Is It Always Wrong for a Christian to Use Violence?

Preston Sprinkle’s new book Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence is a helpful addition to the many books on the subject of war, violence, and the Christian ethic.

This is a “popular” book instead of a scholarly tome. That is, it’s for the average reader, not the academic.

Preston does a nice job surveying the troublesome passages in the Old Testament where God tells Israel to kill everything that breathes. His interpretations are reasonable and thoughtful. He goes through church history, quotes the church fathers, and interprets the various text in both Old and New Testaments on violence and war to present a reasonable argument that Christians are not to engage in war or violence under any circumstance.

Without giving away all of his arguments, which I will not do, his aim seems to be to convince believers that violence is always wrong.

The book also deals with the subject of capital punishment, “just war” theories, and answers questions like “should a Christian be a police officer, engage in self defense, and be in the military?”

Sprinkle has an entire chapter on objections and answers where he gives his personal opinion on various controversial questions like the above.

Now I have a question for all of you.

I remember hearing a story about David Wilkerson where Wilkerson was driving and saw a gang of young men beating up another young man. Wilkerson jumped out of his car, grabbed a baseball bat (presumably that was in his car) and began hitting the men with the bat who were on top of the young man.

Wilkerson saved the young boy’s life that day and he did it with an exercise of violence (hitting someone with a bat would constitute violence.)

Defending yourself is one thing. Jesus teaches against this in the Sermon on the Mount. But defending and protecting others is an exhibit of love.

While restraint is always the best course of action, is violence in circumstances like the above — to save the life of another — justifiable in God’s eyes?

Suppose that young boy was your son or little brother. Would you condemn brother Wilkerson for his act? Or was he, in fact, being led by the life of Jesus Christ to save the young man’s life from a gang killing?

What say you?