Is God a Paciist? he A. James Reimer and J. Denny Weaver Debate in Contemporary Mennonite Peace heology Susanne Guenther Loewen
God’s means of achieving the ultimate reconciliation of all things are not immediately evident to us. God cannot be subjected to our interpretation of the non-violent way of Jesus. our commitment to the way of the cross (reconciliation) is not premised on God’s paciism or non-paciism. It is precisely because God has the prerogative to give and take life that we do not have that right. Vengeance we leave up to God.—A. James Reimer1 [o]ne of the longest-running distortions in Christian theology has been the attribution of violence and violent intent to the will and activity of God. But if God is truly revealed in Jesus Christ, and if Jesus rejected violence, as is almost universally believed, then the God revealed in Jesus Christ should be pictured in nonviolent images. If God is truly revealed in the nonviolent Christ, then God should not be described as a God who sanctions and employs violence.—J. Denny Weaver2 In the 1980s a somewhat heated debate erupted on the pages of he Conrad Grebel Review between Canadian Mennonite theologian A. James Reimer and his American colleague J. Denny Weaver. Reimer accused Weaver of “ethical reductionism,” while Weaver accused Reimer of “buying into a mainstream Constantinian theology which spells the end of the Mennonite peace witness.” At one point Weaver suggested that the two of them co1 A. James Reimer, Mennonites and Classical heology: Dogmatic Foundations for Christian Ethics (kitchener, oN: Pandora Press, 2001), 492. 2 J. Denny Weaver, he Nonviolent God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013), 5.
he Conrad Grebel Review 33, no. 3 (Fall 2015): 316-335.