The Bible offers a beginning. But the Bible itself has become another tool of the "humane." The audaciousness of the Bible has been tamed--tamed and then co-opted. All too often the Bible is weighed against itself, allowing extreme to mitigate extreme. But that is not how the Bible works. The Bible takes a stand by pressing for one end of the extreme, sometimes even pushing the other end off stage. The Bible did so in the past because the times called for it. And that is exactly what the Bible does today, regarding peace. The Bible imagines a peaceful world and then insists upon improvisation to realize that peace.

By Scot McKnight