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The Folly of Pacifism in a Broken World

Written by Mark Van Steenwyk : August 28, 2006

From today’s Sojourner’s email zine:

In the months after 9/11, Jim Wallis challenged peace advocates to address the threat of terrorism. “If nonviolence is to have any credibility,” he wrote, “it must answer the questions violence purports to answer, but in a better way.” Gandhian principles of nonviolence provide a solid foundation for crafting an effective strategy against terrorism. Nonviolence is fundamentally a means of achieving justice and combating oppression. Gandhi demonstrated its effectiveness in resisting racial injustice in South Africa and winning independence for India. People-power movements have since spread throughout the world, helping to bring down communism in Eastern Europe and advancing democracy in Serbia, Ukraine, and beyond. The same principles - fighting injustice while avoiding harm - can be applied in the struggle against violent extremism.

This highlights one of my main concerns about Wallis’ brand of neo-anabaptism in particular, and the religious left in general: it subjegates the cruciform life to utilitarian concerns. This paragraph is laden with utilitarianism. I don’t think pacifism makes sense as a practical strategy. It cannot stand against Hauwerwas’ critique of the right and left–that they make Christ subordinate to political goals. The profundity of the Cross, and the way of the Cross that Christian pacifists follow, isn’t in its brilliant effectiveness. The profundity of the Cross is that it is God’s way of confronting violence and evil. The pacifist resists violence, not because it is effective, but because in embracing the brokenness of the world with love, we refuse to return evil for evil. Christian pacifism isn’t interested in the ends, but in the eschaton: where the slaughtered Lamb is revealed to the world and all are swept into his glory.

This makes Christian pacifism an act of faithful folly, where we nonsensically embrace the evil done to us and repay it with good, just as our Lord has done.

Mark Van Steenwyk is the editor of JesusManifesto.com. He is a Mennonite pastor (Missio Dei in Minneapolis), writer, speaker, and grassroots educator. He lives in South Minneapolis with his wife (Amy), son (Jonas) and some of their friends.


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    Good thoughts. I have been reading a number of recent writings and blogposts on Christian ethics seeking to make the "effectiveness" case and you've helped me clarify a bit more of why i feel uncomfortable with that line of argument.
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    Thanks for the thoughts on this issue. I often am confronted on my views of Christian pacifism from those who approach this issue from a nationalistic perspective, where Christan pacifism is equated with the anti-war left (when in reality Christian pacifism is perhaps one of the most conservative positions a Christian can take [conservative=seeking to conserve ancient Christian tradition]).

    It is so hard to get most Christians to understand that Christian pacifism is really an expression of cruciformity that was exemplified by Christ, His apostles, and the early Christians. When Jesus rebuked Peter for drawing the sword and said that those who live by the sword die by the sword, He set forth a practical example that He expected His followers to be different.

    Christian pacifism accepts Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount at face value, that is Jesus expected His followers to try to live (in this world) the way He described in the Sermon. Christian pacifists believe that Jesus meant it when He said that we are to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors.

    Christian pacifists do not expect the world to embrace this, but desire that the church rediscover the message of nonviolence, peace, freedom, and life in a world of violence, war, oppression, and death.
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    I think you sniffed out the problem here Mark ... and I quite agree. The one thing I hope people don't misunderstand however is that pacifism as Hauerwas articulates it is not a path of withdrawal. It is a pacificism that actively seeks to make peace ... and of course if we can't do this well in our local communities, the chances might be slim as we seek to make peace beyond the church. Pacifism requires active peace making through the same way of the Cross ...

    Blessings DF
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    David, I completely agree...point well taken. I addressed this a bit a few posts ago. I think it might be better to start thinking of myself as a "peacemaker" rather than a "pacifist."
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    I'd like to hear/read more about your approach to pacifism.

    Jesus seems quite the pacifist. He never once used violence to combat the incredible injustices of his day. To twist a common argument, I don't think Jesus would have shot a man who barged into his house and planned to kill Jesus' whole family.

    But God the Father repeatedly led his people to slaughter evildoers. And if a madman runs down the street killing people, isn't the best way to love him and other to stop him?

    Etc.
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    Luke,

    I have the same impression of Jesus. The tricky thing is that God the Father indeed called his people to slaughter the wicked. This seeming discrepancy is why there have always been folks within Christianity who see Jesus as antithetical to God the Father. Early Christians that were influenced by gnosticism saw the Old Testament God as basically evil (a demiurge) and Jesus (the New Testament God) as basically good. While most Christians wouldn't pit Yahweh and Jesus against one another, there is most certainly a tension there.

    The intriguing thing about all of this is that Jesus claims to be a accurate depiction of God the Father--if you want to know what God the Father is like, look at Jesus. Paul (I think) said that Jesus is "the image of the Invisible God." If this is the case, why is it, then, that God seems like a warmonger in the Old Testament, yet Jesus seems like a hippie?

    It all comes down to Jesus. If Jesus took the evil of humanity upon himself on the Cross, then there is no longer a need for God to punish the wicked with the Israeli Army. This is why there is now no room for vengeance or the death penalty or any sort of violence--Jesus has done away with any need for such punishment. I believe that to commit an act of violence against another person is tantamount to rejecting the work of Jesus Christ upon the Cross.

    You ask "if a madman runs down the street killing people, isn't the best way to love him and others to stop him?" Yes, I think it is. But there is a big difference between stopping a madman and killing him. I am all for physical restraint--I'm simply not for physical violence. For me, the difference is whether or not the goal of the action is to retrain or to destroy. There is indeed a fine line, but I think we have to try to draw the line somewhere, at least tentatively.

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