Jesus Taught Active Nonviolence
Interpreting
Jesus of Nazareth Pope Benedict XIV (Joseph Ratzinger) in his Good Friday
Sermon of 2011 concluded that Jesus was always a man of peace. It could be
expected that, when God came to earth, He would be a person of great power,
destroying the opposing forces, that He would be a man of powerful violence as
an instrument of peace. On the contrary, He came in weakness. He came with only
the strength of love, totally without violence, even to the point of going to
the cross. This is what shows us the true image of God – a non-violent deity.
How then can one be violent and claim to come from God? Violence never comes
from God; never helps bring anything good; it is a destructive means and not
the path to escape difficulties. The only path for those born of this Deity is
to renounce violence, to begin anew with dialogue, with the attempt to find
peace together, with a new concern for one another, a new willingness to be
open to one another. Jesus of Nazareth’s true message is to seek peace with the
means of peace. It is not different from what the father of peace studies –
Johan Galtung – teaches us when he talks of peace through peaceful means.
Jesus Taught Active Nonviolence
Reviewed by Ibrahim Magara
on
August 21, 2017
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