Fall 2025 · Vol. 54 No. 2 · pp. 291–295
Book Review
Blessed Are the Peacemakers: A Biblical Theology of Human Violence
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2023. 348 pages.
Helen Paynter (PhD, University of Bristol) is director of the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence and teaches Old Testament at Bristol Baptist College (UK). She is a seasoned scholar, having published six books, and has coedited four collections of academic papers that were presented at the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence, a postgraduate research and study center dedicated to the study of biblical texts of violence. Blessed Are the Peacemakers no doubt draws on the rich resources that emerged from collaboration in that endeavor. The book bears witness to a profound awareness of the complexity of the issues involved in interpreting biblical texts of violence even as it testifies to a deep understanding of interdisciplinary reflection and cultural awareness.
If I were still teaching my university course “Biblical Perspectives on Peace and Justice,” I would choose Paynter’s book as a textbook for several reasons. First, as is suggested by “Biblical Theology for Life”—the title of the Series in which the book is a part—this is a book of practical theology for the church. Second, the book was written as a textbook. Chapters cover a wide range of topics with just enough detail to allow an instructor to take the topic deeper or in a variety of related directions. In typical textbook fashion, each chapter ends with a concise conclusion and a series of “Relevant Questions.” Third, the book reflects a broadly (ana)Baptist and (British) evangelical interpretive tradition while drawing on the breadth of ecumenical wisdom. And fourth, Paynter refuses to limit the notion of “violence” to biblical warfare texts, or even to those that depict other kinds of violence. Her approach is broad and deep.
The book is structured in three sections. The first, “Queuing the Questions” (25-67), addresses “The Human Problem of Violence” (chap. 1) and “Scripture as an Ethical Guide” (chap. 2). In the first chapter, Paynter does not shy away from the key questions: Is the Bible part of the problem? and Is the Christian faith inherently violent? Paynter writes: “It is the task of this book to consider questions such as these by hosting a conversation between Scripture and (contemporary and historical) thinkers on the subject of violence, all with attention to violence’s (contemporary and historical) victims. And by so doing, perhaps we can discern, and learn to walk in, wisdom’s paths of peace” (26). Her definition of violence guides her choice of texts and conversation partners: “Violence is the use of force or coercion in a way that causes harm to another” (27). Her conversation p. 292 partners include, among many others, holocaust scholar Zygmunt Bauman, psychiatrist James Gilligan, sociologist Mark Jurgensmeyer, and anthropologist René Girard.
Chapter 2, “Scripture as an Ethical Guide,” surveys three approaches to ethics that tend to inform the discussion of how biblical texts might guide us: rule-based ethics, consequentialist ethics (focused on outcomes), and virtue ethics. Paynter layers on a level of complexity to the discussion by introducing the many facets of scriptural diversity: the Bible doesn’t “speak” in a single voice on the topic. To address that complexity, Paynter suggests a hermeneutic of “redemptive movement” within the trajectory of the biblical story, proposing that it “reshapes the problem” (56) without resolving it. Though “coherence” is a worthy target (57), sometimes voices in tension must be allowed to remain. She draws on the phenomenon of intertextuality “to identify places where themes recur, or where existing ideas are being appropriated, developed, or even subverted by later writers” (59). Her goal is the transformation of both the individual reader of the Bible and the interpretive community, all of which is to be undergirded by rigorous study, prayer, obedience, and practical reflection (66).
Part 2, “Arriving at Answers,” includes nine chapters on biblical texts and themes. Rather than launching into warfare texts, chapter 3 begins by exploring how the nonviolent biblical creation texts in Genesis offer a contrast to ancient Near Eastern creation theology, including the elevation of the human vocation as image of God. Chapter 4, “Things Fall Apart,” explores the violent consequences of disordered human desire, particularly in Genesis 3–11, and the rise of what Paynter calls “the monster,” or the introduction of the element of moral chaos even as she highlights the human vocation of quelling the chaos. Chapter 5, “Violence in Wartime,” presents a survey of military violence, again comparing biblical warfare texts to their analogous ancient Near Eastern texts. Chapter 6, “Violence in Peacetime,” expands the conversation to include the following: varieties of interpersonal violence, including sexual violence; the structural violence of monarchy, slavery, and poverty; and the use of violence to limit violence. Paynter includes here a brief discussion of direct divine action and divinely sanctioned retribution.
The analysis takes a turn at chapter 7 by focusing on alternative perspectives on violence within the Bible. The chapter explores “Violence Seen from the Underside,” including voices of grief and protest in lament, prophetic criticism of violence, resistance through civil disobedience, and texts that Paynter calls “hidden transcripts” of protest that mock p. 293 and subvert dominant ideologies and practices. Chapter 8 takes up the topic, introduced earlier, of “Redemptive Trajectories before the Cross.” Here Paynter explores some subversive countercurrents in Joshua and ambivalence to militarism and vengeance in other texts. Paynter confirms a kind of redemptive movement in the devalorization of warfare, in “the progressive invalidation of vengeance,” and the “gradual development of a theology of innocent suffering” (168–69).
Chapter 9, “Redemptive Trajectories at the Cross,” addresses one of the most thorny issues of all, here highlighted with a question mark: “Divine Violence at the Cross?” Paynter surveys various “models” of atonement before, again, exploring the “devalorization of violence” and the “invalidation of vengeance” in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The highlight of the chapter is Paynter’s conversation with René Girard, James Cone, and Jürgen Moltmann about the cross and suffering. Chapter 10 explores the book of Revelation, Daniel, and early Jewish apocalyptic texts. She draws on the work of Walter Wink on the myth of redemptive suffering and interacts with Miroslav Volf’s idea that divine violence is the only basis for human nonviolent resistance. Chapter 11, “Living the New Reality,” introduces the trajectory of peace in the New Testament and the early church, including reflection on Romans 13 and slavery in the New Testament.
In part 3, “Reflecting on Relevance,” Paynter lays out in detail the hermeneutical, ecclesiological, and practical direction of her work toward fostering a culture and practice of peace in community. Chapter 12 sets out her redemptive trajectory approach (drawing on the suggestions of N. T. Wright), by which the church improvises through the diversity of Scripture toward the practice of “three eschatological goals”: holiness, justice, and peace. Chapter 13 takes that direction further by exploring “The Church as Prophetic Actor” through the practices of being present to the world, hospitality, and reconciliation. Chapter 14 moves even more practically by reflecting on “How to Resist Evil.” Here Paynter takes pains to address the varieties of just war approaches and permutations of pacifism, reflecting finally on Baptist theologian Glen Stassen’s book Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace. Paynter concludes: “What is clear is that in our generation there has never been a greater need for a prophetic people who will seek to enact justice with mercy, to work for peace with boldness, and to strive toward holiness with dirty hands” (281). In chapter 15 Paynter boldly addresses two case studies in resisting evil: gun control and capital punishment. Chapter 16 names the vice of false peace and silence in the face of our entanglement in violence through p. 294 racism in both the Bible and the church. Chapter 17 moves the conversation outward by applying the love of neighbor command to the challenges of loving migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees—a topic sure to challenge many North American readers. Chapter 18, “Reordering our Desires,” returns to the topic of mimetic violence (René Girard) by suggesting that we turn from covetousness to contentment to practicing Sabbath and Jubilee economics of relinquishment and restitution. Chapter 19 serves as a tidy punctuation mark on a diverse, complex, and challenging book by reminding the church of “our privilege and responsibility to labor together for the cause of peace and to follow the Spirit where he leads us in that difficult, creative endeavor” (328).
As the survey of the book’s content above indicates, Paynter’s approach and agenda are clear. She articulates a hermeneutic and practice that leans in the direction of just peacemaking. Her adoption of a redemptive trajectory hermeneutic and an improvisational ecclesial practice is a good model for appreciating the Bible’s ancient context as well as negotiating its diversity and complexity. Paynter’s hermeneutic is also eschatological in orientation, as she suggests that we “orient our lives in [the] direction” (53), a “step on the way” toward God’s purposes revealed in “the eschatological goal of shalom in the new heavens and the new earth” (156).
Several of the book’s weaknesses might seem like mere quibbles. Since chapters and shorter sections often do not go deep enough (e.g., short and scattered reflection on Jubilee [121, 249, 324], an all-too-thin discussion of “the ban”/ḥerem [150-52]), instructors will need to be prepared to supplement Paynter’s discussions. To be fair, Paynter recognizes that she can offer only a “representative survey” of texts (103). Although footnotes in most cases take the reader to important resources, the book would have been enhanced by referring, among others, to the following: Christine Pohl on hospitality, Wilma Bailey on the command not to kill/murder, Daniel Hawk’s (and my) books on Joshua, Willard Swartley on peace in the New Testament, and on the book of Revelation, Loren Johns (lamb Christology) and Nelson Kraybill (allegiance and politics). Sometimes Paynter assumes her readers know things when they probably don’t, for example, when she assumes that “Sunday-school children everywhere” will know the story of Ehud (Judges 3) and Jael (Judges 4) (142–43). A second edition of the book would be enhanced by a “Further Reading” bibliography at the end of each chapter, and a comprehensive bibliography at the end of the book. p. 295
One of the most beautiful gifts of this book is Paynter’s own three-stanza hymn text, “The Things that Make for Peace,” set to the tune of Gustav Holst’s “Thaxted” (281–82). See: https://www.csbvbristol.org.uk/2022/11/02/the-things-that-make-for-peace-remembrance-hymn/
