Jeremy Bouma – Christian Participation in War and Violence

My friend Jeremy is doing a series on Christian Participation in War and Violence over at his blog Novus Lumen. You can get a good sense of the series by this quote from his introductory post.

“Rather than following the ethic of Caesar, members of the Kingdom are called to imitate the ethic of Jesus, which centers on loving God and loving others. As an eschatological community, the Church is called to bear witness to God’s movement to re-create the world anew in Christ, a world where violence and war has no place.

As citizens of the Kingdom, which was inaugurated through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, we are called to live into a new ethic, of which peacemaking is primary. The meaning of this new ethic will only be understood properly, both inside and outside the Church, when communities of Jesus followers actively and deliberately embody the costly way of peace”

I look forward to seeing where he goes over the next few posts, but so far I think he is offering an important challenge to Christian assumptions about our participation in violence.