redemptive violence

The stories we tell can do real damage. Or they can heal.

J. Denny Weaver is steadfast in his conviction that any conception of God found in the Bible must first be compared to the person of Christ himself.

Imagine someone who, because he is not driven by fear of death, is able to undergo an absolutely typical lynching at human hands and to do so deliberately—showing that death, rather than being definitive and powerful, is no more than a frightening mirage. Christ calls the bluff of the lynching, enabling humans to be less driven by fear and a desire for revenge.