“Am I Truly A Pacifist?” Vidcast

I like to consider myself a pacifist but I realize that I still struggle with my tendency towards violence and especially redemptive violence. I strive towards pacifism but I know in my heart I’m not there.

“I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.”

Hauerwas himself said, “Being Christian and being a pacifist are not two things for me. I would not be a pacifist if I were not a Christian, and I find it hard to understand how one can be a Christian without being a pacifist.”

He also said, “I say I’m a pacifist because I’m a violent son of a bitch. I’m a Texan. I can feel it in every bone I’ve got. And I hate the language of pacifism because it’s too passive. But by avowing it, I create expectations in others that hopefully will help me live faithfully to what I know is true but that I have no confidence in my own ability to live it at all. That’s part of what nonviolence is–the attempt to make our lives vulnerable to others in a way that we need one another. To be against war–which is clearly violent–is a good place to start. But you never know where the violence is in your own life. To say you’re nonviolent is not some position of self-righteousness–you kill and I don’t. It’s rather to make your life available to others in a way that they can help you discover ways you’re implicated in violence that you hadn’t even noticed.”

(Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_4_67/ai_99818481/)

I consider myself a pacifist. My opinion is that you can be a verbal terrorist and still be pacifist, by technicality. As far as I know, the definition of pacifism is refusal to commit (and support?) physical violence. However, for many, their pacifism is linked to a larger set of moral beliefs. My understanding of pacifism is mostly through Quakerism, which says “There is that of God in every person”, so to strike a person is to strike God. However, you could also say ‘To cuss out another person is to cuss out God.’ So while my pacifism doesn’t directly cause me to not be a verbal terrorist, it is linked to my Quakerism which does cause me not to be a verbal pacifist.