In the radical and revolutionary new book, Living Violence or Living Love, Damian Westfall not only diagnoses the Christian Church's Pathology but offers also a solution and cure to this terminal disease which the Christian Church is rapidly dying from.
Based on an essay by Leo Tolstoy written in Russian in 1908 "The Law of Violence and the Law of Love" Westfall's new book is so potent it makes what Martin Luther nailed to the Wittenberg Door look like child's play. From the Author's Preface:

"Upon reading "The Law of Violence and The Law of Love" I suddenly knew the answer as to what was wrong with the church. You see, in this short book, Tolstoy diagnoses the spiritual illness of the false church and the main essence of its pathology. He realized that Christians of today and for the last 2000 years say they believe XYZ and that XYZ is the greatest, most sacred thing in existence and yet they live in exact opposition to XYZ and thus exist in a schizoid life of self-contradiction. This contradiction leads to their inevitable suffering and confusion as to why they are suffering. For Tolstoy this was especially significant concerning violence in the churches and the Christians' embrace of the military and political leaders, and furtherance of violence on the planet, when Christ clearly taught that violence was never an option for Christians. The next thing that radicalized me by Tolstoy was his insistence that Christ's ethics (His moral teachings) should be taken literally and lived out...Suddenly, upon reading this book by Tolstoy, I realized that I had been only raised with half of the Christian experience consisting of just faith and all faith. In these churches I grew up in, legalism was condemned and yet every time I read the gospels, I saw that ethics were one of the main subjects of Christ's teachings, but I never saw anyone live them out. Upon reading Tolstoy's "The Law of Violence and The Law of Love" I received an epiphany and suddenly I got out my Bible and reread the Book of James, in which James says clearly that faith without works is dead. This truism is something so disliked by Christianity that Martin Luther in fact called the Book of James "The Epistle of Straw" and didn't want it incorporated into the Lutheran Bible.
But James is right. Faith alone doesn't do anything. You need to live it-live the ethics-to get the full experience of what Christ is promising us and Tolstoy got this. He nailed it. I had never heard anyone talk like this before and "The Law of Violence and The Law of Love" was so radical to me that it makes the Ninety-Five Theses of Martin Luther that he nailed to the Wittenberg door seem like child's play.
Upon finishing this book, I was filled with spiritual rapture and release, because Tolstoy had articulated not only what was wrong with the church that I couldn't sum up myself or put my finger on, but also, he had the solution to the problem, which was living Christ's ethics, something that was not stressed or talked about much in church as I was growing up.

""Every work by Damian Westfall is a work of ferocious vision." Cass McCombs