★★★★★ 5
Guns and a Christlike God
Format: Kindle
I heartily give this book 5 stars for being such a rich, balanced mix of real life stories, black-smithing analogy, published statistics, and the unabashed challenge of faithFULLY following Christ who revealed how we were created to be unconditionally loving, self-giving, and forgiving. The sad realities of America, the richest and most powerful nation the world has known, is scarred by the problems of guns AND heart. This intelligent and humble presentation of information is a very helpful expose’ in exploring the intersection of faith and guns in America. I have a bias in that I know (and admire) Mike Martin, am a fan of Shane Claiborne, and am on a journey with Christ which finds much truth and wisdom within the Anabaptist tradition.
I would like to counter any critique of this book which insinuates oversimplification and misrepresentation through selective/incomplete methodology. I’m glad this book is “bite-size” to reach its stated, intended audience of just about everyone, of every faith tradition, who is weary of violence. The writers are quite capable of presenting a dreadfully long and robust exploration of the scriptures but wisely chose to hold Jesus, his teaching, and the cross as a focal figure of faith who advocated and lived and died non-violence as God’s nature. I hesitate to put words in their mouths but am sure they would love to expose the full context and textures of the prophetic plowshare visions, and I would welcome it. They might just mention the strong strands of the early church fathers who explicitly read the prophetic telling of God’s/Jesus’ wrath and judgment—not as evidence for a violent, human like God to be feared—but as metaphor for the suffering humanity brings upon itself. Just as Paul rhetorically blasted, early in Romans, God turns us over to our ways to wallow in the consequences (we judge and punish ourselves) as we reject God and that which we were created to be. So, perhaps the authors fail by not pointing to scholarly works which spell out with the detail necessary to fully understand the pacifist’s theology—the list is long—however they successfully create the spirit of a movement for everyone by not getting bogged down with a couple proof-texts (we must study their contexts) which seemingly challenge the ubiquitous teachings and lives of Jesus, the New Testament writers, and the pre-Constantinian church. “Cherry-picking”, though often intended to undermine, is a noble compliment as one studies the hermeneutical method of Jesus who also “cherry-picked” the varied voices of the Hebrew testament to shape his gospel of peace. We all cherry-pick and contexts bend toward OUR contexts, but toward what end—to look like Jesus, peace, and the way of the cross?
I highly recommend this book: With faith set aside completely for its well referenced guide in understanding America’s inclination toward violence and the idolatrous place guns, constitutional faith, our entertainment, our historical heroes, and the NRA play in it; and with faith at center whose Jesus discipled a way of heart which carries a cross to establish peace and justice—not a sword/gun. Jesus forgave and loved as the transformative powers which Jesus presented as our way of hope.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2019
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