Today I will begin with my own highlighted sections from Brian Zahnd's marvelous book 'A Farwell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Gospel of Peace.' Again, this is not a review, nor much of an overview even. It is simply the points I highlighted during my reading. I introduced the book in Part 1 HERE. And now... part 2.
Right off the bat, in the Forward, Zahnd lays it out there:
"Though some may contest the point — and I’ve heard them do so for years — there is something profoundly unsettling about watching those who follow Jesus , the Prince of Peace , use weapons of warfare to kill others and still think they are somehow following Jesus."
Chapter 1 ("That Preacher of Peace") highlights:
**"My claim, which I’m told is audacious by some and naive by others, is simply this: Jesus Christ and his peaceable kingdom are the hope of the world."
"...if we think the ideas of Jesus about peace are irrelevant in the age of genocide and nuclear weapons, we have invented an utterly irrelevant Christianity!"
"It wasn’t so much the man who upset the Roman governor, but his ideas. Pilate understood the nature of ideas. Ideas are powerful, because they are the engines of potential change — and change can be dangerous. When gradual change is perceived as positive and in general keeping with the status quo, we call it progress. But radical, paradigmatic change is something else, something more dangerous. We call it revolution. Revolutionary change is precisely what those in positions of privilege and power — people like Pilate — are most threatened by. This is why Yeshua and his ideas are perceived as dangerous."
Chapter 2 (Repairing the World) highlights:
"In To Mend the World, Emil Fackenheim famously dares to issue to the Jewish community a “614th Commandment.” It’s an audacious proposition. As far back as the medieval scholar Maimonides, Jewish rabbis have spoken of the Torah containing 613 commandments. But precisely because of the enormity of the Holocaust experience, Fackenheim tells his fellow Jews they must now add one more law to their ancient Torah — a 614th commandment. Commandment 614 is simply this: Thou shalt not give Hitler any posthumous victories. Elaborating on the 614th Commandment, Fackenheim says, “We are forbidden to despair of the world as the place which is to become the kingdom of God, lest we help make it a meaningless place in which God is dead or irrelevant and everything is permitted.” Fackenheim was saying to his own Jewish community that even in the face of the Holocaust, they are not permitted to give up on the world; despite all the atrocities, they must continue to believe that a horribly broken world can be repaired. Fackenheim rightly insists that this world is to be the kingdom of God and to despair of this is to collude with wickedness and give vanquished pathogens of evil posthumous victories."... "A Christian understanding of tikkun olam (a Jewish concept) is that God is restoring all things through Jesus."
"So the next time you drive past a children’s hospital or a free medical clinic or see a relief agency going about its work of compassion , you should see it as an expression of how Jesus saves the world from its uncaring pagan past — a pagan past we need to remember."
"Consider, too, that slavery, totalitarianism, and apartheid have been challenged, and in places overcome, not by Christians who sat back and blithely said, “It’s all going to burn,” but by Christians who believed that Jesus is Lord here and now. Such Christians believe that the program of restoration is already underway. Laboring in the name of Jesus to make the world a better place does not undermine faith in the Second Coming; rather it takes seriously God’s intention to repair the world through Christ and anticipates this hope by moving even now in the direction of restoration. This is what it means to be faithful to the kingdom of God even while we await the appearing of Christ and the culmination of our hope."
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I think I will stop there for today. Certainly, I am aware of different theological positions, but the point at the beginning of the book (and throughout) is based on the fact that Jesus is the hope of the world! Another world is possible! These are constants I know I need reminding of often. Apparently so do a lot of other Christians.
Personally, it makes me wonder... So how is this being lived out in my life? Do I really believe Jesus is the hope of the world, and how am I participating with him in its restoration? That's a pretty heavy question. Or at least it should be.
Alrighty then. God willing, I will be back tomorrow with more...
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