A farewell to mars - pt. 1

I finished Brian Zahnd's riveting book 'A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace' (June 2014). Oh my... what a breath of fresh air this was for me. It was one of my faster reads because I simply couldn't put it down. Likely due to the fact he put into words so many ideas I've had swimming through my brain for so long.

I read it on the Kindle - which is not my favorite format - but I got it pretty cheap, and I am glad I did.

The publishers have this to say about it on the back of the book:

"We know Jesus the Savior, but have we met Jesus, Prince of Peace? When did we accept vengeance as an acceptable part of the Christian life? How did violence and power seep into our understanding of faith and grace? For those troubled by this trend toward the sword, perhaps there is a better way. What if the message of Jesus radically differs from the drumbeats of war we hear all around us? Using his own journey from war crier to peacemaker and his in-depth study of peace in the scriptures, author and pastor Brian Zahnd reintroduces us to the gospel of Peace."

 I also thought this a good synopsis from Eugene Peterson:

"Brian Zahnd fuses his vocation as prophet and pastor into a powerful evocation of the Prince of Peace, Jesus the Peacemaker. The marvel of his language is that he does this without anger, without pessimism, without a political position, content to simply develop the Jesus agenda while relentlessly exposing the lies and hypocrisies that replace the biblical revelation with a God of War. And the writing is simply brilliant - not a dull sentence in the book."

Personally, I appreciated how he wove through the entire bible - from Adam, Cain, Abel and Abraham - and connected the whole as seen through Christ. He also holds nothing back regarding the prince of darkness, calling evil exactly what it is.

So, as you can imagine, I highlighted much in this book. I think I will take a chapter from my old reporting format and - much like what I ended up doing with the last book - just share the highlights without much comment by me. Some chapters I can perhaps lump together, but some will have to stand alone due to the amount of highlight. This may take several days worth of posts.

There is much I want to remember from this read, and much I am still digesting. I invite you to take a glimpse with me at some of what I considered the finer points.

Until next time...