A Fresh Perspective

On display in St. Patrick’s cathedral in Dublin hangs an ancient door with a rough hewn, rectangular opening hacked out in the center to commemorate a significant event. In 1492, two prominent Irish families, the Ormands and Kildares were in the midst of a bitter feud. Besieged by Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, Sir James Butler, Earl of Ormand, and his followers took refuge in the chapter house of St. Patrick’s cathedral, bolting themselves in. As the siege wore on, Fitzgerald, the Earl of Kildare came to the amazing conclusion that the feuding was foolish. Here were two families, worshiping the same God, in the same church, living in the same country, trying to kill each other. So he called out to Sir James and, as the inscription in St. Patrick’s says today, “undertoake on his honour that he should receive no villanie.”  Afraid, as the inscription reads, of “some further treachery,” Ormond did not respond. So Kildare seized his spear, cut a hole in the door, a...

In Corinthians 5:14–21 Paul presents a totally nonviolent God who has acted in Christ to reconcile the world. God acts in Christ to bears the violence of the world without returning the violence. Paul says in verse 19 that “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” Jesus, as God’s mediator and agent of reconciliation, bears the hate and animosity of the world, absorbing it—exposing it, yes, but also absorbing it through an act of preemptive forgiveness—refusing to retaliate and return the violence. Our world knows about preemptive military strikes, but very little, if anything at all, about preemptive forgiveness.  In verse 21 Paul declares that God made him “who knew no sin” (who was blameless of any of the charges brought against him by the religious and political powers) “to be sin,” that is, to become and bear the sin of the world—the hate, bigotry, cruelty, vic...