Banksy mural in Bethlehem, Palestine (2007)

Inside all of us, there is a deep longing for security, stability, and peace. But human history shows that we often try to fulfill this need through force. Violence is all too often seen as a way to achieve peace, rather than an obstacle to it. The United States and Israel’s war with Iran is a clear example of the myth of redemptive violence. The political leaders of the US have not provided any evidence that an attack from Iran was imminent or that the US was in any real danger. Yet, their rhetoric suggests that they believe the only way the US can be safe from Iran is through violence. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has boasted about the U.S. military’s unmatched ability to rain “death and destruction from above” on its “apocalyptic” Iranian enemies.1 For Hegseth, war with Iran or any conflict the US engages in is somehow divinely sanctioned.

How can people who claim to be followers of Jesus, who is often called the “prince of peace” in liturgy, be such strong supporters of war and violence? One major reason is that some roots of Christianity are based on what theologian and biblical scholar Walter Wink calls the myth of redemptive violence.

The Myth of Redemptive Violence

The myth of redemptive violence forms the very basis of the laws of proportional justice that the ancient Israelite community was instructed to follow. By “redemptive violence,” Wink refers to the idea that justice, goodness, and peace can be achieved through violence.2 It suggests that violence has redeeming qualities and can, in fact, be seen as a “good.” Within this framework, violence becomes salvific, regarded as a means of attaining salvation because people believe that when it is carried out by the right individuals and for the right reasons, it will save them.

Wink considers it a myth partly because it points to its “mythic” origins, which are rooted in the creation stories of the oldest organized religious tradition in the ancient Near East, Babylonian religion. Unlike the two creation myths in Genesis 1 and 2 of the Hebrew Bible, the Babylonian creation stories are fundamentally violent. In this myth, one god, Marduk (male), kills another god, Tiamat (female), and uses her remains to create the earth.

In this creation myth, there is no such thing as “the problem of evil” or the “mystery of evil,” because evil is a primordial fact. The fundamentals of this myth influenced religions in Syria, Egypt, Greece, Roman, Celtic religion in Britain, and India. This myth is powerful and widespread. Therefore, we should not be surprised to see the influence of this myth in ancient Israelite religion, especially considering the intercultural trade that would have occurred.

17 If anyone kills another person, they must be executed. 18 Someone who kills an animal may make amends for it: a life for a life. 19 If someone injures a fellow citizen, they will suffer the same injury they inflicted: 20 broken bone for broken bone, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The same injury the person inflicted on the other will be inflicted on them. 21 Someone who kills an animal must make amends for it, but whoever kills a human being must be executed. 22 There is but one law on this matter for you, immigrant or citizen alike, because I am the Lord your God. – Leviticus 24:17-21 (CEV)

The myth of redemptive violence appears throughout our society today. In TV and movies, superheroes and vigilantes operate within this myth. They use their power and violence in the name of the greater good, or so we are led to believe. However, a key aspect is often overlooked in our analysis: a significant part of their storylines aims to foster deep distrust of democratic institutions and democracy itself. These films often portray the public as either fearful or, at worst, unable to work together for the common good. With this framing, the myth of redemptive violence sustains itself as fundamentally necessary – it promotes the idea that we need people who will use force, even violent force if necessary, to save us from ourselves. Once again, violence becomes salvific.

The public is portrayed as good people, even if they are infantilized. The “bad people” are supposed to be clearly bad and inhumane, so their death does not trigger guilt. In this way, the myth of redemptive violence discourages critical self-reflection and encourages us to look for evil outside ourselves. We focus on the speck in another’s eye and fail to see the log in our own. As such, the main theological language we use for self-examination—sin—is projected onto “others” who are seen as evil, sinful, and deserving of punishment.

Following the work of Roman Catholic scholar Jim Keenan, I define sin as the failure to bother to love because this aligns with how Jesus describes sin in his parables. In the gospels, sin is not usually attributed to those who commit obvious wrongs, such as working on the Sabbath or breaking purity codes. Jesus consistently calls out people for failing to love their neighbor as they love themselves. From these stories, we learn that we often reframe our failure to love as a self-serving illusion where we see ourselves as the hero. Like the wealthy people Jesus critiques in the gospels, we hoard things like money and call it prudence. Like the Priest and Levite, we avoid entanglement with someone else’s misfortune and call it staying safe. We deny federal and state benefits to poor children and claim that we are motivating them to work to earn their money.

We oppose federal policies like Affirmative Action by pretending that updated anti-discrimination laws can erase the internalized racial ideologies that normalized a racial caste system throughout most of US history.

We pass anti-trans legislation to “keep kids safe” when, in reality, it is those very children who are suffering and contemplating suicide because, to them, death feels like a better option than a life where they can’t be themselves.

We build walls to keep out immigrants and call it patriotism. We produce more bombs, guns, and weapons of mass destruction than anywhere else in the world, and we call it self-defense. These self-serving and corporate illusions are rooted in fear and the myth of redemptive violence.

I agree with Walter Wink and his claim that the myth remains so widespread and powerful because it promises salvation—that we will be protected from violence, or at least the worst kinds of violence—if we align with and uphold the dominant and dominator culture and those in power. And for those seeking to gain power within this system of domination, they adhere to the myth of redemptive violence, hoping to be the ones inflicting violence rather than suffering it.

For many American Christians, the myth of redemptive violence seems moral or ethical, partly because that is all we are familiar with: violence has become normalized.

Resisting The Myth That Violence Can Save Us

How can we free ourselves from the influence of the myth of redemptive violence on our faith? We should start by remembering why the Roman authorities and the leaders of the Jerusalem temple wanted to crucify Jesus. When you read the gospels, you see that they didn’t have what you might call a “strong legal case” against Jesus. He was helping and healing people, organizing and loving others, and teaching them to love themselves and their enemies. He wasn’t doing anything illegal enough to warrant capital punishment by crucifixion. Despite this, it is important for us to remember that one of the reasons he was crucified is that he was teaching a Way of salvation outside of the myth of redemptive violence.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” – Mark 1:14-15 (NRSV)

The word “repent” comes from the Greek verb “metanoeite,” which had two related meanings in ancient Judaism: 1) To return from exile, following the way of the Lord from exile to the promised land; and 2) To go beyond your current way of thinking. In short, Jesus taught his disciples that salvation involves returning to the God of love and liberation and looking beyond conventional ways of “seeing” to recognize God’s love in everything. Jesus’ radical compassion challenges the myth of redemptive violence by showing that mirroring love is the way to return from exile to God, while mirroring hate only perpetuates the myth, reinforcing the idea that might makes right and that peace can be achieved through military power.

Jesus describes this new way in Matthew 5-7, his “The Sermon on the Mount.” In chapter 5, verses 38-42, he speaks against the Levitical law we read earlier.

38 “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 39 But I say to you that you must not oppose those who want to hurt you. If people slap you on your right cheek, you must turn the left cheek to them as well. 40 When they wish to haul you to court and take your shirt, let them have your coat too. 41 When they force you to go one mile, go with them two. 42 Give to those who ask, and don’t refuse those who wish to borrow from you.

Some people use these verses to claim that Jesus was a pacifist, meaning he taught his followers to submit to evil and that doing so was God’s will. However, one need only read verses 39-42 to see that this view is incomplete, as in these verses, Jesus explains that his followers should actually resist evil rather than passively accept it.

The Greek word “antistēnai,” which we translate as “not resist” in the NRSV bible or “not oppose” in the CEV, has militaristic roots. Most of the time when the word was used, it referred to counteractive aggression that could be lethal—or lethal violence. In short, “antistēnai” means more than just to stand against or resist; it implies to resist violently. Therefore, biblical scholars such as Walter Wink argue that a more accurate translation of verse 39 is that we should not repay evil with evil—do not mirror evil. Wink goes on to describe how turning the other cheek, giving someone your coat, and going the extra mile are, in fact, forms of non-violent resistance in Roman culture.3

Refusing to mirror evil and respond in kind is a tough truth because we can become the very thing that we hate. The act of hating something pulls us toward it, and it toward us. Since our hate often responds directly to evil done to us, it almost always causes us to meet evil on the enemy’s terms. Violence pulls smart, rational, decent people into mirroring itself. Without realizing it, we become the very thing we say we oppose and despise. Violence can never truly end violence, because its success encourages others to imitate it.

Paradoxically, violence is most dangerous when it succeeds.

Given this, it becomes clear that Jesus’ command to love our neighbors, including our enemies, was not hyperbolic: we must learn how to love our enemies because we can become what we hate.

Love, Peace & Transformation

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9

Jesus’s spiritual path of radical compassion guides us toward peace and peacemaking, thereby challenging the myth that violence can redeem or save us. At the start of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls on his followers to become peacemakers so they can be recognized as children of God. The Greek word for peacemakers in Matthew 5:9 is eirēnopoioi, from eirēnē (peace/wholeness) and poieō (to do/make). Peacemaking is more than just avoiding harm; it specifically involves actively cultivating, creating, or restoring peace and reconciliation. In this way, Jesus urged his followers to actively foster peace by internalizing the peace we experience when we live our lives centered in God, and to build communities of peace by following the Way he showed them. Through this, we dismantle the myth of redemptive violence by creating communities of peace in which love for our neighbor and compassion for the oppressed serve as a radical critique of systems that normalize violence.

In its simplest form, compassion is being moved deep within by our own experiences, causing us to respond in ways that aim to ease the suffering or promote the flourishing of ourselves or others. Throughout his ministry, when Jesus engages in acts of compassion within his community, it is more than just an emotional response; he is challenging a social context of numbness that has sought to convince him that the suffering he observes is normal. Compassionate actions become a radical form of critique because they make clear to those suffering under the weight of systemic injustice that their pain should be acknowledged and that their suffering is not a normal or natural part of society.

In this way, being a peacemaker requires economic equality and reparations for those whose labor has been exploited to generate wealth for billionaires and the political elites who support them. In his parables of the workers in the vineyard, the rich young ruler, and his statement that you cannot serve God and wealth, we see that people cannot live in peace if they are working themselves to literal death. As Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, poor and working-class people are sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Being a peacemaker requires us to eliminate purity rules that separate people and reinforce moral and social hierarchies. Through Jesus’ touching and healing of lepers, as well as the sick and disabled, Jesus teaches us that holiness and purity call us to practice holy love as God loves—a love that is limitless and boundaryless.

Being a peacemaker requires us to exercise discernment between just and unjust laws. Just laws are built on love and community; unjust laws uphold someone’s idea of “law and order” at any cost to sustain the current dominator culture. Jesus models this in his healings on the Sabbath, his preventing the stoning of a woman who was an adulterer, and his healing of the Syro-Phoenician woman’s daughter.

As Jesus tells us in his first public sermon, to be a peacemaker is to practice abolition.

¹⁸ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me to preach good news to the poor,
to proclaim release to the prisoners
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to liberate the oppressed,
¹⁹ and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. – Luke 4:18-19 (CEV)

Jesus taught his disciples the Way to abolish the conditions that create hell on earth: poverty, unjust persecution, inadequate physical and spiritual care, political oppression, and dehumanization. The myth of redemptive violence loses credibility when we choose to mirror love and practice peacemaking. May it be so.