nonviolence

A Simple Case for Christian Nonviolence

~ Mike Skinner ~ 6 Comments

[1] Jesus’ Direct Teaching

“Nonviolent resistance” might be a more accurate term for Jesus’ teachings: he commands a “third way” between doing nothing and responding to violence with violence, namely, returning evil with good; resisting with love.

  • Jesus clearly expects his followers to live nonviolently – rebuking them on many occasions where they stray from this expectation:
    Luke 9:51-56
    Luke 22:47-51

[2] Jesus’ Explicit Example

  • As the Incarnate God, Jesus’ nonviolent historical life is both: 

[3] Overall Narrative of the Bible – From Old Testament to the Kingdom of God

Despite the (divine and human) violence in the Old Testament, there is a promise of and clear trajectory towards a nonviolent community

  • Israel’s battles weren’t won with military prowess, but by simply obeying & trusting God
    Joshua 6:1-7
    Psalm 20:6-9
  • OT has clear promises of the Kingdom of God’s arrival calling God’s people to nonviolence
    Isaiah 2:1-5
    Micah 4:1-5

[4] The Early Church Thought It Was Obvious

  • The early church (from the time of Christ to the time of Constantine in the 4th century) was fully nonviolent. Here is a small sampling of quotes:

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD)
“We who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons—our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into implements of tillage—and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified.”

Tertullian (160-225 AD)
“Shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law?”
“If one attempt to provoke you by manual violence, the admonition of the Lord is at hand: To him,‟ He says, ‘who strikes you on the face, turn the other cheek also.’ Let outrageousness be wearied out by your patience.“
“Christ, in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier…”
“And shall he apply the chain and the prison and the torture and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs?”
“Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs?”

Hippolytus (170-236 AD)
“The catechumen or faithful who wants to become a soldier is to be rejected, for he has despised God.”

Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD)
“We have come in accordance with the counsel of Jesus to cut down our arrogant swords of argument into plowshares, and we convert into sickles the spears we formerly used in fighting. For we no longer take swords against a nation, nor do we learn anymore to make war, having become sons of peace for the sake of Jesus, who is our Lord.”

Marcellus (298 AD)
“I threw down my arms for it was not seemly that a Christian man, who renders military service to the Lord Christ, should render it by earthly injuries.” “It is not lawful for a Christian to bear arms for any earthly consideration.”

Martin of Tours (316-397)
“I am a soldier of  Christ. To fight is not permissible for me.”

Jesus the Interpreter: Divine Violence in the Old Testament

~ Mike Skinner ~ 1 Comment

“We may perhaps be allowed to look forward to a new day, in which Jesus himself is acknowledged, in his own right, as a thinking, reflecting, creative and original theologian.” – NT Wright[1]

I am committed to non-violence because I am committed to Jesus.[2] As a non-violent Christian, I’m commonly asked some form of the following question: “How can you think that God is nonviolent or that his people must always act nonviolently when there are so many examples in the Old Testament of God acting violently or encouraging such behavior?”

It’s a good question and one of the biggest obstacles for most Christians when they consider adopting a non-violent ethic.[3] However, I’ve always thought that this is a question that can actually be punted to Jesus himself. That is to say, I believe a more illuminating form of the question would look like this:

How could Jesus think that God is nonviolent and expects his people to be nonviolent in light of the many Old Testament texts that seem to contradict this?

 Of course this question assumes two things:

  • First, that Jesus was familiar with the major stories & themes of the Old Testament (including those that depict God as violent and his people as acting violently in obedience to God’s commands.[4]
  • Second, that Jesus still believed & taught that God was nonviolent and likewise expected his followers to be nonviolent.[5]

If both of these assumptions are true,[6] we are faced with important questions: How did Jesus interpret these texts? What was his hermeneutical logic? And even more to the point, are Christians obligated to agree with his conclusions, even if we aren’t necessarily predisposed to agree with his interpretations?

We might not normally think of Jesus as a biblical interpreter or theologian, but we should. After all, he grew up in a religious environment surrounded by many different popular interpretations of his religious tradition. In this context, Jesus inherited, learned, formed, and communicated very specific beliefs about what God was like and what he expected of his people. In so doing, he also explicitly and forcefully rejected certain interpretations & expectations that were popular during his lifetime.

I have to imagine that Jesus was often confronted about his non-violent teachings, especially by the more revolutionary Jewish groups common during the first-century. In Matthew 5, he preemptively and explicitly rejects the Old Covenant law of retaliation in favor of a new, radical ethic of nonviolence. In Luke 6, Jesus tells his disciples to “love your enemies, and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” It’s not a stretch to picture Simon the Zealot disagreeing with Jesus’ assessment of the Father as a merciful enemy-lover. “Jesus, are you not aware that God commanded the slaughter of men, women, and children who stood against his people?” What would Jesus’ response be? Would he recant or qualify his statement? Or would he provide an alternate interpretation and assume that it is more authoritative than any other reading of the text that would lead to a different conclusion?

This problem is even more acute in an account in Luke 9 where Jesus rebukes his disciples for attempting to imitate a story from the Old Testament by calling down fire on their enemies in (cf. 2 Kings 1:9-12). I can imagine the disciples reminding Jesus of this beloved Old Testament story – what was his response? How did he read such texts and come to such different conclusions than many of his day (and our day)? I believe that these sorts of questions are some of the most important ones to be asked in any conversation about Jesus and violence.

Jason Micheli recently offered an excellent post attempting to answer a question of this nature: How did Jesus read Psalm 94 and it’s cry for vengeance against enemies while at the same time commanding and embodying a responsibility to love his enemies? Read his engaging post here: Jesus’ Enemy Loving Offensive. Jason’s attempt embodies the posture Christians should take when engaging Old Testament texts that seem to contradict Jesus’ own teachings and example.

I can’t help but think that Christians are making a fundamental mistake when we use the Old Testament to qualify or change the teachings of Christ. It strikes me as odd that we might imagine our interpretations of various Old Testament texts to be more authoritative than Christ’s. Did Jesus not know about these Old Testament texts? Did he misread them? Can we qualify correct Jesus’ teachings because we are better equipped to read the Tanakh?

My evaluation of the current conversation surrounding God & Old Testament violence is that we have lost our interpretative imagination under the weight of years of tradition and cultural influences. The Old Testament is not as clear on the issue of violence as one might think. There are plenty of ways to interpret the classic “texts of terror” in ways that lead logically to Jesus’ non-violence. Again, I suggest reading Jason Micheli’s enlightening post. Other options remain: perhaps we should acknowledge a multiplicity of voices in the Old Testament (some more peaceful, even promising a future of peace), perhaps a reading of the “texts of terror” in light of comparable ANE texts would reveal a fairly radical non-violent trajectory, or perhaps the point of the cumulative narrative of the Old Testament is that violence did not ultimately accomplish God’s Kingdom. These are just a few of the many possibilities for reading the Old Testament in a way congruous with Jesus’ life and teachings. But these are the types of readings that I believe Jesus forces us to explore.

 

[1] Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 479.
[2] I find myself unable to avoid the conclusions that Jesus unequivocally commands his followers to act nonviolently and also personally modeled this nonviolent commitment with his own life. I’m also unable to ignore a theological conviction that the historic life of Jesus, as portrayed in the Gospels, is the clearest and most complete revelation of the character and will of the Triune God that humanity has ever been given. Thus I’m always a bit surprised to find that many Christians view my nonviolent stance as mistaken (at best) or heretical (at worst).
[3] I’ve found that it is, along with the violent passages in Revelation, one of the biggest obstacles for most Christians when considering a commitment to nonviolence. For the violence in Revelation, see these posts: Jesus is Cruciform, Not Octagonal (A Response to Mark Driscoll) and Interpreting the Violent Imagery in Revelation.
[4] Jesus is surrounded by Jewish groups with a violent revolutionary bent and explicitly rebukes such desires. Even more telling is that Jesus’ own theological agenda seems to be one that would fit nicely with these traditions (see the revolutionary language of his mother in her famous song), yet he interprets the revolution as a spiritual one – a battle against Satan, not Rome. Again – see N.T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God.
[5] Jesus is as clear as possible: see Matthew 5:38-48.
[6] (I know of few who would doubt the first and have yet to see good evidence against the second).

Romans 13 & God’s “Use” of National Violence

~ Mike Skinner ~ 1 Comment

Far too many American evangelicals, reflecting the general ethos of our nation, have a war-shaped imagination. That is to say, those who worship the Prince of Peace seem to have a hard time imagining realistic solutions to most of today’s global problems that don’t require military action. Unfortunately, Christianity has often served as an accomplice in the formation of this imaginative deficit – serving the role of chaplain and announcing God’s blessing over our use of national violence.

Craig Hovey, in his remarkable book To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for Today’s Church, challenges this assumption. He states:

“God does not need the might of the world in order to act in the world. Still, God chooses to make good use of evil, just as the actions of Pharaoh were made to function in the creation of a holy nation for God. God did not need Pharaoh, just as God did not need Rome. Likewise, God did not even need the cross but enlisted it for divine and good purposes. This is the meaning of Paul’s much misunderstood claim that governments wield the sword as God’s servants (Rom. 13:4). They serve God against their will. This is so because the whole universe belongs to God, even the parts of it that are in rebellion, claiming autonomy from God and sole authority over their dominions. Paul’s assertion must not be construed as congratulating the nations’ goodness and commending their power simply and straightforwardly as a necessary condition of God’s way in the world. God’s way requires no swords, no crosses, no guns, though these are enslaved and enlisted for divine purposes as an expression of God’s sovereignty over human rebellion and pride.”

Hovey’s interpretation of Romans 13:4 highlights the vexing problem of the relationship between God and national violence. The passage states that God has “instituted” (NRSV, ESV) the powers that rule and that they are his “servants.” Too often, readers have uncritically accepted these statements as indications of a positive relationship between God and the powers’ use of violence. However, as I have argued elsewhere (see links below), these statements have an Old Testament background which presents a much more nuanced relationship.

In short, God’s “use” of the powers’ violence does not mean that he grants moral legitimacy to such action. God’s rule is actualized by dying on a cross, not by putting others on them. The Church, those who belong to the Peaceable Kingdom, must never forget the call to the Jesus’ way of cruciform wisdom and power. This is perhaps one of the reasons that regular participation of the Eucharist is so important: at the table our imaginations are converted from their occupation with Egypt’s chariots and instead captivated by the cross on which Jesus’ Kingdom was inaugurated.

See Also:

The 5 Most Common Myths About Romans 13:1-7
A [Just] War for Romans 13: Toward a Nonviolent Reading

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Interpreting the Violent Imagery in Revelation

~ Mike Skinner ~ 9 Comments

In case you missed it, Mark Driscoll caused quite a stir yesterday with his comments on Jesus, God, and pacifism.  I’ve already offered my general thoughts on why Driscoll is wrong about Jesus (Jesus is Cruciform, Not Octagonal) as have others (three particularly thoughtful responses can be found here, here, and here).  But, I still think there is more to say.

You see, I understand why people struggle to understand God as consistently nonviolent.

Let’s be honest.  There is a lot of violence directly attributed to God in both the Old and New Testaments.

If you take away Driscoll’s flare for controversial rhetoric, I’ve found that his view represents that of a large amount of Jesus-centered, Kingdom-focused Christians.  They understand Jesus’ ethical priorities in the Gospels and don’t want to dismiss or compromise them, but they have no idea how they could possibly interpret Revelation (and other parts of the Bible) without doing so.  I think it is important to not simply dismiss these concerns, but to instead offer alternative readings of these problematic passages.

How could one possibly read the violent imagery found in Revelation 14:14-20 (cited by Driscoll) without concluding that Jesus will one day shed the blood of his enemies?

I think Michael Gorman, in his excellent book Reading Revelation Responsibly, provides a possible way forward.  He suggests that we take another look at the proper (and intended) function of the violent symbolism in Revelation:

“The language and images of death and destruction (in Revelation) symbolize – in comprehensible, if disturbing, idiom – the universality and finality of God’s ultimate eradication of evil rather than the means by which God brings about that eradication.  As the omnipotent One who spoke creation into existence, God hardly needs to resort to literal violence to effect the cessation of evil… Instead, Revelation should be understood as portraying symbolically what God does actually with a divine performative utterance, an effective word not unlike the word that spoke creation into existence.” (p. 152)

There is an abundance of symbolism in the second “harvest scene” of Revelation 14.  Is anyone really willing to interpret this apocalyptic passage “literally”?  Will there really be a giant angel with a cosmic sickle harvesting grapes and putting them in a divinely-wrathful winepress that produces blood when trodden outside the city?  Is the blood going to literally flow as high as 184 miles?  Will the Guinness Book of World Records be there to measure it?  If not, why must we read the “blood” as real blood being poured out of deceased human bodies that have been ripped apart by Jesus?

What if the symbolism and imagery isn’t mean to communicate the means of judgement but the effect of judgement?  This isn’t just special pleading by the “pansies.”  After all, there are plenty of nonviolent themes in the book of Revelation.  Jesus is declared worthy to rule because of (not in spite of) his nonviolence.  The church is commanded to follow Christ’s example and conquer by their blood (not that of their enemies).

And why do we have to assume that God can’t effectively eradicate evil nonviolently? Gorman points out that Revelation itself provides clues that this might be the case.  For instance, the sword that strikes down Jesus’ enemies comes from his mouth in Revelation 19:11-16, 21.  As Gorman says, “This signifies the effective word of God’s judgement – the wrath of God and the Lamb – that needs no literal sword, and which a literal sword could never accomplish.” (pg. 153)  Likewise, Gorman notes that there is no fighting recorded during the five great “battle scenes” of Revelation.  No blood, no guts, no bombs, no swords, no violence.  When I teach through the book of Revelation, this is always a striking feature of the book to high schoolers – it is anti-climatic.  Revelation never follows through on the expectation it builds in the Western reader for a classic Armageddon battle. Why?  Gorman answers, “Because the images of battle are supposed to suggest to us the promise and reality of God’s defeat of evil, but they are not the means of that defeat… Christ’s only weapon is the ‘sword’ of his word.” (pg. 155)  I think Gorman’s suggestion, that God might eradicate creatures in a way similar to how he created and sustains them, is worth serious consideration.

So then, what is the message of Revelation 14? That God will, because of his desire for a peaceful new creation, fully and finally judge all that is evil.  It is not clear to me that this passage is meant to do anything more or anything less than this.  In particular, I find it hard to accept that it should cause me to radically reinterpret the picture of God we have received in Jesus.

While I don’t imagine this reading will convince everyone (anyone?), it should at least make it obvious that pacifists aren’t ignoring these “violent” texts.  There are real, viable ways to read Revelation that don’t make God into a monster.  Maybe we should try them out.

Do you agree?

The Great Irony of American Christianity

~ Mike Skinner ~ 4 Comments

I’m currently leading a group of folks at my church through Lee C. Camp’s book Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World.  I first read it last year (it was highly recommended to me) and I think that it is one of the best “popular level” introductions to the theology & ethics of John Howard Yoder & Stanley Hauerwas (with a good measure of N.T. Wright and Richard Hays thrown in as well) that I have read.

The book has spurred some great conversation among our group and as I was preparing for our next meeting I was struck by the following quote:

“This is the great irony of American Christianity: exalting the nation that affords us ‘freedom of religion,’ we set aside the way of Christ in order to preserve the religion we supposedly are free to practice.  We kill our alleged enemies in order to ‘worship’ the God who teaches us to love enemies.  The most important question about our pledge of allegiance is not whether we pledge allegiance to a flag under “one God,” but to what god we are pledging our allegiance.  Perhaps it is, after all, not the God revealed in Jesus Christ we are worshiping, but the god of the nation-state, the god of power and might and wealth.”

Do you agree with his assessment of the “great irony of American Christianity”?  
Can you think of any other examples that would support his argument?