The quote I posted yesterday helps to illustrate a few of the reasons I cannot comfortably take the label of pacifist in genuine conversation. I do sometimes take it as a convenient shorthand term for 'one who is committed to the nonviolent way of Jesus,' but this is not really what it means.
The varieties of pacifism can be based in several different assumptions. For some pacifists, life is precious and never to be taken. These pacifists are usually also opposed to abortion and euthanasia. For other pacifists, each person has an inalienable right to life, and only they have the right to end it. These pacifists are usually supportive of abortion rights and euthanasia, on the basis of the inalienable rights people have. Other pacifists are concerned that escalating levels of war will eventually lead to the annihilation of the entire planet through a nuclear, biological or chemical holocaust.
But not all pacifists are primarily concerned with issues of life-taking. Some pacifists are convinced that violence is simply not pragmatic, that nonviolent methods can more effectively or more quickly shape the world into a better place than warfare. Other pacifists are not committed to nonviolence on a personal scale, and would attack an intruder in their home, but refuse to support the military-industrial complex of nations; their pacifism is a political decision.
Some of these rationales for commitments to pacifism or more or less compatible with Christian ethics. For instance, the belief that life is precious and never to be taken is a liberal idea foreign to Christian thinking. To the Christian (meaning, to the one for whom the narrative of scripture and the community of the church is defining), life is precious but obedience is more precious. Justice is more precious. Love is more precious. It cannot be Christianly claimed that violence is never acceptable because life is precious. Likewise, the belief in inalienable rights is foreign to Christian thought and ethics. Christians have always believed that whatever rights they have are superseded by their responsibility to bear one another's burdens, to be a community of grace, to be obedient to the kingdom message of Jesus.
On the other hand, the Christian is quite free to believe that nonviolence is more pragmatic than violence, but this cannot be the overriding basis for a commitment to pacifism.
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The Christian commitment to nonviolence (which I differentiate from pacifism for exactly these reasons) is based on a large number of principles inherent to Christian theology and Christian living, some of which seem on the surface to have nothing at all to do with matters of war.
- God is the author of life. As such, God has the right to take life whenever and wherever God sees fit. There is no inalienable right to life, as American liberalism holds. There is the gift of life and nothing else. What this means for nonviolence is that God can take life, and that people can take life in service of God. This is clear from the scriptures, where when God was establishing a theocracy in Israel, death penalties were enacted and holy wars conducted against neighboring tribes. This principle is why many pacifists who believe that life is too precious to be taken recoil from the Old Testament so strongly while still admiring Jesus. However, Christian discipleship requires that we hold it all together.
- God is, ultimately, in control of history. In the end, all things will be set to rights by God. This principle is counter to those who advocate that violence is sometimes necessary in the defense of justice. Now, because God does not comprehensively control history (not every carwreck, every heart attack, every infant born into poverty is caused by God), Christians must follow the teachings of the New Testament and combat injustice. But because God is ultimately in control of history, we can confidently lay down the weapons of the world, and lay down our lives, in this defense. If, on the other hand, we were uncertain of the final outcome of our battle against evil, we would be (at least somewhat) justified in resorting to acts of evil ourselves, in desperation.
- God does not dominate. Much of a disciple's refusal to participate in violence is not because of the wrongness of violence itself, but because violence is a tool of domination, which is contrary to the nature of God. God is not dominant in our lives, coercing us into actions. Rather, God is submissive, some might say voluntarily weak, allowing other free agents to forge much of the reality we live in. God does not work from above, but from under. We can see this most clearly in the way Jesus reveals who God is. In Philippians 2, Paul tells his readers to "put on the mind of Christ, who, though being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be held onto, but made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant." Part of putting on the mind of Christ means letting go of our ability to dominate others.
- Jesus is our example. Jesus' teachings and most especially his life are our focal point for how to live, and those clearly point us in the direction of nonviolence. Sometimes it will be nonviolent resistance, as we see described in Matthew 5 and lived out in Jesus' disruption of the temple; others it will be nonviolent acceptance, as we see in his trials and imprisonment. Much more often it will be the former, but occasionally (as Desmond Tutu, for instance, has shown us) it will be the latter. But it will always be through the focal point of Jesus' life and teachings.
- Jesus, not Caesar, is our lord. Violence is, among other things, a tool of the state. The state uses violence and the threat to coerce obedience. Anyone who refuses to play this game, even if they are otherwise a commendable citizen, becomes an implicit threat to the lordship of the nation. Regardless of whether a Christian opposes only unjust wars or opposes all wars or opposes all use of violence, the Christian who at some point says to the nation, "No, I must obey Jesus rather than you," is proclaiming the true lordship of Christ over-against the nation-state.
- Peace transcends nonviolence. Peace within the community of the church does not stem simply from the belief that all violence (along with drinking, dancing and playing cards) is wrong. Rather, peace is the shorthand term for the forgiveness, reconciliation, discipleship and truth that is central to the ways that the discipleship community lives. As Haeurwas said somewhere and I'm fond of quoting at the drop of a hat, peace names those practices and processes of your community necessary to be a people of truth.
This is not a comprehensive list, but it's five major reasons and one freebie why the Christian is committed to whatever degree to nonviolence, and why the term 'pacifist' is usually inaccurate and misleading for what we mean and believe. This list needs to be much more fleshed out to stand as an argument
for Christian nonviolence. For instance, one will immediately object that God does dominate, based on the orthodox teaching that God will send the reprobate to hell in the end. To prepare for that, I should add that scripture calls us to follow his example in Christ and leave retribution to him (Rom. 12). And I'm sure there are a dozen more short-comings in my hastily constructed list.
As usual, I don't mean to argue anyone into taking Jesus' teachings seriously. Not my job. What I would like to see develop from this is more inspection by those who label themselves pacifists of the underlying assumptions that brought them there.
In any event, when the zombie uprising happens, or when the machines go to war against humans, all my talk of nonviolence is right out the window. We'll show them what it means to be human.
-Nicholas Stanton Roark
Comments (5)
good point.
I enjoyed the read :)
However, I am still not seeing the difference in "non-violence" and pacifism.
For example, I consider myself a pacifist- as in, I won't engage in any act of violence for any reason whatsoever. I also consider this non-violence. Would you care to elaborate a tiny bit more?
I love what you've written here and agree completely. I often try to avoid using that term, because it's not broad enough. Too often people think it means I'm just anti-war. And I can't use the term pro-life either, because it has even more baggage than pacifist. Alas, I can never use one word to describe it, so I usually just define it by whose kingdom and rule I live under
how do you put this up on revelife's featured?
@sumeoj@xanga - You can't. Authors can only submit their own work for Revelife featured posts, and since my last two were both nonviolence ones, I'm not going to make it a turkey.
I am working on an unrelated post I'd like to see featured, though.
Thanks for the recommendation, also.
-NDSR