Ted Grimsrud—September 23, 2024

One of the first things that came up for me back nearly fifty years ago when I first thought of myself as a Christian pacifist was the question of the Old Testament. How can we reconcile all the violence of the Old Testament with the idea that Jesus calls us to be peacemakers? The first step for me at the time, and I think the first step for many, is to acknowledge that this is a problem but to emphasize the clarity of Jesus’s message for me. I’m not sure what the OT says, but I do know what Jesus says. The effect of this step, though, can easily be simply to set the Old Testament aside as being mainly a problem and not a good guide. I always felt uneasy about such a move.

So, one of my interests has been to work at reading the Old Testament as a positive resource for my peace convictions. I have done some recent thinking that has provided a sense of clarity about one particular angle that I want to outline in this post. I have long believed, and still do, that my pacifism does not depend on the Old Testament. However, I think pacifism is compatible with the Old Testament—and even benefits greatly from taking the Old Testament seriously.

Benefits from losing the promised land?

Lately I have read several helpful books about the Old Testament and Christian theology. At one point, I paused and thought about something I had read over and over. That was that it was such a terrible thing when the ancient Hebrews were driven from their territorial kingdom, having their temple destroyed and king dethroned. The entire story, it seems, revolves around that loss and an accompanying, long-lasting desire to restore this territorial kingdom and get their king back.

I was struck, though, with a sense that these assumptions might not be the best way to read the story. One of the books I read noted that the faith of the ancient Hebrews was established in a normative way before the people entered the promised land and established a territorial kingdom. The core elements of the faith—as found in the creation story, the exodus story, and the gift of Torah—existed independently of the territorial kingdom. As the story continues, the people enter the promised land, seek to embody Torah, establish a territorial kingdom, and, in time, lose that kingdom. Yet the peoplehood continued, based on that earlier foundation. And in the thousands of years since, the peoplehood has continued without (until very recently) a territorial kingdom. So, was losing that kingdom actually such a bad thing? In fact, might it be part of the story that territorial kingdoms are inherently problematic? Maybe the peace message of the Bible has a lot to do with precisely the point that faithful living is best pursued apart from taking responsibility for territorial kingdoms or nation-states.

Continue reading “Finding peace in the Old Testament [Peace and the Bible #19]” →