In Disarming the Church: Why Christians Must Forsake Violence to Follow Jesus and Change the World, Eric A. Seibert makes a sustained case that followers of Jesus must reject violence, both in their personal conduct and in conduct by the state. Writing at a moment when some argue that teachers should be armed with guns to respond to school shootings and when pastors and congregants carry concealed weapons to church, Seibert offers a timely critique of the cult of redemptive violence while also offering practical strategies for finding nonviolent solutions to potentially violent situations.

The book is divided into four parts. In the first, Seibert surveys the ways in which (primarily American) Christians today participate in violence and offers explanations for how Christians “end up” justifying violent behaviors that run counter to Jesus’ teachings about loving one's enemies and turning the other cheek. For example, he highlights many American Christians’ uncritical support for war, acceptance of torture, and participation in discrimination or bullying against members of the LGBTQ community. Christians resort to violence, he argues, because they are convinced that violence, done for good purposes, can be redemptive. Immersed in a culture that glorifies violence, most Christians are simply unaware of historical examples of nonviolence or of strategies for nonviolent conflict resolution, and they rarely hear in church about Jesus’ nonviolent teachings. In the second part, Seibert outlines and explains Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence and responds to common objections drawn from both the Bible and practical experience.

In parts 3 and 4, Seibert collects a number of personal narratives from Christian sources exemplifying nonviolent responses to conflict and offers practical strategies of nonviolence across a range of situations. For example, in part 3 he considers how Christians may respond when they are directly threatened by an attacker or when they encounter another person being threatened or attacked. In another chapter, he surveys the evidence suggesting that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violence in toppling oppressive governments and examines the characteristics of successful nonviolent resistance movements. In part 4, Seibert explores how to develop nonviolence in one's interpersonal relationships, and he also tackles important but neglected topics like nonviolent parenting (including the issue of spanking) and domestic violence. In the final chapter, he proposes ways that churches can promote nonviolence, both in their own governance and in their members’ daily lives. It is in these last two parts on nonviolent strategies where the book really shines. Seibert does an excellent job of linking seemingly disparate forms of violence, such as children's video games, domestic violence, and war, and shows how Christian nonviolence must offer a comprehensive alternative to all of these. Seibert helps Christians think creatively about how to respond to dangerous situations nonviolently while being clear that he has (a) no magical formulas to offer and that (b) sometimes nonviolence fails.

The book is aimed primarily at church audiences, such as discussion groups or other pastoral settings where many readers will be unfamiliar with Christian teaching on nonviolence, but it can also be used in undergraduate settings. Scholars who study Christian attitudes toward violence and nonviolence will find little new in the first half of the book, and supporters of the just-war tradition or the limited use of violence in self-defense will likely be unpersuaded by Seibert's arguments, although the sheer volume of material gathered in support of Christian nonviolence is valuable in itself. Theologians and ethicists will likely find the book's second half, with its practical suggestions for promoting nonviolent solutions in a variety of settings, more rewarding. Even ethicists who do not absolutely oppose the use of violence must admit that we resort to violence far too often and that Christians must do more to promote nonviolent alternatives in our politics and in our personal lives.