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<\/a><\/p>\nDear Reader,<\/p>\n
There is an area of theology that I have wrestled with in new ways for the past four years or so: war and peace<\/em>.\u00a0 I have a friend who pushed back on areas of nationalism and just-war theory for quite some time, and it seems that we have found consensus in the last year and a half or so.\u00a0 This friend has contributed to this blog and you can read his first article here<\/a>.\u00a0 Through much reading, reflection, and prayer; I now hold to the view of nonviolence<\/em>.<\/p>\n Nonviolence<\/em> is a word that has more benefits than using the term pacifism<\/em>.\u00a0 Pacifism<\/em> often communicates inaction or helplessness.\u00a0 A useful observation that was made by my professor recently was differentiating between the language of \u2013 nonresistance<\/em>, pacifism<\/em>, and nonviolence<\/em>.\u00a0 Pacifism\u2019s<\/em> weakness is that it seems to relate to withdrawal<\/em> from conflict.\u00a0 The other terms (\u201cnon<\/em>_____\u201d) are also a bit frustrating because they define themselves around what they are not, rather than what they are.\u00a0 The difference here (which is a key difference for me) is that nonresistance<\/em> is just as much of a \u201cwithdrawal\u201d word as pacifism<\/em>.\u00a0 Traditionally, the Mennonites (my tradition) have preferred this term, but I am not sure that I am fully against \u201cresisting\u201d someone if justice is threatened; I am however against doing violence to them.\u00a0 Now this is where the dialogue gets a bit interesting for me because this logic begs a question: what qualifies as violence?<\/em><\/p>\n The above question can surely become one that is relativistic because it depends on how one perceives violence.\u00a0 Some, would be against violence to the point that football is too aggressive of a sport (this doesn\u2019t work for this former team captain \ud83d\ude42 ).\u00a0 Others would say that killing is the line that must be drawn, but everything up to that point for the protection of the innocent is justifiable.\u00a0 I am not comfortable with either of these extremes on the spectrum (well, extremes within the nonviolence\/pacifism\/nonresistance<\/em> conversation).\u00a0 As I continue to wrestle with this tension in light of Scripture, I have found that it is helpful to think of violence as anything that dehumanizes the \u2018other.\u2019\u00a0 Using some forms of restraint to hold back a person who is violent does not have<\/em> to be dehumanizing.\u00a0 Force and restraint, when done for justice without the use of actual dehumanizing techniques seem to be consistent with the Sermon on the Mount\u2019s nonviolent<\/em> witness.\u00a0 This is very much a circumstantial approach, but always within the parameters of avoiding anything that would treat a person as less than a human created in God\u2019s image.\u00a0 But, this also leaves the passage in Matthew 5.39 as seemingly \u201cresisted\u201d as it says, \u201cdo not resist<\/em> an evildoer.\u201d\u00a0 This would be problematic if we did not look at the context a bit closer.\u00a0 Jesus follows this saying by adding that someone who is slapped on the right cheek is to show them the left cheek as well.\u00a0 As Walter Wink and others have demonstrated, this was an act of subversive resistance<\/em>.\u00a0 Not through violence, but through demanding to be treated as a human equal.\u00a0 The first backhand slap to the face on the right side would be the way a master would hit a slave (superior to inferior), and Jesus says to turn the other cheek in a way that makes the attacker have to choose to punch you with a closed fist as a man would strike another of equal status.\u00a0 This is a new kind of resistance, not with the fist or sword, but with creativity that causes your attacker to consider his actions once more.\u00a0 For this reason, I am more comfortable with placing myself on the nonviolent<\/em> part of the larger spectrum of war and peace from a Christian perspective.\u00a0 I believe in resistance without violence.<\/p>\n It should also be noted that Mark Baker\u2019s insight in his article<\/a> about his own journey towards embracing pacifism<\/em> (his language) also allows for there to be the restraint of evil through violence, but that this is to come from the state.\u00a0 Taking the lead from Ellul, he separates the role of the governments to carry out justice through the sword from the role of the church in the midst of conflict.\u00a0 The church must not expect the state to operate as though it were \u2018Christian.\u2019\u00a0 To impose such makes this position illogical in light of the broken relationships the world has at the present.\u00a0 All this is the say that the church is invited to resist violence in all its forms, while recognizing that in a fallen world, God allows for a \u201cplan b\u201d (nations) in order to restrain this planet from becoming completely chaotic.\u00a0 Mark\u2019s perspective raises important questions about the level to which a Christian ought to be involved in military\/police force.\u00a0 Perhaps at times it may be appropriate to live in the \u201cgray\u201d on this question rather than create solid black-white boundaries of a bounded-set ethic (although my personal conviction is against all military service, but not necessarily police).<\/p>\n Finally, I was really helped by Richard Hays\u2019 chapter on violence in The Moral Vision of the New Testament<\/a>.\u00a0 I do not think that there is a single moment in which I found myself disagreeing with him (except his choice word of pacifism<\/em>, which is mostly semantics).\u00a0 His exposition was insightful and clarifying for me.\u00a0 The section that helped me the most was the one that dealt with the questions of the Roman soldiers in the New Testament.\u00a0 Just-war<\/em> folks always bring up: when soldiers became Jesus followers, they were not told to quit their job.<\/em> Hays took this on in a section of his chapter and made the following observation: \u201c\u2026precisely as Roman soldiers, they serve to dramatize the power of the Word of God to reach even the unlikeliest people\u201d (335).\u00a0 God reaches to unlikely places and peoples to reveal his grace, which serves to illuminate that military participation is similar to tax collectors and other sinners.\u00a0 It would be an argument from silence to claim that the rest of the NT texts about peacemaking are revitalized because soldiers are not specifically told (in the text) to quit their jobs.\u00a0 I think, as faithful readers and ethicists of the NT, we must listen to where Scripture speaks and not give a louder voice to the silence.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n