Tonight, Mindy and I co-lead our community group in a discussion about Jesus’ Third Way. We talked about non-violence, and read Walter Wink’s informative break down of the passage in Matthew:
“You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. And if anyone takes you to court and sues you for your outer garment, give your undergarment as well. If one of the occupation troops forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two.”
Our common perception is Jesus’ seemingly condoning a cowardly, get trampled on form of submission, but when you really understand what he’s saying with in it’s cultural context you realize it’s brilliantly creative resistance. I’ll give you just a taste so you get the idea:
Jesus’ third example is “If one of the occupation troops forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two.” Now these packs weighed 65 to 85 pounds, not counting weapons. These soldiers had to move quickly to get to the borders where trouble had broken out. The military law made it permissible for a soldier to grab a civilian and force the civilian to carry the pack, but only one mile. There were mile markers on every Roman road. If — and this is the part we have left out — the civilian were forced to carry the pack more than one mile, the soldier was in infraction of military code, and military code was always more strictly enforced than civilian. So Jesus is saying, “All right. The next time the soldier forces you to carry his pack, cooperate. Carry it and then when you come to the mile marker, keep going.”
The soldier suddenly finds himself in a position he has never been in before. He has always known before exactly what you would do. You would mutter and you would complain, but you would carry it. As soon as the mile marker came, you would drop it. Suddenly, this person is carrying the pack on. The soldier doesn’t know why, but he also knows that he is in infraction of military law and if his centurion finds out about this, he is in deep trouble. Jesus is teaching these people how to take the initiative away from their oppressors and within the situation of that old order, find a new way of being.
Make sure to read the whole thing, to enjoy a very enlightening study of Jesus’ words.
Our discussion went really well. We discussed 5 basic questions after reading:
- Do you think Christ was Non-Violent?
- Express some of the negative feelings that this advice about nonviolence stirs up in you.
- Can you recall a time when you or someone you know used nonviolent direct action creatively?
- What major social struggles have used nonviolence? Did it “work”? Does that matter?
- What implications does a Non-Violent Christianity have for your day to day living and faith?
It was fun to discuss some of the stories of creative nonviolent action that we had heard of. It was also good to hear of some of the negative feelings this stirred up. I expressed my feeling already of protecting my child and the anger I might feel of anyone who would want to harm my baby (who isn’t even born yet). Then I acknowledge that if I have that much love for my child, how much more so does the Creator love it’s creation, enemies and violent people included.
I concluded by pointing out that as Christians (since the folks in that group all consider themselves Christians) we are called to be faithful to God, regardless of our personal logic on the given task. That is to say, if Christ was non-violent and we are to be imitators of Christ, then we should be non-violent regardless of whether or not we think non-violence “works.”
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic. And if you want a nice readable, booklet form of the article and discussion questions, you can use this link to the pdf I made for community group.
cool booklet! thanks for sharing it. those are great questions too…i will def. file this away for a future bible study discussion.
AWESOME stuff, Ariah! Thanks so much for sharing. 🙂
I’m off to blog this right now….
Hey, how was “The Road to Guatanamo?”
Glad you enjoyed. If your further interested in the discussion there might be some that happens on this forum but no guarantees.
I’d love to hear your thoughts or more on what becomes of your discussion with others.
Rob Bell just did a three or four week series on this in December called Where are the Peacemakers, The Myth of Redemptive Violence. I just listened to the first one. Great stuff. I think it’s mhbcmi.org.
He does a nice job of pointing out Jesus and his counter culture way of life and talks about the difference between pacifism and actively pursuing peace.
Thanks for the encouragement Ariah!
These examples only work because shame or fear.
Giving up all your clothes works because it shames the person who took your clothes. That they are so greedy, so unconcerned with human suffering, that they would take everything from someone who owes them, without any regard for how that affects the person.
Causing the soldier to have to worry about someone continuing to carry his pack only works because his army has some concern for the civilian population.
What if the violent people do not have any shame or do not fear any repercussions from their actions?
Then being a true pacifist would be tantamount to commiting suicide. In the NAZI era or to certain fundimentalist moslems the only constriant against their killing you is a fear of being punished. Killing an infidel is a good thing to moslem extremists, even being a christian or jew does not protect someone from them, despite what they say. An example Daniel Pearl, before they killed him they made him “confess” to being jewish. They murdered him without any concern, the men who did that would kill any other non-extremist moslem they could get their hands on.
The fact is while I admire Ghandi, his tactics only worked because the british did not consider themselves evil murderers. They said they occupied india to help the people, to civilize them, modernize them, etc. But when obviously intelligent, decent indian people demanded their freedom, they could not kid themselves. The only way to keep india would be to kill them, to punish people like Ghandi, etc. And they were not willing to do it, especially when the indians protested so brilliantly in non-violent ways.
However a bin laden or a hitler, would have no such compunction. If hitler had successfully invaded india, the germans would have used indian labor as they needed it, but when the time came they would have exterminated them. Ghandi would have lead his people into ovens. The NAZIs would have been delighted, armed resistance, no underground. And nobody in germany would have cared in the slightest. No newspaper stories, no newsreals, etc. The only restraint on NAZI genocide was the need for labor and resources, whenever they could they exterminated the jews, gypsies, the lame, the gay, communists, etc. Everyone who was not an Aryan was on borrowed-time.
Against an enemy like that being a pacifist only means complete extermination. Against lesser enemies it can have tremendous success, but suicidal, pacifist thinking like that just makes me think christianity is just another cult, like those heaven’s gate people. Just another scam to get people to kill themselves.
Mike you make some very valid points. I have heard these used recently to justify the War in Iraq and I understand the perspective.
I think there is a broader point to be understood that must take culture into context. How does the heart of what Jesus did become relevant to what is happening currently? Using the War in Iraq and terrorism, you have to understand why certain sects of Islam feel justified and righteous in killing “infidels.” Assuming you are an American citizen, as am I, then you and I are infidels because of the perspective a great deal of the world has about our nation. We are perceived as a “Christian” nation by a majority of the world. We are perceived that way because, well, that is often how we promote ourselves. But our actions speak as a much louder promotion. A great deal of the world feels the same way about Christianity that many of Americans or maybe even you do. Your belief system doesn’t encourage you to eliminate infidels. The beleif system of some Muslim sects does. The perception we give is that Christianity is about selfish over-consumption at the expense of much of the world’s population include many Arab Muslims. (check out my blog joshua.voxtropolis.com entry titled: by the numbers).
That all being said, we need to take the response of Jesus and ask how should we respond to ourselves, to our governemnt? It’s us that need a dose of shame as you labeled it. Then, as we love each other through that shame, let us be moved to love others that we have taken advantage of. Take a stand against the selfish overconsuming acts of terrorism that we have been committing and use our resources in a response of love toward the rest of the world. It becomes hard to hate someone who is building schools in your community instead of destroying it. It becomes harder to bomb the buildings of a nation who’s policies no longer exist to manipulate and control what happens to your nation’s greatest resource.
I realize there is so much more involved in this, but if we continue to misunderstand, and a change in the knowledge and beliefs that motivate our actions doesn’t occur, then we will continue to fuel the fire of hatred.
Mike,
I think to some degree you and I might operate on some of the same basic values and assumptions. You seem to believe in the value and dignity of human life. You believe that there are times (with hitler’s and bin laden’s) that you must rely on violence to met your end because those folks have no reasoning, shame or fear.
I have come to believe that every person is capable of redemption and love. I know of a dangerous terrorist turned lover and evangelist, I also know of other’s whose choice not to turn to violence did indeed result in their own death, but it’s impact for good is unmeasurable.
We can talk hypothetical all day. No one will ever no what a massive non-violent resistance during the holocaust would have accomplished (Though we know a few stories of small scale non-violence that worked). We can only guess what radical non-violent love would do to the heart of Osama. For me, on a day to day level, I’m going to respond to every situation I can with the most love as I can muster, and trust the outcome is better then if I had chosen violence.
I have to question the definition of success here. Let’s assume that there was a massive non-violent resistance against the holocaust, and the holocaust still happened, does this mean that non-violence has failed or is the success of a non-violent, merciful and grace-ful approach to one’s enemies the fact that you have chosen to step out of the cycle of violence and sin and live in a way that closer resembles Christ.
Richard, I couldn’t have said it any better myself.