Books On The Early Christian Attitude To Violence & Treatment Of Enemies:
- My favorite book on this topic is John Cadoux’s The Early Christian Attitude To War. Though a pacifist himself, many have commended its impartial presentation of facts. This is a scholarly read, yet easy to understand. Though I recommend a printed form of the book (you’ll want to do lots of note taking!), thankfully this work has been made available for free online and in many different formats (Kindle, PDF, HTML, etc.). You can choose the format you’d like and read the book here.
- It Is Not Lawful For Me To Fight: Early Christian Attitudes Toward War, Violence, and the State by Jean-Michel Hornus, translated by Alan Kreider and Oliver Coburn.
- Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace by Roland H. Bainton
- Christian Attitudes to War, Peace and Revolution by John Howard Yoder, edited by Theodore J. Koontz and Andy Alexis-Baker
Violence In The Old Testament:
- There is a very articulate and succinct overview by author and blogger Derek Flood on the topic of violence in the Old Testament. This link will take you to his Huffington Post article entitled Does Defending The Bible Mean Advocating Violence? And here you can download a PDF of Flood’s Sojourner article entitled How Paul Disarms Violence In the Bible (And How We Can Too).
- You may also enjoy Derek Flood’s recent book Healing The Gospel: A Radical Vision For Grace, Justice, And The Cross. This short book of roughly 100 pages is a quick and easy read. Surprisingly articulate. Flood’s main point is to point out that the New Testament speaks of justice as restorative in nature…focused on making things right that have been wronged. In other words, it is not a retributive, punishment based concept of justice that sees justice satisfied when evildoers have been punished for their wrong.
Violence In The Old Testament:
- There is a very articulate and succinct overview by author and blogger Derek Flood on the topic of violence in the Old Testament. This link will take you to his Huffington Post article entitled Does Defending The Bible Mean Advocating Violence? And here you can download a PDF of Flood’s Sojourner article entitled How Paul Disarms Violence In the Bible (And How We Can Too).
- You may also enjoy Derek Flood’s recent book Healing The Gospel: A Radical Vision For Grace, Justice, And The Cross. This short book of roughly 100 pages is a quick and easy read. Surprisingly articulate. Flood’s main point is to point out that the New Testament speaks of justice as restorative in nature…focused on making things right that have been wronged. In other words, it is not a retributive, punishment based concept of justice that sees justice satisfied when evildoers have been punished for their wrong.