Killing Enmity. Violence and the New Testament by Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld (review)

The events of the last two decades have generated an avalanche of books and studies on religion and violence. They vary in quality; some are hostile towards religion itself, but one characteristic shared by many is a conviction that religion and its texts are inherently violent and a major part of the problem. Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld's book takes a very different approach. He openly identifies his own "location and orientation" as a believer and one for whom the New Testament is good news (14), but who is able and willing to hear other voices in the New Testament and listen to those who experience the New Testament in another way.

Neufeld first surveys the broad spectrum of how violence is defined by scholars. This ranges from obvious physical harm to structural and cultural forms of violence such as gender and economic inequalities, environmental destruction, and all forms of marginalization and intolerance. He points out that, for the most part, violence is forbidden in the New Testament—his greatest concern are those passages that contain threats of punishment and judgment for those who don't walk in God's ways or profess faith in Jesus. His fear is that these create a "mindset predisposed to violence" (7). Acknowledging the difficulties of a thorough and in-depth study, Neufeld selected six "soundings" in texts that relate to Jesus and violence.

The six soundings are: (1) the commandment to turn the other cheek and to love one's enemies; (2) the inherent threat of violence to those who refuse to forgive in the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18 and its suitability as a metaphor for the Kingdom of God; (3) the violence of the temple incident reported in the gospels; (4) the atonement and the death of Jesus; (5) subordination and violence, as in the household codes of Ephesians 5:21-6:9; Col 3:18-4:1; 1 Peter 2:13-17 and the submission to civil authority in Romans 13:1-7; and (6) divine warfare in the New Testament, especially military metaphors and the cosmic combat in Revelation.

In his discussion of the six soundings, Neufeld gives an abbreviated but broad and balanced survey of significant interpretations of the texts and does not shrink from dealing with their capacity for misuse and violence. He raises the difficult questions and allows dissenting voices to speak. Throughout his examination of the problematic texts his exegesis is detailed, careful, and balanced. In answer to the question whether any of these texts is inherently violent, he insists throughout the book that it depends on who are reading it and where they stand.

In his examination of the first sounding, Neufeld points out that in Matthew non-retaliation and love of enemies is at the heart of the Torah and of the New Testament (20). Drawing on the work of Walter Wink, Yoder analyzes Matthew 5-7 as a program of non-violent resistance and "defiant vulnerability" and uses this as an interpretive tool for other passages. Neufeld reads the texts through the lens of the ministry, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He believes that the "deliberate, defiant and creative vulnerability of his followers, are the victory over and not of violence" (150).

In several places "killing enmity" is encountered in the examined texts. Neufeld views these examples as "ironic and potentially subversive" and states that in each instance one must ask if this violence is "legitimized or nurtured, or is this violence subverted and overcome? Is this an enmity that kills or is enmity itself killed?" (150). Violent language and imagery, whether armour, divine warfare, or the language of judgment and punishment are viewed both in the context of eschatological urgency and the broader picture of the "ingenuity of God's love, the compassion at the heart of grace and the persistent drive toward reconciliation and restoration that the writers of the...