A Farewell to Mars

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/