Peace Theology (with a dash of SDA flavor)

Slightly Update: 7 Feb 2011

A friend just asked me on Facebook what I meant by peace theology. I'm sitting in a coffee shop, which means I don't have books to quote from, except for one by EG White in my bag. My only tools are Google, Bible Gateway and White's book, Welfare Ministry.

Basically, I meant that the Bible couches its conversations in a framework of peace (shalom & eirene), especially, but not only, in the New Testament. For starters:

• Jesus as the Messiah is the Prince of Peace (Is. 9:6)
• Jesus gives peace (John 14:27)
• Jesus came to lead our feet into the paths of peace (Luke 1:79)
• The good news of Jesus is the gospel of peace (Eph. 6:14-15)
• Refusing Jesus' way of peace has real-world consequences (Luke 19:42)
• Peacemakers are children of God (Matt. 5:9)
• The God of peace makes a covenant of peace.
• Paul repeatedly wished people grace and peace.

Peace is a broad term; the biblical usage goes way beyond our common conception of "absence of violence." Any injustice breaks peace as much as outright war. Righteousness and justice are integral to peace, and in contrast to how we normally use them, they are quite related (Colson Center, IV Press). An understanding of the Jewish words for compassion and justice helps make these connections (e.g., 7 words, Just Action). Peace is a very relational word--right relations, harmony, the weak are safe, there is no oppression/injustice, needs are met.

Thus the peace Jesus brought definitely included peace and reconciliation with God, but it did not stop there. If we are to be faithful to Jesus and the gospel of peace, we must not stop there! People say to me, okay, they post online comments to me like, "Do this peace thing on your own time. Don't distract the church from the work of preaching the gospel." But this limited definition of Jesus and the gospel is reductionistic and misses Jesus' point. Jesus' way was not abstract theology, it was love, it was peace, it was relational, it was lived. A few examples from Jesus and the early teachers:

• Matt. 23:23 -- Justice is more important than tithe. But which have you heard more sermons about?
  
• Matt. 5:23-24 -- Relational reconciliation should precede religious expressions. Steps are given in Matt. 18.
• Matt. 22:36-40 -- Love of God and others are inseparable.
• Matt. 25:31-46 -- Sheep and goat designations based on loving actions, not abstract theology.
  
• 1 John 3:17 -- Love of God doesn't exist when love for others is also lacking. Compassion, mercy, justice, love and meeting needs are all elemental to God's shalom.
  

I shouldn't just limit this to the New Testament since peace and justice are prevalent in the Hebrew Scriptures as well. Matt. 23:23 listed above echoes Amos, who said God hated their religion that lacked justice (Amos 5:21-24). This also echoes Micah 6:8, quite possibly the most well-known verse in this essay. Isaiah actually connects justice with God's presence, a connection I, as an SDA, interpret as applying to the end of the age. Is. 56:1 makes God's approaching salvation the motivation for pursuing justice, not a reason to neglect it. Deut. 16:20 also comes to mind in this regard--"Follow justice and justice alone."

Ellen White saw this social dimension as part of the gospel, not as an optional add-on. She writes, "Much more than mere sermonizing is included in preaching the gospel....The union of Christlike work for the body and Christlike work for the soul is the true interpretation of the gospel" (Welfare Ministry, pp. 32-33). The first 30 pages of that book just emphasize this over and over, especially in relation to Isaiah 58.

We see this in the early church as they lived the gospel of peace. It brought together men and women in amazing new ways, same with Jews and gentiles, slave and free, rich and poor. Social relations were turned upside down. Unity with God brought amazing peace to relations as never before. Paul (not to mention the prophets and Psalms and...) says way too much about peace in relationships to limit the ministry of reconciliation to our relationship with God alone (1 Cor. 7:15; 12:13; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:14-17; 4:3; Col. 3:11; 3:15; 1 Thes. 5:13, and more). The Bible just doesn't make this divide like we do (just like it doesn't divide justice and righteousness; which might affect one's reading of Matt. 5:6).

It can be argued that there is no good news of God apart from living the truth in community (1 John 1:7). We are not used to this language because we are used to using terms foreign to peace, justice and righteousness of the early church. Our lenses have been significantly affected by our post-Constantinian world view, as well as by post-enlightenment and post-Luther theologians. Here are two examples of how these lenses affect our selective reading of the Bible and God's priorities. Common:

NT (Eph 2:8-9): For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

HS (Is 1:18): “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

In context (adjacent verses to those above):

NT (Eph 2:10): For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

HS (Is. 1:17): Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

When we read Jesus' inaugural address that laid out his ministry, we see that justice, oppression and the spirit of the jubilee were central to what he was doing in proclaiming what his kingdom looks like.“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

Even the Magnificat or Mary's Song rings with these themes (Luke 1:46-55), as does Jesus' later verification of his ministry to doubting and troubled John (Matt. 11:4-5). And we remember that John prepared people to meet Jesus by focusing on ethics when he could have just as easily highlighted the scriptures that were later considered by the early church to be prophecies pointing to Jesus (Luke 3). I believe this is important for the SDA church because we focus greatly on the 3 Angels' Message but we tend to neglect balancing our message with Is. 58. White instructed us, "The whole of the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah is to be regarded as a message for this time, to be given over and over again" (Ministry of Healing, p. 29, emphasis added).

This lead my thoughts in two directions. First, this emphasis on justice (again, integral to peace) is consistent with Jer. 9:24 and 22:16, where doing justice is tantamount to knowing the God who exercises justice. This connection between (a) knowing that God exercises justice and (b) us doing justice makes sense when we remember that as the church we are Christ's body on earth (1 Cor. 12:27), we are to do his work.

Second, Jesus was clear about how citizens of his kingdom live. How does Jesus end both the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7; Stassen's triads, see also Kingdom Ethics) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17-41)? With the comparison of the wise and foolish builders. He meant action, not abstract ethics for a perfect world that will never exist this side of the resurrection and 2nd coming. He asks, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?" (Luke 6:46). This fits with Matt. 7:21-23 about doing God's will. James echoes this (1:22); no wonder Luther didn't like the book. I believe all of this is consistent with Abraham's original call to teach righteousness and justice (Gen. 18:19).

The summation of righteousness, justice, reconciliation, fellowship, and love is peace. This is peace theology. I should have included a section on empire theology; maybe I'll add it later. And any theology has to take into account complex teachings (e.g., Luke 12:51), but that would greatly expand this already lengthy essay. This isn't meant to be exhaustive, just an introduction. For more on peace, I highly recommend starting with the following (notably, all by Mennonites/Anabaptists, but others like Stassen, Wink, Hauerwas, Brueggemann, Grassi, Arnold, and others really should be on the list as well, like this Jewish book):

• Covenant of Peace (Swartley)
• Shalom (P. Yoder)
• Politics of Jesus (J. H. Yoder)
  
• The Upside-Down Kingdom (Kraybill)
• Good News & Good Works (Sider)
• Social Holiness (Kreider)
  

The original question that sparked this post was in reference to a class I took in Guatemala that looked at how to live peace theology in a violent society. We studied how churches have worked to promote a culture of peace and justice in a historical context of massive human rights abuses. They risk death threats when they stand with abused women. They give of themselves to help those economically destroyed when husbands and sons have been disappeared. They walk with lawyers to thwart a culture of impunity. They build schools for people groups ignored by government development projects or targeted by government violence. They teach conflict resolution classes to infuse society with new ideas for dealing with differences. For more ideas, see the organizations we visited.

The God that Failed

You can access my final reflection essay for Peace & Justice: Latin American Perspectives here (resources are listed here). The six-page limit meant I couldn't include a number of thoughts I had originally intended to explore--violence in the introduction of Christianity to Guatemala by the Spanish, the ways that the United States has made life hard for its neighbors and brought the immigration issue on itself despite being considered by many to be a "Christian" nation, the Christianization of Rwanda before the genocide*, the spread of America's prosperity gospel, and the disconnect between theology and ethics.

On this last point, I see no direct link between basic theological questions and ethics. Since Jesus repeatedly taught about ethics and most of theology is about non-ethical questions, it follows that theologians are concerned with questions that were not Jesus' focus (Matt. 23:23). Once a month I join a conference call with peace activists from nearly every Christian branch--Orthodox, Catholic and a selection of Protestants (historic peace churches, mainline, evangelical). We represent the peace fellowships of our various denominations. There is no direct connection between our views on eschatology, ecclesiology, soteriology, the virgin birth, creation, the nature of Mary, or the atonement with our ethics of peace and justice. Within each group are those concerned with peace and justice as well as those who see these as distractions from preaching the true word of the Gospel. Maybe there should be a link between basic theology and ethics, but I don't see it in the real world.

The essay could be summarized with a phrase like Culture trumps Jesus. Or maybe Culture trumps religion, or even Empire trumps religion. In the end, I believe G. K. Chesterton was on to something: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

May there be peace (which includes justice) on Earth!

Essay: The God that Failed

NOTE: The complexity of the issue leads me to seemingly contradictory conclusions--(a) ethics and theology are virtually unrelated, and (b) both Protestant and Catholic theology undercut Jesus' ethics. Yes. :) These theologies, in my view, can and have short-circuited ethical thought and practice, but they don't mandate or require this fissure. As evidence, many who believed in indulgences and many who accepted salvation by grace alone with no room for discipleship still cared about ethics. And others didn't/don't.

NOTE 2: In Retrospect, I think I should not have interspersed factoids about the US throughout the essay. It would have been stronger to focus on the comparisons in part 1 and then include a later section arguing something like: It would be incorrect to think that only the exported version of Christianity has problems and that it works fine in the US and Europe. Look at these cultures to see that Christianity has historic problems there as well (greed, persecution of dissidents, extreme individualism, environmental damage, misuse of power in the church and in government, etc.), even if these three particular markers show especially low scores in Guatemala and Kenya.

*For a brief comment on Adventist failures in Rwanda, see Monte Sahlin's AToday blogpost (second to last paragraph).

Resources for SEMILLA Class

In January 2011 I took Peace and Justice: Latin American Perspectives at Semilla, an Anabaptist Seminary in Guatemala City. Here is a description of the class from the syllabus and following are links I compiled throughout the experience.

This course is an approach to the Anabaptist-Mennonite understanding and practice of peace from a Latin American perspective. It explores the main conflicts, situations, and challenges of Central America. It examines the basic theological and spiritual convictions related to peace and justice that sustain the Church mission and testimony in these lands. It also provides an overview of how the Anabaptists have spent trying to follow Jesus Christ and to preach and live his message of peace in the midst of the challenging situations and struggles of this context. This course is offered at the Latin American Anabaptist Seminary (SEMILLA) in Guatemala.

ORGANIZATIONS:

• Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG)
• Guatemalan League of Mental Hygiene -- Reunions & adoptions
• Survivors -- Domestic abuse
  
• UPAVIM -- Women’s co-op connected to 10,000 Villages (Montessori school, crafts, bakery, soy milk, etc.)
  
• Ruth and Naomi Co-op -- http://www.guatemalaproject.org/36201.html
• Bezaleel & Fundameno -- Mennonite school and health care. http://bezaleel.mennonite.net/Bezlweb%20Donations.htm &
• CASAS & SEMILLA (Facebook)
• Justicia Restaurativa
• Mission Year & CCDA. Some of us ate dinner with a couple that was connected to both of these. Like them, I first heard of both from Shane Claiborne.
• Orphan Resources Intl -- Mike took us hiking on Pacaya for our last adventure. His story and the story of ORI was really encouraging. Mike's blog.
  

FILMS:

• Recycled Life -- Documentary about the city dump in Guatemala City that we visited.
• Return to El Salvador -- The website has the trailer and the first 7 minutes, along with a short film (Marcelo) on a related topic. It’s by the same director (Jamie Moffett) who made The Ordinary Radicals.
  
• El Norte -- “Two indigenous youths…flee Guatemala in the early 1980s due to ethnic and political persecution. They head north and travel through Mexico to the United States, arriving in Los Angeles, California, after an arduous journey.” Trailer
• Romero
• Sin Nombre -- Trailer
• The Corporation -- Companies behaving badly.
• 180° South -- Less related to our studies than the other films. It’s more for those interested in adventure sports and ecological conservation.

Food films:

• The Future of Food -- http://www.thefutureoffood.com/
• Bad Seed -- http://www.badseed.info/. I’ve only seen a small part of this. It reminded me of The Future of Food, though the quality seemed lower.
  
• Earthlings -- http://www.earthlings.com/. Gruesome.
• Food, Inc. -- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/
• The Garden -- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1252486/
• King Corn -- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1112115/

Andre recommends:

• Peaceable Kingdom -- A documentary about farms and humans relationship to the rest of the world.
• Ballad of the Little Soldier -- Documentary about child soldiers in Nicaragua by Werner Herzog. He happens to be one of my favorite directors, and if you like his style I would also recommend: The White Diamond, The Wheel of Time, and Little Dieter Needs to Fly.

BOOKS:

• Peacemaking Power of Prayer -- As with any book, it can’t be read uncritically, but I think it has an element of wisdom to speak to our studies here.
• Confessions of an Economic Hitman
• Game as Old as Empire
  
• The Arrival -- Comic book/graphic novel sans words about immigration. Emotional but not violent. Beautiful.
  
• Jim and Casper Go to Church -- I thought of this book after visiting La Casa de Dios. See also http://churchrater.com/.
• The End of Days
• The Fullness of Time in a Flat World (Waalkes)

Joon recommends:

• Three Cups of Tea (Mortenson)
• Stones to Schools (Mortenson)
• Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh (Norberg-Hodge)

RANDOM:

• Bus bomb in Guatemala City -- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12109840 & http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110113/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_guatemala_bus_fire_1
• Chichicastenango
  
• Coban
• Iximche
• Infant Mortality Rate (country comparison) -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate
• Homicide Rates (regional comparison) -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
• Per capita income (regional comparison) -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
• WHO Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence against Women -- http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/
• enditnow (Adventist say no to violence against women) -- http://www.enditnow.org/ & http://www.atoday.com/viewpoints-vol-4-heatherdawn-small.
• Smedley Buttler -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler. Wrote War is a Racket (http://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Antiwar-Americas-Decorated/dp/0922915865 & http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html ). Two quotes I’ve posted on my blog (http://justicelives.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-posted-following-item-on-my-ethics.html ):

o "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

o "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

Journal of Religion, Conflict, & Peace

The Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace is available online. From the About page:

The Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace addresses both the problem of religion and conflict and the possibility and practices of peace, giving particular attention to peace. Articles address everything from interpersonal relationships to international politics and draw from any discipline or combination of disciplines that can illuminate the journal's central concerns. While the journal’s first audience is scholars, its aim is to be relevant and accessible to peace practitioners and anyone else concerned about these themes.

The journal is a publication of Plowshares: a peace studies collaborative of Earlham, Goshen, and Manchester Colleges. It is shaped by, but not confined to, the perspectives of the three historic peace churches-Society of Friends, the Mennonite Church, and the Church of the Brethren-associated with the colleges that compose the collaborative.

Practical Matters

A fellow peace studies seminarian shared Practical Matters with me today. It is "a transdisciplinary multimedia journal of religious practices and practical theology." The current edition is on ethnography and theology. Enjoy!