I just posted the following comment on Kim's Faith and Gender blog. Her post is in response to a blog post by Mark Driscoll that can be found here.
You're right. The street-fighting Jesus is not in the Gospels. But I have to break something to Mark: he isn't in Revelation either.
In Revelation it turns out that the victorious lion is a slain lamb, and when Jesus rides in to battle he has a sword, as Kim rightly pointed out, only it's a sword that is coming out of his mouth. His sword is the word of God.
There is war imagery in Revelation to be sure; many first century Christian communities felt besieged and attacked and so this imagery makes sense here. But it's always twisted a little, showing that this war is very much not conventional. For instance, it doesn't make sense for a victorious general's robe to be soaked in blood - to be soaked in blood like that is an image of defeat, because whose blood is it going to be but yours? And yet the victorious general riding into battle is wearing such a blood-soaked robe. This is not conventional warfare imagery, but subverted warfare imagery - imagery to transform and supersede conventional warfare.
The victorious lion is the lamb that was slain. That's the scandal of the New Testament, and perhaps of all human history. The lion defeats his foes by the way of the cross, not by the way of the sword.
I think Mark is right: Jesus could beat him up. The gospel (expressed perhaps too simply) is that he absolutely won't.
Also, it should perhaps be pointed out that pornography, something I believe Mark takes a strong stance against, is also very good at reaching men from 18 to 34. I think in that case also it's important to wonder with Mark why this demographic is drawn to such things. But to then colonize your doctrine of God with such things is problematic at best. Why are we to reject pornography but embrace the UFC? Why is sex bad in pornography but violence is great when it comes to the Octagon? Who gets to decide what's good and where?
If the answer to that last question is "Jesus" then I think there is a much better case for Christians to be skeptical of violence in all forms than there is for us to be skeptical of things like pornography.
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Here is another post on that: http://inhabitatiodei.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/who-can-mark-driscoll-worship/
I think that what Marks misses is that the cross redefines what strong is. The difference of the upside-down kingdom that is inverted in the beautitudes reaches its fullness in a new way of understanding what it means to be strong.
I miss you Cabe
So what does it mean PRACTICALLY for men to begin separating out for themselves the difference between strength and violence? You are doing it, Cabe-- pondering, reading, writing, taking it with sacred seriousness in your own life... I admire your care in this.
How can this happen on a bigger scale? How can it ever be that people like Mark D. or your average elementary schooler or the teenager who plays Grand Theft Auto or the well-meaning soldier-- encounter the way of peace as profoundly inviting and weirdly empowering?
I think that any time we ponder these theological issues, we have approach them practically: what does this all mean for how we live and interact with- how we LOVE-- those with whom we disagree—What about those in uniform, for instance… who cross our path even for a moment: on the sidewalk, in the grocery store, as we stare at their faces on TV, as we are lead in prayer for them at church? Will we, as pacifists, love them in these seconds and minutes? If so, how?
How will we creatively love them as well as other supporters of war/violence? Love is it.
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