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davehershey's review against another edition
4.0
Going in, I was preconditioned to agree with Weaver’s arguments in this book. I lean on the Anabaptist and Christian nonviolence side of things, after all.
Yet, the first half of this book seemed weak. I think part of it was that I expected a theological argument, so I was surprised to see folks like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren being quoted. Now, I appreciate Bell and McLaren so it wasn’t that I think they’re heretics or something. I think it was more I see them as popular level writers, so I wasn’t expecting them to be quoted in, what I thought was, a heavier theological work.
I truly wonder if my perception of Weaver’s book was down because I was reading Sergius Bulgakov’s The Lamb of God at the same time. Bulgakov is incredibly deep and profound which, to no fault of Weaver’s, made this other read seem less profound.
That said, there were some points of contact between Bulgakov and Weaver. Weaver is offering here a “lived theology” and it seemed like a logical practical and ethical next step from Bulgakov’s work. I doubt Bulgakov, as a Russian Orthodox scholar, would have thought so. But me, as someone who is drawn to both Orthodox and Anabaptist theology, I think so.
But herein lies perhaps another disappointment: Weaver comes close to playing the “when Christianity developed creeds everything went wrong” card. The story goes, once upon a time Christians just lived like Jesus and didn’t get all worried about theology, Trinity, hypostatic unions and ontology. Then Constantine made Christianity legal and they all stopped living like Jesus and just read books all day.
I know my description is an over simplification of the argument. But the argument is an oversimplification of what happened. If I recall correctly, both Sarah Coakley (God, Sexuality and Self) and S.T. Kimbrough (Partakers in the Divine Life) demonstrate how the early Christians after Constantine were still very much drawn to spiritual living and being like Jesus. In other words, folks like Weaver (and me!) can have the nonviolent Anabaptist ethical living without jettisoning the depths and profundity of Nicene and Chalcedonian Christology!
I mean, not to beat a dead horse, because I like Greg Boyd too, but Weaver flirts with Open Theism. Open Theism is fine, I suppose. I think all sorts of views of God can be debated and no one’s eternal salvation is dependent on getting everything about God correct (we’re talking about the infinite here!). But its the idea that to be nonviolent or have this nonviolent God you need to get rid of classical theism that kind of bothers me.
Give me the classical theism AND the nonviolence.
Anyway, I gave the book FOUR STARS despite all this negativity because in spite of all these flaws (oh yeah, I hate the word ‘theologizing’...stop using it Dr. Weaver) I still liked the book. Part two is really where he hits his stride as he describes what this nonviolent life looks like. He covers a lot of ground from war and mass incarceration to poverty and gender to even science and nature. I don’t know much else about Weaver, but part two of this book makes me think he is a brilliant practical theologian.
Overall, this is a good book. The biblical and historical theology side is good not great. The practical theology side is brilliant.
Yet, the first half of this book seemed weak. I think part of it was that I expected a theological argument, so I was surprised to see folks like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren being quoted. Now, I appreciate Bell and McLaren so it wasn’t that I think they’re heretics or something. I think it was more I see them as popular level writers, so I wasn’t expecting them to be quoted in, what I thought was, a heavier theological work.
I truly wonder if my perception of Weaver’s book was down because I was reading Sergius Bulgakov’s The Lamb of God at the same time. Bulgakov is incredibly deep and profound which, to no fault of Weaver’s, made this other read seem less profound.
That said, there were some points of contact between Bulgakov and Weaver. Weaver is offering here a “lived theology” and it seemed like a logical practical and ethical next step from Bulgakov’s work. I doubt Bulgakov, as a Russian Orthodox scholar, would have thought so. But me, as someone who is drawn to both Orthodox and Anabaptist theology, I think so.
But herein lies perhaps another disappointment: Weaver comes close to playing the “when Christianity developed creeds everything went wrong” card. The story goes, once upon a time Christians just lived like Jesus and didn’t get all worried about theology, Trinity, hypostatic unions and ontology. Then Constantine made Christianity legal and they all stopped living like Jesus and just read books all day.
I know my description is an over simplification of the argument. But the argument is an oversimplification of what happened. If I recall correctly, both Sarah Coakley (God, Sexuality and Self) and S.T. Kimbrough (Partakers in the Divine Life) demonstrate how the early Christians after Constantine were still very much drawn to spiritual living and being like Jesus. In other words, folks like Weaver (and me!) can have the nonviolent Anabaptist ethical living without jettisoning the depths and profundity of Nicene and Chalcedonian Christology!
I mean, not to beat a dead horse, because I like Greg Boyd too, but Weaver flirts with Open Theism. Open Theism is fine, I suppose. I think all sorts of views of God can be debated and no one’s eternal salvation is dependent on getting everything about God correct (we’re talking about the infinite here!). But its the idea that to be nonviolent or have this nonviolent God you need to get rid of classical theism that kind of bothers me.
Give me the classical theism AND the nonviolence.
Anyway, I gave the book FOUR STARS despite all this negativity because in spite of all these flaws (oh yeah, I hate the word ‘theologizing’...stop using it Dr. Weaver) I still liked the book. Part two is really where he hits his stride as he describes what this nonviolent life looks like. He covers a lot of ground from war and mass incarceration to poverty and gender to even science and nature. I don’t know much else about Weaver, but part two of this book makes me think he is a brilliant practical theologian.
Overall, this is a good book. The biblical and historical theology side is good not great. The practical theology side is brilliant.
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