What happens when a five-century tradition of Christian pacifism no longer needs Jesus to support nonviolence? Why does secularity cause this dilemma for Mennonites in their theology of peace? Layton Boyd Friesen offers an ancient theology and spirituality of incarnation as the church's response to the non-resistance of Christ. He explores three key aspects of von Balthasar's Christology to help Mennonite peace theology regain its momentum in the secular age with a contemplative union with Christ.
This volume argues that the way to regain a Christ-formed pacifism within secularity is to contemplate and enter the mystery unveiled in the Chalcedonian Definition of Christ, as interpreted by Hans Urs von Balthasar. In this mystery, the believer is drawn into real-time participation in Christ's encounter with the secular world.
In Secular Nonviolence and the Theo-Drama of Peace, Layton Friesen has made a substantive, and much needed, contribution to a Mennonite theological ethic. Appealing to the Anabaptist tradition of Schleitheim, Marpeck, and Martyrs Mirror, and appropriating the Orthodox Christology of Maximus the Confessor as mediated by the theo-dramatic perspective of Catholic theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Friesen reclaims the Chalcedonian definition of Christ's incarnation as the dogmatic undercarriage of gospel pacifism. Crucially, Friesen demonstrates how Christ's bidirectional nonresistance-his personal yieldedness to the Father and to the human condition-is the spiritual centre and practical pattern of defenseless discipleship. Friesen thus helpfully shifts peace apologetics away from the secular rhetoric of the social-political relevance of nonviolence typical of modern Mennonite peace positions and programs and back towards a distinctively Christian ethic grounded dogmatically in the church's confessional-contemplative union with the incarnate-crucified Christ and motivated evangelically by God-in-Christ's love for the world. I heartily commend Friesen's work to Mennonite theologians and ethicists, both scholars and students, in sincere hope that it receives the serious, patient engagement that it deserves.
