PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE AMMUNITION?: The House of David and Telford Work are having a terrific running debate in the Stanley Hauerwas/Christian pacifism thread. Although I am not a pacifist, I must say that Work is making the better arguments here, though HOD is battling valiantly (so to speak).

My problems with both parties’ positions are really problems with a certain style of Protestant exegesis. Zorak once noted that “What Would Jesus Do?” isn’t really the greatest slogan for a Christian; “What Does The Church Teach?“, while not as sexy, more accurately reflects how we should align our actions and loyalties. WWJD? theology tends to run into three dead ends: a) rank speculation about what Jesus might have done, if only He had known all the circumstances, and if He were a lot like us, etc. etc.;

b) an overly literal interpretation of imitatio Christi. The editors of First Things have a good take on this: “Some ask, What would Jesus do? Can you imagine, it is asked, Jesus flying a stealth bomber or joining in a commando raid? One might as well ask if you can imagine Jesus driving a bus, editing a magazine, or being a tenured professor in a religious studies department. The question is not what Jesus would do but what he would have us do. Real pacifists answer that question one way. Other faithful disciples answer that, in obedience to the command to love the neighbor, it is their duty to defend the innocent by engaging in a just war against a murderous aggressor.” The editors do not add that Jesus, in fact, did many things that it might not be best for you or me to do–oh, click here, or here, but you can no doubt add your own examples. Some see a switch from WWJD to What Does The Church Teach? as a dilution of Jesus’s stern message; I see WWJD? as a rejection of the idea of vocation and a potentially prideful attempt to act as if one were, oneself, God.

c) weird archeological rummagings-around trying to find out “what Jesus really said,” since, of course, we can’t trust the Gospels, which were vetted and handed down to us by the untrustworthy Church. The “search for the historical Jesus” rapidly dissipates into either despair of ever finding the “real Jesus” or the discovery that Jesus “really” said exactly what I wanted Him to say.

I think HOD is taking option c) while Work is taking b). Work’s asking all the right questions to illuminate the flaws in HOD’s claims, so I’ll just ask a couple questions of Work: First, is pacifism analogous to celibacy? If not, why not? In my opinion, they actually hold strikingly similar positions in the New Testament. (I can elaborate on this if he doesn’t take my point, but I think it’s kind of obvious.)

Second, I know this isn’t decisive for Work’s claims, but he’s leaning very heavily on the example of the British in India to show how a) political entanglement/use of force by Christians always gets in the way of mission work; and b) nonviolent resistance works. I submit, as a counterexample on both points, the experience of black slaves in America. Slaves used all kinds of nonviolent means to resist authority; yet what actually freed them was not work slowdowns, or attempts to evangelize their masters, or abolitionist rhetoric, but a drop of blood from the sword for every drop from the lash. And nobody had better reasons to distrust the motives of Christian evangelizers than the slaves; and yet the black community is well known for its passionate Christianity. Again, not dispositive, but this really doesn’t fit the model of how things work in the world that Work has presented.

Third, I assume I just missed this since it’s such a key question, but I don’t recall where Work has addressed the distinction between martyrdom–in which I die–and pacifism–in which, if it is widely accepted, I die, and you die, and Glenn Reynolds dies, etc. This is roughly analogous to the “What if you came across a woman being raped in a park?” question. Pacifism isn’t about martyrdom, or it isn’t only about that; it’s also about what happens to those who don’t choose pacifism but who can’t defeat an enemy without help.

Again, in my view, the crucial questions are, What does the Church teach, and why?

Anyway, Work is making by far the best Christian pacifist argument I’ve ever read, so go over there. I am impressed though not convinced.