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Jesus Unarmed: How the Prince of Peace Disarms Our Violence
What if Jesus was serious about loving our enemies?
For too long, those who carry the name "Christian" have ignored the Christlike path of enemy-love and creative nonviolence. For many of us, the Second Amendment has become more important than the Sermon on the Mount. It's time we begin to walk the path of peace marked out for us by the Prince of Peace and learn to study war no more.
For too long, those who carry the name "Christian" have ignored the Christlike path of enemy-love and creative nonviolence. For many of us, the Second Amendment has become more important than the Sermon on the Mount. It's time we begin to walk the path of peace marked out for us by the Prince of Peace and learn to study war no more.
- GenresReligion
200 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 9, 2021
8 people are currently reading
112 people want to read
About the author
Keith Giles
65 books96 followersKeith Giles is the author of 5 books including his latest, "This Is My Body:Ekklesia as God Intended" which explores God's design for His Church according to the scriptures. The free e-book version has been downloaded by over 3,000 people.
He is the former Director of Sales and Distribution for Vineyard Music Group and formerly Marketing Coordinator for Soul Survivor USA. He has been writing articles on the Christian subculture, the house church movement, spiritual formation, compassion ministry and the Kingdom of God for over 20 years now.
His articles have appeared in over a dozen print and online magazines over the last 20 years, including Relevant, 7 Ball, Channel Advisor, Fuse, CCM, Worship Musician Magazine, WorshipMusic.com and theOoze.com.
Keith and his wife Wendy and their two sons are part of a house church community called “The Mission” in Orange, California. They planted this church in their home in 2006 in order to share 100 percent of the offering to help the poor in their community.
Feel free to visit him online at http://www.KeithGiles.com.
He is the former Director of Sales and Distribution for Vineyard Music Group and formerly Marketing Coordinator for Soul Survivor USA. He has been writing articles on the Christian subculture, the house church movement, spiritual formation, compassion ministry and the Kingdom of God for over 20 years now.
His articles have appeared in over a dozen print and online magazines over the last 20 years, including Relevant, 7 Ball, Channel Advisor, Fuse, CCM, Worship Musician Magazine, WorshipMusic.com and theOoze.com.
Keith and his wife Wendy and their two sons are part of a house church community called “The Mission” in Orange, California. They planted this church in their home in 2006 in order to share 100 percent of the offering to help the poor in their community.
Feel free to visit him online at http://www.KeithGiles.com.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 24, 2022
"Love your enemy; do good to those who hate you." This is Jesus's most original ethical teaching. It is also a teaching widely ignored by Christians.
In Jesus Unarmed, Keith Giles presents the case for actually loving your enemy and rejecting violence, as Jesus taught. This is the final volume in Giles' seven-book Jesus Un series (I have reviewed five) where he skillfully makes the case for Anabaptist doctrine. Anabaptism is a Protestant movement that believes in nonviolence and refuses to participate in wars.
As with some of his previous books, this one is convincing -- so long as the reader is willing to discount large sections of scripture in both the Old and New Testaments that conflict with his thesis. To accept the thesis that God opposes violence, the reader has to dismiss as invalid some sections of the Bible, while taking other parts literally. That doesn't work for Christians who believe the whole Bible is true, not just selected parts.
Giles rejects the "compromised Christianity we’ve developed today where to love Jesus is synonymous with serving in the military, waving your nation’s flag and defending your home with deadly force."
In other words, obeying Jesus calls into doubt joining the military, serving in a police department, or saying the Pledge of Allegiance. "Christ’s Kingdom," he writes, "is incompatible with any and every other kingdom of this world."
If Giles is right, then Christ-followers were wrong to fight in the American Revolution or in WWII. Ditto for Christians in Ukraine offering armed resistance to the Russian invasion.
Giles is correct that most American Christians do not fully embrace the nonviolent, enemy-loving teachings of Jesus. It is certainly appropriate to challenge those who call themselves Christ-followers to actually do what Christ said. Jesus, after all, emphasized that hearing what he said isn't worthwhile unless we act upon his words. (Luke 6:46, John 13:17)
A few verses about Jesus suggest that he condoned violence. Giles effectively explains why most of those verses really aren't calls for violence. He isn't as persuasive about whether Jesus resorted to violence when he drove the money changers out of the temple.
Giles cites the version in John 2:14 that says Jesus used his whip to drive out all, "both sheep and cattle." No mention of hitting people. In Matthew's version, however, there is no such distinction: "And Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds..." (21:12)
Both gospels state that Jesus overturned the tables and drove out the moneychangers. Doing so without violence or the threat thereof doesn't seem plausible. Yet Giles asserts, "He did all of that without doing any violence to another person."
As proof, Giles cites Isaiah 57:9 -- but it's actually 53:9 -- which states, “He [The Messiah] was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.”
Giles claims that verse proves the Messiah couldn't have committed violence. The problem is that Isaiah never uses the word Messiah, which Giles inserts, and Isaiah is writing about an event that had already occurred.
What about Revelation where Jesus is depicted as the ultimate warrior, inflicting pain and death upon his enemies? That would seem to contradict the Jesus-as-pacifist doctrine, if Christians take the book literally.
Giles assures readers that Revelation is no problem because it is apocalyptic literature that we shouldn't take literally. It doesn't really mean what it says, nor is it an accurate prophesy. It is hyperbole not intended to be literal. The problem is that he also wants us to take literally some other parts of scripture.
In short, Giles disagrees with conservative evangelicals who see Revelation as a prophetic blueprint for the future that is unfolding soon.
Giles also invalidates large portions of The Old Testament where God is violent. But Giles fails to clearly and convincingly explain why we should ignore violent passages.
According to Giles, Jesus is anti-war, yet Exodus 15:3 says "The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name." (The KJ version says "The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name.") Giles would have us believe Exodus is wrong. If one part of scripture is false, then why should we believe the rest is true?
The book has an apendix with a collection of verses urging peace, though left out are any of the many verses urging violence. Talk about cherry picking! Here are a few of the verses commanding extreme violence:
▪︎ “When the Lord your God has delivered them (nations in the land) over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy...You shall devour all the peoples that the Lord your God is giving over to you, showing them no pity." (Deut. 7:2, 7:16)
▪︎ "Thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes: But thou shalt utterly destroy them. Namely the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canannites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.” (Deut. 20: 16-17)
▪︎ “The Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” (Exodus 17:16)
▪︎ "Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons because of the wrongdoing of their fathers...'I will rise up against them,' declares the Lord of armies..." (Isaiah 14:21-22 )
Nonviolent resistance works better than the just war theory, claims Giles. He provides dozens of examples where civil resistance often succeeded relative to armed insurgency. He gives examples where nonviolent resistance worked in limited circumstances against the Nazis. The Jews of Norway, for example, were almost all saved from death by peaceful means. It was only war, however, that defeated the Nazis.
Giles insists that slavery in the USA could've been abolished without war, as it was elsewhere. Of course had Lincoln not used force the US would've been dividied into two countries, with the CSA explicitly dedicated to white supremacy and perpetuating slavery. The CSA probably would have eventually decided to end its peculiar institution, though likely not until some time in the twentieth century.
Would nonviolent resistance have worked for the Ukrainians against the Russians? It seems doubtful the Russians would have stopped shooting and gone home, though Giles would say that's because peaceful resistance was not used.
Early Christians understood and obeyed Jesus's words about nonviolence. Giles asserts that "Anyone who undertakes the study of the early Church and of Christianity in its infancy during the first 300 years or so...will see how ordinary it was for followers of Christ to suffer torture and even face death for refusing to declare that Caesar was Lord.... millions of people who put Jesus’s words into practice ended up very, very dead."
The problem is that his estimate on the number of Christian martyrs has been greatly exaggerated, according to New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. "For the most part, the tales of massive-Roman opposition to the Christian movement are simply ways Christians talked about themselves and to themselves ('we are SO persecuted!') They do not represent, in Roman historian Keith Hopkins words, 'an objective description of reality.'”
Ehrman continues, "There were not systematic attempts to wipe out Christianity in the first two centuries of the church’s existence simply because the numbers of Christians were far too small for anyone to worry about, or even think much about." As Christian numbers grew in the third century, however, then Christians were seen as a threat and there was organized persecution. Ehrman recommends the book by Professor Candida Moss: The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom (2014, Harper One)
In conclusion, Jesus Unarmed is easy to read, as are Giles'previous books. He is a strong advocate for preemptive love and creative nonviolence. A major shortcoming is not reconciling the Old Testament "Lord of war" and the New Testament "Prince of Peace." Nonetheless, if most Christians took seriously Christ's teaching about nonviolence, it would change the world. -30-
In Jesus Unarmed, Keith Giles presents the case for actually loving your enemy and rejecting violence, as Jesus taught. This is the final volume in Giles' seven-book Jesus Un series (I have reviewed five) where he skillfully makes the case for Anabaptist doctrine. Anabaptism is a Protestant movement that believes in nonviolence and refuses to participate in wars.
As with some of his previous books, this one is convincing -- so long as the reader is willing to discount large sections of scripture in both the Old and New Testaments that conflict with his thesis. To accept the thesis that God opposes violence, the reader has to dismiss as invalid some sections of the Bible, while taking other parts literally. That doesn't work for Christians who believe the whole Bible is true, not just selected parts.
Giles rejects the "compromised Christianity we’ve developed today where to love Jesus is synonymous with serving in the military, waving your nation’s flag and defending your home with deadly force."
In other words, obeying Jesus calls into doubt joining the military, serving in a police department, or saying the Pledge of Allegiance. "Christ’s Kingdom," he writes, "is incompatible with any and every other kingdom of this world."
If Giles is right, then Christ-followers were wrong to fight in the American Revolution or in WWII. Ditto for Christians in Ukraine offering armed resistance to the Russian invasion.
Giles is correct that most American Christians do not fully embrace the nonviolent, enemy-loving teachings of Jesus. It is certainly appropriate to challenge those who call themselves Christ-followers to actually do what Christ said. Jesus, after all, emphasized that hearing what he said isn't worthwhile unless we act upon his words. (Luke 6:46, John 13:17)
A few verses about Jesus suggest that he condoned violence. Giles effectively explains why most of those verses really aren't calls for violence. He isn't as persuasive about whether Jesus resorted to violence when he drove the money changers out of the temple.
Giles cites the version in John 2:14 that says Jesus used his whip to drive out all, "both sheep and cattle." No mention of hitting people. In Matthew's version, however, there is no such distinction: "And Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds..." (21:12)
Both gospels state that Jesus overturned the tables and drove out the moneychangers. Doing so without violence or the threat thereof doesn't seem plausible. Yet Giles asserts, "He did all of that without doing any violence to another person."
As proof, Giles cites Isaiah 57:9 -- but it's actually 53:9 -- which states, “He [The Messiah] was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.”
Giles claims that verse proves the Messiah couldn't have committed violence. The problem is that Isaiah never uses the word Messiah, which Giles inserts, and Isaiah is writing about an event that had already occurred.
What about Revelation where Jesus is depicted as the ultimate warrior, inflicting pain and death upon his enemies? That would seem to contradict the Jesus-as-pacifist doctrine, if Christians take the book literally.
Giles assures readers that Revelation is no problem because it is apocalyptic literature that we shouldn't take literally. It doesn't really mean what it says, nor is it an accurate prophesy. It is hyperbole not intended to be literal. The problem is that he also wants us to take literally some other parts of scripture.
In short, Giles disagrees with conservative evangelicals who see Revelation as a prophetic blueprint for the future that is unfolding soon.
Giles also invalidates large portions of The Old Testament where God is violent. But Giles fails to clearly and convincingly explain why we should ignore violent passages.
According to Giles, Jesus is anti-war, yet Exodus 15:3 says "The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name." (The KJ version says "The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name.") Giles would have us believe Exodus is wrong. If one part of scripture is false, then why should we believe the rest is true?
The book has an apendix with a collection of verses urging peace, though left out are any of the many verses urging violence. Talk about cherry picking! Here are a few of the verses commanding extreme violence:
▪︎ “When the Lord your God has delivered them (nations in the land) over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy...You shall devour all the peoples that the Lord your God is giving over to you, showing them no pity." (Deut. 7:2, 7:16)
▪︎ "Thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes: But thou shalt utterly destroy them. Namely the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canannites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.” (Deut. 20: 16-17)
▪︎ “The Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” (Exodus 17:16)
▪︎ "Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons because of the wrongdoing of their fathers...'I will rise up against them,' declares the Lord of armies..." (Isaiah 14:21-22 )
Nonviolent resistance works better than the just war theory, claims Giles. He provides dozens of examples where civil resistance often succeeded relative to armed insurgency. He gives examples where nonviolent resistance worked in limited circumstances against the Nazis. The Jews of Norway, for example, were almost all saved from death by peaceful means. It was only war, however, that defeated the Nazis.
Giles insists that slavery in the USA could've been abolished without war, as it was elsewhere. Of course had Lincoln not used force the US would've been dividied into two countries, with the CSA explicitly dedicated to white supremacy and perpetuating slavery. The CSA probably would have eventually decided to end its peculiar institution, though likely not until some time in the twentieth century.
Would nonviolent resistance have worked for the Ukrainians against the Russians? It seems doubtful the Russians would have stopped shooting and gone home, though Giles would say that's because peaceful resistance was not used.
Early Christians understood and obeyed Jesus's words about nonviolence. Giles asserts that "Anyone who undertakes the study of the early Church and of Christianity in its infancy during the first 300 years or so...will see how ordinary it was for followers of Christ to suffer torture and even face death for refusing to declare that Caesar was Lord.... millions of people who put Jesus’s words into practice ended up very, very dead."
The problem is that his estimate on the number of Christian martyrs has been greatly exaggerated, according to New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. "For the most part, the tales of massive-Roman opposition to the Christian movement are simply ways Christians talked about themselves and to themselves ('we are SO persecuted!') They do not represent, in Roman historian Keith Hopkins words, 'an objective description of reality.'”
Ehrman continues, "There were not systematic attempts to wipe out Christianity in the first two centuries of the church’s existence simply because the numbers of Christians were far too small for anyone to worry about, or even think much about." As Christian numbers grew in the third century, however, then Christians were seen as a threat and there was organized persecution. Ehrman recommends the book by Professor Candida Moss: The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom (2014, Harper One)
In conclusion, Jesus Unarmed is easy to read, as are Giles'previous books. He is a strong advocate for preemptive love and creative nonviolence. A major shortcoming is not reconciling the Old Testament "Lord of war" and the New Testament "Prince of Peace." Nonetheless, if most Christians took seriously Christ's teaching about nonviolence, it would change the world. -30-
November 10, 2021
Keith has done it again. With the latest, and final book in the Jesus Un series Keith tackles the notion of a nonviolent Jesus. Once again Keith both challenges us and invites us on this journey with him. Keith has found a way of delving into deep and difficult subjects with humility and love. As with all the other books in this series, Keith writes in a way that is easy to follow and understand. Where many books fail to hold my attention when dealing with difficult theology, Keith has found a way to welcome us on to this journey with him. My only complaint would be that this is the last in the series. I could read many more books in the Un series if Keith chose to continue writing them. Buy this book today. You will not be disappointed.
April 11, 2023
Cannot recommend
I really wanted to learn something from this, and I guess I did, but it's an odd place to end thinking, "wow, he has terrible hermeneutics, terrible rhetoric, shows logical fallacies throughout, and I find his writing style irritating, so I couldn't recommend this to anyone, but in spite of all that, I still agree with his underlying premise"
I really wanted to learn something from this, and I guess I did, but it's an odd place to end thinking, "wow, he has terrible hermeneutics, terrible rhetoric, shows logical fallacies throughout, and I find his writing style irritating, so I couldn't recommend this to anyone, but in spite of all that, I still agree with his underlying premise"
November 9, 2021
Jesus Unarmed
By Keith Giles
Here is a book that addresses an age-old dilemma surrounding Christianity, to buy swords or to beat them into ploughshares? To quote the author:
“One of the reasons why so many Christians are confused by the notion of Christian nonviolence is because the Bible seems to advocate for war on numerous occasions. So, to them, warfare and violence are ‘Biblical’ concepts and, therefore, should not be rejected. However, what they misunderstand is the difference between something that is ‘Biblical’ and something that is ‘Christlike.’ The two are not synonymous.”
Keith Giles’ new book, Jesus Unarmed, acknowledges that untold billions of people over the past two millennia have found justification for violence in the pages of the Bible. Even in the New Testament, which is supposed to preach the ways of the Prince of Peace.
When most people—Christians included—read the passages where Jesus admonishes us to love our enemies and refrain from answering violence with more violence, our response is almost always, “Yes, but…” Fill in the blank after the “but” with your own excuse why nonviolence will not work in your particular case.
Giles reveals a new paradigm for reading the biblical stories. When Jesus appears to be advocating violence (e.g., telling followers to buy a sword or, in Revelation, apparently leading an army against the forces of evil), look beneath the surface to find the real intent of the story. The author makes the argument that these tales from Scripture preach the opposite of the common perception.
Jesus Unarmed will not convert nonbelievers to adherents of the faith. Giles clearly writes from the assumption that his readers accept the sayings attributed to Jesus in the New Testament as the gospel truth—pun fully intended—and even addresses some of the sayings as if Jesus is being quoted in the manner of modern journalism, in his exact words. No, this book intends to bolster the faith of Christians who have found themselves perplexed over what appears to be justifications for violence.
Giles enumerates examples and studies that show nonviolence is actually more effective. He also passes along anecdotes of notable examples literally torn from the pages of recent newspapers. It takes time to get from the rhetoric to the tangible, but patience pays off. This is a good read.
By Keith Giles
Here is a book that addresses an age-old dilemma surrounding Christianity, to buy swords or to beat them into ploughshares? To quote the author:
“One of the reasons why so many Christians are confused by the notion of Christian nonviolence is because the Bible seems to advocate for war on numerous occasions. So, to them, warfare and violence are ‘Biblical’ concepts and, therefore, should not be rejected. However, what they misunderstand is the difference between something that is ‘Biblical’ and something that is ‘Christlike.’ The two are not synonymous.”
Keith Giles’ new book, Jesus Unarmed, acknowledges that untold billions of people over the past two millennia have found justification for violence in the pages of the Bible. Even in the New Testament, which is supposed to preach the ways of the Prince of Peace.
When most people—Christians included—read the passages where Jesus admonishes us to love our enemies and refrain from answering violence with more violence, our response is almost always, “Yes, but…” Fill in the blank after the “but” with your own excuse why nonviolence will not work in your particular case.
Giles reveals a new paradigm for reading the biblical stories. When Jesus appears to be advocating violence (e.g., telling followers to buy a sword or, in Revelation, apparently leading an army against the forces of evil), look beneath the surface to find the real intent of the story. The author makes the argument that these tales from Scripture preach the opposite of the common perception.
Jesus Unarmed will not convert nonbelievers to adherents of the faith. Giles clearly writes from the assumption that his readers accept the sayings attributed to Jesus in the New Testament as the gospel truth—pun fully intended—and even addresses some of the sayings as if Jesus is being quoted in the manner of modern journalism, in his exact words. No, this book intends to bolster the faith of Christians who have found themselves perplexed over what appears to be justifications for violence.
Giles enumerates examples and studies that show nonviolence is actually more effective. He also passes along anecdotes of notable examples literally torn from the pages of recent newspapers. It takes time to get from the rhetoric to the tangible, but patience pays off. This is a good read.
November 11, 2021
I've read a lot of books on Nonviolence and thought I wouldn't get anything new here. I was wrong. There was certainly a lot I had heard before, but also some new takes.
If you're looking into Christian Nonviolence, I'd recommend this book as well as "Jesus the Pacifist" for an overhead, but high quality view. Then add on "What I Believe" by Tolstoy.
If you're looking into Christian Nonviolence, I'd recommend this book as well as "Jesus the Pacifist" for an overhead, but high quality view. Then add on "What I Believe" by Tolstoy.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews