“We’ve now lived for more than a generation with the most haunting post-Holocaust/ Hiroshima uncertainty: Can humanity possess the capacity for self-destruction and not resort to it?“
Christians believe in the one that Isaiah the prophet called “The Prince of Peace”. But they don’t act like it.
Christians agree with what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, that we should “love our enemies”. But they murder them with hate, and wage violent wars against them in all kinds of ways.
Christians hold onto Scripture, being it to be God inspired, like “Vengance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay.” But they turn around a smite those that might mistreat them, threaten them, wrong them.
This kind of “Christianity” is toxic. It is not aligned with Jesus of Nazerath. It does not call him Lord. These kinds of Christians call the god of war, the god named Mars, their Lord; though they may not realize it.
It’s to this toxic, misaligned Christianity that Brian Zahnd bids us to say farwell to. It’s to this falseness that Christianity has gravitated towards that Zahnd encourages us to examine, and then depart from.
Do not be mistaken. This is not an anti-government or anti-military book, at least not in nature. This is a call for Christians to start taking the words of Jesus Christ seriously. The red letters are not just cutesy phrases to help us out when we are having a bad day. They are life altering, politically charged, partisan trashing, enemy loving, wrongs forgiving, vengance forsaking words.
They need to be heard. They need to be lived. Especially when Christians are claiming that they do. It’s time to realize what we are supposed to be hearing and living. It’s time to say A Farewell to Mars.
Brian Zahnd invites all Christians to come with him on his journey from being a war happy, vengance seeking “Christian” to become a Gospel of Peace preacher that speaks to thousands every week.
“We are mad if we imagine that the God of love revealed in Jesus will bless us in waging war.“
If you are happy with your present Christianity, do not read this book. It will disturb everything in your life.
If you are content with your relationship with Jesus, do not crack the first page. It will throw your life into a tailspin that you cannot recover from.
But, if you want to grow in your relationship with Jesus, if you want to follow Him more closely, hear his voice more clearly, live your life closer to his teachings, then this is a book I couldn’t recommend more.
A Farewell to Mars will mess you up. It will throw a Jesus-shaped monkey wrench into everything. Not just your ideas about war or vengance, or government spending on the military, though it will do those things. Zahnd invites you to believe, not just in Jesus, but the things that Jesus talked about. As if they were true. As if they were possible. As if they were the way to live, as if they were the truth, and as if they were the way to experience life.
There aren’t many books out there that seem to hammer home the necessity for North American Christians to wake up and examine their so called faith. Not like A Farewell To Mars does.
As great as Brian Zahnd is, and as fantastic as his writing style goes, it is the way the Spirit illuminates these words that changes things. The Spirit of Christ, the Prince of Peace is very present when you read things book. And you cannot encounter Jesus and be left the same. Especially when you read A Farwell to Mars.
This is an invitation to journey with Zahnd. He hasn’t got everything mastered. He isn’t declaring that he has found the way to live at peace in a world at war. Rather he wants all Christians to start walking down this same path of honesty, taking Jesus at his word, and living at word out.
Even just starting down this path that has changed how I look at things. Changed how I think about things. Changed how I act.
A Farwell to Mars is a necessity. Every Christian, every pastor, every lay person needs to be challenged to live out what Jesus said in a way that actually reflects what Jesus said, not what the Church has reinterpreted Jesus into saying. Reading this book will help do that.
“We forget that God is most clearly revealed, not in the nascent understanding of the ancient Hebrews but in the Word made flesh. We forget that “being disguised under the disfigurement of an ugly crucifixion and death, the Christform upon the cross is paradoxically the clearest revelation of who God is.” We forget that “the worst day in history was not a Tuesday in New York, but a Friday in Jerusalem when a consortium of clergy and politicians colluded to run the world on our own terms by crucifying God’s own Son.” We forget that when we see Christ dead upon the cross, we discover a God who would rather die than kill his enemies. We forget all of this because the disturbing truth is this—it’s hard to believe in Jesus.“
This book NEEDS to be read by all North American Christians. Needs to, because what Zahnd is sharing is something this continent has needed for a long time. Too long it has taken up arms in Jesus’ name. It is time for things to change.
I give Brain Zahnd and A Farwell to Mars a 5 out of 5 star rating.
CHRISTIAN THOUGHT SANDBOX 