This might seem like a slight tangent from the topic of politics, but I assure you it is not. I’m kind of hoping someone else can lend some insight into this.
After reading the gospel and finding no way to reconcile “love your enemies” with going to war, I started looking for some theological insight that would make sense of how we as a religion had come to this point. Someone suggested a fascinating book called, The Powers That Be, by Walter Wink, which contained this brilliant quote:
Christianity’s weaponless victory over the Roman Empire resulted in the weaponless victory of the empire over the gospel. A fundamental transformation occurred when the church ceased being persecuted and became instead a persecutor. Once a religion attains sufficient power in a society that the state looks to it for support, that religion must also, of necessity, join the repression of the state’s enemies. For a faith that lived from its critique of domination and its vision of a nonviolent social order, this shift was catastrophic, for it could only mean embracing and rationalizing oppression.
It was this “victory of the empire over the gospel” that had been nagging at me so much. It seems that we’d been given an opportunity at power, military power through our voting, that we chose to embrace rather than relinquish.
Where this plays out today is the constant talk you here about “protecting our freedom” not just on news and from politicians, but from pulpits and pastors. Another terribly theologically incorrect statement. As Christians, we believe true freedom comes through Christ, and that freedom is not furthered nor protected by military might.
And yet, as much as I insist on the above statement, it is only ‘lip service’ to an idea, because whether I ask for it or not, the military is ‘protecting my freedom’ by violent domination over it’s enemies, which runs completely counter to the gospel I insist to believe in.
Good post Ariah. I wonder if part of the issue isn’t the broader Americanization of the Christian faith where we actually believe, counter to the gospel I would say, that we are entitled to freedom and therefore justified in protecting it at all costs. But, for those who worship and follow a Savior who relinquished his rights and chose to absorb violence as a way of displaying his true freedom, we have to be very careful about our thoughts and language. I’d rather see the church rise up and in one voice proclaim that freedom attained through violence is no freedom at all – it is actually a dehumanizing enslavement to fear, power, and oppression.
Do you believe that it is wrong to strike someone who is attacking you, or your wife, or your child, or do you believe the Bible teaches that you should just “love” the attacker instead?
You are taking a squarely pacifist position here, and claiming support from Scripture. I am just wondering how far you would take it.
Aaron, yeah, more or less, I am taking a squarely pacifist position. Here is my answer a question with a question response:
http://blog.iamnotashamed.net/2006/01/31/what-would-you-do-if/
What would you do if your wife was attacking your father?
You still did not answer, so as is the recent custom, I will answer you first.
First, I said “strike” not kill. Force could range from restraining the attacker to killing the attacker. If you are a
In protection of anyone, I would be willing to do anything from strike to kill. I am not running about looking for people to pop a cap in, and in fact have never had to be in a fight, though I could have been many times. I just know that it would be right and good to protect someone against unjust attack. That would have to include the situation where I loved both the attacker and the attacked. The attacked is entitled to protection, and the attacker forfeits his or her right to be left alone when he or she attacks someone else.
Jesus would have me allow my wife to kill my father? Really? My question is not a “magic card up my sleeve” – I am serious. I want to know if you really think that the Bible forbids in any instance the range of physical force from restraint to killing.
So you answer – would you do anything physically ranging from restraining to killing to protect yourself, your wife, or your child from anyone, even a loved one?
A quick read for you:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/septemberweb-only/9-17-55.0.html
I felt that was an adequate answer for a hypothetical question. But, if you want my hypothetical answer here it is:
I would begin to sing opera music and dance the polka, there by distracting the attacker and allowing the attacked to escape, after which I would reason with the attacker to put down there weapon and come over for dinner.
In doing so I would avoid the alternative of having tried to overtake the attacker by brute strength, enraging them even more causing them not only to attack and kill my loved one and myself, but an entire neighborhood as well.
I’ve never been in a situation like you described, but my prayer would be that I would respond in the most loving way to the humanity of myself, my enemy and my loved one.
“The attacked is entitled to protection, and the attacker forfeits his or her right to be left alone when he or she attacks someone else.”
I found this statement interesting and solid at first, but then I started to have questions. What if the attacked is the domestic abuser of the attacker? Does this statement apply to soldiers in war as well? Is the attacked always entitled to protection? Who is in charge of providing that protection?
In response to the lip service question, it’s one of the reasons I advocate for voting. I think that you are required to do all that you can to prevent evil being done in your name, and if you have, and evil is still being done it is no longer “in your name”. It’s an imperfect answer, but I suspect that God requirements of us are sometimes more in the means than in the ends.
To Aaron: if I may jump into the question you asked Ariah. I think that a better, peace loving response is to put oneself in the way of the attacker trying to attack your wife and kids. Or step between your wife and your father in the same way that Jesus stepped in between us and judgment.
With that being said, the issue of peacefulness, justice and protection is more complex and more nuanced than a single-answer hypothetical question, and to try to reduce it to such does not do justice to the complexity of human relationships and conflict.
Ariah, I would look to distinguish between pacificism and non-violence in a post. I find that non-violence has power in it to reveal the humanity in others while pacificism has the reputation of a laissez-faire mentality.
A great post that caught me squarely in my own hypocrisy. I have long placed myself in the camp of non-violence, but I wonder now if that is only because I could… because I am blessed to live in a place where it is peaceful.
I would like to say that I wouldn’t change if I were to move to Zimbabwe, but much to my embarrassment, I don’t really know.
Richard:
Of course the issue is more complex than my question, but it is an attempt to focus the thought process that leads people to pacifism to see if Ariah really means it completely. For most people, they are never purely pacifists. They just would not use force in the same way that others would. In other words, it is not force that the object to per se, but the use of force in given situation. If you would use force to rescue your child, but not to go to war when attacked, then you are not really against force itself, but the particular war.
Just saying that a Christian should never do violence without thinking about real world potentialities is to try to reduce one’s position in a way that “does not do justice to the complexity of human relationships and conflict”, to borrow a quote.
Of course violence is a last resort. But seriously, only put your body between the killer and your kids? If your intent is to protect the kids, then why bother standling limply in the middle, since you would just be killed, and then the kids? If you really believe that you should just not resist, then you should instead step aside and let him do his thing. Is that really what you think God wants you to do for your kids, or would he not rather allow you to protect them?
Ariah:
As to your take on my attacker/attacked distinction: It is an established legal doctrine that you have a legal privilege to use force to defend yourself or someone else who is being attacked. Clearly this is the case when, say, a rapist attacks someone. The attacked or a third party may use force to stop the attacker without legal jeopardy. There are rule about what kind of force can be used, etc., of course. You can’t shoot someone who is shoving you, for example, because you can only use deadly force to protect yourself or another against death or serious bodily injury, and being shoved is neither.
Some courts have extended the right to self defense in such a way as to protect, for example, victims of abuse. So, for example, I could probably legally kill a kidnapper who was holding me hostage and doing me harm in order to escape. There have been cases where severely abused spouses have gone unconvicted for the killing of their abusing spouse.
What you are asking about generally is the difference between defending yourself against immediate danger or attack and more remote danger. The difference between a wife using force against her husband who is holding a gun to her and about to shoot and the same wife using force against her husband who is going to get his gun in order to shoot her. The difference between, say, a soldier shooting an enemy who is that second trying to kill him, or bombing a ship full of armed enemy soldiers headed for, say, New York harbor with the intent to invade and kill as many ppl as they can. In either case, I think that using deadly force is legal, reasonable, and permitted by the teachings of scripture.
From what I understand Ariah to say, if he were the wife, he’d allow the husband to shoot him, or the ship full of soldiers to invade and kill the New Yorkers, because Jesus says to love our enemies.
Wilsonian:
Not to pile up on you when you are beating yourself up aleady here. But it is true that it is easy to say that pacifism is the right and reasonable thing when we live in relative peace. You have to remember though that the reason you are not likely to have to personally ever have to throw a punch or fire a weapon in defense of yourself or another is because there are police and soldiers who do that for you. So, if you rely on their force to protect you, are you really even non-violent yourself?
I hope ppl do not think I roll with brass nuckles and pack heat. I enjoy the same protection the rest of you do, and therefore have never had to do violence myself. I just think it is naive and blind to say that you are totally against violence in every form when in fact you benefit from force used or threatened on your behalf against those who would do you harm, or you would defend yourself or others from violence if presented with the situation, or you think that, for example, the US should invervene in Rwanda to stop the slaughter there. In any of those cases, you are not in fact a pacifist.
Aaron- I’d actually composed a comment in response to your reply to Richard and Ariah, but deleted it. I’m not very comfortable in debates. But since you addressed me directly, I’ll reply.
I don’t think I was beating myself up in my initial comment. I think I was being honest in trying to wrestle out answers for myself. I think I understand quite well what the implications are here… I am a woman who has been a victim of sexual violence twice in my life. The second time, three guys watched it happen and did nothing to help me. There were no police or soldiers to help me. So, was I non-violent in this situation? I can’t tell you the answer to that. To be honest, I was so out-matched physically, I just don’t know what I would have done had I had any opportunity to physically protect myself. But what I can tell you is this… in those moments I knew that the person causing me harm was a very broken individual.
So, when I think of people, particularly women and children around the world who have been victims of violence, I’m not thinking about this lightly. This isn’t a hypothetical exercise. When I think of genocide happening over and over again, I know this isn’t hypothetical. And when I remember the children I met last year in Swaziland, who were dying of HIV because of being raped by men in their communities, I know that this isn’t a hypothetical exercise.
I also know that Jesus said to love my enemies. Jesus didn’t provide escape clauses for who we may love and who we can choose not to love. When I became a disciple of Jesus, I chose to die to myself. I became a citizen of another Kingdom. I have no desire to find ways to be “legally violent” according to the rules of the earthly country where I reside. I do have the desire to learn to love more, as I allow myself to be loved by the Creator. Where I fail to love, it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in it. The opposite is true.
So… as far as I can tell, where people have been marginalized and abused and slaughtered, where people have suffered violence, it happens because “good people” stand by and let it happen. Imho if we as disciples of Jesus stood with the marginalized, if we were part of their lives and they were part of ours… well, everything would be different.
Wilsonian –
I can’t adequately tell you how sorry I am to hear that you have had such terrible things happen to you. I hope it is not too forward or personal for me to say that I don’t think you would have declined someone’s assistance in those two instances.
Leavning that aside, I just think that absolute pacifism, by which I mean the position that force or violence of any kind is never permissible, is not a reasonable or biblical position.
I also do not think that loving your enemy and stopping him from hurting you or others are mutually exclusive. And I also don’t think that it is allowing one’s self, family, or people in distant lands to be abused when you could protect them instead is loving them well either.
Of course everything would be different if sin were eradicated. Until that day, I don’t think it is a sin to protect ones self or others from harm, even through the use of force.
I wouldn’t say that the outcome you posit is guaranteed, I can easily think of 3 separate outcomes to the situation where I put myself between the killer and my kids.
a) the killer kills me, and then my kids
b) the killer decides that his/her motivation for killing my kids is not strong enough to murder me as well.
c) the killer kills me, but in the time that it takes for that to happen my kids get to a place/situation where they are safe from the killer.
There are probably other outcomes that I haven’t thought of, however in the situation where I attack the killer in order to protect the kids, I can easily think of those same outcomes (plus there are probably other outcomes that I have not predicted).
The problem with this line of argument, is that the “likely outcome” depends on how we weight the hypothetical situation to favor our preferred outcome.
I do agree with this
and I think that we should look at real world potentialities that are just as complex as real world situations, not simplified and weighted to favor our respective causes.
And, as neutrally as possible (because in truth I’m a lot more undecided on this than my arguments today would imply), I think that at some point we do need to realize that sometimes God gives us commands that we should follow in spite of whether they make our real world situations easier or harder and if this is one of those commands then the real question is what is obedience to God worth to us.
“I also do not think that loving your enemy and stopping him from hurting you or others are mutually exclusive.”
Perhaps we’re coming at this from different ends of the story. I tend to think there is very little “random” violence. The examples you give are all at the point of violent contact. What if we step back… way back. What if we talk about all the opportunities there are to intervene in situations before violence occurs. What if little teams like the Christian Peacekeeping Teams weren’t little teams… but hundreds of believers moving in to be community with the oppressed. What if that woman who is being abused by her husband is loved by her community, and offered another temporary home without shaming the husband. What if…
I guess this is my point. If we were active in community, and loved each other radically, and looked after the mentally ill, and were actively involved in the lives of the global poor and marginalized… there would be far, far fewer opportunities for violence. So, I guess I do think that loving and hurting are mutually exclusive. If we feel we have to hurt… it only means that we all failed to love well earlier.
I’ll probably drop out of the conversation at this point. But I’m very grateful to everyone for helping me to clarify my own thoughts on this…
Richard:
To this: “sometimes God gives us commands that we should follow in spite of whether they make our real world situations easier or harder and if this is one of those commands then the real question is what is obedience to God worth to us.”
I say: “True. True.”
And you are correct that who knows what will happen if you do or don’t try to use force to protect in the example we are bouncing back and forth here. What exactly you should do from a best-results point of view is a separate question from what God says we should or should not do.
I just don’t believe that God has told us not to protect the innocent, including by force.