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Blessed are the Peacemakers - Rev. Dr. Helen Paynter
87 Plays4 months ago
Is human violence ever right? Rev. Dr. Helen Paynter’s work Blessed are the Peacemakers: A Biblical Theology of Human Violence dives into the difficulties of finding a consistent Biblical theology among the variety of voices and perspectives offered in Scripture. Dr. Paynter joins Reparadigmed to discuss how Christians can find ethical guidance in Scriptures for navigating a fallen world. She addresses some common pitfalls and problematic assumptions that can skew our understanding of what Scripture has to say about human violence. She also discusses how a community of faith can work to hold the eschatological goals of justice, peace, and holiness in a tempered tension on this side of restoration.
Resource Referenced: The Bible Doesn’t Tell Me So: Why you don't have to submit to domestic abuse and coercive control, The Church, the Far Right, and the Claim to Christianity, Blessed Are the Peacemakers: A Biblical Theology of Violence by Helen Paynter
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Transcript
Introduction to Reverend Dr. Helen Painter
00:00:00
Speaker
Today on the podcast, we are excited to share a conversation that we were able to have with Reverend Dr. Helen Painter, who's tutoring biblical studies at Bristol Baptist College. She's also founding director at the Center for the Study of Bible and Violence. Helen is the author and editor of a number of books, including The Bible Doesn't Tell Me So, Why You Don't Have to Submit to Domestic Abuse and Coercive Control.
00:00:21
Speaker
She's co-editor with Maria Power of The Church, The Far Right, and The Claim to Christianity. And she's, of course, the author of the book that we discussed today, Blessed are the Peacemakers, biblical theology of violence.
00:00:32
Speaker
Enjoy the conversation with Dr. Helen Painter.
Interpreting Ancient Texts for Modern Readers
00:00:38
Speaker
Most Christians don't read Greek or Hebrew. Most aren't biblical specialists or theologians. And while many Christians believe in the perspicuity of the scriptures to every believer, there's still a gap between the ancient text and the modern reader that someone is filling.
00:00:54
Speaker
You go on to say someone is translating the scripture for them and someone is probably interpreting it to them. You go on to basically say that if scripture has authority, then translators are also kind of interpreters in a way, and they end up bearing some of that functional authority.
00:01:09
Speaker
So the question is kind of why is this nuanced understanding of perspicuity that the scriptures are clear to everyone? Why is that so important for modern interpreters to understand?
The Power and Threat of Translating Scripture
00:01:20
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. and Can I begin with an anecdote? One of my heroes is William Tyndale, and I'm sure listeners will know that William Tyndale was judicially executed for daring to translate the scriptures into English.
00:01:33
Speaker
Now, the reason i bring this up is because it's interesting to reflect on why that action of translating the scriptures into English was such a threat. um to the authorities. And the reason is because because Scripture carries power to those who um for whom it is their faith text.
00:01:52
Speaker
And those who, in Tyndale's case, in the most extreme example, those who literally had control over telling people what Scripture said, and thereby had add a whole lot of power.
Reading Scriptures in Community
00:02:02
Speaker
um And while today that the the wonderful fact that, for example, we English speakers have dozens of translations our disposal is thank God for that. And I thank God for William Tyndale, um who who kind of kicked that ball rolling, really.
00:02:16
Speaker
so So in some senses, that that gap has been kind of closed a little bit, but it hasn't completely, because in in the quotation that you just referred to, we don't read scripture on our own.
00:02:28
Speaker
And in fact, I would argue that we shouldn't read scripture on our own. Well, but I don't mean we shouldn't sit and Not solely alone. Exactly. Exclusively alone. We're not supposed to be desert island interpreters. We're supposed to be part of interpreting interpretive communities.
00:02:43
Speaker
At one point, it at once in one sense, it's really, really important that we have confidence that our translations are, they're not perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect translation, um but they are adequate.
Balancing Scholarly Insights and Personal Understanding
00:02:56
Speaker
So the perspicuity of Scripture, this idea that Scripture is is clear enough on the matters that really matters, which is questions of great questions of salvation. I would want to say that's not just true about the scriptures in their original language, but the scriptures in our translations, they are clear enough on these matters. And and I really never want us to lose confidence in that.
00:03:17
Speaker
So there's kind of two, there's two poles. There's two dangers, I suppose. One is that um those who have, who are able to read scripture in the original language, those who study scripture ah professionally as it were, kind of intimidate others into thinking that they can't, that they just don't have the competence to read scripture and understand what it's saying. And I and i really want to resist that. yeah um But at the same time,
00:03:43
Speaker
If we fail to attend to the voices of those who have dived deeply and studied hard, and then we will miss something. So the perspective of Scripture is, yes, we we have, through the Holy Spirit, we have the competence to read Scripture for the things that matter most.
00:03:58
Speaker
But we still have so much more to learn. And we learn from one another. We read in community. And that community includes include the historical church and it includes ah the global church.
00:04:10
Speaker
um And that's a really important thing that we we don't allow interpretations to be entirely shaped by the the the Western mindset and and the white mindset. And we read with attention to but not controlled by those who have studied hard and and and
Genesis Creation: A Non-Violent Divine Command
00:04:28
Speaker
prayerfully.
00:04:28
Speaker
Your book takes on the the large and impressive task of trying to understand a biblical theology around violence and and peacemaking. ah You discuss the importance of understanding Genesis 1 and 2 for understanding God's ideal for humanity, because you argue we need to understand violence within that context.
00:04:45
Speaker
So how does the creation account shape our understanding of human violence? I've got a reputation here where I teach that any theological question I ever get asked, I say, well, In order to think that through properly, we need to start with Genesis 1 and 2. And my poor students, ah they can pretty much script that first part of the conversation.
00:05:04
Speaker
It's not a bad impulse. Yeah, I think so so there's So let me say right at the beginning, I guess I don't know where your readers will sit on this, that as soon as we start talking about Genesis 1 and 2, in some circles, people start thinking, oh, you know, is this a about six-day creation and work in science? Apologetics. Apologetics. And yeah, all of these questions.
00:05:24
Speaker
and And is she going to say that this isn't true? And I get this question a lot. And and I want to say um that what we learn from these extraordinary chapters um is far, far more important than any question about whether God made the world in six days or 6,000 or 6 million or whatever.
00:05:43
Speaker
um because we are learning deep theological truths. um So I think what we see in Genesis 1 and 2 is something about a glimpse of the world as God intended it to be before we got our mucky hands on it and and and wrecked it.
00:05:58
Speaker
um And that then gives us a sense of what God is working to restore, in fact, more than restore, and to redeem. But it gives us a sense of the shape of that. Now, one of the most useful ways that we can read these chapters is by comparing them with what um the writers might have said, because they operate within a within an ancient, within the technical language is the ancient Near East. So this is this particular part of the world in that particular time.
00:06:26
Speaker
And all of the cultures around, you know, we read them named in the Old Testament, you know, the Moabites and the Hittites and the Babylonians and so on. They all had their own creation stories. And there are many common themes to those creation stories.
00:06:39
Speaker
um And the Genesis creation story employs some of those, shares some of those in common, but has some really important distinctions. Now, when texts surprise us or surprise the original readers, as best we can kind of think our way into that, um when we think a text would have surprised its original readers, that's the kind of force of the text.
00:07:02
Speaker
You know, a text has a whole lot of content. It is the place where it's, as best we can determine, where it would surprised its original readers, that it it is that the that the weight of that communication sits.
00:07:14
Speaker
Yeah. where the magic happens. Yeah. Yeah. and And what would have surprised the original readers, somebody looking over the shoulder, either ancient Israelite or or maybe even someone like a Hittite or a Babylonian who kind of stumbles across it?
00:07:28
Speaker
What would they have been surprised by? They we've been surprised that there was one God and not a whole load of them. That would have been quite astonishing. They would have been really surprised by the fact that the world is not created out of a great cosmic conflict.
00:07:42
Speaker
um And the world is created um by a a simple, um what we call divine fiat, just this kind of calm, beautiful command. It's not kind of a rest.
00:07:53
Speaker
Actually, we see echoes of this in in the New Testament. You know when Jesus calms the storm um and the disciples are kind of panicking and there's this sense of of actually there's something really scary going on here, just both in terms of the physical, but actually there's probably something really supernatural going on here. And and actually the waters represent chaos and reminders of Genesis, the primordial waters there.
00:08:15
Speaker
And Jesus doesn't kind of engage in this warfare thing. He just kind of calmly says, peace, be still. and And that is I'm confident that that is an echo of of that first divine fiat, where God simply and calmly says, let there be light. A benevolent, generative act.
00:08:33
Speaker
Exactly that. So that's the next thing that would be astonishing to the ancient, to an ancient kind of eavesdropper or or someone looking over the shoulder of that text. A third thing, not the only last thing to say, but a third thing is that that this this beautiful garden that God creates, this is this is essentially the primordial act of hospitality. This is the most...
00:08:58
Speaker
extraordinary, beauteous, beautiful, lush world that God has created to to place humanity into. And that again is so this is something about the purpose of creation and the ancient reader would be astonished by this because all those other stories, they have they have Earth created it as a saya as a by-product of some cosmic battle.
00:09:19
Speaker
And humans are created to be slaves of gods who are fed up of the work that they have been given, that they seem to have kind of fallen into doing, digging ditches and things. Annoyingly noisy slaves sometimes. Exactly. Annoyingly noisy slaves as well.
00:09:31
Speaker
And so they that they they create these slaves um to um yeah to do the work that they don't want to do. And then, as what you refer to, they then the flood account later is, oh, they've just got too noisy. Let's wipe them out. That's how they they tell that story.
00:09:46
Speaker
and And that is so different from from Genesis, where where humans are created to be to to to to rule as vice regents in God's world, and and this wonderful world has been created for them to live in, for us to live in.
00:09:58
Speaker
Now, why does that matter with in
Violence: A Human Condition Post-Fall
00:10:00
Speaker
terms of violence? It matters in a nutshell. It matters because violence is not primordial. Violence is something that we see coming into the world after the fall. But before the fall, before Genesis 3, there is no violence. The world has not been created in violence as an act of divine violence. And therefore, violence is not woven into the fabric of the world in in a primordial sense. Now, we know, we all know that violence is actually, in a secondary sense, is absolutely woven into the fabric of the world. But that is the human breaking of it.
00:10:32
Speaker
The world itself is not is not fundamentally violent. And that is a very important thing that Genesis teaches us as we as we start to read forwards. In chapter two, I think you did a really interesting kind of thought experiment. You're talking about the potential difficulty in kind of seeing all the Bible simplistically as an ethical guide for everyone.
00:10:53
Speaker
You say that the biblical writers do not all speak with a single voice. This is usually called like multivocality or non-univocality. ah But to showcase this point, it's interesting. You asked the readers to engage in kind of an experiment where you ask a biblical writer this question, is human violence against other humans ever acceptable?
Biblical Perspectives on Human Violence
00:11:14
Speaker
And it seems like you get all kinds of different answers depending on where you're reading. So I thought you'd maybe want to discuss that a little bit. i I offer it because I want to offer a caution against the idea that we can pluck our favourite bit of scripture out and use that to to form an entire ethic.
00:11:30
Speaker
And of course, the one of the great dangers, there's all sorts of problems with doing that, but one of the great dangers is we pluck out the bits that we want that we like, the bits that suit our current opinion. and So if we ask the question, is human violence against humans ever acceptable? Supposing we aren't ask that of the writer of Genesis.
00:11:46
Speaker
And I think we get the answer kind of, um well, exceptionally, it is it is necessary, because the shedding of human blood must be repaid by the shedding of human blood. So the writer of Genesis will say, yes, sometimes.
00:12:00
Speaker
Ask that question of the author of the book of Joshua, and he'll say, well, obviously. yeah um Ask that question of the author of Lamentations, and um Or in fact, of the kind of, um so the author of Lamentations kind of takes on various personas.
00:12:18
Speaker
um And there's one particular persona, um you ask it of her, and she will say, how can you how can you ask that question? and she And she'll answer that question as she's spitting out the blood from her broken teeth, being on the receiving end of extreme violence.
00:12:33
Speaker
Ask that question of Jesus. Even ask that question of Jesus and we get complex answers. He says, all who ah live by the sword will die by the sword. But he also at one point tells his disciples to carry a sword. So there is no single answer to this question or there is no so so there is no single verse that answers this question.
00:12:52
Speaker
um And so what we need to do is say, what do we do with this apparent plurality of testimony on the question? I mean, um the council of despair,
00:13:03
Speaker
is to say, well, there is no coherence here, that, you know, he pays your money, he takes your choice. This is just a kind of random assortment of different people's opinions. And of course, that that's not how I view scripture. And that's not what I think the the divine author is doing. But we need to be, however we address that question, we need to be prepared um to be honest about the diversity of initial answers that we get.
00:13:25
Speaker
Yeah, since the Bible isn't univocal on every issue and every place, you offer kind of a couple different ways that people try to address that or deal
Polyphony in Scripture's Diverse Voices
00:13:34
Speaker
with that. You say there's like a smorgasbord way to approach the issue or a developmental approach.
00:13:40
Speaker
wonder if you could share some of the pitfalls of both types of approaches and what you think is the most fruitful way to navigate this. Well, the smorgasbord approach is the kind of that kind of pick and mix approach that I was just saying I think is really unhelpful.
00:13:52
Speaker
and The idea that you kind of approach scripture like a buffet and then and then take the bits that that you fancy. I like the verses that support my you know political views. so ah Exactly. It's terrifying what we can actually justify if we're going to take that approach.
00:14:06
Speaker
And what we what we're implicitly saying, if we take that approach, is we're implicitly saying these other bits got it wrong, um or God isn't in these other bits, or or something. So in my view, my doctrine of Scripture won't allow me to take, and my doctrine of God won't allow me to take that approach.
00:14:22
Speaker
Now, another approach is to take a kind of developmental approach. And there's different versions of that. So the one developmental approach is kind of looking at moral development. and And it kind of, in its crudest form, it kind of says things like, well, back in those ancient days, the people weren't as enlightened as we are.
00:14:37
Speaker
um And you kind of want to say yes, and you kind of want to say no. Because if you look back at the the earliest, I'm not talking about when they were written, in terms of when they're set, the earliest Old Testament texts,
00:14:48
Speaker
This is, you know, this is a ah ah Bronze Age and even pre-Bronze Age world where where they think differently about things and and life seems to be a lot cheaper. um and And we can't deny that that they they live in a different time and and they evaluate things perhaps differently from us sometimes.
00:15:05
Speaker
um But there is a real danger that we kind of have a kind of chronological superiority and and that we look back on these poor and enlightened peoples and and think to ourselves, or we've and we're so much wiser and so much more ethical these days. And quite honestly,
00:15:21
Speaker
we if we just read the newspapers for one day. An even more fundamental problem with that is is that what we end up doing if we follow that approach too slavishly, and I think it has some merits, as to say, but if we follow it, if we allow that to be the only way that we um try to grapple with the question, then we end up saying things like, well, clearly the writers of those early texts heard God wrong um and and the writers of later texts heard God better.
00:15:46
Speaker
And again, this depends on our doctrine of scripture, but but for me, I'm not, I think we always need to ask the, we need to ask all sorts of questions of scripture. We always need to ask the question of of what is, what is God saying in this, in this original narrative? um Sometimes we misunderstand what God is saying, I think. So if I could just very briefly give an example, um Judges 19, which I've done a lot of work on, most <unk>ling appalling, appalling text of sexual violence and and murder.
00:16:14
Speaker
and And um at no point does God say this is this is punishment upon the woman, this is this is right, this is good. In fact, we read the text carefully, we understand that there's a a sharp criticism of of the sharp condemnation of those actions.
00:16:31
Speaker
But people sometimes read that as God is, misunderstand that God is saying that. So we need to do hard work about what God is saying. But if we are too slavish and to the developmental approach of the exclusion of all else, then we'll end up saying, no, God didn't say what he perhaps actually did say.
00:16:47
Speaker
Another approach is to um understand the kind of think about it in terms of the musical phrase, a musical term, polyphony. So polyphony is the idea in music of of of many voices, um not in unison, unison, thank you very much, um but in harmony. So voices and sometimes voices that are are dissonant um with one another and yet all add to part of the whole. That idea was picked up by a man called Michal Bakhtin who uses this language to look at how texts can operate this way.
00:17:18
Speaker
And the idea um that he puts out, and he doesn't apply this to scripture but others have, um is to say that that you can have voices that are dial in dialogue within a text.
00:17:29
Speaker
um And that the way to then read that well is not to say which one is right, or in fact to say, well, the answer must be kind of halfway between them, but to look for the way that truth might emerge as those voices clash.
00:17:43
Speaker
And, and so I mean, it, An example of polyphony within scripture, I think, would be on the question of, um did God want Israel to have
Frameworks: Biblical Theology vs. Redemptive Trajectory
00:17:50
Speaker
a king? Because you can certainly find that different answers to that question um in different parts of scripture. And so you need to say, well, what how do we handle that? And the answer is, well, God half wanted Israel to have a king. Of course, that's not the answer.
00:18:02
Speaker
We need to understand that you know that there's a certain kind of king that God wants them to have and a certain kind of king that he doesn't want them to have. And sense of disappointment that they want one in the first place. And so there's a complexity there which the polyphony will draw to our attention if we ever if we pay attention to it.
00:18:18
Speaker
So there's a number of different ways of looking at it. In in my view, um biblical theology is is the most important one, and it draws in aspects of some of those other approaches.
00:18:29
Speaker
And it seeks to look at the the deep themes of scripture. So any particular text that we look at We are asking the question, what deep themes does this touch on? And then how do those themes, how have those themes been developing so far? And where do those themes go onwards? And where do they land? I mean, some people are afraid of even that approach. But I think without a doubt, I i think actually most evangelical Christians need to accept the fact that something like this hermeneutic was used by the William Wilbur forces in your country to push for the end of the slave trade. and
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah, you don't get a direct condemnation of slavery in the Old Testament or even the New Testament. We're honest about it. Yeah. But it's that type of approach that led us all now to believe, oh, of course, the Bible is against that. You know what I'm saying? So like everyone accepts that at some level.
00:19:21
Speaker
I think people are really afraid of the approach because, oh, you could allow for anything then. But it's interesting that if you take your approach rather than just some other, I guess, developmental approach, there does seem to be some guardrails still for just accepting all that the culture at any time and place accepts.
00:19:38
Speaker
So I think there's a slight difference between biblical theology and the kind of redemptive trajectory idea of um but of William Webb and Gorda Oster. um I think they're linked, but I think they're slightly different. I'm not sure that biblical theology itself carries the sort of threat or sort of problem that you articulate. Got it. I think that that the the kind of redemptive trajectory idea of Webinoster could potentially um be misused or be misapplied um to in the sorts of ways that you outline. So, yeah, it's about learning to read faithfully, about learning to see.
00:20:12
Speaker
A lot of it, I think, is understanding um what Scripture teaches us about what the eschaton will look like. and Because if we understand where we are aiming, I'm not suggesting we can achieve it, um but that if we understand where we are aiming, then it lines us up in the right direction.
00:20:29
Speaker
100%. Yep. With you there, for sure. You challenged the idea, some hold, that the Old Testament is simply pro-violence and then the New Testament is against violence. um You quote the work of William Webb and Gordon Osta, who contend that a collection of anti-war or subversive war texts in scripture present Yahweh as an uneasy, highly reluctant war god.
00:20:49
Speaker
And then you wrote, it's easy and common to characterize the Old Testament as full of violence and and the New Testament is bringing the word of peace. This is unfair. The cross is, among other things, the apotheosis of nonviolence, but it does not arrive out of the blue. It is the culmination of many deep themes and grand trajectories in the Old Testament.
00:21:08
Speaker
You mentioned these themes specifically of the devalorization of warfare, the gradual subversion of vengeance, and the emergence of the idea of the innocent sufferer. So how does the Old Testament challenge existing assumptions and attitudes around war and vengeance within the ancient Near East?
00:21:26
Speaker
my brief and and unnuanced view of how the Old Testament points to Christ is that when we see him, we go, oh in a kind of Homer Simpson sort of way.
00:21:37
Speaker
um and so And so it's interesting to then look at the threads which are which are leading us in that way, which perhaps without the New Testament, we might not pay sufficient attention to.
Old Testament Themes Leading to Christ
00:21:49
Speaker
But when we see the New Testament, we suddenly go, oh, I see. And I think that surely is the conversation that is happening on the Emmaus Road. I think there was some forehead slapping on the Emmaus Road.
00:22:01
Speaker
So some of the though the trajectories that I think I see, and and you've you've helpfully summarized them here, um the devalorization of warfare. So it's very easy to characterize the Old Testament as just being this awful violent thing where war reigns unchecked and God seems to promote it.
00:22:16
Speaker
And while there is certainly war that God promotes, um there is also um a ah very strong theme, and it gets stronger and stronger the longer you go, of of God's reluctance, actually, in in terms of warfare.
00:22:31
Speaker
um So one of the ways we when the places we see this is actually in the text of Joshua itself, where we seem to see, and here we're back to these multiple voices, it feels like we've got two voices. um listeners will will Some listeners will have had conversations with a husband and wife where they're kind of consistently contradicting each other. And one of them says, was last Tuesday, was, no, it was Wednesday afternoon, you know, that sort of The way that some some married couples bicker.
00:22:56
Speaker
It feels a bit like that at times in Joshua. um You've got one voice that seems to have this grand sort of, and he went and he conquered this particular place and he left alive no one that breathed. And then this other voice chips in and he goes, well, actually, there were survivors and they got away to the fortified towns. So it feels like there's ah I've never used the language of bickering before, but um I think it feels like a bickering pair of voices in in the early parts of Joshua.
00:23:22
Speaker
um But then as we read on, we start seeing, well, and and actually something else in Joshua I think I want to point out, and I think this is the lens through which we should read the entire book, is that moment before the Battle of Jericho when um Joshua meets the commander of the Lord's armies and he doesn't know it's an angel.
00:23:41
Speaker
And so he says, are you friend or foe? And if he'd known it was an angel, he would not have asked that question. And because he would have no doubt that God was absolutely 100% on Israel's side. But he does ask the question.
00:23:52
Speaker
And the answer should have staggered him and should stagger us because the answer is not, ah yeah, I'm on your side, obviously. It's like I'm on nobody's side. And the implicit question is, whose side are you on?
00:24:02
Speaker
um And that that is the beginning, I think, of this subversion of the idea of um God being behind one particular side in battle, even before the conquest of Canaan begins.
00:24:14
Speaker
But then we start to sense an idea of the divine... um discomfort with warfare. and In the book of Kings, I did my doctorate in Kings. I looked at humour in Kings in my doctorate.
00:24:25
Speaker
And one of the things that some of the humorous narratives in Kings contains, and yes, they are there, promise you, um is moments when God unexpectedly averts war and he does it in really bizarre ways. He sends people hallucinations. So they hear chariot wheels and think they're being beset by an army.
00:24:43
Speaker
um There's one particular funny story where the Assyrians flee because they think it's the Assyrians, not really the Arameans, anyway, whoever it is, they flee because they think the Egyptians are upon them. And who actually comes and liberates that camp or conquers that camp is for lepers.
00:25:01
Speaker
And the reason it's particularly funny is because the two the word Egyptian and the word leper in Hebrew is is very, very similar. you've got wordplay going on. So you've got multiple occasions. You've got this extraordinary moment where the king of Amman sends to try and capture Elisha and and they're struck blind. The soldiers are struck blind and Elisha leads them um like fools into the kind of parlour of the king of Israel. And the king of Israel says, well, shall I kill them then?
00:25:27
Speaker
And Elisha says, well, no, you didn't capture them, just give them a party. And so he throws them a party and they go on their merry way. and And these stories a really bizarre if we allow ourselves to kind of notice the the humour and the unexpected moments.
00:25:42
Speaker
But what they are doing is they're part of this trend of the devalorisation of warfare, which which then continues in in in many, many ways. The gradual subversion of vengeance is another important theme.
00:25:55
Speaker
um And here I want to challenge and the the the common view that the the law of what's called the law Italian, which is the an eye for an eye, um is a a bad thing. And and most um modern people will we talk about that as if it was a bad and brutal law.
00:26:14
Speaker
We need to think about three moments in, or maybe four moments in kind of moral development. So left unchecked, every society ever would um um degenerate into unmoderated vengeance. This is the human instinct, is that we take revenge one way or another on poor people who have slighted us.
00:26:36
Speaker
um we And it tends to escalate. So that's that's just how societies will be. And if you think about that as a kind of as kind of point A on on this continuum, the the law that is given through Moses of an eye for an eye puts restrictions around that. It puts a number of important restrictions. First of all, um repayment of wrong is um is enacted only upon the person who commits the wrong, not upon their friends and family and random strangers.
00:27:05
Speaker
Secondly, it is limited to the harm that they inflicted. The punishment is limited to that. And thirdly, it is that punishment is is exercised within the community in the kind of proto-judicial system that they have. They don't have law police and law courts, but they have the village elders.
00:27:25
Speaker
And the village elders are the people who who who ensure that this punishment takes place. So that is a massive improvement on kind of ah part own position A on the moral spectrum.
00:27:37
Speaker
Jesus says, you know, you have heard it said to you, an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth. But I tell you, um love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. So this is point um C or maybe point D on the moral spectrum, actually. let's Let's call it that. OK, so this is a perfect ideal where we forgive the harms that are done to us and we do not seek to exercise revenge at all.
00:28:01
Speaker
Now, let's face it, you and I, or I speak for myself, we haven't we don't live at points point D most of the time. maybe in yeah few times maybe You yeah. Maybe you two do, but I don't live at point D most of the time.
00:28:14
Speaker
So I live at somewhere between B and D. Am I making sense? yeah I don't actually, by and large, go and ask people's eyes to take be taken out. But I do not either freely love those who hurt me, not naturally, not instinctively.
00:28:30
Speaker
There are days I want to go all the way back to point A, just that fold exactly yeah full vengeance seven fold over. so So we stand on this moral spectrum, if we like, and we look in one direction at the eye for an eye thing, and we look in the other direction at what Jesus says.
00:28:45
Speaker
And so we say they're contradictory. They're pulling in the opposite direction. And what we fail to notice is that Jesus hasn't contradicted the law of Talia. And he said, come on, chaps, we can do better. ah yeah And he's he's moved people onwards, but he hasn't said that was a bad idea. It's just we can do better now.
00:29:01
Speaker
And so this I see as this gradual subversion of vengeance is, at first, it's limited. And then Jesus throws down this this great command, this great challenge to live to to live an even better way.
Innocent Suffering as a Precursor to Crucifixion
00:29:13
Speaker
The third um idea that that you um just mentioned is the emergence of the idea of the innocent sufferer. And this is really, really important. ah One of the ways that um scripture articulates, if we read, for example, the covenant blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28.
00:29:28
Speaker
And here um God speaks to Israel and he says, if you keep the covenant, I will um bless the socks off you, technical biblical scholarly term.
00:29:39
Speaker
um um But if you don't keep ah the covenant, then actually all of those blessings will be ah inverted. So, you know, the blessing of fruitfulness in your fields will be inverted and your fields will be, you know, will be barren.
00:29:54
Speaker
Which, of course, sounds remarkably like what happens between Genesis 2 and Genesis 3, incidentally. um You know, the blessing of fruitfulness, of of having many children and grandchildren and so on, will be inverted and you will struggle to bear children.
00:30:10
Speaker
Interestingly, sounds remarkably like the change between Genesis 2 and 3. So that's an important theme in Scripture, um but it's not the only theme in Scripture. um And the idea that um we always reap our just desserts, or to put it another way, that when things go wrong, we must be to blame, is absolutely not the entire testimony of Scripture.
00:30:33
Speaker
So one thing say, i suppose, about Deuteronomy 28 is that that's about the covenant and it's about the entire people. And within that that covenant, people, individual people will have suffered all sorts of things. so But it's about how that whole people will will thrive or fail to thrive.
00:30:48
Speaker
But if we read kind of on into the book of Proverbs, the book of Proverbs, by and large, kind of puts out a kind of theology that if we live well in God's world, we will we will thrive. And it's not a promise. It's important we don't read that as a as a set of promises. But there's a decent rule of thumb, um says the book of Proverbs.
00:31:05
Speaker
The Book of Job, and indeed the character of Job, would say, ha, yeah, right. um There's another example of polyphony, actually. So we start to get, as we the further we read on in the Old Testament, actually, the more we start to see this idea that it is possible to be innocent and to suffer.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yeah, I like how you weaved in a little bit of René Girard in here in your book. I like me a little bit of Girard, so I appreciated that. Yeah, I think Girard has enormous explanatory ah power, and much of what he says seems to resonate with what scripture teaches, I think.
00:31:39
Speaker
So Girard would say that this great revelation of the idea that the person who suffers um may not um deserve what is coming to them. this is we We start to see these moments in the book of Job, in Isaiah 53, for example, um the servant song.
00:31:56
Speaker
And then, of course, we see that um in in its fullest expression on the cross, where finally we get the revelation that that the innocent can suffer. Now, for Girard, Girard is too reductive about the cross, in my view. And and ah for him, the redemptive act is the revelation of the innocence rather than anything else. So it's incomplete, but it is important nonetheless. that And to notice this idea that the Old Testament is absolutely showing us.
00:32:21
Speaker
In fact, um it starts long before that, of course. Hagar would be an ex example. You know, Hagar has done nothing to deserve what happens to her. And God meets her in the desert, sees her, um blesses her with ah with a blessing that sounds remarkably like the Abrahamic blessing.
00:32:36
Speaker
Then she gets the privilege of being, I think, the only character in scripture who names God. So we see innocent suffering um very early on. And what we're supposed to notice here is not that a promotion of the idea that the in innocent should suffer, but ah but a revelation of the idea that the innocent can suffer.
00:32:53
Speaker
So the earlier church was pretty unified in its rejection of violence as they sought to emulate Jesus. ah The cross seems to have a lot of ethical weight as well as the soteriological meaning. You quote Tertullian and his anti-military participation stance, where he says that upon conversion, there must be an immediate abandonment of military service.
00:33:12
Speaker
or the Christian must resort to all sorts of quibbling with God. Christians post-Constantine obviously felt very differently as they embraced the power of Rome and then the sword. So why were the early church's views so different from those of the majority church after Constantine and even today's church in the West?
Constantine's Influence on Christianity
00:33:28
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And here I'm going to try not to be too controversial. Be controversial. That's fine. Well... You're talking to a couple of pacifists here, so... I'm going to out myself as a Baptist and I'm going to immediately qualify that um by saying that I'm a Baptist, I'm a British Baptist, I'm Baptist in the European tradition.
00:33:47
Speaker
And um that has particular distinctives that is not shared by all Baptists in the USA. Sure. um So one of the great distinctives of British Baptists is, um ah well, i think I think it's inherent in being Baptist, but I guess not all Baptists think that, um is a refusal to be co-opted to power at a systematic level. I mean, is Baptists don't say that the individual Christian can't serve in government, for example, but they say that the church should not have a privileged position in society.
00:34:17
Speaker
So I speak from that position um and and people will have to take take it with with a pinch of salt and maybe hear other views as well. So in my view, the Constantine moment was was dreadful.
00:34:31
Speaker
um Now, I'm not saying that good things haven't come out of the established church and and out of Christendom, because they certainly, but you know, in my view, they absolutely have. But i I also think that the constant moment, that moment where Christianity stops being the prophetic voice on the margins, to being the the voice which is at the centre and therefore has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, a vested interest in using power to um protect itself or or the ability to use power to protect itself and the vested interest therefore to do so um was was, I think it was disastrous for the soul of Christianity. And and although there are, of course, honorable exceptions throughout the generations, throughout the centuries, I think that we continue to live with some of the rot that that kind of, that that that moment introduced.
00:35:23
Speaker
So I guess the early church, I mean, I would not want to live in the time of the early church. They had it, ah you know, as as listeners will know, they have it, had it very, very hard. And I don't want to kind of be starry eyed about that or or view that romantically at all.
00:35:38
Speaker
But I guess there were certain temptations that they didn't have. um really. and And that temptation to to power was one that by and large was was not one. Their their great temptation was to was to deny Jesus in the face of persecution, I guess.
00:35:53
Speaker
They viewed things quite differently. um And yeah, I suppose, yeah i'm I'm no historian. And I suppose that's another caveat I would want to say is that historians listening will say, but Helen, this more complex than that. And I get that.
00:36:06
Speaker
um But I think that that's that's what happens at the moment, at Constantine moment. And then that shapes interpretation of these questions um and until the present day in in many ways.
00:36:18
Speaker
Maybe you've already put your pastoral hat on, but keep that pastoral hat on here. Do you think practically speaking, theologically speaking, you said you're not a historian, so let's just talk theology. There's a lot of violence in the Bible. There's a lot of violence in the Old Testament. There's a lot of violence in church history.
00:36:33
Speaker
Should the Bible or church history ever be used to justify violence today? If so, what type of situations? Oh, yikes. And it's so hard to answer this question in short measure.
00:36:45
Speaker
You wrote a whole book about it. I know, I know. Exactly. and the that The structure of the book was um imposed on me by the by the publisher because it was part of a series.
00:36:56
Speaker
um And so for for listeners, it has a section called Cueing the Questions, which I enjoyed writing. It had this kind of beefy middle section called, optimistically called Arriving at Answers, which is not the title I would have used because I feel it feels arrogant, um but doing a kind of deep dive into scripture.
00:37:13
Speaker
And I loved doing that. And I kind of felt... You know, scripture is deep and mysterious and I always have so much more to learn, but at least I felt I was in my sweet spot. or This is what I'm trained to do And then I got to the final section, which is called reflecting on relevance. And I suddenly realized I had to reach some conclusions and it wasn't okay just to say, well, look at Joshua, look at look at the gospels.
Balancing Virtues: Peace, Justice, and Righteousness
00:37:35
Speaker
I actually needed to say, how do we land this? And that was suddenly terrifying. That's why I said to keep that pastoral hat on. Yeah. So I landed by concluding that there is no single answer to the question of whether a Christian may um commit violence um in the world today. I would love to have concluded that um the only faithful way, I think I would love to conclude the only faithful way is pacifism, but I i cannot conclude that that is the only faithful way of being a disciple.
00:38:07
Speaker
and And so the the the way I get there is by um by looking actually, again, ah talk about the eschaton, about what is God's future reality and and three great things that we will somehow, three spaces that we will occupy in the eschaton will be perfect peace, perfect justice.
00:38:26
Speaker
and perfect righteousness or holiness. so In that day, bring it on, come Lord Jesus, and I pray it daily. um In that day, there will be no conflicts between those things.
00:38:37
Speaker
But right now, as we work towards those goals, they are continually straining against one another. And, you know, the obvious example is the way that justice and peace strain away from one another all the time.
00:38:49
Speaker
But also the question of what it means to kind of keep my get my hands clean, as it were, that sense of what it means not to, you know, to live righteously, strains away from the question of justice, perhaps sometimes. Bonhoeffer certainly articulates that.
00:39:02
Speaker
And so i I kind of think that we've got these three things which strain away in these three great ah virtues of seeking peace and seeking justice and seeking to live in a morally pure way.
00:39:14
Speaker
And they all need to be tempered in order that they don't become vices, I think. So they the pursuit of justice needs to be tempered by mercy. Otherwise it becomes... kind of brute force utilitarian position um the pursuit of peaceableness needs to be tempered by a willingness to to get at it to be um active rather than passive because the danger um of pacifism is it becomes passive ism um and the pursuit of um moral purity needs to be tempered by a willingness to get our hands dirty and get stuck in and be kind of incarnational
00:39:50
Speaker
So if we've got these three great virtues straying apart from one another and being tempered by those kind of counter virtues, as it were, or something, then I i think what I conclude is that there is, I kind of sketch this as a diagram in the book, and I and i draw a circle at the center of those three lines pulling apart. And I say, maybe there is a space where these three have to be balanced.
00:40:13
Speaker
Faithful response to the contingency of the the the the the challenge of the time, you know, ah sits within this mutative circle. But it is that circle is not infinitely small, that different Christians can faithfully reach different conclusions on these matters at different times in their own context and so on.
00:40:31
Speaker
And so we seek to discern where does the spirit wants us to put our pin in that circle, in our context, in our community, in our day. And we seek that through the guidance of the spirit and in community once again.
00:40:43
Speaker
But that circle is not boundless. You know, you can put your pin in beyond that circle and be operating in in a place that is unfaithful. Well, yeah, that's what I guess focusing on these virtues does. These eschatological kind of ideals, that's what that does is it grounds us into something that's more faithful than others. that say Maybe doesn't tell you exactly how we as a community of Jesus can or should or must act in every single situation we will ever find ourselves in, but it will lead us toward the right direction, toward a redemptive
00:41:15
Speaker
direction toward a direction that is healing for the world and not destructive for the world. And to your point, there is just going to be a whole lot that is not in line with righteousness, justice, and peace. So I think it will certainly have a guiding effect if we if we use that as our ethical frame as a community of Christ followers.
00:41:35
Speaker
I hope so. and And thank God that he leaves us his spirit to usher to guide us and lead us into all truth. Yeah. And for anybody listening who think maybe that's kind of a cop-out answer, i applaud your book because the last several chapters, you get into lots of case studies, very specific examples, and you're not afraid to get into kind of the mess and the muck of these questions and start to look at specifics regarding what a proper, faithful Christian community response might look like to these specific questions that we have today.
00:42:05
Speaker
If there's somebody who learns a lot from examples, I really appreciated that you did not shy away from addressing some of these very difficult and real questions that people have today. Thank you. It was a challenge to do. And, and um you know, I don't have I don't have settled answers on some of these matters. And I continue to to wrestle with them or wrestle with how to how to do these things better.
00:42:24
Speaker
So welcome to the rest of our lives. Right. Indeed. Indeed. Well, Reverend Dr. Helen Painter, thank you for taking the time today. Listeners, pick up book, Blessed Are the Peacemakers, and we'll link it in the description here as well.
00:42:38
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.