Abstract
In a world where violence is often justified on religious grounds, and at a time when belief in God is sometimes implicated as being inherently violent, this book is a word in season. J. Denny Weaver is a Mennonite theologian whose doctoral work in historical theology focused on the doctrine of God among Anabaptists. For over three decades, in dialogue with his Anabaptist heritage and in response to challenges from various forms of liberation theology, Weaver has been forging a ‘peace-shaped’ theology.
Readers from outside the Peace Church tradition may know Weaver as the author of The Nonviolent Atonement (Eerdmans, 2001; rev. ed., 2011), in which he reconstructs atonement theory in line with nonviolent theological convictions. Adapting the classic Christus Victor motif, Weaver develops a conception of the atonement grounded in the entirety of Jesus’ life and mission, death and resurrection – a ‘narrative Christus Victor’. The Nonviolent God both reprises and expands upon Weaver’s ‘narrative Christus Victor’ model of the atonement. Since the atonement, theologically conceived, is God’s saving work, Jesus’ mission as a whole illuminates divine agency and character. For Weaver, the nonviolent character of Jesus’ reconciling mission reveals God’s own character to be nonviolent. Stated as a conditional syllogism, Weaver’s argument may be summarised as follows: if Jesus truly reveals God and if Jesus’ mission was nonviolent, then God is nonviolent. Theology ‘specific to Jesus’ (p. 7) implies a nonviolent God-image.
The Nonviolent God is a wide-ranging book of biblical, historical, constructive and practical theology. It comprises two parts of five chapters each. Part I, ‘The God of Jesus’, elucidates what may be inferred about divine nature and agency from the life story of Jesus, especially his resurrection (which for Weaver is more the locus of God’s saving action than Jesus’ death). In this first part, chapters 4 and 5 on the mixed biblical messages regarding divine violence and the conversation about God occasioned thereby are critical. Weaver shows that the Bible attests both violent and nonviolent understandings of God’s character and involvement in the world. Since the Bible does not present a uniform God-image, it may be seen as the record of a conversation regarding the relation between God and violence. In this continuing conversation, the life story of Jesus in the biblical Gospels arbitrates in favour of envisioning God as nonviolent. Concerned to present a liveable theology, Weaver helpfully concludes the first part of his book by exploring the relation between God-image and human conduct.
Part II of Weaver’s book, ‘The Reign of God Made Visible’, reflects the Anabaptist emphasis on the Christian life as one of communal witness to, yet also continuation of, the reign of God displayed in the mission of Jesus precisely by following the nonviolent way of Jesus. Here Weaver traces key ecclesiological ramifications of central Christological convictions, attending to such matters as ‘the church as the lived narrative of Jesus’ (pp. 173–86), nonviolent social practices (including forgiveness), racial, gender and economic concerns, as well as sagacious reflections on nature and suffering.
Within the Anabaptist tradition, it has long been recognised that the teaching and example of Jesus implies a nonviolent ethic. Only recently, however, has the view taken hold that the nonviolent character of Jesus’ mission has implications for conceptualising the character of God. Even within the Peace Church tradition, this is a contentious inference. Yet it might be paradigm-shifting. Weaver’s theological proposal deserves careful and considered appraisal.