“A Faith Not Worth Fighting For will
put fresh wind in the sails of a postmodern generation that is quickly moving
away from the triumphalistic, militant, God-and-country Christianity of
American theocracy and toward the peaceable, humble, uncompromisingly
nonviolent Christianity of Christ again. At the end of the day, that's what we
need -- a Christianity that looks like Jesus again, and that takes the cross
seriously. After all, we can look at the Bible and find verses that justify
violence and nonviolence. We can look at history and find strong arguments to
make a case for war and to make a case for pacifism. But in the end we must
ask, what looks the most like Jesus?
If we want to
see what love looks like as it stares evil in the face, we need only look at
the cross. It is the cross that shows us the nonviolent love of God, a God who
loves enemies so much he dies for them ... for us. It is that cross that makes
no sense to the wisdom of this world and that confounds the logic of smart
bombs. That triumph of Christ's execution and resurrection was a victory over
violence, hatred, sin, and everything ugly in the world. And it is the triumph
of the glorious resurrection that fills us with the hope that death is dead --
if only we will let it die.
As the early
Christians said, "For Christ, we can die, but we cannot kill." That
is a truth at the heart of the Gospel: there is something worth dying for, but
nothing in the world worth killing for.”
- Shane Claiborne
