"The Nonviolent God"

J. Denny Weaver is an Anabaptist/Mennonite theologian who is best known for his book “The Nonviolent Atonement” (2001; 2^nd ed., 2011).

Dr. Weaver is coming to Kansas City as part of a book tour related to his new book, “The Nonviolent God” (2013). I am currently reading that book as well as co-leading a Sunday School class discussing it at Rainbow Mennonite Church.

Weaver was born in Kansas City, Kan., in 1941, and has ties to Rainbow (in KCKS) where he will be speaking on March 30. He will also be speaking at Central Baptist Theological Seminary on March 31. I am looking forward to hearing his talks.

Now Professor Emeritus at Bluffton University (in Ohio) where he taught for 31 years, Weaver is also the author of books about the Anabaptists, such as “Becoming Anabaptist: The Origin and Significance of Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism” (1987; 2^nd ed., 2005).

Before I really knew anything about Weaver, I mentioned what he had written about the Atonement being “divine child abuse,” as some feminist theologians describe traditional views concerning the significance of Jesus’ crucifixion. (See my “Limits of Liberalism,” pp. 196-199).

Traditional views of the atonement are severely critiqued by Weaver, who is sympathetic with the feminist theologians’ point just mentioned, as well as with James Cone who has “linked substitutionary atonement specifically to defenses of slavery and colonial oppression” (“Nonviolent Atonement,” p. 66).

Whereas “The Nonviolent Atonement” is primarily a rejection of the traditional views of the Atonement, especially the penal substitution theory that has been predominant among Protestants, “The Nonviolent God” expands that idea to include the theology of the nature of God.

On the second page of the latter, Weaver clearly states, “That God should be understood with nonviolent images constitutes the major thesis of this book.”

That thesis is based on this premise: “If God is revealed in Jesus, as Christian faith professes, then God should be considered nonviolent as a reflection of the nonviolence of Jesus” (p. 125).

Thus, “if God (or the character of God) is revealed in Jesus, the violent and nonviolent images of God cannot be reconciled” (p. 135). There are, to be sure, violent images of God in the Old Testament and even in the parables of Jesus.

But Weaver argues that there are more and stronger images of God as nonviolent and that those should be constitutive of a theological understanding of God and of the Christian life.

The emphasis on nonviolent atonement and a nonviolent God is consistent with a central conviction of Anabaptists/Mennonites such as Weaver.

Nonviolence, often referred to as pacifism, has been a dominant characteristic of most Anabaptists since the heyday of Menno Simons (1496-1561) and is entrenched in most Mennonite churches to this day.

As one who has long identified with that tradition, and who is now a member of a Mennonite church, Weaver’s arguments strongly resonate with me, even though I don’t necessarily agree with every point.

Thus, I can emphatically say that I am glad we in the U.S. have such a “weak” President. (With regard to the critical situations in Iran, in Syria, and now in Ukraine, how many times have I heard the President criticized by his political enemies for being weak!)

But if the President were “stronger,” and thus more inclined to use military might rather than nonviolent ways to deal with international disputes, our country could well be fighting right now in Iran and Syria and perhaps in Ukraine soon.

Since God is nonviolent, though, those who truly believe in God should always seek to be nonviolent too.

Ben Carson for President?

Some of you probably have known for quite some time who Dr. Ben Carson is. For some reason, I have just recently heard about him. In an email received recently, a friend told me about the movie “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story.” June and I watched that inspiring film on March 7.

The very next day Carson was a featured speaker at this year’s CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference). At that meeting there was some hubbub by those seeking to draft him as the Republican presidential candidate in 2016.

Carson (b. 1951) was the second son born to a minister and his young wife (they married when she was 13; he was 28) in Detroit. Young Ben’s parents separated when he was 8, and he and his brother were raised by their remarkable mother. Carson once remarked,

Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my mother.’ I’m not sure I want to say it quite like that, but my mother Sonya Carson, was the earliest, strongest, and most impacting force in my life. It would be impossible to tell about my accomplishments without starting with my mother’s influence.

Carson, indeed, went on to accomplish much. He graduated from Yale University and then obtained his M.D. degree from the University of Michigan. After medical school he became a neurosurgery resident at the world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

At age 32, Carson became the hospital's Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery. Then in 1987, he led in the first successful separation of Siamese twins joined at the back of their heads. “Gifted Hands” climaxes with the details of that grueling 22-hour-long operation.

Somehow I missed hearing about Dr. Carson speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in February 2013. (I have recently listened to it on YouTube.)

It was because of some of the gutsy things Carson said in that 27-minutes talk, with the President sitting just a few feet away, that gained him great acclaim, especially among political conservatives.

Just eight days later Carson was an hour-long guest on the Sean Hannity Show. He has been very popular among conservative Republicans ever since—so much so that a National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee has been formed.

(Their website is RunBenRun.org, and they have already raised more than $3,000,000.)

And on at CPAC on March 8, Carson came in third place (with 9% of the votes) in the poll indicating who the participants most wanted to be President.

Chances are, though, Dr. Carson won’t be the Republican candidate for President in 2016. But should he be?

Carson is obviously very intelligent and has exhibited the ability to overcome great difficulties in order to achieve greatness. He was an outstanding success as a neurosurgeon, his chosen profession. (He retired last summer.)

Further, Carson is certainly a dedicated Christian man with a fine wife and seems to be morally upright in every way. It certainly would be hard to argue with any of those qualifications.

But he has made some very questionable statements in the political arena that make it hard to see him as a viable presidential candidate.

For example, Carson has said ObamaCare is the worst thing for this country since slavery. He has also has made some dumb statements about not raising the debt ceiling. Moreover, he has no experience whatsoever in public office.

So while I have great respect for him as an individual, as a neurosurgeon, and as a person of faith, no, Ben Carson for President doesn’t sound like a good idea.

The Last True Samurai

Was he a fool or a hero? Or maybe the question should be, Was he a heroic fool or a foolish hero? The man in question is Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who fought World War II from 1944 to 1974. 

 

That’s right, Onoda didn’t surrender until 1974. It was 40 years ago this week that he finally returned to Japan from the Philippines where, in his mind, he was an active soldier for all those years.

You may have heard something about Onoda in the news recently, for he died on January 16 at the age of 91.

In December 1944 Onoda was sent to Lubang Island in the Philippines. His orders stated that under no circumstances was he to surrender or take his own life.

By the time the Japanese control of Lubang had been broken by the U.S. army in February 1945, all but Onoda and three other soldiers had either died or surrendered. Onoda, who was then a lieutenant, ordered the men to take to the hills. They did.

And they stayed, and stayed, and stayed on that small island.

There is a popular TV program called “Survivor.” Some of you probably watch is regularly. Well, he wasn’t on TV, but Onoda was the ultimate survivor.

Somehow Onoda managed to survive, without being captured or killed, for 29 years on an inhabited island that is just over six miles wide and sixteen miles in length.

Onoda’s story is told in “No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War,” the book published in his name in 1974. The English translator, Charles S. Terry (1926-82), talked with Onoda several times.

Onoda’s fascinating book tells how after the war ended in August 1945, he and the other Japanese on Lubang saw pamphlets, and heard searchers, telling them that they war was over and they ought to come out of hiding.

But he, and those with him, thought that was only a trick by the enemy.

Onoda and his three compatriots vowed to keep on fighting. But one of the four left the others in 1949 and surrendered in 1950. A second one was shot and killed by a search party in 1954.

From then on it was just Onoda and Kinshichi Kozuka who helped each other survive for 18 years. Then Kozuka was killed by local police in 1972.

In early 1974, Nori Suzuki (1949-86), a young Japanese adventurer, set out to find Onoda—and he did. But Onoda told Suzuki that he would not quit fighting until his commanding officer ordered him to do so.

Consequently, on March 9, 1974, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi met Onoda on Lubang and released his faithful soldier from his obligation to keep fighting.

March 9, 1974

After receiving a pardon from Philippine President Marcos, Onoda finally returned to Japan—and to a hero’s welcome—on March 12, one week before his 52^nd birthday.

June and I were living in Japan at that time and remember the sawagi (excitement) his return caused.

March 12, 1974

Onoda was dismayed by all the changes in Japan he found there after 30 years. So in 1975 he moved to Brazil and married a Japanese woman there.

The Onodas returned to Japan in 1984, and he established the Onoda Nature School, an educational camp for urban Japanese young people.

In general, Onoda has been seen as a hero in Japan—and considered by many as the last true samurai.

In reflecting on Onoda’s story, I began to think about what a difference there would be in society today if we Christians were as faithful to our Lord’s commands as Onoda was to the words of his commanding officer.

The Benefits of Polygamy?

Opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes say, using the slippery slope argument, that recognition of such marriage would lead to approval of polygamy also. I have argued, correctly I think, that those are two completely separate issues and the slippery slope argument is not valid.

But recently I have thought more about the subject of polygamy and have, surprisingly, come to the conclusion that perhaps it should be legal in this pluralistic country. (Please note: neither I nor any man I know is wanting a second wife!)

There has been no legal polygamy (or even practice of polygamy with only a few exceptions) in the Western world for centuries. Perhaps to a large degree this been because of Christianity. But maybe there should be some provision for polygamy in the U.S. now.

As we know, there was widespread polygamy in the Old Testament, and because of that there have some instances of polygamy in Western history. For example, in the 1530s polygamy was practiced in Münster, (in what is now) Germany.

Under reforms made by Jan van Leiden, the self-proclaimed King of Münster, polygamy became mandatory because it was the practice of the Old Testament and thus sanctioned by God. (Also on a practical level the woman/man ratio was something like 3 or 4 to 1, so there was an overabundance of women in the city). Leiden would take 16 wives for himself.

There was also approval, in 1540, of the bigamous marriage of Philip of Hesse, one of the most important in 16^th century German political leaders. His taking of a second wife had the approval of some of the leading Protestant theologians of the day, including Martin Luther’s reluctant consent.

But still, in most “Christian” nations, bigamy/polygamy has overwhelmingly been recognized as being opposed to the teachings of Christianity and made illegal. And for good reason.

But there are other ways to look at the issue. I first glimpsed a benefit of polygamy when reading about Afghani women in A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) by Khaled Hosseini (b. 1965), the Afghan-American novelist whose first book The Kite Runner (2003) was an overwhelming success.

In Hosseini’s second novel, also a bestseller, Rasheed is an Afghani man who takes a second wife, much to the dismay of Mariam, his first wife. But Rasheed was an increasingly abusive husband, and the two wives became close friends and mutually supportive in their resistance to their common “enemy.”

Then, I happened to come across a most interesting online article titled “Islam’s Position on Polygamy.” (This is on the website called www.IslamsWomen.com.) The article gives many reasons why the practice of polygamy is superior to monogamy. Let me share just one: 

Polygamy protects the interests of women and children in society. Men, in Western society make the laws. They prefer to keep polygamy illegal because it absolves them of responsibility. Legalized polygamy would require them to spend on their additional wives and their offspring. Monogamy allows them to enjoy extra-marital affairs without economic consequence.

(The same article also makes the following highly questionable assertion: “In the West today, most married men have extramarital relations with mistresses, girlfriends and prostitutes.”)

This posting is partly a response to comments toward the end of my 1/20/14 blog article, especially the one calling outlawing polygamy a “religious bias.” So, perhaps making some legal provision for polygamy is needed for the religious freedom of Muslims (and fundamentalist Mormons).

But are there sufficient benefits of polygamy that such should be legalized? I’m not convinced that there are. And is polygamy generally beneficial for women? Most probably not.