A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor's Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace

by Brian Zahnd

When your city is built upon violence, freedom is just another word for killing your brother. But when your city is built upon love, freedom is just another word for being your brother’s keeper. Jesus brings us the truth that will set us free. The truth is that God is love and light. The truth is that our enemies are really our alienated brothers. The truth is there is no “them”—there is only us. The truth is that freedom is love, not power. The truth is there is another way to arrange human civilization than what we have known. The truth is that the way of war is a lie. It comes from the father of lies, the father of murder.

The truth is: God is love and our enemies are our brothers. Freedom is just another word for what happens to us when we live in the light of that truth. Do we have the courage to embrace the truth that will set us free?

Do you really think the only way to bring about the peace is to sacrifice your children and kill all your enemies?6 —Larry Norman

What I am is a Christian. And as a Christian, we can talk about how Christ informs humanity on the subject of violence.

What happened was once the red, white, and blue varnish was removed from Jesus and I learned to read the Gospels free of a star-spangled interpretation, I discovered that my Lord and Savior had a lot of things to say about peace that I had been missing. I was as surprised as anyone! But once you’ve seen the truth, you can’t unknow what you know and be true to yourself.

The expectation was for Jesus to be a kind of first-century Jewish George Washington. The prevailing sentiment was a yearning for war, not peace. The dominant assumption was that violence was the path that would lead to freedom. When Jesus saw that his vision for the kingdom of God had been conscripted by a violent nationalistic agenda, he wept and lamented the fate of Jerusalem. The patriotic crowd wanted the second coming of Joshua the Canaanite killer or David the Philistine slayer or Judah “The Hammer” Maccabeus. But Jesus was not the second coming of any Jewish war hero—he was the first coming of the Prince of Peace!

When Jesus wept and said, “If only you had known the things that make for peace,” he wasn’t talking about spiritual peace or inner peace or emotional peace; he was talking about peace from the literal hell that is war.

Twain did a masterful job of showing us how wrongheaded Christians can be about what constitutes salvation. For Huck to act according to justice, he had to think he was committing a great sin. For Huck to act Christlike, he had to think he was forsaking Christianity. For Huck to love his neighbor as himself, he had to think he was condemning his soul to hell.

The things that make for peace are the two great commandments: love of God and love of neighbor, but especially the second command. (Love of God is only validated by a cosuffering love of neighbor.) The “golden rule” of evaluating our actions through the eyes of our neighbor is the narrow and difficult road that leads to life and peace. The golden rule is the narrow gate. The narrow gate is not a sinner’s prayer; the narrow gate is the practice of the Jesus way. The narrow gate is fulfilling the law and the prophets by empathetic love of neighbor in imitation of Jesus. When we hate and vilify others for ideological reasons, when we demonize and dehumanize others for nationalistic reasons, when we use and exploit others for economic reasons, we are on the highway to hell—we have chosen the well-worn road that leads to war and destruction. The deeply disconcerting thing is that it is entirely possible to cruise down the broad road of impending doom while singing songs of praise to Jesus.

The revolutionary insight that’s been central to my theological journey is a deeper understanding of what the kingdom of God actually is. I remember telling my church eight years ago that seeing the kingdom of God had given me “new eyes.” Reading the Bible with “kingdom eyes” made Scripture brand new to me. I came to realize that the kingdom of God was virtually the sole topic of Jesus’ teaching ministry. The gospel of the kingdom is what the apostles were announcing in the book of Acts. And even though Paul doesn’t often use the term “kingdom of God” in his epistles, I came to understand that what Jesus tends to call the kingdom of God, Paul tends to call salvation, but they’re talking about the same thing! In 2006 I worked on this single question for several months: What is salvation? I finally concluded that this is the best answer: Salvation is the kingdom of God. Our personal experience with the kingdom of God (including forgiveness) is our personal experience of salvation, but the kingdom of God is much bigger than our personal experience of it. The problem we have today is that the term “kingdom of God” is archaic and obscured under layers of religious veneer. “Kingdoms” went out with the Middle Ages and we tend to think of the “kingdom of God/heaven” as privatized Christianity experienced in our personal spiritual lives. But Jesus was [doing something far more radical when He proclaimed the kingdom of God—he was announcing] that the government of God was at long la...

We should think deeply upon the fact that the Nazi blitzkriegs were waged by baptized soldiers. Had the church held to pre-Constantine convictions, Hitler would never have gotten off the ground. Before we appeal to Hitler as the ultimate argument against Christian nonviolence, we first have to ask how Hitler was able to amass a following of Christians in the first place. After all, it wasn’t atheists and pagans who formed the German Christian movement that lent support to Hitler in the 1930s.

When the Son of Man judges the nations, he divides them into sheep and goats. Interestingly, this division is not based on praying a sinner’s prayer or getting saved or saying one is a Christian, but on the treatment of certain people.

So how does Jesus judge or evaluate nations? What criteria does he use? When we evaluate nations, we tend to do so on the basis of wealth and power—Gross Domestic Product, standard of living, strength of the economy, strength of the military. But this is not the criterion Jesus uses to judge the nations as he sits upon his glorious throne. Jesus judges nations on how well they care for four kinds of people: The Poor. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink … I was naked and you gave me clothing.” The Sick. “I was sick and you took care of me.” The Immigrant. “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” The Prisoner. “I was in prison and you visited me.” (Matt. 25:35–36)

The most radical thing about the Christian life is that Jesus calls us to take up our own cross and follow his example. Why are followers of Christ called to carry their own cross? So we can bring about righteousness by torturing and killing our enemies? No! Jesus has transformed the cross. Christians carry the cross because we are willing, at any moment, to imitate our Lord by dying at the hands of our enemies rather than perpetuating the cycle of fear and violence. This was how Jesus subverted a Roman military implement and turned it into the definitive symbol of the Christian faith. Because of Christ and his resurrection, the Roman cross no longer represents torture and death. It now represents love and forgiveness. Jesus used an implement of violence and war to offer the world an alternative to violence and war. We are not safe. But we are saved.

Yes, Christ has abolished war. The King of Kings won his kingdom without war. Jesus proved there is another way. Jesus is the other way. The question “What are you willing to die for?” is not the same question as “What are you willing to kill for?” Jesus was willing to die for that which he was unwilling to kill for. Jesus won his kingdom by dying, not killing. Ruling the world by killing was buried with Christ. When Christ was raised on the third day, he did not resurrect war. With his resurrection the world is given a new trajectory, an eschatology toward peace.