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Reviewed by Jonathan Marlowe, pastor of Shiloh UMC in Granite Quarry, North Carolina The Truce of God by Rowan Williams It would be easy to assume on the basis of a cursory glance of church publications these days that labels such as “liberal” and “conservative” represent coherent theological categories. Certainly, if we let the secular media tell the story of the church, we are bound by such dead-end road blocks. How many times have we heard CNN or even NPR discuss a religious topic with two guests: one representing “fundamentalism” and the other “liberalism.” They spend the whole hour talking at each other, but no serious discussion ever takes place. No thinking is required; it is almost as if they have the whole thing scripted before the broadcast ever begins. How refreshing it is to read someone like Rowan Williams, someone who does not fit into the cookie-cutter categories we wore out a long time ago. In this theological meditation on the nature of Christ’s peace, Williams frees our imaginations from the tired, hackneyed patterns that would force us to choose between Jerry Falwell and John Spong. What he offers us instead is a compelling reading of not only the gospel of Christ, but of our present cultural captivities and blind spots. Rowan Williams provides a voice much needed in the church today: theological, faithful, engaging, sophisticated, prayerful, simple, and profound. Originally written in 1983, The Truce of God was first published as a Lenten book commissioned by then Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Cantuar. It was at the time the work of a young man just beginning to establish his own theological voice in the church. Of course now he is the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, and this book will hopefully receive a wide reading among seminarians, pastors, and laity. In the first edition of the book, the cold war and arms race provided the context out of which Williams wrote. In this revised edition, Williams’s original insights are still relevant, and he manages seamlessly to include references and examples of more current armed conflicts, such as the war in Iraq. Williams challenges Christians to live out the story of Jesus Christ in the community of the church. He has sometimes been misunderstood as a common ‘liberal’ because of his outspoken opposition to war and his support for the ordination of women. But what we find in The Truce of God is that the theological convictions on which his social commitments are based are quite orthodox and in keeping with the church’s most traditional affirmations and creeds. For example, his commitment to the Christian vocation of peace-making is based on his understanding of the Eucharist as the meal of peace that unites the disciples of Christ across all racial, cultural, and national boundaries. Furthermore, in questioning the common practice of Christians rising from the table of the Lord and bearing arms against one another, he also finds that there are no places where the Lordship of Christ may not extend the church, thus rendering problematic the assumption that Christianity could ever be easily reconciled with the execution of warfare. Thus, what may seem to many to be a socially liberal opposition to war turns out to be an expression of his prior commitments to the catholic and evangelical nature of the gospel of Christ. Williams is careful to distinguish his account of Christ’s peace from various misconceptions that were in vogue in the 1980s and still linger in our present decade. He is quite critical of any notion of peace as withdrawal from our engagements with the world. Any sentimental conception of peace as serenity or passivity is quickly put to rest when we consider the strife and conflict that the ministry of Jesus evoked. The peace of Christ is no quiet place of detachment from the harsh realities of the world; it is rather bearing witness to the presence of Christ in every situation and person. This is not based on an optimistic view of human nature, but on a radical belief in Christ’s lordship over all creation. The book begins with a reflection of how violence has recently been portrayed in fantasies and fiction. Williams notices a disturbing trend: that violence seems to be something humans are forced into doing because of the aggressiveness of someone or something outside the normal social sphere. This pattern may lull us into thinking that violence is beyond our control, not subject to moral reasoning, simply a part of our world. Williams draws our attention to this myth of the inevitability of violence in order to show us that there is an alternative: the peace of Christ, or “The Truce of God.” One hopes that the considerable skills that the Archbishop shows in the pages of this book will manifest themselves as the world-wide Anglican Communion struggles to come to terms over the issue of homosexuality. Such a bold and provocative book would fulfill its own promise more completely if its author is able to lead the Anglican Communion in its witness to the peace of Christ in its own internal life without the Communion breaking up in schisms, as some have predicted. However, since the peace of Christ is not the absence of conflict, perhaps the Archbishop will be able to do what the book promises: to bear witness to the reign of God even in the midst of tragedy and pain. As he writes, “Christ’s peace, then, is given us as we are drawn into his world, as we enter his ‘space’. When we hear the ‘good news of peace,’ we do not comfortably relax in the confidence that a particularly tricky problem has been solved. On the contrary, we are invited to live in the world of Jesus - which means bearing, as he did, the tensions of knowing the full force both of hope and of grief.” I am grateful for the wise words of Archbishop Williams and pray that this peace of Christ will be present in the Anglican Communion, in the Church catholic, and everywhere in God’s world.
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