Although Jesus’ whole life on Earth was a clear unfolding of God’s way of dialogue, patience, provision, and peace, God-followers have continued to use death, oppression, and supremacy as the way of security.
I recently read a scathing critique of Hegseth. And while I understand the outrage, scapegoating one person will not move us forward effectively.
Hegseth’s position—that violence and domination secure peace—is not new. It is a position deeply embedded in human culture and history.
If Jesus shows us God’s character what does that mean for the violent stories we celebrate?
The question is not simply whether Hegseth is wrong.The question is whether we are willing to look honestly at ourselves.
Because the reliance on violence as a strategy for security has been endemic throughout human history, from ancient times to modern ones.
And if Jesus shows us God’s character, what does that mean for the violent stories we celebrate?
The Pattern in Scripture
1 Samuel 30 reflects this tension clearly.
David returned home to find his village burned to the ground and the women and children taken captive by the Amalekites. Yet not one person had been killed.
David asked God if he should pursue them and recover the people. God said yes.
But David did not go in peace, with dialogue and gifts, as Jacob did with Esau, and as Abigail did with David.
And it is not that David did not know kindness or mercy.
At other times he showed compassion. On the way to confront the Amalekites he stopped to nurse a dying man back to health. Earlier in his life, when he had the opportunity to kill King Saul, he chose restraint and dialogue instead.
Yet when David reached the Amalekite camp, he spent days slaughtering Amalekites in retribution, as if destroying them would eliminate the problem once and for all.
That remained his strategy even to the end of his life, when he advised his son, who was ascending the throne, to secure his kingdom by eliminating opponents.
This pattern appears again and again: Moses and the slaughter following the golden calf; Joshua and the destruction of Jericho; the punishment of Achan.
God-followers have a long history of ordering and celebrating the killing of thousands and tens of thousands and declaring that this is divine intervention.
The thing is that this is not God’s way. It is human culture. It is a very human strategy for dealing with fear and uncertainty.
And yet God keeps showing us something different.
From Cain to Peter, and Saul who became Paul, we see again and again that slaughter, oppression, and persecution are not the way.
Abigail understood God’s way.
Jacob understood it when he approached Esau with humility, dialogue, and gifts.
Solomon understood it to a large degree as well, though influenced by the traditions of his father and by the culture around him.
The prophets understood it.
Hosea.
Micah.
And others.
They told us that grace, forgiveness, love, justice that cares for others, and peace are the way.
Jesus shows us the way. Jesus demonstrated this same truth as God in human form.
His life was a clear unfolding of God’s way of dialogue, patience, provision, and peace.
And yet when he showed us this way, we tortured him, killed him, and betrayed him.
In that moment we even declared that we were willing to carry his blood on our heads and on our children’s heads in order to secure wealth, control, and national security through brutality.
But Jesus showed us that death is not a winning strategy.
Violence does not solve violence. Violence begets violence.
When violence becomes the strategy, victory is shallow and short-lived. We must remain ready to kill again, because someone will always seek to respond with violence in return.
🦋
Evangelical Christianity is not less aggressive than the violent strategies it often condemns.
There are many ways to destroy human beings besides physical death.
If Evangelical Christianity pauses and looks honestly into the mirror of Christ’s love, example, and teaching, we would see the logs of violence protruding from our own eyes.
We preach, teach, and practice supremacy, hierarchy, oppression, and control in parenting, in marriage, in employment, in education, in leadership, and in justice systems.
My hope is that we will face that mirror of love. That we will see the log. That we will work with God, individually and together, to remove it.
That we will accept the offer of healing with new eyes, new hearts, and new ideologies that embrace grace, forgiveness, love, and peace.
Because perfect love casts out fear.
And without fear we would not need to hoard massive war chests in defense of freedom.
We could all be prosperous, peaceful, and free.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
— John 3:16–17
In the beginning God clothed Adam and Eve and gave them the space they needed to experience the knowledge of good and evil that they chose.
And through the peaceful life of Jesus God crushed the serpent’s idea that shame, blame, and death were necessary to gain knowledge or control. And we know that shame and blame and death were the serpent’s way: because as soon as Adam and Eve chose that experience, they immediately felt shame. They began to cast blame, and then they taught their children that a sacrifice of blood was needed for freedom.
The text does not describe God killing an animal. That is nowhere described in the interaction between them. What it shows is God clothing them and caring for them.
God made them clothes that were better than the leaves that they had chosen. He created clothes for them just as He had created the world—without violence.
God showed them what some prophets showed us too:
Grace.
Forgiveness.
Love.
Justice that cares for others.
Peace.
This is the way.
May we finally begin to lean toward peace.
May we each finally say,
“Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.”
Nurturing Kindred 