Daily Archives: January 28, 2009

Creation’s Harmony Disrupted—Genesis 3–4

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Here is the third in a series of Bible studies that present the Bible as being in the side of pacifism. In this essay, “Harmony Disrupted—Genesis 3–4,” I look at the story of the entry of alienation into the story following the creation account. I reflect on the way this part of the story (Adam and Eve’s becoming afraid of God and the initial act reflecting the alienation, Cain’s murder of Abel) sets the stage for the main focus of the larger biblical story: God’s healing strategy of persistent love as the means of healing creation.

Timothy Gorringe. Salvation

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Timothy Gorringe. Salvation.  Epworth Press, 2000.

British theologian Timothy Gorringe has written several important books that combine in an exemplary way solid scholarship with direct engagement with present social issues (my favorite is God’s Just Vengeance: Crime, Violence and the Rhetoric of Salvation). Here he addresses the general theme of salvation in an self-consciously popular-level way. I think it is a very helpful book and would work well in a study group.

Gorringe uses the story of a young couple who are beginning a romantic relationship–one a charismatic evangelical, the other an agnostic. He recounts their conversations, interspersed with more overt theological reflection. In the end, the couple meet kind of in the middle, in a socially-engaged, thoughtful, theologically-inclusive common ground (likely close to the kind of faith Gorringe himself affirms).

In Gorringe’s God’s Just Vengeance, he traces the historical link between retribution-oriented doctrines of salvation and the practice of state-sponsored violence in the treatment of convicted criminals. In the final part of the book, he outlines an alternative understanding of salvation. In his little book, Salvation, he does not develop his constructive theology any further, but he does helpfully set it in the context of contemporary life and shows its relevance by looking as the stories of his two main protagonists.

In short, Timothy Gorringe deserves our gratitude for giving us an antidote to the problematic views of salvation that are so widespread among “people in the pew.” It’s too bad that this book is hard to find–it deserves to be used widely.

 

Peace Theology Book Review Index

Jouette Bassler. Navigating Paul

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Jouette M. Bassler. Navigating Paul: An Introduction to Key Theological Concepts. Westminster John Knox Press, 2007.

We have no shortage of short, accessible, clearly-written, and thoughtful books on the theology of Christianity’s most important theologian–Paul the Apostle. However, since Paul’s thought is so fascinating and complex, and because Pauline theology remains so relevant to the life of faith today, and because one’s interpretation of Pauline theology is such an indicator of one’s views of so many other things, we should welcome all attempts to help us with such important material.

So, I feel compelled to welcome this book by Bassler. However, I would rank it well below recent similar books such as those of N.T. Wright (Paul: A Fresh Reading) and Michael Gorman (Reading Paul). She engages contemporary scholarship in an accessible way in a series of short studies on various Pauline themes (e.g., grace, the law, and the “future of Israel”). However, I found very little here that made Paul come alive. Bassler’s book especially pales in relation to Gorman’s Reading Paul–a book that helps us see why Paul remains so relevant for our quest for faithfulness to the way of Jesus today. In Bassler’s telling, Paul seems more like a kind of boring first-century Christian.

 

Peace Theology Book Review Index

Richard Horsley, ed. In the Shadow of Empire

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Richard A, Horsley, ed. In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance. Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.

I recommend this collection of short, clearly written, and perceptive essays providing a comprehensive overview of the centrality of resistance to empire in the Bible–from Genesis through Revelation.

Several big names are here–Norman Gottwald, Walter Brueggemann, John Dominic Crossan, and Richard Horsley for example–but the strength of the collection is the consistent high level of all the essays.

Maybe the most important contributions this book makes have to do its accessibility and its touching on so many bases. It’s an overview, and introduction, to an easily overlooked theme. We see in just over 180 pages how the entire Bible is best understood as anti-imperial literature. The social context for all varieties of biblical literature must be understood as God’s people living amidst the Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires. There are no major biblical writings that do not touch on this theme.

Though they focus on the biblical text, most of the writers are sensitive to our raised awareness in the present about parallels between biblical anti-imperial perspectives and our lives amidst the contemporary American empire. I think these parallels are important, and I appreciate this book pointing to them.

Once you read the Bible with empire on the mind, you will see how much of the Bible is relevant; this book is not faddish imposition of a present-day agenda on the Bible (though it is true at present-day alarms about our empire have pushed us to be more aware of what is clearly there). For me, the frustration lies with how blind Bible-readers have been to the anti-Empire agenda of the Bible, not that we now are being helped by books such as these to pay more attention to it.

 

Peace Theology Book Review Index