A Farewell to Mars
An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace
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15
An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace
Ratings1
Average rating3
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 differs 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.
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Short Review: This is a conscious pricking book. It does not have all the answers, it is not a book that cares about pragmatic ideas about pacisfism or government structure. There are books on pacifism that deal with that. Instead this is a book that tells one pastor's story of how his heart was changed and how he believes that much of the church has spiritualized many teachings of Jesus in a way that Jesus did not intend. The basic question of the book is, ‘what is Jesus really meant what he said?'
I do think that the book would have been stronger if it dealt with more opposition directly. I know that no book can answer all the questions. But there is nothing here that really deals with the Old Testament wars. (There is a good section on Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, but that is basically the only OT scripture that is not prophecy.) I think there are some pretty self evident New Testament scriptures like, ‘I did not come to bring peace but a sword' seem to indicate that total non-violence is not Jesus' message. Although I think if Zahnd's message is to be more non-violent, and not totally non-violent then that is easier to defend. But I don't think that is the message.
So I think this is a good book to read regardless of your position on pacifism (Zahnd does not identify himself as pacifist because he views pacifism as a political ideology and thinks that starting with a political ideology is a human activity instead of following Jesus' teachings.) The strongest parts of the book are Zahnd's critique of Christian nationalism. I think he does a good job of showing that any type of nationalism can't be Christian.
I read this in a day, it is a quick and engaging read.
My full review (about 1200 words) is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/farewell-to-mars/
