Sad But Familiar Voices
October 30, 2011
In a previous post, I cited some examples of Christian life in the Middle East I found strange and hard to reconcile to my own experience. Two were to do especially with violence, one toward and one by Christians. At a certain point in my reading From the Holy Mountain, I was beginning to despair of ever really feeling at home with them, and thus (not that this is a bad thing) the book was relativizing my inherited beliefs. Luckily for my mental health, later in the memoir I race across a few stories that shot the narrative through with glorious light.
One such story is that of the Christian town of Kafr Bir’im near Nazareth. Dalrymple comes to the village of Safad and is welcomed by the married Marionite priest to have Turkish coffee while he tells him the story of what happened to Kafr Bir’im. Not long after everyone is getting situated, an old man comes in with a piece of paper with all sorts of dates and information relating to the story written on it, lest someone tell the story wrongly. (Enter sarcastic comment against the normal comparison of ‘modern history’ to ‘popular history’ here…)
On October 29th 1948, Haganah soldiers arrived in the village, who were received by the old men and priest with a white flag. The villagers gave them food and allowed them to occupy some houses for a little while. After 15 days, though, the villagers were told they must leave. They had to be five kilometers away from the village or they’ll be shot and killed. So it was in the cold of December they were forcefully evicted without shelter or aid from the village to live in caves or squat under trees, all without justification despite longstanding ‘friendly’ relations with Jews to this point. Several babies died from the exposure.
A twist in the story comes with the information that all 1,050 people of the town were given Israeli citizenship. When the Minister for Minorities arrived and saw them living under trees he ordered the Christians be given the homes of the nearby village Jish, which had been abandoned by fleeing Muslims. After 15 days, the minister said, they would be allowed back to their homes in Kafr Bir’im. There were even allowed a few men back into Bir’im to guard the houses and crops. But after six months, even these were ordered out of the village.
At this point, the village brought their concerns before the Israeli High Court.
The (Maronite!) priest here told Dalrymple:
“The people of Bir’im have never resorted to violence. We have always fought by law and by Christian principles.”
This story came as a surprise in this the last fifth of the book. It was as an oasis in a desert. I noticed immediately the casual matter-of-factness with which the Father indirectly said that ‘Christian principles’ would not allow his village to offer reaction with guns and violent retaliation. Sadly, the story continues all the way to an ironic post-apocalyptic end.
The people of Bir’im won the case. The court declared the evictions unjust and ordered them back to their village. Yet the very next day the Israeli army declared the area a military zone and they were once again forbidden from coming home. In the afternoon, by an aerial bombing, they destroyed Kafr Bir’im, the buildings with all their possessions, as the people watched from afar, as if at some bizarre fireworks show, on a hill subsequently named the ‘Crying Hill.’
Their fields were given to a new Jewish settlement and the town made into a National Park. The history of the town, and the fact that their real citizens were still alive and nearby, is erased from the public memory. Instead, signs draw attention to the ruins of a second temple synagogue near the center of town, yet the homes built by the people of Bir’im, are imagined as ancient ruins by the Israeli school children who come for field trips; a well dug by one who told the story was labeled instead as one built by a leader of the Jewish revolt circa 66AD.
Now, the villagers – at long last! – can visit their homes, but only if they pay the entrance fee and compete with tourists for a view. Fr. Suleiman laments:
“They say that once you let one Arab back, you admit that the others have rights too. That is why, despite everything, they dare not give us back what is ours. Israel says it is a democracy, and it is true. But it seems that for us Palestinians there is no justice.”
There are many more interesting details, and I strongly recommend you read this engrossing book for them and all the other stories.
Unfamiliar Voices
September 11, 2011
One of the books I read over the summer was a travel memoir by William Dalrymple, From the Holy Mountain. In it, Dalrymple follows the footsteps of a Byzantine monk, John Moschos and his pupil Sophronius the Sophist, who traveled through the Empire from Mt. Athos down to the Egyptian desert oasis Al Kharga. The book is a totally fascinating and engaging description of the very complex situation Christians are finding themselves in in the Middle East. Mostly it is a tale of the degeneration of Christianity in her historic home — an often tragic and brutal tale. Eerily, the book, written in 1997, already seems out of date. The situation is almost certainly more grim now.
The second part of From the Holy Mountain takes place in Turkey. After a brief respite in Syria, being at the time the most stable and safe home for Christians, Dalrymple moves onto Lebanon. The book to this point was unrelentingly strange to my world. Turkey, though officially a secular state, has systematically suppressed Christians there, including especially a physical and historic genocide of the Armenian Christians. By ‘historic’ I mean that the authorities literally travel around to towns and destroy any physical proof of Armenians: their churches, their homes, their graveyards, their monasteries. I found it very difficult to hear described. One thing I wasn’t expecting was for this memoir to challenge my pacifism. It doesn’t take any sacrifice on my part to say that I affirm a non-violent Kingdom here. Upon hearing these stories, perhaps for the first time in years, I became quite sympathetic to the felt need to defend oneself, one’s family, church, and home. Some monasteries that were taken over or destroyed had been there for well over a thousand years. A thousand. years.
In Lebanon, Dalrymple gives a brief history of the the Maronite eastern Rite Catholics. A shockingly bloodthirsty and cruel band of Maronite gangs had waged a long ‘civil war’ with other ethnic and religious groups in what is now Lebanon in an effort to defend what was seen as their own country — aided in no small part to a close relationship to the French. There is one particularly dark incident where Dalrymple is having a conversation with a certain Christian about the Maronite leader Samir Geagea. This man was comparing two towns, one Christian the other not:
“You can eat in Ehden, but make sure you sleep in Bsharre. Sleep in Ehden, and they will shoot you while you are asleep.’ [Bsharre was a town under the authority of Geagea. Dalrymple proceeds to question this man, listing many of the more gruesome crimes of Geagea, including the night murder of a Christian rival, the killing of women and children, a church bombing, and others.] “Geagea is a very honourable and very holy man,’ he said. ‘We are very proud of him in Bsharre…You must not believe what people say about Samir Geagea,’ said Ch’baat. ‘But you can hardly call him holy,’ [Dal.]
‘Certainly yes,’ he said, quite serious. ‘He went to mass every day and prayed by his bed every night. He had a church built wherever he was, where he fought. Every Christmas his troops expected money as a present, but instead he gave them prayer books and rosaries. Of course he went to confession ever week. He never went into battle without his cros. In his office, he always had a picture of the Virgin and a cross: never any picture of Che Guevara or anything like that.”
Another strange phenomenon was reported on multiple occasions. In some places in the Middle East there was a strange fusion of Christianity, Islam, and paganism that I found, to be perfectly honest, curious but repugnant. Apparently there are several churches, monasteries, and Mosques, where people of both faiths will come and pray to saints for healing, or for a job, to get pregnant, or for good weather. This is itself not too disconcerting, though it seems like it has potential problems. Far more troubling is that if the prayer is answered, that person will return with a goat or a sheep and the (Orthodox!) priest or Imam will sacrifice the animal in thanks to the saint! How strange! How utterly foreign to me, and foreign to the strong anti-sacrificial polemics of the Church fathers and New Testament.
I kept going over these sections in my mind. In the end, I found them impossible to understand. I couldn’t wrap my head around this man who praised Geagea, or this, well, gang leader, who could shoot a woman and child over 24 times one day, and go to Mass the next; or the animal sacrifice for saints. I was beginning to question myself strongly. In what ways has my Christian life been truly normative, and in what ways has it been exceptional? According to how I’ve been taught to understand the Gospels and the witness of the persecuted Church, even under severe pressure, the Church shouldn’t be reacting by taking up arms, but caring not about the risks, they should be testifying to another kingdom. Is that simply a position that one in my position can take? Or can it truly occur? Luckily for my sanity, I found several stories that filled me with joy and relief. Perhaps these Christians are not so strange after all?
Prayer and Fasting for Peace
June 4, 2010
Today, as I sat contemplating the possibility of (more) war in the Middle East, I realized something: I don’t pray nearly enough for peace. Sure the deacon recites this prayer every Sunday:
“Guide the people of this land, and of all nations, in the ways of justice and peace; that we may honor one another and serve the common good…Lord, in your mercy”
To which I heartily reply: “Hear our prayer.” But that is by and large the extent of my prayer life concerning peace. What’s more, I’ve never fasted for peace.
It occurred to me that there are thousands–maybe tens of thousands–of Christians out there who don’t believe that peace is possible or even beneficial, who believe that America’s wars are blessed by God, who believe that violence toward Muslims, gays and other perceived enemies is just fine, and who pray and fast on a regular basis. There are National Days of Prayer when God has to listen to (among better things) idolatrous, nationalistic prayers about how He needs to bless America and Israel and destroy China, Iran, and North Korea, and how the Holy Spirit needs to touch Obama’s heart and make him repeal the healthcare bill, and resign, and get ”born again.”
But, when do I (we) pray that God fulfills the prophesy given in Isaiah 2:1-5? When do I (we) pray that God changes the hearts of human-beings–myself included–who harbor violence and hatred in their hearts toward fellow human-beings?
I may be an E-whisk-i-palian, and I even voted for George W. Obama (in answer to the billboard: “How can I miss George W. Bush, when we have one of his clones running the country right now!”) but, I still believe that God intervenes in human history. Don’t get me wrong, I also believe that we are God’s hands and feet, living Icons of Christ and representatives of His coming Kingdom. Right action must accompany prayer, but it is all too often the prayer part that gets left out in my life.
So, I propose that those of us in our little blog community who a) believe in peace and non-violence, and b) believe that God answers prayer start to assign some action to our beliefs. Maybe I’m the only one of you guys who isn’t, in which case, I need your guidance.
Shall we set aside one day a week to fast and pray for peace?
Shall we plan a week of fasting and prayer this summer?
How do you guys pray and fast for peace? I hope some of my peacenik friends will chime in here…
*PICTURE NOTE: I was looking for a cheesy prayer picture. I think I did pretty well. Gotta love lightning emanating from folded hands, accompanied by a dove and and open Bible. All that’s missing is an American flag and a M-16.
The Myth of the Defenseless II
September 4, 2009
This ending is not the only ending that can be envisioned. Mendoza could have been “successful” at keeping the Portuguese at bay. The Portuguese could have been convicted and repented at the sight of the Cross and host. As a matter of fact there are several distinct topics that could be drawn out of this narrative. All truly great narratives can sustain multiple ‘true’ meanings.
For my purposes I will reside on the ‘surface of the text.’ There were the ‘defenseless’ natives and there were the Portuguese – and there were two distinct options that presented themselves.
1) Use violent means to secure the ‘safety’ of the Guarani and prevent a miscarriage in justice
2) Resist peacefully
In point of fact there are no defenseless people. When examined critically can one deny that a five year old could actually ‘defend’ herself? She could kick, she could bite, she could hit, she could throw things, she could even just scream. There are many different ways that a child could ‘defend’ herself. While it is true that said child would almost certainly be defeated in a violent situation she is not without the ability to defend himself. It is similar with men, women, the aged and the very young. We saw this in the way of Father Gabriel and the Guarani. The white robed martyrs took with them into “battle” the Cross and the Host. They obviously had faith more in these than in the ways of Mendoza.
Because, even if they are without the ‘ability’ to defend themselves, they are not without defense from other avenues. The Psalms are very clear about this. Many of the Psalmists will paint the picture that they are between a rock and a hard place. Enemies scheme are on their every side. They speak slander, they “set traps” and wait, they entice and abuse so that the Psalmist is even “brought down to the pit.” But the general response is that the Psalmist can put their trust in YHWH to rescue them and bring their enemies to judgement. This is hardly a minor theme in the Psalms. It is one of the most dominant ideas, that YHWH in his faithfulness will defend the Psalmist when no one else can or will.
It is my wish to draw out Leviathon with a hook. I do not believe that people who wish to “defend the defenseless” are interested at all in defense. They are interested in victory. They want to guarantee the temporal safety of the victims (not now thought of as “the defenseless”) against the unjust actions of potential enemies and abusers.
Now, I do not at all mean to impugne such motivations. I absolutely agree that the enemies are totally in the wrong. And our desire to not see victims fall prey is just as legitimate. Of course we should wish for justice in a situation! Of course! Make no mistake of my writing, I am not supposing that the innocent victims of violence should not be mourned and the violent resisted.
But ultimately I believe that if we were to choose to use violence to resist violence we fail to believe in the Resurrection.
Indeed, I think that one reason that many Evangelicals are often swift to defend the use of violence is because of a single-minded focus on the Crucifixion. I know I never once heard the Resurrection explained theologically as I grew up. And on the other side of the coin, when the Resurrection is interpreted to be a quaint spiritual experience of Jesus’ followers it is stripped of its power.
And so, the striving for victory over the oppressor by means of violence is nothing less than fearing the last enemy, Death. If Death has been overcome by the non-violent resistance to the Powers of the world then why should we need to resort to violence to prevent death? The chant we sung at Eastern Orthodox Easter was “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tomb restoring life!”
Stanely Hauerwas was once accused of making pacifism seem so simple and easy, he responded: “I never said that is would be easy. I just believe in a Church of believers who would rather die than kill.”
And so may we trust in a heavenly Father, who will so fill us with faith in the victory over death by the resurrection of his Son our Lord Jesus Christ that we may trust in it enough to live by it. Amen
The Myth of the Defenseless I
September 3, 2009
I had been dreaming this post up for a while but James’s recent post gave me that extra nudge I needed to start penning it.
One of the classic “What If” questions which arise out of discussions of pacifism is “What of the defense of the defenseless?” This seems to be one of those questions which come up both for theological liberals as well as conservatives. We should not forget that it is not only ‘conservatives’ who tend to baptize war efforts in Christian clothing. Traditional American Protestant Liberalism ala Reinhold Niebuhr also saw pragmatic moralism defend war as a means to peaceful ends.
The answer of the pacifist can seem cold. ”You mean you don’t believe in defending the defenseless?”
It is my contention that people who believe that to “defend the defenseless” with violence fail to look deep enough into this phrase. I am reminded of C. S. Lewis when he wrote “The Problem of Pain” and how he tried to come at the topic theologically and not emotionally. As a recent comment has shown, these types of situations can be sensitive and I don’t mean to be ignorant of the complexity behind a topic like this; nonetheless I feel compelled to examine the arguments and it will become clear why I come down where I do.
In perhaps truly Zizek’ish style I’m going to use a movie to provide the framework for the discussion.
The 1986 film “The Mission” is truly one of the best films I have ever seen. Without a doubt it is the best ‘religious’ movie I’ve seen. Based loosely on a true story, I think this can make the argument even more powerful. In it, a Spanish Jesuit, Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) takes a great risk by attempting to set up a Mission amongst a tribal group who had previously killed another missionary. He is lucky enough not to have suffered the same fate as his predecessor and his Mission is founded and flourishes.
He eventually receives a young man into the Jesuit order who had killed his brother and been a slave trader. Rodrigo Mendoza is healed of severe guilt and depression by the grace of the Jesuits, especially Father Gabriel, and becomes a vital part of the Mission.
Meanwhile, Spain cedes land to Portugal which includes the Mission. The Portuguese are well known for their slave trade and will not allow the Mission to continue. It is their plan to destroy the Mission and enslave the people there.
Word of this reaches the Mission and there are two options which begin to be pursued. Both Mendoza and Fr. Gabriel deeply love the Guarani people and are distraught. Fr. Gabriel decides that it goes against God’s Love to fight with violence. Mendoza cannot stand to see this injustice go on without resistance. Mendoza decides to rebel against Fr. Gabriel and begins to fashion weapons, set traps and train those men who are willing to fight.
I think it is of utmost importance to note that both Jesuits see the Guarani people as sitting ducks. They are, “defenseless” against the weapons and armies of the Portuguese.
The climactic scene of the movie is the attack on the Mission. As the armies advance, Mendoza and his force do all in their power to secure the safety of the Guarani but they are no match for the Portuguese and Mendoza is shot and his band scattered and killed.
As the army marches past Mendoza they are halted as Fr. Gabriel and those who followed him are singing. Even still they advance. As the Portuguese come upon the main square they are met by the Guarani and Fr. Gabriel, dressed all in white, holding the Cross and also the blessed Host. They begin to walk towards the Portuguese and are slaughtered one by one with a few escaping to the jungle.
Here is the clip:
Three Notes on Non-violence
September 1, 2009
Last Christmas, Reed began a series on Theophiliacs about Non-violence. It’s a really good series; you should read it if you haven’t done so. This is one of those issues that haunts me. It wakes me up in the middle of the night. I brood over it. The question of whether or not a Christian should use violence will not leave me alone. So, here a few further ideas concerning Christian non-violence that have been rolling around in my head recently. Maybe if I write them down I’ll sleep better tonight.
John Howard Yoder
Note #1: I recently had the opportunity to stay at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Centennial, CO. One morning, I was waiting for the rest of my group to wake up and get ready to go (I was on a church trip with teenagers), and so I decided to avail myself of the church library. One of the books I picked up that morning (I had to wait for a long time) was John Howard Yoder’s What Would You Do? In this book, the esteemed Anabaptist theologian explores the ”big” question that pacifists and advocates of non-violence are asked by those who wish to confound, confront, or shame them. There are variations, but the basic question is this: “What if someone was trying to attack your _______ (insert wife, sister, mother, child, etc., etc.,), would you just let your loved one be killed or would you do something violent to stop the attacker. Yoder notes that the question is designed to elicit an emotional rather than a rational response. He exposes the presuppositions that the questioner almost always has when asking the question, namely that there could only be one possible outcome (a bad one) if the person to whom question is posed would refuse to act violently. Yoder then systematically lists all the outcomes, and weighs their probability of their being negative or positive. Here they are:
1. Tragedy: Your loved one is killed, while you watch. This, as far as the questioner is concerned is the only outcome available to those who reject violence. But, in actuality, there are far more likely outcomes, especially since not acting violently rarely means not acting at all.
2. Martyrdom: 2a:Your loved one is martyred for the sake of the peaceful Gospel of Christ and meets his/her reward on the Last Day. 2b: You are martyred by non-violently coming between the assailant and your loved one, and you receive your reward on the Last Day.
3. Another way out: 3a: A natural way out. The police come, the assailant changes his mind, trips, drops his weapon, or one of a million other possibilities happen providing a nonviolent solution to the conflict without the loss of your loved one’s life. 3b: A providential way out, Yoder chides his violence-believing fellow Christians for their lack of faith in the possibility of God intervening in a situation, especially when the Christian involved in committed to being faithful to the peaceful Gospel of Jesus.
4. Attempted killing of the assailant: 4a: Successful: There is loss of life, legal trouble, guilt, retaliation, etc., etc. 4b: Unsuccessful: There is a high probability that the average person will be unsuccessful in an attempt to violently intervene in this sort of situation. Unsuccessful attempts of violent intervention almost always lead to an escalation of violence, more unnecessary loss of life is almost always certain.
When weighed, especially from a Christian perspective, the possible positive outcomes from acting non-violently (2a, 2b, 3a, 3b) far outweigh the possible negative outcomes of acting non-violently (1)., and the likelihood of something positive happening from non-violent action (2a, 2b, 3a, 3b) is much greater than the likelihood of good things coming from violence (4a, if you can count any loss of life as a “good thing”).
This all reminds me of Pascal’s Wager, anyway, it’s an interesting book.
Note #2: I have begun to wonder if Christians interested in acting non-violently can learn something from Buddhism. I have questions. If I understand things correctly (and there’s a fair chance I don’t) one of the ethical tenants held by some Buddhists is to “do no harm.” Is this the same as doing no violence? It’s a tricky question. Can you, for instance, spank your child (a seemingly violent act), but do no harm to the child (if it theoretically teaches him a lesson and makes him a better person, yadda, yadda, yadda)? A Buddhist monk developed the martial art of Aikido as a way to defend oneself without doing harm to the attacker. Is this type of self-defense permissible to a non-violent Christian? It’s not exactly “turning the other cheek,” is it? I’d be interested in hearing other’s opinions on this, especially those who know more about Buddhism than I.
Bishop Paul Jones
Note #3: Episcopalians (in true Episcopalian form) do not necessarily agree on, or have a consistent stance on the issue of Christian non-violence. An example of this is in the curriculum for the Sunday School class that I’m teaching. One of the units is on non-violence. A lot of time is spent in this unit examining what Scripture says, and after coming down firmly on the side of non-violence, it uses the examples of Martin Luther King and Gandhi to explore how non-violence can be put into practice. The very next unit, is about self-defence. In this unit, students are encouraged to kick at the shins and groin, and elbow the face and neck of any one who even remotely looks like they could possibly be capable of rape or kidnapping. Not surprisingly, disagreement on this issue in the Episcopal church has been going on for a long damn time. One of the bright examples of Christian non-violence in the Episcopal church has made his way onto the Church Calendar, however. This coming Friday is the day we remember the Blessed Paul Jones, bishop of Utah 1914-1918. Here’s a good article about him, but I’ll give you the short version: he was very outspoken about how WWI (and all wars for that matter) was “unchristian” and was consequently forced to resign his bishopric. He was an amazing man with an amazing witness to the peaceful Gospel of Christ; you ought to read up on him or at least give him and especially his cause a thought this Friday; you can rest assured I’ll be thinking about it.
Merciful God, who sent your beloved Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Raise up in this and every land witnesses, who, after the example of your servant Paul Jones, will stand firm in proclaiming th Gospel of the Prince of Peace, our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. AMEN.
What Is It Good For? Nonviolence In A Violent World: Part V
January 19, 2009
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V: Children of Light, Children of Day
She was the only thing that could convince my seventeen-year-old self to actually wake up early on a Saturday just to watch the dawn. It was sweater-weather when I met my young crush at 4am on a grassy hill a short walk from my house. Cuddling under a wool blanket and sharing coffee from a thermos, we watched the horizon change from black to blue to purple to everything and finally to a heart-pumping, Monet-inspired sunrise.
The richness of that dawn wasn’t just in its beauty but in our readiness to embrace all that it promised. Young love primed us for a hope of a future life that was not here yet but would soon indeed come. From the moment I held her hand in the dark, I lived for the sunrise—as if the sunrise had already occurred, a lover in the light.
That picture (a true story that perhaps my nostalgia has enhanced) is an image for Christian existence that I often reflect on. I first encountered the image when reading N. T. Wright exegeting I Thessalonians 5:1-11. He wrote:
[...]Paul states boldly that Christians are already ‘children of light, of the day’. When he speaks of not falling asleep, but of staying awake, he is not envisaging someone staying up later and later into the night, but of someone getting up very early, while it is still dark before dawn. This, he insists, is the present condition of Christian believers. When the day dawns [...] those who are already up and awake will not be startled by it. [...] This has strong ethical implication: it is important to be conducting oneself as though it were already daytime.
N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, pg. 216-7
It is from this poetic image, that I believe the Christian derives his ethics. We have already slept, woke up early, and are eagerly anticipating the coming dawn. In other words, just as the Messiah died and defeated death by coming out the other side, so have we taken up our cross, died to ourselves, and been reborn in Christ. In yet still more other words, the Kingdom of God is coming, and since we’re already hoping for it anyway, let’s live as if it’s already here.
Bad Reasons To Follow A Nonviolent Ethic
By picturing who we will be in the Kingdom of God and living accordingly, we forever change our rationale for obedience. Put in terms of the Nonviolent Ethic, we should realize that:
1. The Church should not follow a nonviolent Ethic because God says so and we’d better obey if we want to get into heaven.
As Paul Stewart observed in an eloquent comment he wrote on this post on our blog: “So the goal of the church is not to produce moral people. Following Christ is about relationship not about rules and regulations. It is not about adhering to lists or following certain formulas or simply trying to convince people to stop drinking, smoking or gambling. However, we are called [to] proclaim and live out a radically counter-cultural ethic that involves living and dying like Christ, modeling our lives so closely after his that we have the mind of Christ and live life together in such a way that we are literally divine representatives to our world.” I might clarify that we are divine representatives to our world, of the coming world.2. The Church should not follow a nonviolent Ethic merely because we believe it will inevitably result in peace.
I touched on this in my comments in Part IV of this series. According to Matt. 5, nonviolent disciples of Jesus SHOULD EXPECT persecution precisely because they are following the way of Christ. While nonviolent resistance can sometimes result in change, we are not nonviolent because it is the best method to create peace but because we live in anticipation of the future peace of the Kingdom.3. The Church should not follow a nonviolent Ethic because we want to be like the secular liberals and bash all those barbarian, onward Christian soldier-types.
Throughout these posts, I’ve done my best to avoid using the word “pacifism,” (though I think I’ve slipped up once or twice). This is not because I think the word is misleading but because I feel it carries too much baggage. Perhaps for some it evokes the image of a kind of hippie, anti-establishment, druggie, “peace, dude” spirituality. I believe I’ve shown in these posts that Christian nonviolence is undeniably rooted in both Scripture and Tradition. While it’s true that at times the Christian’s aim for nonviolence might occasionally match up with those of the political “pacifists”; I believe they arrive at their conclusions through natural reason, whereas the Christian arrives at his or her reasons through the Spirit. While this is certainly not a good excuse to avoid cooperation with pro-peace political entities, it is a good reason to use discernment.
Practical Observations for the Typical, Western Christian
As the world globalizes, it gets harder and harder to preach firm, unmoving ethics when we constantly encounter so many outlandish and unheard of circumstances. Unfortunately, I don’t have the space to explore what this Christian Ethic of nonviolence might mean to a potential victim of genocide or a twelve-year-old who must decide to fight or be executed. (I’m afraid at this time in my life, I wouldn’t know how to begin). Still, I suspect most of the readers of this blog are fortunate enough to fit into a context where war is a far more distant and puzzling thing. For you, I offer a few brief observations:
1. The Christian Has No Place In The Military
For those of us in the USA where military service is voluntary, I see no reason why a Christian would ever put his or herself into a position where they would be required to use violence. This is not to say that soldiers cannot be Christians or that a soldier who also happens to be a Christian should be isolated from Christian community. To me this is the same tension we live with every day in the Church—we are broken people who live in a broken world.2. The Majority Christian Opinion on this Issue from the time of Constantine Onward is Wrong
I realize that I stand in opposition to the bulk of Christian tradition on this issue. Empirical Christianity left an ugly stain on Christian Tradition which has been a devil to get out. However, do not think that Church History is without its champions for nonviolence. Beginning with the New Testament writers themselves and extending to the author of the Epistle of Diognetus, Tertullian, St. Francis of Assisi, the Anabaptists, the Quakers, Dorothy Day, and today’s man, Martin Luther King Jr. we find a strain of historic figures deploring violence. I would even argue that these meager numbers of the nonviolent have had influence beyond their small representation because their message resonated so deeply with the message of Jesus.3. The Church Must Liberate Itself From the Agenda of the State
I wrote a bit about this in my two post series on the separation of Church and State last month. It is perhaps too large for a little note at the end of this post. However, I’ll just briefly add that the Empirical Church did its damage from making the state’s issues, its issues. One need only review previous elections in the United States from recent years to see that this problem is far from resolved. While it may serve a Government’s interest to go to war, it will never serve the Church’s. We must especially beware of Christian language and ideals that might be used to convince us otherwise.
I fear that the world will never fully hear the Gospel until the Church can commit itself to an ethic of nonviolence. If we hope to share our hope for the coming sunrise, we must learn how to live in anticipation of it.
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I’ll end this series on Nonviolence with his words:
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
Martin Luther King Jr. from his Noble Prize Acceptance Speech, December 10, 1964
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