November 12, 2009
Beyond Pacifism and Just War
The new reality Jesus proclaimed was nonviolent. That much is clear, not just from the Sermon on the Mount, but from his entire life and teaching and, above all, the way he faced his death at the hands of the Powers. His was not merely a tactical or pragmatic nonviolence seized upon because nothing else would have worked against the Roman Empire's virtual monopoly on power. Rather, he saw nonviolence as a direct expression of the nature of God and of the new reality breaking into the world from God. In a New Testament passage quoted more than any other during the church's first four centuries, Jesus taught that we should love our enemies [...] nonviolence is not just a means to the realm of God. It is a quality of that realm itself. Those who live nonviolently are already manifesting the transformed reality of the divine order, even while living under the jurisdiction of the Domination System.The early Christians saw themselves as already inaugurating the new order. So they refused to engage in war. For three centuries, no Christian author to our knowledge approved of Christian participation in battle. Such data as we have indicate that involvement in the army even in peacetime was frowned upon. The early church theologian Tertullian had pithy advice for solders who converted to Christianity: quit the army, or be martyred by the army for refusing to fight.
When the emperor Constantine forbade pagan sacrifices by the army in 321 C.E., most Christians apparently read this as removing a major objection to military service. The other objection--killing--was easily rationalized since the empire no longer waged wars of expansion [...] When the Christian church began receiving preferential treatment by the very empire that it had once so steadfastly opposed, war, which had once seemed so evil, now appeared to many to be a necessity for preserving the empire that protected the church.
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 in 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.
[...]
Violence is contrary to the gospel. But we are not always able to live up to the gospel. [...] Even so, when as individuals or nations we are unable to act nonviolently, we are not excused for our actions, nor may we attempt to justify them.
But we also cannot condemn those who in desperation resort to counterviolence against the massive violence of an unjust order. We must wish them success, even if they are still caught in the myth of redemptive violence themselves. Who knows; perhaps their victory will usher in a better society able to divest itself of some of its oppressive elements [...]
We must admit our addiction to the Myth of Redemptive Violence--an addiction every bit as tenacious and seductive as bondage to alcohol or drugs. Civilization is hooked on violence. Rational argument, therefore, is not enough to break its grip over us. We need to acknowledge our bondage and turn to a higher power for help in extricating ourselves from our trust in destructive force.
A nation may feel that it must fight in order to prevent an even greater evil. But that does not cause the lesser evil to cease being evil. Declaring a war "just" is simply a ruse to rid ourselves of guilt. But we can no more free ourselves of guilt by decree than we can declare ourselves forgiven by fiat. If we have killed, it is a sin, and only God can forgive us, not a propaganda apparatus that declares our dirty wars "just." Governments and guerrilla chiefs are not endowed with the power to absolve us from sin. Only God can do that. And God is not mocked. The whole discussion of "just" wars is sub-Christian.
[...]
Jesus' third way is coercive insofar as it forces oppressors to make choices they would rather not make. But it is nonlethal, the great advantage of which is that if we have chosen a mistaken course, our opponents are still alive to benefit from our apologies. The same exegesis that undermines the scriptural basis for traditional just-war theory also erodes the foundation of nonresistant pacifism. Jesus' teaching carries us beyond just war and pacifism, to a militant nonviolence that actualizes in the present the ethos of God's domination-free future.
History itself has been confirming the practicality of Jesus' program of late. The irony would be delicious if it were not so bitter: earnest theologians have been earnestly persuading Christians for sixteen centuries that their gospel supports violence, while massive outpourings of citizens in one officially atheist country after another recently have demonstrated the effectiveness of Jesus' teaching of nonviolence as a means of liberation.
The position proposed here affirms the pacifist heritage of nonviolence as a fundamental tenet of the gospel of God's in-breaking new order. The church cannot, then, justify any violence or war as "good" or "just." And it affirms the "violence-reduction criteria" drawn from the just-war heritage as well.
[...]
No doubt the objection may be raised that affirmation of nonviolence by the churches would be too simplistic, that ethical judgments in the real world of the Powers are far too complex to adopt a fixed ethical stance. This objection, I must confess, was one of the main reasons I resisted committing myself without reserve to nonviolence for so many years. I have slowly come to see that what the church needs most desperately is precisely such a clear-cut, unambiguous position. [...] the church's own position should be understandable by the smallest child: we oppose violence in all forms. And we do so because we reject domination.
--Walter Wink, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millenium (1999)
Posted by Jared at November 12, 2009 10:40 PM | TrackBackHm, no time for lengthy reply, but quick thought.
If killing is wrong in all situations now, if violence is never ever the answer...
What changed about God?
Because God, in the OT, didn't just not condemn Israel for defending itself. He had them actively destroy entire people groups.
The whole wrestling directly with that aside, how do you line up these two things?
On the one hand, God says "Go defeat these people." On the other, we have "No violence ever for any reason, because that's in line with God."
God Himself used violence at times. Never gleefully, but He used it.
I'm not asking for permission to slaughter the world or anything, but it just seems...I don't know. It doesn't quick click for me.
Posted by: Sharpton at November 13, 2009 07:26 AMInteresting read. I certainly agree that we, as a culture, are addicted to violence and the belief that violence can change things for the better, but I remain unconvinced that it's as simplistic as the author makes it seem here (granted, you only posted selections and not the whole work itself, so I may be doing him a diservice). But my greatest concern, in reflecting on this, is that I do not believe Christianity is a religion of simple, quick answers. I disagree with the people who say that war is totally ok for Christians, and I disagree with the people who say violence is totally wrong for Christians because, in my mind, Christianity is not a safe, neat belief system. If you're not uncomfortable about some aspects of your faith and struggling to figure out what God truly means, you are probably not doing it right. Walking with God is dangerous, and that is just as true mentally as the risk from phsyical persecution. Christianity is a faith that requires some pretty nasty tightrope walking as we strive to understand and fully grasp the Scripture. In light of this opinion I hold, I'm not sure I agree with his last statement that we need such a clear-cut, unambiguous statement, becuase I'm not sure there is one to be had.
I have more specific thoughts on this issue, but I want to mull over the article in my mind a little longer first.
Posted by: Barbour at November 13, 2009 08:12 AMI want to try to let Wink answer as much as possible, so I'll do this in 2 comments. This one is some of what he says about the Old Testament:
The Hebrew Bible [is] a long and laborious exodus out of the world of violence, an exodus plagued by repeated reversals. The mechanics of scapegoating remained partly hidden. The old sacrificial notions were never fully exposed, despite the work of Israel's prophets. Nevertheless, that process was begun.
The violence of the Old Testament has always been a scandal to Christianity. The church has usually ducked the issue, either by allegorizing the Old Testament or by rejecting it. Biblical scholar Raymund Schwager points out that there are six hundred passages of explicit violence in the Hebrew Bible, one thousand verses where God's own violent actions of punishment are described, a hundred passages where Yahweh expressly commands others to kill people [...] Violence, Schwager concludes, is easily the most often mentioned activity in the Hebrew Bible.
This violence is in part the residue of false ideas about God carried over from the general human past. It is also, however, the beginning of a process of raising the scapegoating mechanism to consciousness, so that these projections on God can be withdrawn. In Israel, for the first time in human history, God begins to be seen as identified with the victims of violence [...] But the prophetic critiques of domination in the Hebrew Bible continue to alternate with texts that call on Israel to exterminate its enemies now or in the last days.
In the Hebrew Bible, God's alleged punishments are usually carried out by human beings attacking each other. This indicates, says Schwager, that the actual initiative for killing does not originate with God, but is projected onto God by those who desire revenge. Yahweh's followers projected their own jealousy on God and made God as jealous as they. But something new emerges nonetheless: Yahweh openly insists on this jealousy, which begins to reveal Yahweh's unique relationship to Israel as one of love.
The violence of the Bible is the necessary precondition for the gradual perception of the meaning of violence. It should come as no surprise that it was in a violent society that the real nature of violence was revealed. [...] The violence of Scripture, so embarrassing to us today, became the means by which sacred violence was revealed for what it is: a lie perpetrated against victims in the name of God. God was working through violence to expose violence for what it is and to reveal the divine nature as nonviolent.
Posted by: Blame Jared at November 13, 2009 03:34 PMI hope none of this will come across as condescending, because I haven't got anything really figured out (and you know that). I'm just saying what comes to mind.
I don't really feel like this is "simplistic" . . . but yes, as you surmised, this is in fact a small portion of a single chapter in a book which is itself basically a summary of four other books that the author has written on the subject. I assume any illusions of simplicity stem from that.
Throughout the book, he constructs an ironclad case showing that nonviolence works if people are willing to try it. He says: "Violence can never stop violence because its very success leads others to imitate it."
In his nonviolent teaching, life, and death, Jesus revealed a God of nonviolence. The God who delivered an enslaved people in the Exodus was now seen as the deliverer of all humanity from oppression. The violence associated with God in biblical tradition was centrifuged away, revealing God as a loving parent. The violence of the Powers was exposed, along with their expropriation of God to justify their oppression.Christians do not live nonviolently in order to be saved, or in order to live up to an absolute ethical norm, but because we want to end the Domination System. We eschew violence because we do not wish to extend by even one day the reign of violence in the world. Nonviolence is not a matter of legalism but of discipleship. It is the way God has chosen to overthrow evil in the world. And the same God who calls us to nonviolence gives us the power to carry it out.
Nonviolence is not a 'work' that one must achieve in order to be counted righteous. God can forgive our failures to be nonviolent. We cannot even say that nonviolent actions are in every circumstance the will of God. In any given situation, how can I know that my nonviolence is not a total miscalculation of what God desires? I cannot presume on the judgment of God. I can say only that nonviolence is at the very heart of the gospel, and that church's task is to attempt to spread this leaven into the life of the world.
The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the assurance that there is a power at work in the world to transform defeat into divine victory. In that sense, nonviolence never fails, because every nonviolent act is a revelation of God's new order breaking into the world. Violence breeds despair when it fails, because every nonviolent act is a revelation of God's new order breaking into the world. Violence breeds despair when it fails, since it was supposed to be a last resort, and it may spawn faith in the redemptive power of death when it succeeds. Nonviolence, whether it fails or succeeds, displays a new way of resolving conflicts that humankind must learn if it is to survive.
The churches have never yet agreed that domination is wrong. What a difference they could make in the world if they would only do so!
I disagree with the people who say violence is totally wrong for Christians because, in my mind, Christianity is not a safe, neat belief system. If you're not uncomfortable about some aspects of your faith and struggling to figure out what God truly means, you are probably not doing it right . . .
This sort of response is precisely what convinces me that this is right. All of your reasons for being unconvinced are my reasons for being convinced: There is nothing simple or quick or easy or comfortable or safe about a total commitment to nonviolence. It runs completely contrary to every human instinct and the philosophy of virtually every human institution for thousands of years. I certainly haven't wrapped my head all the way around it yet, but I feel that it must be the gospel truth.
When I look at your response in light of what is written here, I see the myth of redemptive violence, so completely ingrained that it prompts a counter-intuitive rationalization of refusing commitment to nonviolence. I think (and this is in light, too, of portions of the book that I haven't quoted) that a clear-cut, totally consistent, and completely unambiguous statement from the Church (not necessarily all individuals in the church) is precisely what we need.
Incidentally, I'm curious about what you mean by "Christianity is a faith that requires some pretty nasty tightrope walking" . . . I sort of feel (specifically in relation to this issue) that any nasty tightrope walking is required, not by Christianity, but by a need to reconcile the radical nonviolent message of the gospel with the guiding principle of violence by which the world presently functions.
Posted by: Blame Jared at November 13, 2009 04:36 PM