 6:19–34/Luke 12:22–31.

[22] Mark 6:7–13, cf. Luke 9:38; 10:4.

[23] Wright, Jesus and Victory, 295.

Prof Christopher Marshall is the Diana Unwin Chair in Restorative Justice in the School of Government at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. He specialises in New Testament theology and ethics, peace theology and practice, and restorative justice (both theory and practice), and is an expert in the study of contemporary Anabaptist theology. His books include Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime and Punishment and Compassionate Justice: An Interdisiciplinary Dialogue with Two Gospel Parables on Law, Crime, and Restorative Justice.

A Prophet of God’s Justice: Reclaiming the Political Jesus (Part 1.2)

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Chris Marshall | Monday, 1st June 2015

Read the first part of the series here.

In the first instalment of this series, Chris asserted that most Christians are "disturbingly deaf to the political dimensions of Jesus’ preaching and practice, and to its far-reaching implications for shaping an authentically Christian political witness today." He then went on to discuss reasons for this 'depoliticisation of Jesus', namely narrow concepts of "politics" amongst modern Christians, and the distorting influence of post-Enlightenment individualism on interpretations of Jesus' ministry. Here Chris discusses additional factors in the perpetuation of the depoliticisation of Jesus.

THE DEPOLICISATION OF JESUS (continued)

3. Fragmentary reading strategies: A third factor contributing to the prevalent depoliticisation of Jesus are the atomistic reading strategies employed by gospel readers and interpreters. All attention gets focused on isolated sayings of Jesus, or individual miracle stories, or the meaning of particular parables, with little consideration being given to how these individual items fit into the larger story being told by the evangelists or how they reflect the economic and socio-political realities of the first-century world in which the story is set.

This fragmentary approach is commonplace in both popular and scholarly approaches to the gospels. At a popular level, most preaching and devotional reading of the gospels concentrates on small tracts of text separated off from the larger narrative setting. Similarly church lectionaries, although a very ancient and helpful tool for engaging the full witness of Scripture, still do make a virtue out of breaking the gospel accounts down into very small units and distributing them throughout the year. More concerning however is what many gospel critics do. In the name of sound historical method, critical scholars apply “scientific” tests of authenticity to the Jesus-tradition in order to siphon off material that can be considered to be historically reliable. The limited amount of data extracted by this method is usually predominantly sayings-material—things Jesus said more than things Jesus did—since it is much harder to validate the historicity of third-person narratives which are full of fantastic features and clearly serve as Christian propaganda. The resulting collection of “authentic” sayings and parables are then treated as repositories of meaning in their own right, independent of the literary or historical context in which they occur in the gospel tradition.

The problems with this approach are manifold, not the least being that it inevitably reduces Jesus to a dehistoricised “talking head”, someone who hovers serenely above the mundane circumstances of ordinary life and communicates moral or spiritual insights in the form of decontextualised aphorisms, proverbs and parables, or by the occasional striking deed. But no real human being ever communicates that way. No one limits their speech to short sentences or brief sound bites unrelated to specific situations and disconnected from ongoing human relationships, or unhooked from the shared traditions, experiences and meanings of their audience. To try to understand the significance of Jesus’ words and deeds without reference to the concrete social and political circumstances of actual Jewish communities under Roman rule is like trying to understand the sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King without reference to the bitter legacy of American slavery, the injustices of segregation, and the struggles of the civil rights movement.[1]

The only way, then, to do justice to the individual words and deeds of Jesus is always to view them within the context of the larger gospel narrative of his life and mission, rooted as it is, and as Jesus himself historically was, is in the real life world of colonial Palestine, where prophetic and messianic movements of liberation were constantly springing up.

4. Jesus the prophet: Several times I have referred to Jesus as a Jewish prophet. There can be little doubt that the gospel writers present Jesus in such terms,[2] and in a good number of his own sayings Jesus refers to himself as a prophet.[3] His repeated warnings of impending judgment on the nation and its rulers are also evidence of Jesus’ prophetic persona.[4] It is precisely in his guise as a prophet that Jesus exercises such a politically-charged role. Much the same could be said for his messianic identity. It is extremely likely that Jesus saw himself as Israel’s awaited messiah, even if he was decidedly chary about employing the title itself, and he was indisputably executed by Pilate as a messianic pretender.[5] To claim messiahship was to assert a political function, since the most common expectation of the coming messiah is that he would be a princely warrior who would defeat God’s enemies, restore the throne of David, and lead Israel to universal sovereignty over the nations.

Yet there has been a curious reluctance among Christian interpreters to take seriously Jesus’ prophetic and messianic significance. This reluctance again has both popular and scholarly expressions. At a popular theological level, it is Jesus’ divinity that usually squeezes out his prophetic credentials. Jesus was not just a prophet, Christian apologists (rightly) insist, he was the incarnate Son of God, a divine being, not just a human being. Jews and Muslims may honour Jesus as a prophet, but, they (rightly) urge, we Christians know him as God’s only begotten son.

At a scholarly level, it is Jesus’ messianic self-consciousness that is more disputed. Many gospel critics are unconvinced that Jesus saw himself as a messiah, and while they may allow him the label of prophet in lieu, even that identity is stripped of much political content. There is even one strand of American scholarship that has now demoted Jesus further from the status of prophet to that of peasant sage or wisdom teacher or Cynic-like philosopher. These scholars, reacting negatively to the apocalyptic fantasies of American fundamentalism, strip Jesus’ preaching of all traces of apocalyptic judgment, leaving behind a harmless wandering bard who travelled around the countryside “teaching an alternative hippie-like lifestyle to a bunch of rootless nobodies”.[6] Why anyone, least of all Pilate, would want to crucify such a person is difficult to fathom.

But the evidence that Jesus considered himself to be a prophet, and was regarded by his contemporaries as such, is overwhelming. It is true that his closest followers soon came to regard him as much more than a prophet,[7] but they never saw him as less, and it was in the basic mould of a prophet that Jesus made his most decisive political impact. “Prophet” was a fluid category in Jesus’ day, embracing a wide diversity of functions and emphases.[8] Some prophets were clerical and establishment figures, others were more scholarly types; some were lone wolfs delivering oracles of judgment or deliverance, others were popular leaders of mass movements who modelled themselves on the great prophetic figures of the past, like Moses, Joshua and Elijah, and who proclaimed God’s imminent intervention to bring deliverance from Roman servitude and idolatry. Jesus fits best into this latter category of a popular prophet leading a proletarian movement of liberation and renewal, centred on a distinctive understanding of God’s kingdom and its implications. Distinctive it certainly was, especially in its foreswearing of hatred and violence toward the enemy, but it was not apolitical, for, as Wright observes, “anyone who was announcing God’s kingdom … was engaging in political activity. The question is, rather, what sort of politics were they undertaking, and with what end in view”.[9]

5. A kingdom not of this world: The four factors I have discussed so far that have served to depoliticise Jesus—the spurious separation of religion and politics, the distorting grid of Western individualism, the fragmenting of the gospel story into isolated bits and pieces, and the discomfort with Jesus’ prophetic or messianic office—all come to roost in the actual exposition of the text. Those who not only miss but positively resist the idea of a politically engaged Jesus cite two texts in particular as proof that Jesus wasn’t much concerned with political affairs. The first is Jesus’ response to Pilate’s question about whether he considered himself to be the king of the Jews

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” … Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:35–38)

This text more than any other has been used by conservative interpreters to encourage Christian quietism and disengagement from political or social justice issues, since the kingdom which Jesus proclaims “is not of this world….it is not from here”. It is a heavenly, not an earthly, kingdom. The second text comes from the so-called Tribute Question passage, where Jesus is asked directly about whether it is acceptable to support Caesar’s regime through paying taxes.

Then they sent to him some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said. And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.” And they brought one. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “Caesar’s.” Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at him (Mark 12:13–17).

Upon this text a thorough-going, and thoroughly baleful, “two kingdoms” theology has been constructed, according to which the State is deemed to have rightful charge of social and political affairs, while the church has control of spiritual and religious matters.[10] Christians must therefore be good, obedient citizens in society in recognition of Caesar’s legitimate authority, but they should concentrate most of their energies in developing their relationship to God and serving the church, and leave worldly affairs to those whom God has appointed to rule. It would be no exaggeration to say that without this reading of Jesus’ famous words “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”, reinforced by Paul’s call to Christian submission to ruling authorities in Romans 13:1–6, the Nazi holocaust might never have happened.Quote Block Marshall3There is no time to exegete either of these two passages in detail here.[11] Suffice it to say that the familiar readings of both texts are dangerously misguided. Even in the context of John’s Gospel—the most “spiritual” of all the gospels—Jesus’ saying “my kingdom is not of this world” cannot be taken as an affirmation that God’s kingdom is a purely spiritual reality unrelated to worldly realities. After all it was out of love for this world that God sent Christ into the world in the first place, in order that “through him the world might be saved” (John 3:16–17). The term “kingdom” here, as always in biblical tradition, has the active force of “rule” or “kingship” or “power” more than place or territory or realm, so that what Jesus is really saying is that his style of exercising kingly authority is unlike that of other kings. His kingship conforms, not to brutal coercive rule of Herod or Caesar or Caiaphas, but to the compassionate, healing rule of God. It does not rest on violent coercion but on loving persuasion.

That is why in the second part of the verse, which is hardly ever quoted by conservative apologists, Jesus explains that “if my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews”. The thing that most differentiates Jesus’ kingship from worldly forms of kingship is its non-violence. His authority is “not from here”—it is not molded by realpolitik considerations. If it were, his followers would have launched a violent campaign to seize Jerusalem and install him on throne. Instead God’s kingdom exerts its power by peaceful means. It is still a political reality (it is still about power), but it embodies the politics of peace, not the politics of conquest.

Jesus’ reply to the question about tribute points in the same direction. Jesus’ enemies seek to trap him with a Catch-22 question: “Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Both Jesus’ questioners and Jesus himself knew full well that, according to God’s law, it was unlawful to offer homage to a pagan ruler who blasphemously claimed universal sovereignty for himself. In recent memory Jewish radicals had gone to horrifying deaths for their refusal to pay tribute to Caesar in the name of the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me”. But both parties also knew full well that, according to Roman law, it was obligatory to pay taxes and tribute to the imperium. So Jesus was trapped. If he endorsed taxation, he was in open breach of the Torah, at least in the eyes of the faithful. If he opposed taxation, he was in defiance of Rome and could well have to pay for it with his life.

In a brilliant riposte, Jesus evades the trap by snaring his opponents in their own petard. First he asks his interrogators to show him a denarius, the Roman coin used for tribute payment. The very fact that they can so quickly produce a coin exposes the insincerity of their inquiry. For their very possession of foreign currency confirmed that his questioners had themselves already opted for subservience to Rome, even while provoking Jesus to declare his Torah-based opposition to it. Jesus then asks them to verbalise whose image (eikon) and whose title the coin bore. In doing this he was both deliberately underscoring the blasphemous nature of the inscription on the coin, which ascribed deity to the emperor (“Tiberius Caesar, Augustus, Son of the Divine Augustus”), and reminding his hearers of who God’s true image bearers in the world really are, namely God’s own people (cf. Gen 1:27). Only then does Jesus make his climactic declaration about rendering to Caesar what is his due and to God what is his.

Given that Jesus had first intentionally highlighted the idolatrous nature of Caesar’s coinage, it is unthinkable that his final pronouncement was intended to be a straightforward endorsement of his listeners’ obligation to pay their taxes, though this is how it is often interpreted.[12] If his words amounted to an unambiguous affirmation of Rome’s right to levy tribute, it is hard to see how his enemies could construe them as sedition and report him to Pilate for “perverting our nation and forbidding us to pay taxes to Caesar” (Luke 23:2). If anything, Jesus’ statement is more naturally taken as a bold declaration of independence from Rome’s tribute-generating machine. But Jesus stops short of explicitly forbidding payment of tribute. Instead he draws attention to the fundamental principle at issue: One must first be clear on what rightfully belongs to Caesar and what rightfully belongs to God, then decide on the specifics of tribute. Of course every Jew knew the “earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1), and that their political allegiance was owed exclusively to Yahweh alone. That meant that nothing belonged of right to Caesar, least of all the God-given land of Israel and its produce (cf. Lev 25:23).

It does not follow from this, however, that Jesus was encouraging outright tax refusal by his Jewish compatriots, which would have been catastrophic. Instead he was inviting them to reframe the meaning of the payment they must make by turning it from a symbol of subservience into a symbol of resistance. Since Israel’s God is lord of all, Caesar could legitimately claim ownership to nothing—except one thing, the despicable coins minted in his own honour. So in returning these idolatrous coins to their pagan owner, albeit in the form of coercive taxes, Jesus’ hearers could understand themselves to be symbolically ridding God’s land of the symbols of imperial domination and reasserting their own vocation as God’s true image bearers on earth.[13]Quote Block Marshall2To sum up thus far: Once we cast off the modern blinkers we bring to the gospel story, it becomes clear that Jesus’ message of the dawning kingdom of God had significant political implications. His announcement that God’s long awaited reign was now asserting itself in the world, and his consequent summons for people to rally to the flag, had, as Wright observes “far more in common with the founding of a revolutionary party than with what we now think of as either ‘evangelism’ or ‘ethical teaching’”.[14] It is a drastic impoverishment of Jesus’ message and a blunting of its radical edge to suggest that Jesus was only concerned with the spiritual needs and personal conduct of individuals. The most fatal objection to this familiar portrait of Jesus is that it fails utterly to meet the criterion of crucifiability. As William Herzog observes:

If [Jesus] had been the kind of teacher popularly portrayed in the North American church, a master of the inner life, teaching the importance of spirituality and a private relationship with God, he would have been supported by the Romans as part of their rural pacification program. That was exactly the kind of religion the Romans wanted peasants to have. Any belief that he encouraged … withdrawal from the world of politics and economics into a spiritual or inner realm would have met with official approval.[15]

But that is not what happened. Instead Jesus and his movement were perceived by the imperial and colonial authorities to be a political time bomb that urgently needed defusing, and for very good reason. To understand why, it is important to recognize the methodology Jesus used to make political comment and work for social change, since the political options open to Jesus were quite unlike those open to us in liberal democratic societies.

Read the next instalment in this series here. This article originally appeared in On The Road 32.

[1] I borrow this helpful analogy from Horsley, Jesus and Empire, 13.

[2] Matt 13:57/Mark 6:4, cf. Luke 4:24; Matt 8:28; Matt 16:14/Luke 9:19; Matt 21:11, 26; Mark 6:14–16/ Matt 14:1–2/Luke 9:7–9; Luke 7:16, 39–50; 13:33; John 1:21; 4:19; 6:14; 7:40, 52; Mark 14:65/Matt 26:68; Luke 22:64; 24:19; Acts 3:22; 7:37.

[3] Mark 6:4/Matt 13:57; Luke 4:24/GTh 31; John 4:44; Luke 13:31-33. Jesus also regarded John the Baptist as a prophet: Luke 7:26/Matt 11:9; cf. John 1:22; Mark 11:27–33.

[4] For perhaps the most thorough recent analysis of judgment in Jesus’ preaching, see Marius Resier, Jesus and Judgment: The Eschatological Proclamation in its Jewish Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997). See also Dale C. Allison, Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and its Interpreters (New York: T & T Clark, 2005), 56–110.

[5] Mark 15:1–38; Matt 27:11–32; Luke 23:1–46; John 18:28–19:38.

[6] Horsley, Jesus and Empire, 7.

[7] See Mark 8:27–30, cf. 6:14–16. To be sure, Jesus deems John the Baptist to be “more than a prophet” (Luke 7:26/Matt 11:9). But significantly, Jesus is only once referred to as a prophet outside gospels (Acts 3:22). His significance transcended established prophetic categories.

[8] On different types of prophet in the first century, see Wright, Jesus and Victory, 153–55; Herzog, Jesus Justice, 51–60. See also Morna D. Hooker, The Signs of a Prophet: The Prophetic Actions of Jesus (London: SCM, 1997) and David R. Kaylor, Jesus the Prophet: His Vision of the Kingdom on Earth (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994).

[9] Wright, Jesus and Victory, 203.

[10] See my fuller discussion in Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime and Punishment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 16–30.

[11] On the tribute passage, see Wright, Jesus and Victory, 502–07; Herzog, Jesus Justice, 219–32; Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 307–17.

[12] Contra Oscar Cullman, The State in the New Testament (London: SCM, 1957), 34–38; W.D. Davies, “Ethics in the New Testament”, Interpreters’ Dictionary of the Bible II:171.

[13] So Herzog, Jesus Justice, 231–32.

[14] Wright, Jesus and Victory, 301. This interpretation fits well with the way Walter Wink, and others, understand the strategy underlying Jesus’ injunctions in Matthew 5:21–48. For a brief account, see Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium (New York: Doubleday, 1998), esp. 98–111.

[15] Quoted by Nelson-Pallmeyer, Jesus Against Christianity: Reclaiming the Missing Jesus (Harrisburg: Trinity, 2001), 236–36.

Prof Christopher Marshall is the Diana Unwin Chair in Restorative Justice in the School of Government at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. He specialises in New Testament theology and ethics, peace theology and practice, and restorative justice (both theory and practice), and is an expert in the study of contemporary Anabaptist theology. His books include Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime and Punishment and Compassionate Justice: An Interdisiciplinary Dialogue with Two Gospel Parables on Law, Crime, and Restorative Justice.

A Prophet of God’s Justice: Reclaiming the Political Jesus (Part 1.1)

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Chris Marshall | Wednesday, 28th May 2015

INTRODUCTION
In this article I want to offer an appraisal of some of the political themes that emerge in the gospel accounts of the ministry of Jesus. My thesis is radically simple (as well as simply radical)—it is that Jesus was an overtly political figure, that he had an identifiable political platform, and that the political values, commitments and priorities we see displayed in his teaching and praxis ought to play a determinative role in shaping and directing all subsequent Christian engagement in the political process.

So the proposal itself is quite simple. But it is also, in truth, quite radical. It is radical because it contradicts the conventional view of Jesus as a thoroughly apolitical figure, someone who had no interest in, perhaps even an antipathy towards, political activity. According to the usual view, Jesus came as a spiritual saviour, not a political activist. He proclaimed a heavenly kingdom, not a worldly kingdom. He was concerned with the salvation of souls, not with the transformation of society. He called for personal righteousness, not for political change. He may well have had a theology (after all he talked about God a lot), and possibly even an ethics (consider the Sermon on the Mount), but he certainly didn’t have a politics (he had nothing to say about the role of the State, and little more about the state of society).

We are all familiar with this way of thinking. It is taken for granted by many sincere Christians, especially in conservative churches, and is firmly entrenched in the popular imagination as well. A non-political Jesus has been a basic tenet of both Christian piety and a good deal of standard biblical scholarship for a very long time. Preachers and scholars alike have assumed an almost total divorce between the aims of Jesus and the concrete political issues of his day. It is not surprising then that many people today would be perplexed by, or distinctly uncomfortable with, any talk of a political Jesus.

But is a non-political Jesus historically (or even theologically) credible? Is it really possible to isolate Jesus from the social and political problems of his time? Is it true to the gospel narratives to do so? If the kingdom of God which Jesus proclaimed had nothing to do with the kingdoms of this world, why did the worldly rulers of his day conspire to kill him? How could Jesus claim to be the long-awaited royal messiah of Jewish expectation without coming to terms with the political and military implications of that role? Was Jesus the only Palestinian Jewish teacher of his day who was unaffected by the intense sufferings of his people languishing under Roman imperial domination and indifferent to their yearnings for national liberation? And why would the Romans condemn Jesus to death by crucifixion—a form of execution used primarily to intimidate provincial rebels and discourage resistance to imperial rule—if he were merely an innocuous, otherworldly spiritual guide who posed no real threat to Caesar’s dominion? Can Jesus’ death be satisfactorily explained without consideration of his perceived political significance?

Obviously not, as a growing body of Jesus scholarship now recognises. Indeed in their attempt to give account of the historical Jesus, several scholars now appeal to the so-called “criterion of crucifiability”. By this they mean that no putative reconstruction of the life and ministry of Jesus can claim to be historically plausible if it does not adequately explain why he ended up suffering the politically-expressive penalty of crucifixion. Given that crucifixion was reserved mainly for slaves and rebels among subject peoples, the fact that Jesus experienced such a fate must surely indicate that the Romans considered him to be an insurrectionist of at least some kind. The longstanding failure of Christian interpreters to reckon sufficiently with this brute fact betrays, one might suspect, not just a failure of historical imagination, but also an instinctive anti-Judaism (a failure to take seriously Jesus’ role as a first-century Jewish prophet), as well as an incipient Docetism (a failure to take seriously Christ’s full humanity and the historical situatedness of the incarnation).

There is a second reason too why my thesis about the politics of Jesus is more radical than it might appear. To propose, as I have, that the political values and priorities evident in the words and deeds of Jesus ought to exercise normative authority for subsequent Christian political activity is radical because it flies in the face of the way the mainstream Christian Church has itself exercised political power and influence down through much of its history, at least since the time of Constantine. As we will see, in his own teaching and activity Jesus presented a stark alternative to the ruthless and coercive political practices of the Roman Empire and its client Jewish and Herodian rulers, and paid the ultimate price for doing so. Happily Jesus’ alternative political vision was vindicated by God through his resurrection from the dead, and subsequently by the rapid spread of communities of his followers throughout the world professing loyalty to the lordship of Christ rather than to the lordship of Caesar.[1]

But in time the empire struck back. Having failed to suppress the Christian movement by force, it chose to co-opt it. Christianity became the State religion. The maverick Jewish prophet who had inspired this new religious movement was increasingly forgotten, or was rather transposed into a heavenly imperial lord who, on the one hand, secured eternal salvation for the faithful by the merits of his death and resurrection, and, on the other hand, authorised the existing empire to carry on its politics much as before, though with some modifications. It wasn’t long before the institutional church itself began to replicate in its own life and behaviour the hierarchical structures and coercive instincts of the wider imperial order, craving prestige and honour for its bishops and clerics and promoting its own self-interest on earth by a pernicious combination of flattery and battery.[2]

In this new Christendom setting, to be a Christian no longer required, at least for the majority of believers, and certainly not for those in positions of authority, any conscientious commitment to the egalitarian and peacemaking politics of Jesus of Nazareth. It simply required the good fortune to have been born into the Christian empire, and the good sense to subscribe to orthodox Christian belief. In Christendom’s orthodoxy the figure of Christ came to function more as the central link in the doctrine of salvation than as a meaningful paradigm for Christian values and praxis. Tellingly the church’s historic creeds are all but silent on ethics in general, and on the strenuous ethical demands of Jesus in particular. Arguably it is this omission that allowed the church historically to bear the name of Christ yet do the work of the devil at the same time. In the interests of doctrinal orthodoxy, the church raised armies and waged war, tortured heretics and burned witches, persecuted dissenters and compelled conversions. It was only able to do so because it had first depoliticised the teaching and example of Jesus; it had silenced the prophetic voice which had once railed against oppression and hierarchical domination.Quote Block Marshall1Thankfully the church no longer burns witches or deploys its own armies. But most confessing Christians, and a disappointing number of our pastors, bishops and theological educators, not to mention our politicians, are still disturbingly deaf to the political dimensions of Jesus’ preaching and practice, and to its far-reaching implications for shaping an authentically Christian political witness today. But why is this the case? Why do modern readers of the gospels still commonly, if not completely, miss the political ramifications of Jesus’ proclamation? And why is it that today’s Christian voice in the public square is so often bereft of any anchoring in the story of Jesus, whether explicit or implicit, thus allowing alternative sources of authority, such as conservative middle class values and morality, to fill the vacuum? Whence comes this depoliticised Jesus?

THE DEPOLICISATION OF JESUS
There are, I think, five main factors that have permitted, and continue to perpetuate, the profound depoliticising of Jesus that prevails today, both within the church and without.

1. Politics ancient and modern: The first, and most determinative, reason why modern Christians fail to notice the political character of Jesus’ activity is that we work with a very narrow conception of what constitutes “political” activity. We come to the New Testament with the modern dichotomy between church and state in our minds, and think of politics in terms of the science and art of government, the concrete operation of centralised institutional mechanisms for running society. Because Jesus did not form a political party or run for office in the Sanhedrin, because he did not lay down a blueprint for society or theorise about the nature of social or economic institutions, modern readers quickly conclude that he was an apolitical spiritual teacher who kept himself aloof from the sordid realities of political life. He accepted that people owe to Caesar the duties of good citizenship, his real concern was that his hearers rendered unto God what was God’s, namely their wholehearted love and spiritual devotion.

From this it follows that the conflict Jesus is constantly embroiled in in the gospels is to be viewed as a religious conflict with religious leaders over religious issues, not a conflict with political leaders over political issues. Jesus is seen primarily as a religious reformer who evoked predictable hostility from the religious establishment because of his new religious views. This goes hand in hand with the presumption that it is the ethnic identity and religious belief of Jesus’ hearers that are most important for understanding Jesus’ interaction with them, much more so than the enormous social, economic and political disparities that existed among them. Jesus’ contemporaries are all lumped together as “Jews” who adhered to the religion of “Judaism”. All other differences among them in terms of social location and historical experience are considered secondary or even irrelevant to appreciating the thrust of Jesus’ message and the goal of his mission.

But all this is highly questionable. It is patently anachronistic to project onto ancient Jewish society (or any other traditional society for that matter) the modern Western distinction between church and state. Religion, politics and economics formed an indivisible unity in Jewish Palestine, and indeed in antiquity in general. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day also exercised political control, with access to the corridors of power being determined by personal wealth and hereditary claim and hence open to only a tiny elite. The law of Moses was the law of the land, and the Sanhedrin, chaired by the high priest, was the major arm of domestic government. The Temple was the centre of spiritual and civil authority, as well as the powerhouse of the Jerusalem economy and a cause of huge economic strain on the common people. It was also the primary institution for conferring legitimacy on the Rome’s high priestly client rulers, who themselves were finally responsible to the Roman procurator.

From this it follows that Jesus’ conflict with the scribal and priestly authorities, which looms so large in the gospel accounts, was simultaneously a conflict with the political managers of the nation, as well as with those who controlled most of the nation’s wealth, much of which had been expropriated from the peasantry. As Richard Horsley points out, the primary division in first century Palestine was not one between finely nuanced schools of theological interpretation but between the rulers and the ruled, between the tiny minority of wealthy power brokers and their retainers, and the vast majority of ordinary people, who were typically indebted and always vulnerable to abuse.[3] The gospels make it clear that it was to this latter group Jesus primarily directed his mission. It was a target audience which, because of it severely oppressed condition, was already highly politicised; it was perpetually prone to social unrest and a fertile recruiting ground for the many popular movements of protest and revolt that sprung up in Jewish Palestine during the Roman period. To imagine, then, that Jesus could address the liberating message of God’s kingdom (itself a political category) to this exploited and downtrodden group without thereby engaging in political activity, and politics of the most subversive kind, is to fail to reckon with the semantic content of Jesus’ language and the concrete socio-political realities of the period.

It is true, of course, that Jesus did not speculate about the structures of human society in the manner of a Greek philosopher or modern policy maker. He was a prophet not a philosopher. Nor did he lay out a master-plan for the operation of societal institutions. Had he done so, it would have long since become obsolete and irrelevant. But this does not mean that he was indifferent to political affairs. Politics is essentially about the exercise of power—social, economic, cultural, religious and coercive power—in the polis, in society, and about these matters, as we shall see, Jesus had much to say.

Moreover the political ramifications of what he taught and practiced did not escape his opponents. Jesus’ message and lifestyle, his disregard for certain traditions and customs, his accentuation of the Torah’s central imperatives of justice, mercy and faithfulness, his claim to divine authority over the evil powers that oppressed God’s people, his high-handed action in the Temple precincts, his consorting with outcasts sinners, and much more, were perceived by his enemies as a challenge to the very cornerstones of Jewish society and ultimately to the Roman provincial peace.[4] It is not surprising therefore that those most antagonistic to Jesus’ articulation of the rule of God were those in positions of religious, political and military power in the ruling establishment of Israel, both Jewish and Roman. They had a vested interest in the way things were and had most to lose from Jesus’ demand for the reordering of personal and social relationships in accordance with the eschatological will of God.[5]

2. The interpretive grid of post-Enlightenment individualism: A second factor that perpetuates apolitical readings of the Jesus story is the distorting influence of Western individualism. Modern interpreters tend to view Jesus as a solitary figure who interacted with other detached individuals on a one-to-one basis. He did not engage with civic groups or political institutions or social networks but only with receptive (or sometimes hostile) individuals, summoning them to personal conversion and spiritual renewal.

Now it is demonstrably true that Jesus interacted with individual personalities, like Nicodemus and Jairus, Bartimaeus and the Roman centurion, the Gerasene demonic and the woman at the well, and he showed a striking respect for individual conscience and choice. It is also true that he required of a select group of his followers a willingness to subordinate the responsibilities of family life to the more urgent demands of extending his message to others. Some individuals had to abandon homes and businesses, and to forego obligations to parents and local communities, in order to join Jesus on his itinerant preaching ministry.[6] In this sense Jesus prioritised individual responsibility over the obligations of social convention. But it would be a huge mistake to conclude from this that Jesus was solely concerned with the spiritual welfare of autonomous individuals or that he encouraged the disintegration of communal life by detaching people permanently from their social environment.

It is crucial to recognise that in pre-modern Jewish society individual identity was inherently relational in character. People derived their sense of selfhood, personal esteem and well-being from their participation in wider social networks, especially those centred on the extended family and the local village community. Western individualism promotes the deception that human personhood and fulfilment are somehow inherent in individuals as free-wheeling, self-aware autonomous agents. The ancients knew better. No person is an island; humanity requires co-humanity; self-knowledge derives from fellowship with others.[7] The reality is that people’s lives are always embedded in social networks and shared cultural traditions. That being so, it would have been impossible for Jesus to address the circumstances of individuals without at the same time affecting the character of the communities to which they belonged, which were in turn deeply affected by the wider patterns of colonial domination and exploitation.

It is worth observing that even when Jesus interacted with individual figures he usually did so in public space, under the notice of the “crowds”. When Jesus visited towns and hamlets to teach and heal, he typically went to the synagogue where the whole village populace would gather. Synagogues in the first-century were not just religious institutions; they were also places where community education, discussion and decision-making took place. They were the local assemblies in which the more-or-less self-governing village communities of Galilee and Judea managed their own affairs. As such they were quasi-political entities, and in visiting them “Jesus was more like a politician on the campaign trail than a schoolmaster … more like a subversive playwright than an actor”.[8]

Read the next instalment in this series here. This article originally appeared in On The Road 32.

[1] Cf. Acts 10:36; Rom 10:9, 12; 1 Cor 12:3; Phil 2:11; Rev 17:14.

[2] Cf. Alan Kreider, The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom (Harrisburg: Trinity, 1999), esp. 33–42.

[3] Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: the Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 59–60; also William R. Herzog, Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God: A Ministry of Liberation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 90–108.

[4] Cf. Luke 19:39; John 11:50.

[5] See Christopher D. Marshall, Faith as a Theme in Mark’s Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 179–82.

[6] On this see the seminal book by Martin Hengel, The Charismatic Leader and his Followers (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1981).

[7] On the implications of this for human rights theory, see my Crowned with Glory and Honor: Human Rights ion the Biblical Tradition (Telford: Pandora, 2001).

[8] N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), 172.

Prof Christopher Marshall is the Diana Unwin Chair in Restorative Justice in the School of Government at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. He specialises in New Testament theology and ethics, peace theology and practice, and restorative justice (both theory and practice), and is an expert in the study of contemporary Anabaptist theology. His books include Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime and Punishment and Compassionate Justice: An Interdisiciplinary Dialogue with Two Gospel Parables on Law, Crime, and Restorative Justice.