Book review by Al Tizon
Warning: a call to radical peacemaking wrapped in solid, compelling biblical scholarship and a convincing argument that it is actually possible in a violent world can disrupt one’s safe and normal life. That is exactly what readers will encounter in Ronald J. Sider’s recent offering. Those familiar with Sider’s lifelong call to nonviolent righteous resistance will not be surprised by the spirit of If Jesus is Lord. However, this book outdoes any of his other works on the subject in that it is much more thorough in formulating a biblical and systematic theology of nonviolence. This includes tackling hard passages, such as the conquest narratives in Joshua. As such, it is fresh and challenging reading even for hardcore Sider-ites.
In light of the biblical and theological groundwork he lays, Sider reviews the history of pacifist and just war traditions, making a compelling case that any argument that falls short of absolute nonviolence must rely on extra-biblical thinking. He challenges a typical objection that goes something like this: “Peace and nonviolence may be what Jesus taught and demonstrated, but they don’t really work in the real world of demonic evil and political complexity.” Such reasoning, Sider contends, ultimately does not take the lordship of Christ seriously. Nevertheless, though he is decidedly on the side of Christ-centered (and more specifically, cross-centric) pacifism, he contends that “Both just war and pacifist Christians can and should work together on nonviolent, just peacemaking initiatives” (p. 172). Sider makes a compelling argument for pacifism, but the pacifist vs. just warrior debate will rage on. Yet we can engage in peacemaking together as we argue!
Still, Sider pleads with all Christians to bow down to the lordship of Christ who sought (and seeks) to overthrow kingdoms of bloodshed and oppression with Spirit-empowered lives of active peace and justice. If Jesus is Lord, then his followers should always be poised to love, rather than to kill, their enemies. The vicious cycle of violence can be broken by followers of Jesus, and when they do so, they point the way to a kingdom not of this world.
Sider has been championing nonviolence for decades, and many have been inspired by his activist scholarship (myself included) to radical peacemaking in a conflicted and violent world. This is indeed a counterintuitive response to evil, the harder road, the abnormal way. But if Jesus is Lord…
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Posted with permission from Interpretation journal
