Few of Jesus’ teachings are more thought-provoking and jarring to our culture than what he has to say on nonviolence and enemy love. To follow Jesus is to reject the either/or option of flight or fight, and to look for a third way, a creative, wise, intelligent, bold, and at times risky way to fight evil in a nonviolent way. The way of Jesus. Originally published at Bridgetown, used with permission https://bridgetown.church/teachings/gospel-of-matthew/jesus-on-breaking-the-chain-of-violence

We finally come to the last, and most radical, of Jesus’ six examples of his way: enemy love. For Jesus, it’s not enough to reject the flight or fight options, and look for a creative alternative to violence. He’s actually after love for our enemy. If we only love people we like, how are we any different from the world? Originally published at Bridgetown, used with permission https://bridgetown.church/teachings/gospel-of-matthew/jesus-on-his-most-radical-idea-enemy-love

John Markowski, pastor at Big Apple Church in New York, discusses the topic of violence as he looks at the "Un-Triumphal Entry" of Jesus in Luke 19, as well as the nature of violence done against the kingdom in Matthew 11:12. Original sermon by John Markowski at Big Apple Church, used with permission

In his critique of Crucifixion of the Warrior God (CWG), Paul Copan makes a concerted effort to argue that the God revealed in Jesus Christ and witnessed to throughout the NT is not altogether non-violent. One of the passages Copan cites against me is the famous account of Ananias and Sapphira falling down dead immediately after Peter exposes their lie about a donation they made to the kingdom community (Acts 5:1-11). Copan argues that this deceptive couple was “struck down by God, it appears.” As a matter of fact, the text nowhere says that God slew Ananias and Sapphira. It only “appears” this way to Copan because, like most western believers, he assumes that every supernatural feat that is associated with one of God’s people was carried out by God and therefore reflects God’s will. This is an unwarranted assumption, however. As I argue at length in CWG, the NT shares the widespread ancient conception of divine power as something that God (or a god) could cause to reside in a person, to the point that its use was subject to the person’s own will. I refer to this as the “semi-autonomous conception of divine power.” We see this illustrated, for example, when Peter encounters a lame man begging for money at the Temple. Peter says, “I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you, in the name of Jesus Christ: Walk!” (Acts 3:6). Notice that Peter didn’t pray to God for this man to be healed, as most of us would do today. Rather, Peter knew he had already been given the power to heal people in Jesus name, so he simply commanded the man to start walking. We find the disciples repeating this pattern through the book of Acts (e.g., Acts 9:32-35, etc.). In responding to infirmities this way, the early Christians were simply following Jesus’ example, for Jesus consistently healed and delivered people not by praying for the Father to heal and deliver them, but simply by speaking healing and deliverance words to them. They also were obeying Jesus’ instructions. For example, Jesus told his disciples; “if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done” (Mark 11:23). Notice that Jesus did not tell them that if they prayed with faith, God would move the mountain. He rather told them that they themselves will move mountains by speaking to them with faith. The assumption is that the divine power to move mountains resided within them and was released through faith-filled authoritative words. What is important for us to grasp is that, because this divine power was subject to the will of the person who was endowed with it, people were able to use this power in ways that did not necessarily reflect God’s will. We might think of the divine power that God gave the early disciples along the lines of the power that government gives to police officers. Government of course gives officers this power with the intent that they will use it for the common good. But as we all know, officers occasionally use this power in ways that harm innocent people and conflict with the intention of the government that trusted them with it. The Bible contains a number of examples of people misusing divine power. For example, God gave Moses the power to use his staff to make water flow from rocks (Exodus 17:6) as well as to perform other supernatural feats. But when Moses once used this divinely empowered staff in an angry way that conflicted with God’s will, the staff still worked (Numbers 20:6-12). Similarly, when the Apostle Paul instructs the Corinthians about the right way supernatural gifts of the Spirit are to be used in church, he assumes that the way these gifts are manifested is subject to the will of the people who have them. Indeed, he wrote I Corinthians 12-14 precisely because the Corinthians were misusing these supernatural gifts. So, for example, to those who had the gift of prophecy, Paul said: “The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets,” and since “God is not a God of disorder but of peace,” he instructs prophets to use this gift in an orderly way (I Cor 14:32-33). We find the semi-autonomous conception of divine power in Jesus’ ministry as well. Jesus “knew that the Father had put all things under his power “(Jn 13:3; cf. Matt 11:27), which is why Jesus had to choose to submit his will to the Father and use the divine authority he’d been given in accordance with the Father’s will (Matt 26:42Jn 4:34; 6:38). It was only because the use of divine power was subject to his own will that the devil could tempt him to use this power in ways that conflicted with the Father’s will (Matt 4:1-10). Moreover, after Peter had lopped off a guard’s ear with his sword, Jesus rebuked him and told him that he could call on “twelve legions of angels” to defend him if that is what he wanted to do, and he assumes that had he done this, the angels would have come (Matt 26:53). And yet, such a display of supernatural power would have conflicted with the Father’s will. I submit that when Ananias and Sapphira fall down dead in response to Peter’s words, we are seeing semi-autonomous divine power at work. And there is no indication in this passage that Peter’s lethal display of divine power was in accordance with God’s will. As is Luke’s custom, he simply reports what happened without commenting on whether or not this is what should have happened. As a final word on this passage, I think it’s significant that Ananias and Sapphira had allowed Satan to fill their hearts (Acts 5:3). It’s also significant that the Semitic concept of “curse” had the connotation of lifting protection off of someone to render them vulnerable to hostile agents, whether human or spiritual. In this light, we might understand Peter to be using his apostolic authority to remove whatever divine protection Ananais and Sapphira had, thereby handing them over to the “thief who comes only to kill and to steal and to destroy” (Jn 10:10) and “who holds the power of death” ( Heb 2:14). Since Jesus came to bring fullness of life, not death (Jn 10:10), and since Jesus is the full revelation of exactly what God is like (Heb 1:3), I submit that it makes better sense to understand Satan to be the agent who brought about the death of Ananais and Sapphira, with Peter’s misuse of his divine authority being the means, than it is to assume their death was an act of God. Originally published by Greg Boyd at ReKnew, used with permission https://reknew.org/2017/12/killed-ananias-sapphira-response-paul-copan-6/

We need to realize that the temple system of selling sacrificial animals to worshipers had become extremely corrupted in Jesus’ day. Among other abuses, priests were ripping people off by telling them the animal they bought to sacrifice didn’t meet their purity standards. People were thus forced to purchase a “temple certified” animal. The priests would then confiscate the allegedly substandard animal, only to turn around and sell it to the next worshiper who was told the animal they had bought was substandard. It was a money-making scam. The Gospels tell us that Jesus was so enraged by this corruption that he made a whip, turned over tables, and drove animals and people out of the temple. God’s house was to be a house of prayer, he declared, not a den of thieves (Mark 11:17). On the precedent of this allegedly violent behavior, some have justified the use of violence “for righteous purposes” today. I think this conclusion is completely unwarranted for three reasons. First, we need to understand that Jesus wasn’t throwing an uncontrolled tantrum. Most scholars agree that this was a calculated prophetic, symbolic act on Jesus’ part. Based on Old Testament prophecy as well as the widespread knowledge of the corrupt priestly system, most Jews of Jesus’ day believed the coming Messiah was going to restore the temple and make it God’s house once again. By cleansing the temple, therefore, Jesus was demonstrating that he was the Messiah. He was also symbolically revealing Yahweh’s displeasure with the religious establishment of his day and symbolically acting out Yahweh’s reclaiming of his house. It seems the masses understood the symbolism of Jesus’ actions. While his behavior enraged the religious leaders, the people responded by flocking to him (Mark 11:18). Second, and closely related to this, most scholars agree that Jesus engaged in this aggressive behavior to force the hand of religious and political authorities against him. After all, he had come to Jerusalem with the expressed intention of being executed. Up to this point the Jewish authorities were concerned about Jesus, but they refrain from acting on their concern because of Jesus’ popularity with the crowds. By exposing their corruption, Jesus was now explicitly threatening their authority. And this forced them to start plotting his arrest and execution. So, we again see that Jesus’ temple cleansing wasn’t a spontaneous outburst of anger. It was a premeditated, strategic act. Third, and most importantly, while Jesus’ behavior was certainly aggressive, there’s no indication whatsoever that it involved violence. True, Jesus turned tables over. But this was to put an immediate stop to the corrupt commerce that was taking place as well as perhaps to free the caged animals. There’s no mention of any person or animal getting hurt in the process. And yes, Jesus made a whip. But there’s no mention of him using it to strike any animal, let alone human. Cracking a loud whip has always been the most effective means of controlling the movement of large groups of animals. Jesus wanted to create a stampede of animals out of the temple, and there’s no reason to conclude he used the whip for any other purpose than this. When we read this passage in context, we can see that, while Jesus was aggressive when he drove out the animals, we cannot use this passage as justification for violence. Originally published by Greg Boyd at ReKnew, used with permission https://reknew.org/2014/05/was-jesus-violent-in-the-temple/

In a previous post, I challenged the common assumption that Jesus was violent when he drove out the animals and turned over tables in the Temple courts. Here I want to look at the second episode some site to suggest Jesus wasn’t totally opposed to violence. It takes place just before Jesus and his disciples leave to go pray at the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus first had his disciples recall the missionary expedition he had recently sent them on. To teach them total dependence upon God, Jesus had forbidden them to take any provisions on this journey (Luke 9:3). Jesus asks them, “When I sent you without purse, bag, or sandals, did you lack anything”? “Nothing,” they all responded (Luke 22:35). Then Jesus said, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I will tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment” (vs. 36–37). The disciples happen to have two swords with them, so they showed them to Jesus. “That is enough” he replied (vs. 38). Does this episode warrant the conclusion that Jesus expects his followers to engage in violence in certain circumstances? A close reading of the text reveals that it teaches nothing of the sort. First, when Peter used the sword against those who were arresting him, Jesus responded “No more of this!” and healed the man’s ear that was cut off. Jesus rebuked him and told him to put it back in at sheath where it belongs (Luke 22:47-51). When Jesus appears before Pilate he gives the fact that his followers are not fighting as proof that his kingdom “is not of this world.” In this light, it seems clear, whatever Jesus had in mind in telling his disciples to bring swords along with them, it wasn’t for them to ever use them. What other reason might Jesus have had for making his disciples bring swords? The answer is provided by Jesus himself as explains that it was to fulfill the prophecy, “He was numbered with the transgressors” (Is 53:12). To fulfill prophecy as well as to further force the hand of the authorities, if necessary, Jesus and his band of disciples had to appear to be criminals. More specifically, they had to appear like a typical band of sword wielding zealots, thus justifying the arrest and eventual execution of their leader. This explains why Jesus says, “It is enough,” when the disciples produce only two swords. If Jesus expected his disciples to actually engage in sword fighting, two swords would obviously be completely inadequate. But for the mere purpose of appearing to be a band of lawbreaking zealots, two swords would suffice. In light of this, it seems to me that justifying the use of violence by citing this passage is as unwarranted as citing the temple cleansing passage to this effect. Originally published by Greg Boyd at ReKnew, used with permission https://reknew.org/2019/11/jesus-said-buy-a-sword-what-did-he-mean/

It’s fascinating (one might say disturbing) to see how each person’s political context shapes his or her understanding of Romans 13. Christians living in North Korea or Burma tend to read Romans 13 differently than Americans do. Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, and other “Christian” dictators have celebrated the passage as their divine ticket to execute justice on whomever they deemed enemies of the state. Not more than a generation ago, Romans 13 was hailed as the charter for apartheid in South Africa. American Christian leaders did the same during the years of slavery and segregation. If the state mandates that blacks can’t drink from the same water fountain as whites, it very well has the divine right to do so, according to certain interpretations Romans 13. Most people today would see such a view of Romans 13 as going a bit too far. But only a bit. Theologian and scholar Wayne Grudem, for instance, says that the “sword in the hand of good government is God’s designated weapon to defeat evildoers” and goes on to apply this to America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The assumption, of course, is that America is good and Iraq and Afghanistan are bad. Maybe they are, but who gets to determine who is good and who is bad? Were it flipped around and Romans 13 was used to validate Afghanistan’s invasion of America as punishment for horrific drone strikes on civilians or wholesale slaughter of women and children in, for instance, southern Kandahar or Haditha, most Americans would see this as a misreading of Romans 13. But I digress. Even though Romans 13 has been taken to empower Christians to kill their enemy, or praise the government, or vindicate the just war tradition, there is nothing in this passage that commands Christians to use their guns to confront evil. Nothing. Here’s why. First, Paul’s statement reflects a widespread truth in the Old Testament about God working through secular nations to carry out His will. For instance, the Old Testament calls many political figures “God’s servant,” such as Cyrus, king of Persia (Isa. 44–45); Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (Jer. 27:6; 43:10); and the ruthlessly wicked nation of Assyria (Isa. 10:5), which God calls the “club of my wrath” and the “rod of my anger.” Please note: Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar were pagan dictators. The phrase “God’s servant,” therefore, doesn’t refer to Rome’s sanctified service to Israel’s God, but to God’s sovereign ability to use Rome as an instrument in His hands. You can probably see where I’m going with this. Just because God uses secular—and sometimes quite evil—institutions to carry out His will does not mean that God approves of everything they do. Much of what they do—whether it be Assyria’s sadistic practice of skinning civilians alive, or Rome’s crucifixion of thousands of people in the first century—does not reflect the law of Christ. But God can still use such godlessness, because He channels evil to carry out His will. The so-called government’s “right to bear the sword” is not a moral “right” at all, any more than Assyria had the “right” to slaughter the Israelites in 722 B.C. Assyria and Rome (and America, and North Korea, etc. ) are objects under God’s sovereign control. That’s all Romans 13 says. This doesn’t mean that God approves of the evil itself. In fact, all those who are ministers of God’s wrath become the objects of God’s wrath themselves precisely because of their violence when they were the “rod” of His anger (read Isa 10 and the book of Revelation). If you want to serve as God’s agent of wrath, well, you better watch your back when God’s through with you. Second, Romans 13 says that God uses governments to punish evildoers and reward the good. But what does this mean? Does every government always justly punish evil and reward good? Yeah, right. Rome was the same government that beheaded John the Baptist, beat Paul on several occasions, and crucified an innocent Jew named Jesus. Just a few years after Paul penned Romans 13, Caesar Nero dipped Christians in tar, lit them on fire, and set them up as human illumination for his garden, all in the name of keeping peace. Romans 13 can’t be a rubber stamp on all of Rome’s attempts at punishing evil. Paul doesn’t write Rome, or America, a blank check to do whatever it wants to do in the name of justice. Paul’s statement that Rome is “God’s servant for your good” and “an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” must mean that God can and does work justice through governments but that not everything governments do can be labeled just. Romans 13 does not sanitize all governing activities. Flip through Revelation 13 and 17–18 to see that the New Testament actually condemns much of what the government does. The final point is the most significant. If you miss this point, then you won’t understand what Paul is saying to the church in Romans 13. So, third, Paul says that God executes vengeance through Rome after he prohibits Christians from doing so. Compare these two statements, which are only a few verses apart: Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (12:19) For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out the God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. (13:4) Linguistically, there’s a contrast. An intentional one. One that is unmistakable. Yet missed by so many bible believing evangelicals. What Paul says about God’s use of the government in Romans 13:4 is stated in direct contrast to what he commands the church to do in Romans 12:19 No Christian can claim to carry out Romans 13:4. It’s not a command. It’s a statement about God’s sovereign use (not approval) of secular governments. The command given to Christians comes in Romans 12:19. Romans 13 is all about vengeance. And vengeance is God’s business, not ours. We don’t need to avenge evil, because God will. And one way that God will is through governing authorities. Moreover, the command to submit to governing authorities in Romans 13:1 is the last of Paul’s litany of commands in Romans 12:9–21. Bless those who persecute you, love your enemy, don’t avenge evil, and submit to your governing authorities. Far from allowing Christians to kill their enemies, Romans 13 underscores the church’s submissive posture in a violent world. Romans 13 cannot be responsibly interpreted to prove that Christians should use guns to kill their enemies. Quite the opposite. Originally published by Preston Sprinkle at Theology in the Raw, used with permission https://theologyintheraw.com/romans-13-doesnt-tell-christians-to-kill-their-enemy/

Question: I am a President of a State University. As a frequent podcaster of your sermons and reader of your books, I’m seeking your advice on a matter. Because our campus is some distance from the police headquarters in our city, many within the State University are arguing that we should hired armed officers for protection. The call, ultimately, is mine to make. I share your views on the call of Jesus followers to love enemies and swear off all violence. So I’m wondering if you think it would be inconsistent for me to grant this request? Answer: The question you raise is one of the most difficult ones a kingdom pacifist such as myself has to confront. So far as I can see, there is nothing ambiguous about what Jesus’ and Paul’s teaching on loving enemies and setting aside violence entails for a follower of Christ. I don’t believe there are any circumstances where it would be okay for me to kill another person. So too, as a pastor over a Christian congregation, I don’t see any ambiguity in what these teachings imply for a congregation of Jesus followers. There is no circumstance where it would be okay for us to use lethal force. The ambiguity only arises in contexts such as yours. You are serving people in a context where the rules are completely different than they are within the kingdom. Followers of Jesus love enemies and refrain from violence out of faithfulness to Christ and because we are empowered by the Spirit to do so. But this is precisely what can’t be presumed in your context. Outside the kingdom, people operate on the basis of what seems ethical and on the basis of what makes sense (and/or, perhaps, on the basis of some other religious authority, such as the Koran or the Old Testament). And in this context, most people don’t believe it makes sense to refuse to kill a public assailant if doing so would save the lives of others. So, it seems to me the question you have to wrestle with is this: Is it right for you to impose your kingdom ethic on a community of people who don’t share your kingdom motivation for embracing that ethic? Could one argue that this would be dictatorial? And if an assailant tragically killed a student, might this not invite people to blame you for the death (whether an officer with a gun could or could not have prevented it)? A related question is this: is it the case that you are personally endorsing the use of deadly force by granting your community’s wish to allow officers to use deadly force if necessary on campus? Personally, I’m inclined to think not. In fact, while I believe I am called to swear off all violence, I don’t believe it would be hypocritical for me to call the police if someone were to break into my house, even though I know that these police carry guns and may perhaps use them against the thief. Consider that immediately after Paul told Christians to love enemies, to never retaliate, and to leave all “vengeance” to God (Rom.12:17-21), he went on to teach them that one of the ways God “exacts vengeance” is by using the sword of government, which is why Christians are to “submit” to it (Rom.13:1-7). I hope this helps you as your process how to lead the university forward while you at the same time wrestle with the call to imitate Christ. Originally published by Greg Boyd at ReKnew, used with permission https://reknew.org/2014/04/non-violence-and-police-protection/

The pastor and mentor to Martin Luther King formed a vision of resistance around prayer, not politics. Revered by the leaders of the civil rights movement for his mysticism, not his activism, and for his pastoral presence, not his political strategy, theologian Howard Thurman is to many people a somewhat perplexing figure in American religious life. A man committed above all to prayer and spiritual discipline, he was a key inspirational figure for Martin Luther King Jr. Thurman has recently been introduced to a new generation through the film Backs against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story, produced by Martin Doblmeier and Journey Films. (The film, which has been aired on PBS, won a regional Emmy award for best historical documentary.) As the film recounts, Thurman was born in 1899 and grew up in deeply segregated Daytona, Florida. His grandparents, who had been slaves on a Florida plantation, introduced him to the Christian faith and enabled him to attend one of three high schools for African Americans in all of Florida. Ordained as a Baptist minister, he attended Rochester Theological Seminary and was a pastor for five years before becoming a teacher of religion and philosophy at Morehouse College and Spelman College in Atlanta. In 1932 he became dean of the chapel at Howard University in Washington, D.C. In his biography, With Head and Heart, Thurman describes the structures of racism and his personal encounter with them, from Florida to Atlanta and from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. In those days, Jim Crow laws were in full force. It was the era of lynchings and a resurgent Ku Klux Klan. By the early 1930s, Thurman was pondering how to address racism not through policy or protest but through the transformation of the soul. In 1936 he was part of an American delegation to India organized by the Student Christian Movement. The trip included a meeting with Mahatma Gandhi, a meeting that ended up changing Thurman’s life and altering the trajectory of American religion and politics. At the time, Gandhi was at the forefront of Indians’ resistance to British colonial rule. But Thurman resonated more with the mystical center of Gandhi’s thought than with its tactical application. Thurman saw in Gandhi a person who embodied the moral courage and contemplative orientation that was needed for spiritually addressing racism and violence. (The history of this encounter has been recounted by Quinton Dixie and Peter Eisenstadt in Visions of a Better World: Howard Thurman’s Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence and by Sarah Azaransky in This Worldwide Struggle: Religion and the International Roots of the Civil Rights Movement.) Thurman left Howard University in 1944 to put this vision into practice in the life of a congregation. He was cofounder of one of the first intentionally interracial congregations in the country, the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples. This interfaith community in San Francisco was devoted to “personal empowerment and social transformation through an ever deepening relationship with the Spirit of God in All Life.” After spending nine years at the congregation, Howard returned to academia, this time as the dean of the chapel at Boston University. It was there that he encountered King as a young doctoral student. It was under Thurman’s tutelage that King first began to see nonviolence not simply as a political tactic but as part of the life of contemplation and prayer. Thurman begins his best-known work, Jesus and the Dis­inherited (1949), with a statement that would be echoed decades later by black and liberation theologians: The significance of the religion of Jesus to people who stand with their backs against the wall has always seemed to me to be crucial. It is one emphasis which has been lacking—except where it has been a part of a very unfortunate corruption of the missionary impulse, which is, in a sense, the very heartbeat of the Christian religion. . . . Why is it that Christianity seems impotent to deal radically and therefore effectively, with the issues of discrimination and injustice on the basis of race, religion and national origin? As Thurman’s book unfolds, however, it focuses not on black people’s political disenfranchisement but on Jesus’ call to his disciples to embrace one’s enemy and reject the way of violence. In chapters overflowing with the rhetorical skill of a preacher, Thurman describes how those with their backs against the wall are tempted to give in to fear and deception, and he argues that Jesus of Nazareth lived in that same kind of situation. Jesus’ commendation of truth and love, says Thurman, came out of his own identification with those who suffer. Jesus was not removed from the scene of violence, but he nevertheless taught that the hatred of the bigot is not to be returned with hatred and that the lies of the powerful are not to be met with further deceptions. It is those who have their backs against the wall—those with whom Jesus has identified—who can show the world the way out of violence. A nonviolent approach to racism and violence is possible, Thurman believed, only on the basis of a transformative encounter with God. Only in that encounter does the soul open itself to a new way of living. In the mystical encounter of prayer, not only do people transcend the doctrinal particularities which divide Christians and divide one faith’s claims about the nature of God from another; in prayer people are driven to confront the core issue of violence—the self-righteous and egoistic self. The ego is thereby displaced from its throne, replaced by the desire for union with the beauty of God. Our false selves are undone, and we realize the dignity of every person. These themes were echoed in King’s own work, especially when he emphasized the dignity of both black people and their white oppressors. Thurman’s teaching shaped King’s belief that conflict can be resolved only through the love of God, not by more conflict. Both political and interpersonal conflicts, Thurman wrote, are self-perpetuating. The wounded end up wounding others, creating an endless desire for revenge. The mystical encounter with God, by contrast, replaces our self-righteous need for vindication with a desire for union. The contemplative encounter with God in prayer as described by Thurman does not immediately translate into a political program. Thurman’s neglect of politics was puzzling even to those who greatly admired him, such as activists Vernon Jordan and John Lewis, both of whom offer their reflections for Doblmeier’s film. Otis Moss Jr. notes in the film that Thurman offered “the basis for the march” and wonders why Thurman did not himself take up the march for justice. Thurman was always a man of the chapel and the classroom, and his role in the civil rights movement was that of inspirational figure. The activists remember that King kept a copy of Jesus and the Disinherited with him much of the time. What can we make of Thurman today? Can the man whom Lewis called “the saint” of the civil rights movement speak to current forms of institutionalized racism or to an era that has witnessed the rise of a reinvigorated white nationalism? Or more acutely, what does an approach of prayer offer that more familiar approaches to social problems—such as protests and policy—cannot? Perhaps a clue can be derived from a lesser-documented element of the civil rights movement. Historian Stephen Haynes has detailed how interracial groups of students introduced a new form of protest in 1964 when they started kneeling in prayer in front of Presbyterian churches in Memphis to protest those churches’ segregationist policies. This public liturgical action—the kneeling posture of prayer—constituted an ecumenical demonstration of divine judgment on unjust social structures. (See Haynes’s The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation.) Performing this liturgical act in a public setting was a way of expressing the universality of God. An action in that tradition was taken last year in Pittsburgh in the wake of the shootings at the Tree of Life Congregation. Among the groups gathered to mourn the deaths and speak out against anti-Semitism was the Jewish advocacy organization IfNotNow. The organization offered people the opportunity to sit shiva—to mourn for those murdered at the synagogue and for other victims of white nationalism. Shiva is a period of mourning in the Jewish faith, and a family typically sits shiva at home for several days to grieve for a relative after he or she has died. Singing the mourner’s Kaddish and praying “Blessed is the Lord, Master of the universe, the True Judge,” the crowd—comprised of Jews and non-Jews—offered their public prayers as a condemnation of the violence that had taken place. These gestures at least suggest what activism joined to prayer might look like. Yet it is unclear exactly what Thurman would have made of these events. Prayer-as-protest stretches the bounds of the quiet and contemplative approach he spent his life enacting and advocating for. In any case, such clear and powerful public prayers—whether expressing lament or the judgment of God—cannot be done, Thurman believed, apart from the slow work of the contemplative life. In this respect, Thurman belongs in the company of contemplatives like Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, and Dorothee Sölle. Thurman presents a twofold challenge: those who would be contemplative must identify with those who are suffering, and those who would address suffering must be contemplative. To know the God who joins with the oppressed, with those whose “backs are against the wall,” is to submit oneself to that God in prayer. In doing so, our transformation goes all the way down to our bones; we become people who can embody the way of Jesus, chastened in prayers and quieted in our anger, steeled with a moral courage that no violence can efface. The challenge of following in the wake of someone like Thurman is that every attempt to turn his work into a tactic is a kind of betrayal of his work. His response to racism was not to seek a new policy but to construct a congregational alternative to segregated Christian denominations. In an in­creasingly post-Christian America, proposing prayer and congregational life for deep-seated issues such as structural racism and violence seems counterintuitive, but only because we are used to seeking policy before personal transformation. For Thurman, policy was unthinkable without the deeper work of contemplative transformation. As a white theologian and ethicist, it is not for me to evaluate Thurman’s legacy for black Americans. But as one who wants to join Jesus alongside those with their backs against the wall, Thurman inspires me to pursue my own journey of purification: to recognize the ways in which racism and violence remain a part of my life and to be subject to a God who calls for a change of vision that goes all the way down. In prayer, perhaps, I will be able to be silent and listen, and be led by God and my backs-against-the-wall neighbors. Originally published in Christian Century by Myles Werntz, used with permission https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/howard-thurman-s-contemplative-nonviolence

In Crucifixion of the Warrior God (CWG) I argue that Jesus and Paul instruct Christians to love and bless their enemies and to unconditionally refrain from violence (e.g. Matt 5:39-45; Rom 12:14-21). Moreover, I argue that this was the prevailing attitude of Christians prior to the fourth century when the Church aligned itself with the Roman Empire. In his critique of CWG that he delivered at the ETS in November, Copan argues against this, contending that I give “the false impression that Christians were uniformly pacifistic until Constantine.” He cites the work of David Hunter and several other scholars who note that we find a number of references to Christians serving in the Roman military in the writings of Tertullian, Lactantius, Clement of Alexandra and Eusebius. [1] Not only this, but we have found a number of tomb inscriptions to Christian soldiers in the second and third centuries. On this basis, these scholars argue that the earlier scholarly consensus that the early church was uniformly pacifistic must be nuanced. At least some Christians were apparently not opposed to Christians serving in the military. The first thing I’ll say is that it is a bit odd that Copan would raise this objection against me, for while I defend “the predominant nonviolence of the early church” prior to “the Augustinian revolution,” I also explicitly note that the earlier unqualified depictions of the early church as uniformly against military service “were not sufficiently nuanced” ((CWG, 24, n.45). Indeed, I refer readers to some of the same works that Copan cites against me (and add a number that he omits). Second, and more importantly, while I grant that the earlier consensus needs to be more nuanced, I would argue that Copan and some other scholars who emphasize the evidence of early Christians serving in the military could be charged with giving the false impression that the early church was not predominantly, if not uniformly, opposed to military service and all forms of violence. The question is, how significant is the evidence of early Christians serving in the military? In my estimation, not much. Three considerations put this evidence in a proper perspective. First, in The Apostolic Tradition (c.200), Hippolytus addresses the issue of Christians serving in the military. He disallows Christians to enlist in the military, claiming that any Christian who did this “despises God” (Apostolic Tradition, 16). At the same time, Hippolytus allows soldiers who converted after joining the military to remain in it, but only if these soldiers are able to serve in a capacity that didn’t require them to kill and that didn’t require them to engage in idolatry (since the Roman religion permeated the military). While we of course can’t assume that the views of Hippolytus were shared by everyone at the time, it certain calls into question the assumption that the evidence of Christians serving in the military indicates that some early Christians were not committed to pacifism. Second, it is highly significant that, while certain authors mention Christians serving in the military, no early Christian author defends Christians serving in the military or engaging in any other kind of violence. To the contrary, whenever early Christians mention war or other kinds of violence, it is to emphasize that Christians are to have nothing to do with it. For example, Tertullian addresses the issue of Christians serving in the military when he writes: How will a Christian man participate in war? It is true that soldiers came to John [the Baptist] and received the instructions for conduct. It is true also that a centurion believed. Nevertheless, the Lord afterward, in disarming Peter, disarmed every solider. Ante-Nicene Fathers (ANF, III. 73) And again, Is it lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword will perish by the sword? Will the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? Will he who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs, apply the chain, the prison, the torture, and the punishment. (ANF III.100) Third, Tertullian clearly believed he was expressing the conviction of all Christians in his day when he wrote, and all indications are that he was correct. To demonstrate this, I offer the following (far from exhaustive) sampling of quotes of early church thinkers that reflect the early Christian view of war and violence. “We who formerly murdered one another now refrain from making war even upon our enemies.” Justin Martyr, Ante-Nicene Fathers (ANF) I.176 “We used to be filled with war…now all of us [Christians] have, throughout the whole earth, changed our warlike weapons. We have changed our swords into plowshares, and our spears into farming implements.” Justin Martyr, ANF I.254 “We have learned not to return blow for blow, nor to go to law with those who plunder or rob us. Instead, even to those who strike us on the side of the face, we offer the other side also.” Athenagoras, ANF II.129 “[Christians] formed their swords and war-lances into plowshares…that is, into instruments used for peaceful purposes. So now, they are unaccustomed to fighting. When they are struck, they offer also the other cheek.” Irenaeus, ANF I. 512 “It is not in war, but in peace, that we have been trained.” Clement of Alexandria, ANF II. 234 “An enemy must be aided, so that he may not continue as an enemy. For by help, good feeling is compacted and enmity dissolved.” Clement of Alexandra, ANF II. 370 “If, then, we are commanded to love our enemies…whom have we to hate? If injured, we are forbidden to retaliate, lest we become just as bad ourselves. Who can suffer injury at our hands?” Tertullian, ANF III.45. “How often you [legal authorities] inflict gross cruelties on Christians….Yet, banded together as we are, ever so ready to sacrifice our lives, what single case of revenge for injury are you able to point to?” Tertullian ANF III. 45 “We willingly yield ourselves to the sword. So what wars would we not be both fit and eager to participate in…if in our religion it were not counted better to be slain than to slay?” Tertullian ANF III. 45 “The Christian does no harm even to his enemy.” Tertullian, ANF III. 51 “God put His prohibition on every sort of man-killing by that one inclusive commandment, ‘You shall not kill.’” Tertullian ANF III. 80 “Christ nowhere teaches that it is right for His own disciples to offer violence to anyone, no matter how wicked. For He did not consider it to be in accord with His laws to allow the killing of any individual whomever…For [Christian] laws do not allow them on any occasion to resist their persecutors, even when it was their fate to be slain as sheep.” Origen, ANF IV.467 “We have cut down our hostile, insolent, and wearisome swords into plowshares. We have converted into pruning hooks the spears that were formerly used in war. For we no longer take up ‘sword against nation,’ nor do we ‘learn war anymore.’ That is because we have become children of peace for the sake of Jesus, who is our Leader.” Origen, ANF IV. 558 “Our prayers defeat all demons who stir up war….in this way, we are much more helpful to the kings than those who go into the field to fight for them….So none fight better for the king than we do. Indeed, we do not fight under him even if he demands it. Yet, we fight on his behalf, forming a special army-an army of godliness- by offering our prayers to God.” Origen ANF IV.667. “Wars are scattered all over the earth with the bloody horror of camps. The whole world is wet with mutual blood. And murder- which is admitted to be a crime in the case of an individual—is called a virtue when it is committed wholescale.” Cyprian, ANF V.277 “The hand must not be spotted with the sword and blood-not after the Eucharist is carried in it.” Cyprian, ANF V. 488 “…it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it. We would rather shed our own blood than stain our hands and our conscience with that of another.” Ambrose, ANF VI .415 “[The Christian] considers it unlawful not only to commit slaughter himself, but to be present with those who do it.” Lactantius, ANF VII. 169 “How can a man be just who hates, who despoils, who puts to death? Yet, those who strive to be serviceable to their country do all these things.” Lactantius, ANF VII. 169 I trust this sampling of quotes suffices to demonstrate that the pre-Constantinian church was indeed pacifistic, notwithstanding the fact that it permitted soldiers to remain in military service after they converted. And it was this strong stance against violence that motivated many early Christian thinkers to explore non-violent interpretations of the OT’s violent depictions of God. I wrote CWG (and Cross Vision) because I believe it is time for the church to reembrace the pacifism of the early church and to take up the challenge of finding the non-violent God revealed in Christ in the OT’s warrior portraits of God. [1] David G. Hunter, “A Decade of Research on Early Christians and Military Service,” Religious Studies Review 18, n.2 (1989); Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace (Abington, 1960). Originally published by Greg Boyd at ReKnew, used with permission https://reknew.org/2018/01/early-church-pacifistic-response-paul-copan-11/

I want to point out up front that the stuff Doug and I keep discussing—violence in self defense—lives at the fringes of the main topic. It’s common for people to race to the “killer at the door” scenario (and its variations) without stopping to consider the main problem of militarism in the church. My primary point, in my books and blogs and even my Q talk, is not that using violence as a last resort—a lesser of two evils—is the biggest problem in the church. It’s not. My main problem is with the underlying spirit, which believes that power and violence is the way that evil is overcome. A spirit which proclaims: Of course we should carpet bomb terrorists. Of course we should kill people on death row. Of course we should take out the bad guys with as much force as necessary. Of course Christians can kill other people if it’s in war. (American Christians, that is. Christians in other countries don’t get the same pass.) It’s not our reluctance to use violence as a lesser of two evils—which acknowledges that it’s still evil. Rather, it’s the eagerness with which we think that violence is the best way to deal with evil, which is exemplified in American Christianity’s fascination with military might. The bigger, the badder, the better. Military historian Andrew Bacevich recently said: “Were it not for the support offered by several tens of millions of evangelicals, militarism in this…country becomes inconceivable.” Some call this a problem. Others call it a virtue. The prophets called it idolatry. You want to use violence to defend your family in the rare (yet real) case that someone breaks into your home preprogrammed solely to massacre your wife and kids? Fine. Heck, in the heat of the moment, maybe I would too. But this isn’t the main problem. The problem is that our posture toward our enemies and method of dealing with evil looks no different than the world’s. How we think about taking care of the person busting down our front door is only the tip of the iceberg. In any case, let’s go ahead and dive into the well-known scenario thrown at pacifists to see if its ethic is worth its salt. My friend Nicolas Richard Arndt will stand in for our questioner who wants to show that pacifism doesn’t work in the real world. His name is really long, so we’ll just go with his initials (NRA). And I’ll go ahead and be the pacifist backed into the corner of this theoretical scenario. I used to just go along with scenario as it’s typically thrown at me: a 2 dimensional world where it’s kill or be killed, Bibles are closed, and God’s nowhere to be found. But this isn’t the real world. I don’t participate in worlds that don’t exist. So here’s how I now respond to the killer at the door scenario. NRA: Okay, so say a guy with a gun is breaking into your house trying to kill your family. What are you going to do? Me: I’ll use nonviolence to stop him. NRA. No, that won’t work. Me: Why not? NRA: Because this is the real world. Me: But nonviolence works all the time in the real world, both on an individual level and on a national level. It’s been well documented. NRA: Well, whatever. In this situation, it won’t work. Me: That’s not the real world. NRA: Okay, just say in this situation it won’t work. Me: How come I can’t play the game? NRA: What game? Me: Playing a role in constructing this scenario? How come you get to make up all the rules and possible options? Why don’t we both put our heads together to figure out a real life scenario with real life options? NRA: Um…no. Me: Why not? NRA: Just cause. Me: So I can’t pitch in some thoughts about your scenario? NRA: No. Me: Well, okay. Go head and construct your real life scenario and I’ll sit back here with my hands neatly folded. NRA: Okay, so say a guy is breaking into your house with a gun and he’s going to kill your family. Would you shoot him? Me: I don’t keep a loaded gun in the house. NRA: Okay, let’s just say you do. Me: I don’t. NRA: For this situation, let’s just say you do. For the sake of the argument. Me: What about my kids? Homes with loaded guns put kids at risk. It’s been well documented. And I love my kids and have a duty to protect them, so keeping a loaded gun puts them at greater risk. NRA: Ya, but for this scenario, they’re not at risk. Me: Okay, fine. Loaded gun. No kids at risk. Real life scenario. Go. NRA: What are you going to do? Kill the killer or let your family get shot? Me: Am I a good shot? NRA: Yes. Me: I’ll shoot the gun out of his hand. NRA: Well…okay, you’re not that good of a shot. Me: Then I might miss the killer and blow my kid’s head off. NRA: Okay, well, let’s just say that you’re not so good of a shot that you could shoot the gun out of his hand, but you are a good enough shot that you won’t miss and shoot your wife. Crickets: Chirp, chirp. Chirp, chirp. Me: This is your real life scenario? NRA: Yes. Me: Okay. Sort of a good shot but not that good of a shot. Got it. Real life scenario. So, does God exist in your scenario? NRA: Um…well…yes. God exists. Me: The God of the Bible? NRA: Uh…yes, the God of the Bible. Me: This God of the Bible who exists in your scenario, does he answer prayer? NRA: Well ya, but not in this scenario. Me: Not in this scenario? NRA: Not in this scenario. Me: Real world? NRA: Real world. Me: You’re 100% sure that prayer won’t work in this scenario? NRA: 100% Me: Have you read about Hezekiah and Sennacherib? NRA: Huh? Me: Never mind. Keep going. NRA: Okay, so are you going to kill him or let your family get killed? Me: What if I offer to give him my house, my two cars, and everything I have in savings if he would just leave. You know, lavish my enemy with love and protect my family. Who knows, maybe he’ll become the next Jean Valjean. NRA: He won’t take it. Me: He won’t take it? That’s like $300,000 dollars out the door. Who wouldn’t take that? NRA: Because he wants to kill you and your family. Me: Really? This is a human being? Like, he’d rather kill me and my family than take $300,000 dollars? I’ve never heard of such a human being. Do they really exist? NRA: In this scenario, yes. He’s set on killing you. Me: He’s, like, preprogrammed to kill. 100% dead set on killing with no way to be persuaded otherwise? NRA: Yes. Me: But in the real world, human beings are created in God’s image with breakable wills, conflicting desires, and emotions. The pre-programmed robotic human of your scenario doesn’t really exist, does he? NRA: In this case, he does. Me: Okay, so let me get this straight. A preprogrammed robotic human is breaking into my home with a gun. Any attempt to stop him without using violence is taken off the table, despite the fact that nonviolent attempts to apprehend bad people with guns does actually work in the real world. And in your “real world” scenario, I have quick access to a loaded gun in the house which happens to be no threat to my four children. I’m a pretty good shot but not that good of a shot. God exists in this scenario, but despite the fact that this God typically answers prayer, for this scenario, the heavenly phone’s off the hook. And this cyborg would rather kill me and my family rather than walk with $300,000. And this is somehow your real world? NRA: Yes, yes, that’s the scenario. What would you do? Me: I would pinch myself because I must be in a dream. Your supposed “real life” scenario is not the real world at all. It’s a world where Jesus is still in the tomb, prayer doesn’t work, a deistic god stands off in the distance, and the deception of power has clouded your Christian thinking. But my world, the real world, has a crucified Lamb, an empty tomb, and direct access to the heavenly throne which is more effective than 10 tons of C-4. I don’t live in a theoretical world; I live in a world turned upside down by a God who justifies the ungodly and calls us to love our enemies. What would I do if someone tried to harm my family? I’ll disembowel him before I slit his throat with a dull knife. But the question isn’t what would I do, but what should I do. But once we talk about shoulds instead of woulds, we now have to dust off our Bibles and put on our cruciform spectacles to see what saith our sovereign lord. Originally published by Preston Sprinkle at Theology in the Raw, used with permission https://theologyintheraw.com/the-killer-at-the-door/

Peacemaking is a crucial part of the Christian life — but it isn’t just about war. The origin story of my pacifism will be familiar to many Americans my age. I was 23 years old on September 11, 2001. I had grown up firmly middle-class and had lived, up to that point, in relatively small, safe places in Louisiana and Arkansas. I had not imagined that violence was a part of my everyday existence until the door to my 8 a.m. seminary class opened and we were commanded to turn on the television. Suddenly the distance between my college town and the world shortened. The question of how to be a Christian peacemaker entered my world in an international frame, bundled with terms like insurgents and terrorism and with concerns about how countries and political movements related to one another. As a seminarian, the only resource I had for responding to the claim of violence was the words of Jesus ringing in my ears: “Love your enemies.” After watching the towers fall, this teaching seemed ludicrous. Those committed to Christian nonviolence have often worked within an international frame. Late 20th-century activists and theologians such as Glen Stassen and more recent Catholic movements such as Just Peace have offered answers; Christian Peacemaker Teams (now Community Peacemaker Teams) went into situations of open conflict to mediate warring parties. But by asking only what Christian peacemaking might say to international violence, I was missing something impor­tant. Violence is not a question of what happens “out there”; violence is a deeply intimate feature of all times and places. The ancient world was filled with cosmogonies in which the world is, down to its founding, an act of violence: the Babylonian god Marduk slays Tiamat and fashions the world from the goddess’s body; Odin destroys the giant Ymir and creates the oceans from the great giant’s blood. By contrast, Genesis depicts violence as not original to the world but something that emerges after sin has taken root. Yet Genesis is clear to show as well that violence is not first an international reality: it appears not as something “out there” in the disputed space between Israel and the Hittites, but within the folds of our ordinary lives. Violence appears silently as animals are lovingly raised only to be slaughtered; it appears as the culmination of a grudge between brothers, stalking through the grass until it erupts in the fields. What begins for Genesis in intimate ways will eventually become larger than individual lives: the violence of Cain becomes the legend of Lamech and the family rivalries between Israel and Edom. Focusing on the clash of international relations deceives us by presenting violence as exceptional, when scripture wants us to see it as the often invisible irritant within our everyday lives. This kind of violence, out of which international conflicts emerge, is what some writers have called “ordinary violence” or “slow violence”; it enters into our imaginations and relationships in normalized patterns, and only over time does it become something more visible and chaotic. Ordinary violence is exhibited, the Torah tells us, in the ways in which people do economic injustice—or rather, perform economic violations against one another—which then give way to murder. Ordinary violence is seen, the Proverbs tell us, when we abuse our families and strangers. And yet for much of the 20th century Christian thinkers talked about war as if it were an exceptional state of violence. It is not that people were ignorant of the ways in which domestic abuse or child labor or poverty destroyed lives; it was that violence was largely viewed as a category that occurs outside the bounds of ordered relationships, personal or international. After that early morning class in 2001, watching the towers collapse, I drove in a daze back to my rented house close to campus. It was a house where my car would be broken into more times than I could count, where my bike would be stolen, where yells and intimate violence could be heard piercing the quiet night air. Frequently, when I left my house to walk to campus, there would be someone asleep in the front yard or laid out on the walkway spanning the highway between my house and campus. I lived there not out of some deep desire to be present to poverty but because it was what I could afford. It was a place full of warm neighbors and everyday violence, the kind which prepares us over time to accept greater violence as necessary. As Reinhold Niebuhr put it, the power dynamics of international relations begin at home, learned in intimacy before they are implemented globally. But even if I were to have slept in a different house, in a different neighborhood, with a different income, I would not have escaped what Genesis’s picture of violence unpacks. The food that I ate required the death of other creatures; the electricity I consumed was funded by oil companies that contribute to the slow degradation of the earth; the clothes I wore were provided by people in faraway lands who were paid too little and subjected to degrading labor conditions. These little forms of violence, as I would learn much later from Óscar Romero, were violences that the poor suffer; they often remain invisible to those outside such spaces. The violence of the spectacle of planes crashing and buildings collapsing, of tyrants assaulting civilians, of refugees fleeing from civil war—these are all magnifications of ordinary dynamics in which the world fractures and refractures itself. Recognizing the connection between ordinary grievances and large-scale destruction can lead us to see power distortions everywhere. We might be tempted toward paralysis. There are many across the 20th century who have claimed, for example, that the teachings of Jesus on violence could not be taken seriously in a complex world of power politics. But instead of learning this lesson from the brutalities of modern war, what if a different lesson were called for: that war and ordinary life are in fact connected, and that this calls for not just our battlefields but our ordinary lives to be a constant life of repentance and repair? The way in which the possibility of peacemaking emerged into the public consciousness of many after 2001 was as an impossibility: that which must be done as an act of faith in the face of brutal facts. But if ordinary violence and its extraordinary flowering are linked, then peacemaking has a place not only within war—as medics and chaplains, as refugee coordinators and translators and treaty negotiators—but also in everyday life, as those who see the ordinary violence of poverty, domestic abuse, hunger, and racism as the precursors to something which ascends into a more complex and destructive action. The immediate work of binding up wounds, of shielding the vulnerable, and of beating swords into plowshares is always in high demand; such work, particularly in conflicts, is necessary if there is to be a world in which peace can be built. But wars do not simply erupt: they do not come ex nihilo into the world as events without causes. The ordinary violence which the world suffers from, frequently unseen or unnamed as such, is the first fruits, the building blocks, of the greater violence to come. There is a place for Christian peacemaking in international conflicts. Our faith can help us to ask and answer questions about what sanctions accomplish or how negotiators work for truces. But any vision of Christian peacemaking must turn its attention as well toward violence in the ordinary. By attending to our domestic relationships, to poverty, to the small ways in which our neighbors become our enemies, ordinary violence is met with an ordinary practice—more akin to habit than heroism. The suffering of war calls us into action. But to name war as a world apart from the ordinary will not do. Breaking this link does damage to the soldier, whose wartime life is suspended in a no-man’s-land utterly divorced from their ordinary life, and to the civilian, who is rendered unable to see the connection between the violence chosen daily and the horrors of war. It is with good reason that the extraordinary injunction of Jesus against striking an enemy and in favor of turning the other cheek is followed by a rather ordinary command: to make peace with one’s neighbor before offering a sacrifice at the altar. The two acts of reconciliation are not separated as one would separate the night from the day; they are shades of light in different dark spaces, with the actions of ordinary peacemaking preparing us for the next unspeakable violence. The practice alters our hearts and habits over time so that in the moment of decision, we are inclined toward peacemaking and not toward striking back. What good does preparation for future conflicts do us in this present moment, when Russian tanks are decimating Ukrainian civilians? Far from deferring action, this vision of the relation between the ordinary and the extraordinary gives us more tools for addressing the conflict at hand, in two important ways. First, this connection helps us to remember that how we make peace in the extraordinary will set the stage for what peace we will be able to make in ordinary times. The postbellum—how we end wars—is as important as how we fight them. The stakes are high for ending conflicts well: our present enemy is tomorrow’s neighbor. Second, this connection between ordinary and extraordinary gives us new sets of tactics to draw on for peacemaking—the diplomatic and the relational, international treaties and the shared histories and common heritages of the combatants, arms reductions and locally appropriate reparations. Understanding the connection between ordinary and extraordinary violence builds up our responses in times of war. It also calls Christians of all persuasions to a fuller accounting of our faith. For those inclined toward peacemaking as an international action, the connection is a chastening one, keeping us attuned toward the manifold ways peacemaking is an ongoing work in our daily lives. Those who have committed to peacemaking in ordinary life can continue to embrace it as a fragile and frequently broken venture, living into our commitment in times of global conflict, even when no outcome is clean. A peace which bears the name of the incarnation—reconciling both things above and things below—can attempt no less. Originally published by Myles Werntz at Christian Century, used with permission https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/ordinary-violence Illustration by Enrique Quintero