Topic: War

The saints of God are engaged in a war between conflicting empires battling for control of the world, but Jesus has radically transformed our understanding of how we fight.

Our call to bear witness to the culture of God comes at a time when we face the real prospect of doom and destruction, and so must contend with that.

When we fear for our own safety, we condone the violence that promises to protect us, and we use religion to justify it, but Jesus wants to free us to rise above the fear without resorting to hatred and violence.

Perhaps amidst the increasingly depressing state of the world, Jesus is calling us to learn the path of faithfulness from those who never win.

Jesus calls us to embrace God, life, and one another with joy, delight, hope, and grace, not with heartlessness cloaked in legalities.

The book of Esther is like a joke that has aged badly, enabling us to see how righteous anger at anti-semitism can become its horrifying mirror image.

When misunderstood, being “the chosen” can mutate into a toxic culture of entitlement that produces horrific criminal behaviour, and Jesus calls us to join him in challenging that culture.

The doctrine of the Trinity teaches us how to take sides when the Bible brings us conflicting voices, especially over persistent issues like ethno-nationalism, racism, war, and genocide.

God reaches out to us through babies and elderly folks with a message of love and redemption that cuts through the theological justifications of empire and warmongering and calls us to peace.

Many parts of the Bible can be and often are weaponised as tools of oppression, but when we read it critically, with and through the teachings and example of Jesus, it calls us to liberation and life.