March 28, 2009 2:00 am

A Non-Violent God

You may have noticed that I’ve blogged a number of times this year on the theme of non-violence. I’ve had a growing realisation about the significance of non-violence and it’s integral relationship to Christianity. Of course, such a statement explicitly critiques centuries of Christian warfare but I can live with that. I hope I might be able to continue growing in my understanding of this theme and I intend to do some further reading on the subject next year. However, I have just today realised a potential difficulty…

If Jesus, as the decisive manifestation of God, is non-violent (’turn the other cheek’, ‘love your enemies’, etc.), how can we, at the same time, understand his execution as appeasing God’s sense of justice? Either God works through violence or God doesn’t. Personally I prefer the second option, but in this context it does stand as a challenge to the predominant understanding of atonement. Now of course, there are a number of biblical interpretations of the meaning of Jesus’ death and not all of them fit the concept of ’substitutional atonement’ developed by Anselm 1,000 years after Jesus. Mel Gibson has a lot to answer for.