Topic: Violence

There are many stories in the Bible that can appear to portray God as involved in terrorist acts, but Jesus invites us to read them in new ways.

What would happen if violence were met with bread, with blankets, with hospitals, with forgiveness of debts?

God and religion misunderstood can be the cause of hostility, division and violence, but the God made known to us in Jesus is a God of grace who generously gives us life, freedom and reconciliation.

The stories of Moses, Elijah and Jesus on various mountain tops reveals a process of God’s self-revelation as the one who loves us and suffers for us.

Jesus is the “Lamb of God”, a sacrifice offered by God to appease and expose the sin of the world – the sacrificial monster of human blame-shifting and scapegoating.

Jesus leads us in the way of redemptive freedom before the violence of the world.

Jesus calls us to love and care for the world’s victims, and to refuse to participate in making more of them (even from among the victimisers).

The salvation of the world lies in Jesus’ model of non-retaliation.

The promise that God will bring new life from a dead stump challenges our haste to chop down whatever seems to be in our way.

Salvation belongs to Christ alone, but those who have fought and died for other forms of salvation are among those with whom Christ identifies himself; fellow victims of the atrocity from which Christ is saving us.

A growing incidence of cataclysmic violence is not a sign of God’s activity, but it does call us to hold on to our hope and look for God’s action in small signs of life coming from death.

We seek to live and practice non-violence as the only way to overcome injustice, persecution, tyranny and violence and build cultures of peace.