Category Archives: Theology

Revelation Notes (chapter 13)

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Ted Grimsrud

[See notes on Revelation 12]

Chapter 12 ended with an ominous image, “the Dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus” (12:17). What follows will be an account of this “war,” though we should understand that what this verse refers to is the same phenomenon we have already seen in the plague visions.

And, crucially, we also already know the outcome of this war. Revelation does not allow for any doubts about the outcome of the Dragon’s war. Right away, back at 1:5, we read the affirmation that Jesus is the victorious “ruler of the kings of the earth.” Then, the center point of the book, chapter five, proclaims Jesus as worthy “to receive power and wealth and honor and glory and blessing” (5:12).

So, whatever the impression we might get from the picture of the Dragon’s “war,” especially in the vision of the mighty Beast we see in chapter thirteen, this is a war that is not really a war. The outcome is not in doubt—and, as we will see, the methods of combat between the Dragon’s side and those “who told the testimony of Jesus” are quite different, two diametrically opposed approaches to “conquering.”

Revelation 13:1-10—The Beast from the sea and the politics of domination

We briefly met the Beast back in chapter eleven where the “two witnesses” (essentially the same as those who hold the testimony of Jesus in 12:17) are warred upon, conquered and killed by the Beast “that comes up from the bottomless pit” (11:7). This “bottomless pit” is first mentioned at 9:1, where a “fallen star” goes from heaven to earth, is given a key to the shaft of the bottomless pit, and sets a plague of locusts who torture “those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads … for five months” (9:4-5). Continue reading →

Revelation Notes (chapter 12)

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Ted Grimsrud

[See notes on Revelation 11]

With chapter twelve, John begins a more detailed account that provides a fuller picture of the forces at work in the plagues we have seen and will see more of. It becomes more clear over the next several chapters how the Powers of evil are involved in the kinds of events that make up the plagues—and how the victory of God is won and implemented.

First, “God’s temple in heaven” is opened (11:19) as part of the seventh trumpet vision that announces “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah” (that is, the One on the throne and the Lamb) and the time has come “for destroying those who destroy the earth” (11:18). This “time has come” should best be seen as a plot device—the time of the story where we turn to the “destroyers of the earth” and their fate has come. Revelation is not setting out a chronology for the world’s future so much as exhorting its readers to part of the work that will destroy the earth’s destroyers—who are the Powers behind the empires of the world, including the Roman Empire.

The “opening” of the temple here signals the coming change in focus in the second half of the book that will culminate with a return to the temple—though we will see in chapters twenty-one and twenty-two that John has in mind a radically changed notion of the temple.

Revelation 12:1-6—The two main actors

Chapter twelve contains a wealth of images and events—many are cryptic and difficult to understand. As elsewhere in Revelation, with this chapter we should focus more on the overall sensibility that is being conveyed more than expect to see in each of the images a direct correlation with a particular historical person or event. With all the uncertainty we can’t help but have about many of specifics, the general message here is pretty clear—a new dimension is added to the story with the introduction of the Dragon. We are now able better to understand the paradoxes of previous chapters concerning the plagues in relation to the One on the throne who is so closely linked with the Lamb. God is not the only cosmic actor in this drama. Continue reading →

How Does Jesus Challenge Us Most?

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Ted Grimsrud

Sermon preached at Oak Grove Mennonite Church (Smithville, Ohio)—January 18, 2015—Genesis 12:1-3; Leviticus 19:33-34; Matthew 25:34-40

I am happy to be with you this morning. I bring you greetings from Shalom Mennonite Congregation, from the eastern edge of Central District Conference. Also, since we are in the heart of Ohio, I assume some of you may be college football fans. As a lifelong Oregon Duck I have been in mourning this past week, but I am glad that some people I know are happy about Ohio State’s victory last Monday.

Though the title of my sermon is “How does Jesus challenge us most?” I actually plan to start with the Old Testament. Sometimes I think Christians don’t appreciate enough how much Jesus was an Old Testament person. Even as he brought a message of newness and transformation, he still drew heavily on those who came before him. He did not come to abolish the Old Testament law but to fulfill it.

I think about a friend of mine years ago. A Bible study group in our church had just finished the Gospel of Mark. Someone suggested we should do something from the Old Testament. Gwen, an 80-something student of the Bible known for being outspoken stated flatly—“I don’t want to have anything to do with that bloody book!” We persuaded her at least to give it a try and we actually had a good time studying the book of Amos.

What’s at the heart of the Old Testament?

The Old Testament, I believe, when we read it as a whole, can be seen as a book of peace. And it is the source of most of Jesus’s message. So, when we ask how does Jesus challenge us most, one answer—the one I will test this morning—comes from an old fashioned concept that is actually at the heart of the Old Testament.

If we were in a smaller, more intimate setting, I would ask you to come up with one word to describe what the Old Testament presents as crucial to the life of faith. I imagine we would have several possibilities. Think for a second about what you would say. What is the one word you’d use to describe what’s crucial to the life of faith? Then, let me ask, how many of you would say “hospitality”? I am not going to insist that this is the only true answer. But I will insist that hospitality is a very important virtue—something central for Jesus as well—and something very challenging for us. Continue reading →

The Peace Position During a Time of War

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Ted Grimsrud

[Workshop presentation at the Eastern Mennonite Seminary School for Leadership Training, Harrisonburg, VA, January 17, 2005]

I grew up the child of a father who fought in World War II and a mother who also served in the U.S. military during that war. Our family definitely was not heavily militaristic, but I certainly would willingly have gone into the military myself had I been drafted when I was 19. As it turned out, the draft ended the year I turned 19 as the Vietnam War wound down. In the several years after that, I thought often and intensely about military service and my faith. When I was 22, through a kind of mystical awareness, I came to a clear conviction that I could not, at the same time, be both a follower of Jesus and a participant in or even supporter of warfare.

Only at this point did I first learn of the Mennonite tradition, with its long held refusal to fight in wars. I loved what I learned and, about 25 years ago, joined the Mennonite church. I continue on the process of faith seeking understanding—what does the peace position mean? What’s basis? How might it be put into practice?

Defining “pacifism,” “nonviolence,” and “nonresistance”

The most common definitions of “pacifism” focus on what pacifism rejects, characterizing pacifism as the in-principled rejection of participation in warfare. Some pacifists would say that all war is wrong, others more that they simply themselves will never fight.

Focusing on what pacifism affirms, I define pacifism as the conviction that nothing matters as much as love, kindness, respect, seeking wholeness. Hence, nothing that would justify violence matters enough to override the commitment to love. In my understanding, pacifism is a worldview, a way of looking at reality; there is a pacifist way of knowing, a pacifist way of perceiving, of discerning, of negotiating life.

The term “nonviolence” is recently prominent as a near-synonym for pacifism. I will use the terms interchangeably, though if we trying to be truly precise, we could find nuances that might make us want to differentiate between the two terms. One distinction would be to say that “pacifism” focuses more on underlying principles and values, “nonviolence” more on tactics and actions.

“Nonresistance” is the more traditional term, widely used among Mennonites, for the refusal to fight back against evil. Typically, it has carried the connotation of witnessing to peace more through living as an alternative community in some sense separate from secular politics than through direct engagement.

The Bible’s witness to peace

My definition of pacifism more in positive, worldview terms links more closely with the logic of the biblical story than simply defining pacifism as the rejection of warfare. The Bible, famously, does not overtly reject warfare for believers; in fact, in certain notorious cases the Bible actually commends, even commands, God’s people fighting. Continue reading →

Pacifism, God, and the punishment of children

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Ted Grimsrud—May 18, 2014

[This paper originated as a presentation at the conference, “Mennonites and the Family,” at Goshen College in October 1999. It has been published in Ted Grimsrud, Embodying Peace: Collected Pacifist Writings, Volume 4: Historical and Ethical Essays (Harrisonburg, VA: Peace Theology Books]

What difference does it make to assert that nothing is as important for our theology as pacifism (i.e., the cluster of values which include love, peace, shalom, wholeness, kindness, mercy, restorative justice, nonviolence, and compassion)?

I propose that one difference pacifism makes (or should make) is to cause pacifists to look critically at all justifications for violence – and to question all theological underpinnings for such justifications. In this essay, I will focus critically on one case – theological underpinnings that help justify acting violently toward children (what is commonly called corporal punishment).

I want to discuss six points concerning the theological problem of the justification of violence against children.

(1) Human beings tend to be reluctant to act violently toward other human beings. We usually require some kind of rationale to justify such violence. We must believe some value is more important than nonviolence. For Christians, this value or conviction is usually expressed in terms of “God’s will.”

(2) A theological framework, that I will call “the logic of retribution”, underlies the rationale for the use of violence against children. In “the logic of retribution,” God is understood most fundamentally in terms of impersonal, inflexible holiness. God’s law is seen to be the unchanging standard by which sin is measured. Human beings are inherently sinful. God’s response to sin is punitive. Jesus’ death on the cross is necessary as a sacrifice to provide the only basis for sinful human beings escaping their deserved punishment.

(3) Consistent pacifists must raise theological concerns here. When God is understood, as with the logic of retribution, primarily in terms of impersonal holiness, legal requirements, and strict, vengeful justice, the biblical picture of God as relational, compassionate, and responsive is distorted.

(4) Not only is it justified according to problematic theological assumptions, corporal punishment also has problematic practical consequences. It may well intensify the dynamic of responding to violence with violence, actually educating young people into the practice of using violence. It may also contribute to a stunted experience of life for its recipients.

(5) Given that all theology is humanly constructed, we may (and must) reconstruct our understanding of God in order to foster consistently pacifist theology and practice.

(6) Foundational for such a theological reconstruction, the Bible may be read as providing bases for a “logic of restoration.” According to the logic of restoration, God’s holiness is personal, flexible, dynamic, and relational. God’s justice is concerned with restoring relationships and community wholeness, not with punishment, vengeance, and balancing the impersonal scales of an eye for an eye. God’s mercy is unconditional, not dependent upon human beings in any sense earning it. Continue reading →

Good grief

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Ted Grimsrud

Sermon at Shalom Mennonite Congregation—April 6, 2014—John 11:35

The scripture text this morning is short, in fact don’t yawn or anything like that when I read it or you might miss it. But you probably know it. It’s the shortest verse in the Bible. The King James Version of John 11:35 says it this way: “Jesus wept.” The New Revised Standard Version is a bit more expansive: “Jesus began to weep.” I guess those translators couldn’t stand it that an entire verse had only two words.

Small verse, big message

I want to take these two (or four) words, this little Bible verse, and make a big statement. At this point of Jesus weeping, of Jesus experiencing deep grief—the word translated “wept” could actually be translated “wailed and lamented;” it signifies something quite intense—when Jesus weeps he shows us the intersection between the divine and the human like nothing else he ever did. In his grieving, Jesus most clearly shows us what God is like.

It’s notable that the Gospel of John, of all the gospels, shows us that Jesus wept. John’s Jesus is the most divine of the four gospels, the most—we could almost say—superhuman of the four Jesuses presented in the gospels. Yet John makes the point that Jesus weeps. I want to say that this fits; the most exalted, God-manifesting Jesus is the one who weeps, the one who grieves.

The godness of God is seen in God’s grief. The divine presence in humanity is seen, as much as anywhere, when we grieve. Our grief marks us as creatures made in God’s image, as creatures who possess the spark of God—even as our grief also marks us as human, all too human, fragile creatures, all too fragile.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually think of grief as all that great of a thing. I think of the few moments of deep grief that I have experience and I would be more than happy to have bypassed those moments. Though, as I reflect a bit, I realize that what I would want to bypass are the experiences that led to the grief, not the grief itself—grief was a response on the way to healing.

Let’s think about how we use the word grief. But first a tangent. Continue reading →

Part of the Conversation? “Neo-Mennonites” and Mennonite Theology

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Ted Grimsrud

[This essay was written about twenty years ago while I was pastoring a small “neo-Mennonite” congregation in Eugene, Oregon, for a festschrift honoring Gordon Kaufman. By the time the essay was published in 1996, I had left Eugene, co-pastored with my wife, Kathleen Temple, in a large, rural, pretty traditional Mennonite congregation in the midwest for two years, and gotten a job as theology professor at Eastern Mennonite University. I revised the essay in 2002 hoping to have it published again in a theological journal. That didn’t work out. I’m putting it up now mainly because I realized I hadn’t posted it on my PeaceTheology.net site yet. I also think the ideas are still relevant as Mennonites continue to struggle with the future of their tradition.][1]

The early years of the 21st-century are a time of challenge for Mennonite faith.  Mennonite churches are engaged in an intense conversation (not always self-consciously) concerning the meaning of Christianity in a tumultuous, rapidly changing world.  One of the central issues in this conversation is simply whose voices will be heard.  How will Mennonites define their faith, order their communities, prepare their young people – and who will have voices in this defining?

We face the challenges of defining major new ecclesiastical structures with the formation of Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada.  This time of defining new structures has thus far been fraught with stress as various kinds of fault lines have been exposed and unprecedented conflicts have emerged.

This essay reflects on this issue of who partakes in Mennonite conversations about the future of their faith.  I believe our best approach is to affirm that all the voices within the current broad community of Mennonites are to be respected parts of the conversation.  To make such allowance requires an awareness of the identity of these voices.

I want to speak of one set of voices in particular, what I will call the voices of “neo-Mennonites.”  I am a bit unsure of the best shorthand term for the general perspective to which I am referring.  I will use “neo-Mennonite” as a non-value laden term[2] to refer to people who affirm at least many of the elements mentioned by Mennonite theologian Gordon Kaufman in his 1979 book Nonresistance and Responsibility:

Many persons – especially younger professional people, well-educated and living in settings quite far removed, at least culturally, from traditional rural Mennonite communities – feel the need for an interpretation of the Mennonite perspective which breathes more freely the atmosphere of the contemporary life and culture in which they are so deeply involved.  They do not wish to give up some of the basic insights and convictions of the faith in which they were raised, but the only interpretations of that faith which are readily accessible do not seem to address the questions and problems they are facing. [3]

I will argue in this essay that “neo-Mennonites” should be seen as a legitimate part of Mennonite conversations on all levels concerning the big issues that face Mennonites in the new millennium.  I will focus my concern mostly on theology, but I mean to suggest that church-wide conversations on all aspects of church life should welcome the “neo-Mennonite” perspective as a legitimate part of the Mennonite “circle.”

I do not argue that the “neo-Mennonite” perspective should be privileged, but simply that it be respected as part of the conversation.  That is, the process of discernment Mennonites are required to enter into will be most fruitful if understood as a process in which all the appropriate voices are heard and taken into account.  One of Mennonites’ biggest danger in facing our contemporary challenges is to ignore or silence voices from within our existing communities.

The “neo-Mennonite” perspective exists now within the circle of the Mennonite church.  Even if not well understood, or even acknowledged by many in the churches, it is part of what the Mennonite faith community has become.  Rather than seen as an alien perspective, or one to be resisted, it should be seen as one voice in the Mennonite choir. Continue reading →

NEW BOOK: Proclaiming Peace by Ted Grimsrud

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A Mennonite pastor and blogger gathers fifty short writings that present a powerful message of world transformation and healing inspired by Jesus’ way of shalom.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION ONE: Sermons

A. Introduction to Pacifism

B. Old Testament

C. Gospels

D. New Testament Writings

SECTION TWO: Blog Posts

A. Pacifism

B. World War II

C. Theology

PUBLICATION DATA

Ted Grimsrud. Proclaiming Peace: Collected Pacifist Writings, Volume Two: Sermons and Blog Posts. Harrisonburg, Virginia: Peace Theology Books, 2013. ix + 226 pages. [See a preview of the book on the Amazon site.]

ENDORSING BLURB

“I read many peace-related blogs. I am here to say that if you only read on internet site related to Christian peacemaking, read Ted Grimsrud’s PeaceTheology.net. In his accompanying blog, ThinkingPacifism.net, he is ‘thinking aloud’ on peace-related subjects in perceptive ways. Ted is charting what I believe to be the most hopeful ‘post-John Howard Yoder’ path in Anabaptist pacifist thought.”—Michael Westmoreland-While, Pilgrim Pathways

PURCHASING INFORMATION

This book may be purchased from the following e-retailers:

Amazon ($13.50)

Barnes and Noble ($13.68)

Amazon Kindle ($5)

Powell’s Books ($15.50)

It may also be purchased directly from the author for $10 (only in person, no mail orders)

The New Testament as a peace book

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Ted Grimsrud

[This is the second of two lectures in the Carol Grizzard-Browning Lecture Series at the University of Pikeville (Pikeville, Kentucky). It was presented November 12, 2013. The first lecture was “The Old Testament as a peace book” and may be found here.]

Let me start with a bold claim. The New Testament presents a political philosophy. This philosophy has at its core a commitment to pacifism (by pacifism I mean the conviction that no cause or value can override the commitment to treat each life as precious). This commitment is based on the belief that Jesus Christ as God Incarnate reveals the character of God and of God’s intention for human social life.

Jesus’s identity in the Gospel of Luke

In talking about the New Testament as a peace book, I will look first at how the gospels present Jesus. I will focus on the Gospel of Luke. At the very beginning, from Mary, upon her learning of the child she will bear, we hear that this child will address social reality. He will challenge the power elite of his world and lift up those at the bottom of the social ladder. This child, we are told, will bring hope to those who desire the “consolation of Israel.” Those who seek freedom from the cultural domination of one great empire after another that had been imposed upon Jesus’ people for six centuries will find comfort. From the beginning, this child is perceived in social and political terms.

Later, at the moment of Jesus’ baptism, God’s voice speaks words of affirmation, “Thou art my Son” (Luke 3:22). These words should be understood to name Jesus’s vocation more than simply emphasizing his divine identity. “Son of God” was a term for kings (Psalm 2:7). It states that this person is the leader of God’s kingdom on earth, he has the task of showing the way for God’s will for God’s people to be embodied.

Jesus’ baptism was a kind of commissioning service for this vocation. We see that in the events that following shortly afterward. Jesus retreats deeper into the wilderness and there encounters Satan, the tempter. Satan presented Jesus with temptations that all had at their core seductive appeals to his sense of messianic or kingly calling. He could rule the nations, he could gain a following as a distributor of bread to the hungry masses, he could leap from the top of the Temple and gain the support of the religious powers-that-be through his miraculous survival that would confirm his messianic status. That is, Jesus faced temptations concerning how he would be king. He did not deny that he was called to be “Son of God”—that is, king or messiah. But he did reject temptations to be king in ways he knew would be ungodly. Continue reading →

The Old Testament as a peace book

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Ted Grimsrud

[This is the first of two lectures in the Carol Grizzard-Browning Lecture Series at the University of Pikeville (Pikeville, Kentucky). It was presented November 11, 2013. The second lecture was “The New Testament as a peace book” and is posted here.]

What I will do in this lecture on the Old Testament and my second lecture on the New Testament is share about some things I have been passionately engaged with now for about 40 years.

A journey to pacifism

When I went to college in the mid-1970s, the Vietnam War was coming to an end. I registered for the draft, and was ready to fight if called. The draft ended, though, before I was called. That marked a turning point in my life, nonetheless.

I had just become a Christian. I was taught a Christian should be patriotic and be willing to fight for one’s country. However, I was also urged to read the Bible, especially to read the story of Jesus my savior in the gospels. The gospel story presented Jesus as a peacemaker. This challenged me as I struggled with the possibility of going to war. I also learned to know a number of veterans returning from Vietnam. They told horrific stories—and themselves quite often were traumatized. War didn’t seem so attractive.

About the time I finished college, I came to a clear conviction that I could not fight in war, that I was a pacifist. This conviction came shortly after I had deepened my commitment to live as a Christian—the two went together, as I resolved to be a serious Christian I committed myself to be a pacifist. What I meant by “pacifist” first was “the conviction that it is never morally acceptable to fight in or support war.” My current definition is more like this: “The conviction that no causes or values can override the commitment to treat each life as precious.” In either case, to be a Christian pacifist is to affirm these convictions due to one’s understanding of Jesus’s message.

My task then became—and remains—one of faith seeking understanding. What does it mean to be a Christian pacifist? How should I read the Bible in relation to these convictions? What about all the questions and problems—and the stubborn fact that just about all Christians for hundreds and hundreds of years have not accepted pacifism?

It helped that I had some experience being a minority. I was the only boy with four sisters. I was the only University of Oregon fan in a community filled with Oregon State fans. I was used to being a bit different, so being part of the tiny pacifist minority in a religion filled with warriors was not itself enough to make me think I was wrong….

Not long after my moment of clarity, I discovered a Christian tradition with a long history of pacifist belief and practice—and in time my wife Kathleen Temple and I joined with these Christians and became Mennonites. It has been crucial to not feel totally alone—to have a little bit of critical mass—in these strange beliefs. Continue reading →