A Faith Not Worth Fighting For

Addressing Commonly Asked Questions about Christian Nonviolence

Tripp York, Justin Bronson Barringer, Tripp York, Justin Bronson Barringer, York, Barringer

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781610974998, 9781498214155
• eBook ISBN: 9781621893080
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

In A Faith Not Worth Fighting For, editors Justin Bronson Barringer and Tripp York have assembled a number of essays by pastors, activists, and scholars in order to address the common questions and objections leveled against the Christian practice of nonviolence. Assuming that the command to love one's enemies is at the heart of the Gospel, these writers carefully, faithfully--and no doubt provocatively--attempt to explain why the nonviolent path of Jesus is an integral aspect of Christian discipleship. By addressing misconceptions about Christian pacifism, as well as real-life violent situations, this book will surely challenge the reader's basic understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

1

Isn’t Pacifism Passive?

C. Rosalee Velloso Ewell

An Introduction by Way of Assumptions

Isn’t pacifism passive? Perhaps. But that depends on your definition of passive. If by passive you mean one who sits back and does nothing, then yes, pacifism can be passive, but that is not what this book is about. In fact, if you see such pacifism, it is not the type of pacifism to which Christians are called, nor is it in following with the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

In this chapter, I will look at some of the ways this question can be addressed, but first, a few assumptions must be made plain.

First, I assume that the one we call Lord lived as a first-century Jew in Palestine about two thousand years ago, was tortured, tried, and convicted of treason, and was hung to die on a cross. Three days later God raised him from the dead. This God-man, Jesus, is also the one through whom all things were created. After Jesus returned to the Father, he sent the Holy Spirit to guide, comfort, and inspire God’s people and to enable them to live genuinely as a holy nation.

Second, Christians are called to witness to the story of Jesus through their lives, in word and deed. Such witnessing is essential to the life of the church and is inherent to God’s saving plan for the world.

Third, all our thoughts, our languages, our theology and ideas are part of creation. Therefore, they are never perfect and never complete this side of the new heaven and the new earth. Ours is always a theology in progress and must always have Christ at its center. We “see through a glass dimly . . . but we do see Jesus” (1 Cor 13:12; Heb 2:9). Such a realization should call us to humility and thankfulness towards God.

Fourth, Christian discipleship is a journey. Questions, difficulties, and celebrations come up along the way; people join us on this road, and we join others. We must always ask ourselves who are our friends on this way and whether we’re making the trip visible so that others may want to take a look and, hopefully, come along.

Fifth, our understanding of what it means to be human depends on how we see Jesus. He is the standard and the model for what faithful obedience to God looks like. Any form of living that is not in line with the life, teachings, and death of Jesus falls short of the life for which God created us.

What Does It Mean to Be Passive?

Generally speaking, the word passive is used today to describe doing nothing. In most contexts of violence, it is understood as sitting on one’s bum, watching the world go by, observing one’s life and the lives of others without taking any action either to stop or to promote the violence. In cases of war or a criminal act by an individual, passivity is often a charge made against someone who does not use violence to stop the crime. It is presumed that to stop the criminal—either to defend oneself, one’s loved one, or an innocent victim—one must make use of violent means. Might there be other alternatives?

Such an understanding of the term passive is a fairly recent development and owes much of its meaning to the ways in which the term is employed in psychological idioms (e.g., passive-aggressive behavior). Earlier uses of the term carried the connotation of nonviolence, especially in contexts of public protests or resistance to wars and other types of violence. Passive did not mean doing nothing, rather, it meant doing something specific (e.g., protesting the apartheid regime) without resorting to violence. Thus, in the early years of the twentieth century, the term “passive resistance” was supposedly coined by Gandhi while he spoke during a public protest in Durban, South Africa.

The root of the word passive, from the Greek pascho or the Latin passio, should recall to Christians a particular story—the passion of our Lord. One who is passive in this older sense is one who suffers. In Christian history, it is one who suffers on behalf of others or in place of others. It is anything but sitting back and doing nothing—quite the contrary, it refers to taking on suffering in a very active way, subjecting oneself to torture or potential death as a way to affirm and stand according to one’s convictions. It can also be understood as an active form of obedience: “obedience to the point of death—even death on a cross,” as Paul states in Philippians 2:8. There is nothing passive (i.e., nonactive) about Jesus’ passion.

Keeping with the word study a bit longer, it is indeed strange that pacifists should often be accused of passivity, in the negative sense of the word, as those who do nothing. Another term, also from the same Greek root, would more adequately describe the pacifism to which we are called: passionate. In today’s usage, to be passionate about something or someone is actively to pursue, to seek out, to understand, to express one’s longings for an object or person of desire. Lovers seek to understand and learn about each other’s preferences in music, food, books, and other interests. Such passionate affections serve as a drive and motivating factor toward certain types of behavior and action. Being passionate is not being inactive.

Christian discipleship, understood as the radical call to follow Jesus, is a passionate affair. It is a journey and a lesson in obedience, in which Christians actively engage in the work and mission of God. There is no such thing as an inactive disciple. Pacifism, understood as a particular way of being in the world that is consistent with the life of the one we call Lord, is anything but passive. It is the way to obey the commands of Jesus and to live in the reign of God—a way of living that challenges the powers of this world, for which violence is god.

Passivity, Neutrality, and the Fight for Justice

Let us assume that Christian pacifism is not an individualistic undertaking, but rather reflects part of what it means for Christians to live as the people of God. This is an important assumption because most understandings of pacifism presume an individualism that is completely foreign to the biblical texts. The logic and reasons for such presuppositions are discussed elsewhere in this book, but it is necessary to mention them here again. This is because the accusation that pacifists are passive also presumes an individualism, plus the autonomy and power of the individual to make certain decisions in contexts of great trauma and danger.

The struggle for justice and human rights is one such context in which this accusation of passivity is made. For example, how can a Christian claim to be a pacifist and do nothing to stop the systematic rape and genocide of Muslim women and girls in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, or in present-day Sudan? Not to take (violent) action against the soldiers carrying out these horrific acts is tantamount to being unchristian—so goes the argument against pacifism, and thus explains the accusation of passivity.

In What Would You Do?, John Howard Yoder and others have raised questions about the assumptions and the logic of these arguments against pacifism. Arguments between Yoder and people like John Milbank (who accuses pacifists of being passive) have filled too many pages of academic books and journals, and in the meantime, pastors and church folk who find themselves in places of violent conflict struggle to learn and live what it means to be a faithful follower of Christ in such contexts. So we must ask, what actually is the shape of Christian witness in the fight for justice?

Christian faith and practice are never neutral. If we say our Lord is both the Prince of Peace and the bearer of justice, how can both peace and justice be embodied in the context of war and violence? I would agree with those who say that it is wrong for Christians to stand by and do nothing to save or protect the innocent. But agreeing that it is wrong to do nothing goes beyond my mere personal opinion—it is a matter of Christian conviction. There are ways for Christians to seek justice and to protect the innocent that are not simply the annihilation of the perpetrator of the violence. Furthermore, seeking justice should not be something optional for Christians in the first place—it is a calling for all Christians—and demands of us that we stand with those who are oppressed, recognizing that we do not stand alone.

The character of Christian witness is one shaped by the biblical narratives—by the stories, the lives, the commands that form a people into a community that loves mercy and seeks justice. Neutrality is not an option for such a people. Therefore, the ways in which justice and mercy play out will be as varied as the people themselves, scattered over all parts of this globe. Furthermore, such character requires trust and creativity. Christian pacifism is not passive because it creatively seeks alternatives to the violence of this world. Christian pacifism is not passive because it actively engages the powers of violence, even to the point of death. Christian pacifism is not passive because it is courageous enough to act like Esther and to face the earthly powers—to the point of putting one’s own life on the line. Christian pacifism is not passive because it takes responsibility for not killing the oppressor and for finding another way forward. Christian pacifism is not passive because it presumes that prayer is an essential aspect of the Christian life, and prayer is actively participating in the life of God. To pray for, to bless, to love an enemy and to find creative ways of doing so is anything but being passive.

Pacifism and Evangelism

Genuine Christian pacifism requires boldness and courage because it is very likely to be scorned both by the world and by other Christians. This is so because such pacifism witnesses to the lordship of Christ in such a way that it challenges the power structures of our churches, our communities, and even world governments. It is evangelistic in its very nature. That is, it tells the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection and announces the reign of God and the transformation of the world. Thus powers and authorities ought to be threatened by it, for it reveals their ambitions and makes relative their claims to glory.

Pacifism is not passive because it is evangelistic. If it is not evangelistic, it ceases to be authentically Christian. In word and deed, Christians testify to a vision of God’s care and providence that offers the world an alternative to violence. But more than this, pacifism witnesses to our trust that God will act—and in fact does act—in all situations. The ways in which God will act cannot be controlled or manipulated, but we can trust that they will be consistent with the way in which God has acted already in Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, to argue that the only solution to a violent threat is to react in violence (and anything else is simply being passive) points to the pride of self-determination and a lack of trust in divine providence. It presupposes that there are only two alternatives: to watch violence happen or to fight violence with violence. But the evangelistic nature of our calling reminds us that God’s way of acting in the face of violence was revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Such an act was not simply God’s way of surprising us then, but sets the framework for how we should expect God to surprise us in present and future circumstances.

Mere passivity (i.e., not doing anything) is also a mistake and indicates a failure to trust God. It points to a determinism that is fatalistic at its core, and therefore allows no room for Christian hope, let alone the practice of prayer.

Christian pacifism is not passive because it is an embodiment of the life of discipleship. It is standing where Jesus stood, finding ways to disarm the powers and seek justice for the oppressed. As Dale Aukerman points out in his reading of the story of the woman about to be stoned in John 8:2–11, Jesus did not stand by passively. Rather, he stood between the woman and her attackers, taking upon himself their attack on her.1 Jesus’ mode of defense was not to attack the mob, but rather creatively to disarm them, and in doing so, to offer a glimpse of the grace and forgiveness of God. Whether or not the attackers then become followers is not the point, though it is a desirable outcome. The point is that God acts in ways of justice and mercy that do not impose or force violence even upon those who threaten the weak. Therefore, as Aukerman rightly asks, “Would God ever expect from us a mode of defense which we do not see in Jesus?”2

As witnesses to the power of the resurrection, passivity as inaction is not an option. Evangelistic pacifism is rightly understood in terms of the passionate nature of our discipleship. It refers to the creative ways of God that we are called to embody as we show others that another world is not only possible, but that it has already been made available to all who join on the journey of following Jesus.

1. Yoder, What Would You Do?, 75.

2. Ibid., 76.

2

What about the Protection of Third-Party Innocents? On Letting Your Neighbors Die

D. Stephen Long

A Reluctant Pacifist

I am a reluctant pacifist. In one sense I am uninterested in being a pacifist at all because I find so many kinds of pacifism unconvincing, if not silly. I once worked and lived in a seminary community where nearly everyone was a pacifist of some sort. Yet people would drive luxury vehicles and SUVs with bumper stickers that read “no war for oil,” and no one laughed. No one asked, what are the social conditions that necessitated war and how might we be responsible for them? It was blithely assumed that war was perpetrated by vicious men who took delight in violence and destruction, and who had no ability to imagine any alternatives. I found this to be an inadequate analysis then as I do now. It is based on a far too easy distinction between oppressors and oppressed, where both groups are readily identifiable based ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Isn’t Pacifism Passive?
• Chapter 2: What about the Protection of Third-Party Innocents? On Letting Your Neighbors Die
• Chapter 3: What Would You Do if Someone Were Attacking a Loved One?
• Chapter 4: What about Hitler?
• Chapter 5: Must Christian Pacifists Reject Police Force?
• Chapter 6: What about Those Men and Women Who Gave Up Their Lives so that You and I Could Be Free? On Killing for Freedom
• Chapter 7: Does God Expect Nations to Turn the Other Cheek?
• Chapter 8: What about War and Violence in the Old Testament?
• Chapter 9: What about Romans 13: “Let Every Soul Be Subject”?
• Chapter 10: Didn’t Jesus Say He Came Not to Bring Peace, but a Sword?
• Chapter 11: What about the Centurion? A Roman Soldier’s Faith and Christian Pacifism
• Chapter 12: Didn’t Jesus Overturn Tables and Chase People Out of the Temple with a Whip?
• Chapter 13: What about the Warrior Jesus in Revelation 19: “He Has Trampled Out the Vintage”?
• Conclusion
• Afterword
• Contributors
• Bibliography