Before I review the book “Fight Like Jesus: How Jesus waged peace throughout Holy Week” by Jason Porterfield, I need to make two caveats. First, this book was sent to me by the Speakeasy Blog program in exchange for a review of the book. Secondly, the views of this blog review of this book is my thoughts (Ryan Braught) and my not necessarily reflect the views and beliefs of the Veritas Community. With that being said, on with the review.
A few weeks after Holy Week, I received an e-mail from the Speakeasy blog program asking if I would like to review “Fight Like Jesus: How Jesus waged peace throughout Holy Week” by Jason Porterfield. As an Anabaptist who holds to a position of non-violence, I was interested in reading this book. I wanted to see how the non-violence of Jesus played a part in the last week of his earthly life (before his resurrection). I was very intrigued by the title, because even a cursory glance through the pages of the New Testament, gives the reader a clue that Jesus didn’t fight in the traditional way- the way of violence, domination, and power over others. In fact, I love the flip that the author makes in the subtitle, that instead of waging war, Jesus waged peace.
Porterfield takes us through Holy Week starting at what we call Palm Sunday (or the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem), and walks us day by day until we arrive at the first Easter Sunday. Each chapter, which corresponds with each day of Holy Week, gives us an idea of what Jesus was doing on that day, how he lived a non-violent life in the face of a violent empire, and then gives us lessons that we can learn from Jesus about living a non-violent life in our day and time.
This book is well researched and the author does a great job of unpacking the historical and cultural settings in which that first Holy Week took place. He does a great job of comparing and contrasting the Kingdom of God with the Roman Empire. How Jesus and the Kingdom of God wage peace and how the Empire (the Roman Empire) waged violence. So the question that we are then left with is- which way will we fight- will we fight like Jesus- non-violently? Living a life that responds to violence with self-sacrificial, turn the other cheek, feet washing, enemy love- in the way of Jesus and the Kingdom. Or will we choose to fight with the tools of the empire- violence, coercion, power over? All too often, at least since Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire, Christianity unfortunately has chosen the tools of the empire and not the way of the Kingdom. That is why this book is so important, to remind us of the way of Jesus and the Kingdom and how it is a way of peace, non-violence, and of shalom-making.
The only negative that I had has nothing to do with the content of the book. As I mentioned earlier, I received this book after Holy Week so I couldn’t read it during that week. My plan moving forward is to hopefully read the corresponding chapter on each day of Holy Week (so on Palm Sunday in 2023 I plan to read chapter 2, and so on and so forth)
I highly recommend reading Fight Like Jesus anytime throughout the year, but especially during Holy Week.