(Augsurger prt 6) I was hesitant to write anything on this chapter not because
I disagree with nonviolence, but because I have already spent much time writing
about it in essays, on my blog (see here here and here) and have recently been
addressing it on other theological forums…
So, what changed my mind? Well first, it is a quick opportunity to put
out there why I stand here (I have yet to do this in any of my arguments
against it). Second, while Augsburger’s overall
case for resolute nonviolence is not all that dissimilar from my own (though he
is much more gracious and gentle than I tend to be toward those who just don’t see
it… I’m working on it) he offers a helpful set of nonviolent affirmations that all
Christians should, at least, consider. Whether
you believe in “just war” or “nonviolence” if you are committed to Christ then
I promise it will not be a waste of your pondering-time. And if you are just a
curious reader then perhaps this is an opportunity to see that instances like
the Crusades or Protestant-Catholics wars were antithetical to Christ.
Why I Advocate
Nonviolence
While I grew up in a Christian home, I did not grow up in a
home that was anti-war (I think my parents did question it at some point, but they
were encouraged to view it as a necessary evil). In fact I come from a long line of military
and war-veterans and at one point thought of it as my own future career
opportunity. So, this was something I
would later come to on my own through various experiences and understanding the
Bible for myself.[1]
As a result I realized I could no
longer reconcile things like war and violence with what Jesus taught. My position is actually as simple as that, but I will elaborate anyway. Jesus
spent a lot of time rejecting, what Walter Wink summed up as, the “system of
domination”.[2] This was what the entire
cosmos had become in Jesus’ eyes and he regularly spoke against it. This is
obvious when he commands us to be non-retaliatory and to love one’s enemies (Mat.
5:43-48), he claims to have come to fulfill God’s promise to release the
captives, heal the blind and to let the oppressed go free (Lk. 4:18-21), he
suggested that lording power over each other was pagan behavior and not God’s
desire (Lk. 22:24-26), he claims that neither he nor his followers belong to
this dominating-world and are hated by it (Jn. 17:14, 16) and he insists that
all who follow him would commit to his ways (Jn. 14:23-24).
Assuming this is true, I want to
make the statement that all acts of violence (no matter how justified) are intrinsically
acts of domination. The only end-result violence can seek is to leverage power
in the same domination system Jesus condemned.
To use Augsburger’s notion here, when we commit an act of violence we
have placed faith in that domination system. The commitment to answer in
violence is obedience to that domination system. Any allegiance to the values that the
domination system holds are inherently the same affirmations that we find in
the superiority of a gender, culture, color, economic status and/or hemisphere
position (i.e. North vs. South).[3] However, when our commitment and allegiance is
to “Jesus as Lord” we cannot simultaneously take Jesus’ side and continue in the way of
domination. It then only made sense that
the way of the cross pointed to nonviolence and always worked toward
reconciliation even when it costs us.
With this said, I do know from
personal experience that no matter how sound my position may seem (in my mind)
it becomes a target for endless counter-arguments. So, my point is that my espousing this rarely
changes hearts, and it receives lots of criticism and lots of “well what would
you do if…” questions, and there are times when living it out feels ineffectual.
But, I do not do it because it is popular, or because I am trying to make less
of evil (I take it very seriously) or because it is guaranteed to work-out
perfectly in every scenario. Rather, I
commit to nonviolence because it is my act of faithfulness/commitment to the God
that is revealed in Jesus. I believe it is as much a political statement as it
is a religious confession to say that Jesus is Lord and the rulers of the
world/domination system are not. Now,
while my initial thoughts about this were not this developed, these words do
embody the feelings and confusion I couldn’t get past when reading about Christ. While there is much more that could be said about this (and I will address in future posts on restorative justice and so on) this is the basis of it
Spirituality of
Nonviolence
As stated before, whether you agree with Augsburger’s
affirmations of nonviolence they should at least make you think very seriously
about Christ’s radical way and its broader implications for his followers:
·
Love for God and love for neighbor are two
aspects of the same love. Jesus was
wholly faithful to God and truly faithful to fellow humanity. We live out his
love.
·
No one for whom Christ died can be to us an
enemy. If Christ already suffered the
death penalty for a person who has committed a capital offense, how can I
reenact it without invalidating all Christ offered and suffered? We carry out his mission.
·
No one is expendable or disposable. No one is absolutely or inapproachably
incapable of loving; no one is absolutely or unapproachably incapable of being
loved. All persons are within the love of Christ. We join him in his work of love.
·
We do not fear or avoid conflict. We refuse to believe the lie that violence is
the answer to conflict. We believe in
peacemaking.
·
To love God, our neighbor, our enemy and
ourselves requires persistent, relentless commitment to the way of Jesus.[4]
[1] More to my surprise was that I could not find very
many other Christians who agreed with nonviolence. That is until I was writing a paper my first
semester in college, on a similar topic, and while doing research came across
the Anabaptists (at which point I had a “where you been all my life”
moment). After digging deeper I now know
there have been many Christian thinkers who drew the same conclusion (the
majority of the early Christians, Leo Tolstoy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Stanley
Hauerwas, N.T. Wright, Walter Brueggemann, Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton and most
of the Franciscan Order, MLK Jr., Greg Boyd, Dallas Willard, Richard Foster and
many more) but much of the way of nonviolence
and alternative solutions has been paved by a long Anabaptist tradition and
their insightful work of uncalculated love and reconciliatory-justice that should
be learned from.
[2]
David Augsburger Dissident
Discipleship (Grand
Rapids, MI: Brazo Press 2006), 138.
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Ibid, 143-144.
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