DESCRIPTION
One would think that
peace, a term that occurs as many as one hundred times in the New Testament, would enjoy a prominent place in theology and ethics textbooks. Yet it is surprisingly absent. Willard Swartley's
Covenant of Peace remedies this deficiency, restoring to New Testament theology and ethics the peace that many works have missed.
In this comprehensive yet accessible book Swartley explicates virtually all of the New Testament, relating peace -- and the associated emphases of love for enemies and reconciliation -- to core theological themes such as salvation, christology, and the reign of God. No other work in English makes such a contribution.
Swartley concludes by considering specific practices that lead to peacemaking and their place in our contemporary world. Retrieving a historically neglected element in the Christian message,
Covenant of Peace confronts readers anew with the compelling New Testament witness to peace.
AWARDS and RECOGNITIONS
Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Dale Brown Book Award (2008)
REVIEWS
Interpretation
"Swartley's work will ensure greater scholarly attentiveness to peace and thus serve as an urgently needed corrective."
Christian Century
"This is a book to be reckoned with by anyone who writes on New Testament theology."
The Catholic Register
"'Covenant of Peace is serious stuff from a serious Mennonite theologian."
COV & R Bulletin
"In conclusion, Willard Swartley is to be congratulated for this book that he has presented to the world. I highly recommend it . . . to all who are concerned with the biblical basis of peace, justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation."
Sondra Ely Wheeler
— Wesley Theological Seminary
"Willard Swartley here undertakes what few New Testament ethicists of pacifist commitment have set out to do — develop a thorough, and thoroughly theological, analysis of the theme of peace as it is interwoven into the New Testament account of the work of Jesus Christ and the proclamation of the reign of God. This is the fully fleshed out articulation of what many have claimed, but no one has done so much to demonstrate — that peace is near to the heart of the gospel."