Is It Always Wrong for a Christian to Use Violence?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"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\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/prestonsprinkle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is It Always Wrong for a Christian to Use Violence?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/prestonsprinkle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deeper Journey\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-24T11:46:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-01-05T00:28:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/301\/2014\/12\/Popular.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Frank Viola\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Frank Viola\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/prestonsprinkle\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/prestonsprinkle\/\",\"name\":\"Is It Always Wrong for a Christian to Use Violence?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-08-24T11:46:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-05T00:28:32+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/#\/schema\/person\/dfb7fb7b4fc0a1de4bb81bb58ea12645\"},\"description\":\"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\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/prestonsprinkle\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/prestonsprinkle\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/prestonsprinkle\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Is It Always Wrong for a Christian to Use Violence?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/\",\"name\":\"The Deeper Journey\",\"description\":\"The Deeper Journey\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/#\/schema\/person\/dfb7fb7b4fc0a1de4bb81bb58ea12645\",\"name\":\"Frank Viola\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/03fa8b2adab1012d20a1ff49c5935865?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/03fa8b2adab1012d20a1ff49c5935865?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Frank Viola\"},\"description\":\"Frank Viola is a best-selling author, A-list blogger, speaker, and consultant to authors and writers. 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{"id":2317,"date":"2013-08-24T07:46:05","date_gmt":"2013-08-24T11:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/?p=2317"},"modified":"2021-01-04T20:28:32","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T00:28:32","slug":"prestonsprinkle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frankviola\/prestonsprinkle\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It Always Wrong for a Christian to Use Violence?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Preston Sprinkle\u2019s new book Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence<\/a> is a helpful addition to the many books on the subject of war, violence, and the Christian ethic.<\/p>\n

This is a \u201cpopular\u201d book instead of a scholarly tome. That is, it\u2019s for the average reader, not the academic.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The book also deals with the subject of capital punishment, \u201cjust war\u201d theories, and answers questions like \u201cshould a Christian be a police officer, engage in self defense, and be in the military?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sprinkle has an entire chapter on objections and answers where he gives his personal opinion on various controversial questions like the above.<\/p>\n

Now I have a question for all of you.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Wilkerson saved the young boy\u2019s life that day and he did it with an exercise of violence (hitting someone with a bat would constitute violence.)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

While restraint is always the best course of action, is violence in circumstances like the above \u2014 to save the life of another \u2014 justifiable in God\u2019s eyes?<\/p>\n

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\u2019s life from a gang killing?<\/p>\n

What say you?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"