Teaching Peace Nonviolence and the Liberal Arts: David Janzen says, “One difficulty with the violent image of God is that it appears to construe God as a rather capricious being, changing the divine mind from one setting to the next.” This argument is very helpful with giving me a voice for challenging or offering a new lens for those of the African American tradition to view the images of God. Janzen offers help to us for viewing a God who “could not demand killing or enforce capital punishment, or sanction genocide” if we are to view this God through Jesus Christ. This reading also caused me to reassess the way in which I view the biblical canon as a whole. If we are to be true to the Trinitarian theology that we confess then how can we present one as violent and the other as peaceful?
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God Does Not Demand Blood:
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Bell offers a great statement about the redemptive work of Christ viewed through the cross. He argues, “Jesus comes to us in love to renew the friendship/communion that we rejected. Jesus come to us with the offer of friendship with God. It is not violence of the cross that saves us. Rather, it is the love of God expressed in Jesus that saves us.” This argument is also helpful in understanding how Jesus work is redemptive for us and that it is not with the violent means of the cross. Bell presents the Christian faith with a true picture of how Christ work with love redeems humanity, and not the blood that was shed. We do not serve a God, who is seeking after blood like a
Believers of the Old and New Testaments claim that violence is a sin and can only lead to more brutality and death; poet Tony Barnstone firmly agrees. In his poem “Parable in Praise of Violence” Barnstone lambastes the American obsession with violence-- that it is often triggered by inevitable events which could be handled in different manners. The speaker in “Parable in Praise of Violence” reflects on all parts of his “sinful” culture and comes to the realization that people often use violence as a way to deal with emotions of grief and anger caused by events and concepts they cannot explain.
In Dorothy Day’s article, Room for Christ, she presents making room for Christ as always seeking ways to repay Christ through good deeds committed in the present. These good deeds are deeds that do not necessarily benefit ourselves, but the lives of the people around us. It is the people who suffer in our time that are now Christ. How we act upon these suffering people, is how we act upon Christ. In Room for Christ, Dorothy says, “He made heaven hinge on the way we act towards Him in his disguise of commonplace, frail and ordinary human beings” (3).
God has become angry with his people. He complains in the fifteenth century English play Everyman about humans and their obsession with material items, riches, and wealth. Men and women, he feels, have taken for granted their blessings. God wants to reprimand Everyman for his sinful life and sends Death to summon him. At the beginning of the allegorical work where figures and actions symbolize general truths, a messenger shares God’s concerns. The messenger tells the audience to watch and listen closely to the morality play so they can learn a lesson about life. Everyman fears Death, and he desires to know what one must do to earn salvation and enter heaven. The writer then implies that the way to achieve salvation is by doing good works. Through positive deeds, a man has the capability of enjoying communion with Christ (McRae 306-307). Everyman’s author wrote the play before the Protestant Reformation, so the piece of literature shares the view of Roman Catholicism during that period. Roman Catholics often rely on a spiritual leader’s interpretation of the Scriptures and some additional texts, while Protestants believe the Bible alone should studied by each individual believer. Biblical Christianity teaches something different from what Everyman does. The Bible stresses that salvation occurs through faith and belief in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for humankind’s sins on Calvary’s cross. St. Paul in the book of Ephesians writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (2.8-10). When Christians...
Christianity falls under the category of Theism, which is the belief in only one personal god. Christian worldview believes that God sent humanity His only son so that we can learn about God and how He wants us to act. Jesus is crucified later in His life on a cross, which relieved us from losing a relationship with God due to our sins. When analyzing the Christian worldview, we learn that God came to earth in human form as Jesus Christ to experience life with humanity and restore earth back to harmony. In this paper I will discuss God, Jesus, and humanity individually, how restoration will occur, and finally, analyze and reflect on the Christian worldview.
...e most such works, it tries to convince heathens to convert by co-opting the extant value system. Christ emerges as a powerful king who will stoically suffer for us, and reward us, for the price of our piety.
As Christians, we should demonstrate Christ’s love manifested on the cross. With that exact same love, he
John Stott’s The Cross of Christ will remain a fixture on anyone’s bookshelf who seeks to delve into the depths of Christology. This book is not one that is read once and consumed in completion but promises to continue to challenge and inform the reader upon multiple encounters. With an urgency to awaken the heart of the believer to the centrality of the Cross, Stott shares his own heart and passion while continuing to be precise, logical, and thorough. Its universal impact on one’s conceptions of one’s faith and the actions that flow from that recognition, make it a great tool for ministers and leaders wishing to disciple younger believers into the profundities it has to offer.
This shows that sacrifice in the name of the Lord is the root to unity with God, which is what Christians are searching for in life. Thus, martyrdom provided an example to the early Christian Church of the characteristics essential to being united with God and Jesus: obedience and faith in the Lord. In addition to this, it has been suggested that Jesus was the archetypal martyr because he was the ultimate witness of God, who was crucified for the sins of all humanity. (Evans, 2007, P.72) Because Jesus led his people by example (John 13:15), his followers would be portraying the highest form of commitment to their faith by being martyred. Hence, obedience and true faith lead to salvation. Furthermore, this shows that faith is important to the individual regardless of the views of other people, which is comparable with increasingly secular society of modern day (Census Data, 2011): religion is decreasing but religious institutes, both old and new, still play a meaningful role in individuals’ lives because of the benefits they provide to them (Berger, 1999,
My discussion class chose to be part of the programming and logistics committee for the Nonviolence Teach-In and my group chose to perform a skit for our time slot. We knew we wanted to do something in honor of Reverend Lawson, but we also wanted to make sure that our performance would resonate with audiences and hopefully teach them a method of nonviolence that would be applicable for this day and age. We chose to perform a mock demonstration of what Reverend Lawson’s lunch counter sit-in trainings would look like, as well as a reenactment of a protest done by undocumented UCLA students on Wilshire Boulevard. In preparation of the Teach-In, my group and I met up several times in order to write a script that would be an accurate representation
"God of the Oppressed" is brilliantly organized into ten chapters. These chapters serve as the building blocks to the true understanding of Cone’s Black Theology. This progressive movement begins with an introduction of both him and his viewpoint. He explains that his childhood in Bearden, Arkansas and his membership to Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E) has taught him about the black Church experience and the sociopolitical significance of white people. “My point is that one’s social and historical context decides not only the questions we address to God but also the mode of form of the answers given to the questions.” (14) The idea of “speaking the truth” is added at this point because to go any further the reader must understand the reason and goal for Black Theology. Through the two sources in that shape theology, experience and scripture, white theology concludes that the black situation is not a main point of focus. Cone explains the cause for this ignorance, “Theology is not a universal language; it is interested language and thus is always a reflection of the goals and aspirations of a particular people in a definite social setting.” (36) This implies that one’s social context shapes their theology and white’s do not know the life and history of blacks. As the reader completes the detailed analysis of society’s role in shaping experiences, Cone adds to the second source, scripture.
In his introduction, Arrington reviews the Biblical doctrine of salvation and how that it is the heart of the Christian faith. He asserts that the significance of Soteriology is to show all that God has done to set us free from the bondage of sin and guilt in order to bring us to the glorious condition of blessedness that Christians enter when Christ returns from heaven (21). In the New Testament, Arrington states that the words save and salvation have a wide range of meanings. Those meanings include strong physical components in that faith in Jesus saves and that salvation offers options such as deliverance from enemies and bodily health but it is predominately used in the New Testament as delivering us from sin. His focus is on how God used Christ and his death at Calvary and that the writers of the gospels utilize narratives on the P...
Jesus Christ shows us that in order to live a good human life we must be intact with their humanity by helping others through the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. As humans we should always be there for one another, instead of putting each other down. From feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and sheltering the homeless. To counseling the doubtful, forgiving offenses willingly and comforting the afflicted we are following the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. By helping through Jesus Christ we are helping others.
One of the greatest debates that continues to rage on amongst theologians, as well as others, is in regards to the balance between the humanity and the divinity of the person of Jesus Christ (also known as Christology). This debate can be especially challenging in the Scripture passage of Matthew 26:36-46 where the reader finds Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Many of the ancient and medieval theologians worked to explain away apparent humanistic characteristics seen in this section of the text, while more modern theologians seem to be more open to embracing these characteristics. While the ancient and medieval theologians may not have embraced the humanity of Jesus, the translations and backgrounds of the words “cup”, “grieved”, and “agitated”, along with the translation of the passage itself, the humanity of Jesus is not only present in the passage but also a necessity to the salvation of humanity through the sacrifice of Jesus. Simply put, for the salvation through death to be relatable for humanity, Jesus had to also be, at least in part, fully human as well as being fully divine.
The pre-existence and eternality are major themes that are embedded within Christology, and follow the life of Jesus Christ plus his teachings. Christology speaks on the life of Jesus in a profound manner describing in-depth situations of humanity, temptation, sins, his death/resurrection, and much more that hold prevalence within religious texts like the New Testament. The approach of Christology is used for Christian to understand Jesus Christ’s teachings, which is impactful for Christians that hold their faith within Jesus. Christology specifically touches on having compassion, being patient, and understanding how to put someone else before you. For example, Jesus shows compassion in Luke 9:10-17, Jesus feeds a group of five thousand men with the help of his twelve disciples. With five loaves of bread and two fish, the food was not nearly enough to feed his followers, but Jesus performed a miracle and was able to feed 5,000 men, and had twelve baskets full of pieces of food that was leftover. This passage in the Gospels of Luke show the incredible work of Jesus Christ, and an act that would be considered miracle perhaps by someone God-like. Christians firmly believe that Jesus Christ is the begotten son of the God, because of his divine being, and have descendent from the Holy Spirit. With the example from passage Luke 9:10-17, the salvation of Jesus Christ is
"The Cross is not only a unique event in time, but also something inherent in human life and which has to be lived through by every individual, who must ascend his own Calvary and die on his isolated Cross so that he may have the possibility of returning to God."2