38 "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' 39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. 43 "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:38-48, NIV)
Pacifism is interesting, to say the least. Though all Christians do not agree on the logistics - including the definition of violence, the people who are called to be non-violent and the ends of non-violent activity - those who have committed their lives to Christ must re-think traditional modes of violence and warfare, as well as self-defense based on the above verses. All Christians may not come to the same conclusion. Nevertheless, these verses compounded with the example given in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the early church's attitudes toward violence ought to shape our thought and conversations about violence. I have reflected at length on these issues. Below are a few conclusions that I have made.
First of all, the Bible never promotes non-violence as a moral rule. Murder is never to be tolerated. Yet, the LORD commanded Israel to take arms against nations as they conquered the Promised Land. King Saul was rebuked by the LORD through Samuel for failure to slaughter the enemy completely. Though violence is absent from the New Testament and God's people, the call to non-violence is never a command. In fact, this would be counter-intuitive to the Spirit given to the community to bear spiritual fruit (Gal. 5:22ff). Arbitrary rules are whittled down so that through the Spirit's work in the life of the Believer, the believer will begin to naturally exhibit the character and virtues God intended for his people. Therefore non-violence can not be taken at the level of a moral rule, such as the love commandment or the Ten Commandments.
Second, non-violence and peace-making are two different things. Communities committed to non-violence as a rule usually withdraw from society, either voluntarily or under coercion. Non-violent communities emphasize the imminent return of Christ and God's vengence on perpetrators of violence. However, those who are committed to peace-making may never withdraw from the world but are actively engaged in the politics of the world, working for reconciliation between nations, religions and world-views. They are actively involved in securing justice. To accomplish their goals, many believe that violence can and will be used. Though there are many examples of non-violent resistence and though peace-makers may be committed to pacificism and pacifists to peace-making, it does not mean that the two are one in the same. Non-violence means no war and no self defense regardless of the result. Peace-making assumes that there is violence and conflict in the world but that the goal of accomplishing peace may require using some of the means of a fallen world. Non-violent Christians believe that God will judge this world and set things right. Peace-makers believe that they are the instruments through which God will set this world to rights.
Third, I believe that a pacifist position can only make sense in light of the Christian narrative. For me, knowing what little I know about other faiths and worldviews, it does not make sense for other faiths or worldviews to be pacifist. Many Jews admit that the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) are ambivalent at best on the subject of meaningful life beyond death. (Many Christians who go to show proof texts in the OT regarding life after death fail to realize that those texts can only be taken as such in light of the revelation they have received in the New Testament). Islam offers a view of God that states whatever Allah commands is right. I have read (well, skimmed) much of the Koran only to find many contradictions at the level of moral rule and a "heaven" that is all too "worldly." Other faiths indicated that ceasing to exist is the goal of all living things and that the cycle of reincarnation is a punishment for lack of good Karma. Atheistic, agnostic and secular humanist worldviews promote a view of life that requires no accountability in another life. Therefore, securing justice, acquiring power, enjoying pleasure, and gaining wisdom are reserved for this life alone. Therefore one must fight for these causes now. Islam could be taken as an exception. But, reading from the Koran, it is difficult to come to the conclusion that Allah would forbid violence.
Christianity is different. It promotes resurrection in this world. It promotes resurrection when God's world is free from corruption and decay. It promotes a resurrection into an age when death and suffering are eliminated. Looking to Jesus' example on the cross, God raised Jesus because Jesus was righteous and suffered. This is God's righteousness. God is greater than the world and will always redeem the righteous martyr, as well as those who, by His Spirit, participate in Jesus' death and resurrection as a sacrifice of atonement. Therefore, Jesus' words in Matthew 5:38-48 make sense only to those committed to a world-view in which God vindicates those who participate in Christ's death and resurrection. It makes no sense for Christians to call non-Christians to non-violence when they do not accept the world-view that would make non-violence possible. Though pacificism makes sense only in light of a Christian world-view that both takes literally the bodily resurrection of Jesus and the belief that this will happen for His followers at the end of time, does this mean that Christians are called to be non-violent as a moral rule? This brings me to my fourth conclusion regarding non-violence.
Non-violence without love is impossible. Thus, Jesus never prescribed non-violence as a moral rule. Jesus called his followers to love one's enemies because that is what God does. The righteousness of God surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees because God indiscriminately provides for all people, whether they are His or not. We are to exhibit God's righteousness, not merely claim that God is doing what we cannot do (as some popular teachings of God's righteousness imputed to sinners indicate). We are to be a people that reflect his character, embody his virtue and live them out before the world.
Fifth, we are called to visible. We are called to be in the world and never to withdraw from the world. Therefore pacificism as a rule to withdraw from the world is never the command of Christ, who was in the world living God's light of a new age in the midst of this present, fallen age. Though I have learned much from the Anabaptist tradition(s), I cannot condone a withdrawal from the world and a lifestyle that refuses to engage the world.
So how does this play out? In a world filled with violence it is hard to imagine refusing to renounce violence when the threat of violence is all around. However, the key is love. Jesus taught us that God was a God who loved all indiscriminately and we are to do the same. Love wills the best for the beloved regardless of the beloved's response and at the risk of getting hurt. Love always involves a risk (some would argue that God could not love all in this manner because it will involve 'risk.' At the 'risk' of being heretical, which I am never worried about anyway, what could love be without the beloved's freedom to say no? Love is not love unless the beloved is free to respond). Love always grants the freedom for the beloved to respond.
We are called to love in this manner as a command. Moreover, we are called to love as a virtue that gives evidence of the Spirit's presence and power at work in our lives. We are called to love not like the world, which puts qualifications on the beloved, but like God, who would even allow human beings the freedom to ultimately say 'no.' Even then, God's love is never broken.
So, can we use violence or not? That's what we are asking isn't it. Well, what is the loving response to a victim when we stand between that victim and the perpeptrator? What is the loving response to the burglar, the thief, the one who inflicts suffering on the innocent. We are never to called to withdraw. Yet, in that intervention, what is our intention? Are we hungry to kill and looking for an opportunity to use self-defense as an excuse. Do we sleep with our gun next to our pillow, anxiously awaiting the burglar? Or, are we poised to love, to act as God's agent to preach his saving word? And, like Bonhoeffer, is violence only a reluctant means to act with love to the victims of a perpetrator who can never be reformed? Love is the key to this all.
Are our hearts filled with hatred toward the enemy or love? Only one is the Christian response.
4 comments:
Well... You didn't know that this topic would bring me sniffing around, did ya? :)
I'll agree with you that non-violence as an unbreakable rule is misguided. But I think you also said that non-violence is the peculiar witness of a Christian people. As such, I think that what the church must proclaim is that non-violent response ought to be our norm and goal so that we resort to violence most reluctantly.
When we stand between the victim and the person/society of violence we do have a choice. But I think that there is more than the two options you seemed to present: hatred and violence committed in love. There is also, I think, creative non-violence. Such as those who sheltered and smuggled Jews out of Nazi occupied Europe. Perhaps that is the most dangerous route of all. But love will seek to avoid taking life whenever possible. Even Bonhoeffer didn't engage in the resistance as a first resort: he and others first tried to arrest Hitler as mentally disturbed. Gentle as doves and wise as serphants, not violent as lions. IMO, creativity comes before violence when one seeks to act as a Christian witness in the world.
Chris,
I think that you hit the nail on the head with:
"IMO, creativity comes before violence when one seeks to act as a Christian witness in the world."
I don't agree that we cannot intervene. But I have a problem with the "God and guns" Christians who seem to think that they are not only justified to shoot perpetrators, but DESIRE to do so. It seems like they want to shoot to kill. That concerns me.
I think that the point I want to make but don't know how to articulate is that:
We cannot divorce non-violence and alternatives to violence from love. We must love the perpetrator before looking to alternatives to violence makes sense.
The pacifist position seems to take for granted non-violence at the level of moral rule, which does not make sense to the Christian narrative.
But the just-war and self-defense positions lack the love of the enemy, especially in the era of firearms.
Thanks for your responses. What would Ken Starr's response be?
As for Ken Starr, I guess you'll have to give him a ring and ask. ;)
And I wonder if, since both pacifism and just war theories are deficient, if we don't need to set both paradigms aside. Rather than trying to rearticulate those views, is it time to try and carve out a different path that requires a God capable of resurrection?
Chris,
I think that will be the key. Hauerwas has argued unconvincingly that pacifism does not mean withdrawing from the world. However, pacifists either withdraw from the world or they try to force non-violence on those who do not embrace the same worldview that they do - that being a worldview that proports a meaningful life after death.
The reason why nations fight is that they want to enjoy the riches of the nation that currently is the world power. What else is China up to? Islamic extremists? North Korea? They want wealth because they believe that this life is all there is. Telling them to be non-violent while they are poor and while they believe this life is it happens to be counterproductive.
Yet, the just war theory is deficient, as John Howard Yoder argued, because no nation recognizes the concientious objector based upon the belief that the war is unjust.
Though I have not worked through it yet, Glenn Stassen at Fuller was involved in the development of the Just Peacemaking theory.
Several issues toward a new theory:
1. The Christians duty to church and state.
2. How does the Christian express love for perpetrator and victim?
3. Christian and military involvement - especially when they receive orders to commit unjust activity (Though I do not believe those involved in hazing, humiliation tactics in recent terror interrogations should go unpunished,higher heads should have rolled as well).
Other issues exist. But I agree that an alternative is necessary.
BTW, Jonathan Tran, who teaches in the religion department at Baylor, was a student of Hauerwas while I was at Duke. Never met him, but I hear he is really good.
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