Germany, 1934. Eighteen months after Hitler’s rise to power, Plough’s founding editor warned of the threat of a second major war – and foresaw that the international peace movement, which he had championed, would be powerless to stop it. His reflections remain unsettlingly relevant today. Does pacifism suffice? I don’t think it is enough.When over a thousand people have been killed unjustly, without trial, under Hitler’s new government, isn’t that already war? When hundreds of thousands of people in concentration camps are robbed of their freedom and stripped of all dignity, isn’t that war? When in China and Russia millions starve to death while in other countries millions of tons of wheat are stockpiled, isn’t that war? When thousands of women prostitute their bodies and ruin their lives for the sake of money, isn’t that war? When millions of babies are murdered by abortion each year, isn’t that war? When people are forced to work like slaves because they cannot otherwise feed their children, isn’t that war? When the wealthy live in villas surrounded by parks while other families don’t even have a single room to themselves, isn’t that war? When some people build up enormous bank accounts while others earn scarcely enough for basic necessities, isn’t that war? When reckless drivers kill tens of thousands of people each year, isn’t that war? We do not advocate a pacifism that believes it can prevent future war. This claim is not valid; there is war right up to the present day. We do not represent a pacifism that believes in the elimination of war through the restraining influence of certain superior nations. We do not agree with a pacifism that ignores the root causes of war – private property and capitalism – and tries to bring about peace in the midst of social injustice. We have no faith in the pacifism held by businessmen who beat down their competitors, nor do we believe in a pacifism whose amiable representatives cannot live in peace with their own spouses. Since there are so many kinds of pacifism we cannot believe in, we would rather not use the word pacifism at all. But we are friends of peace, and we want to help bring about peace. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers!” If we really want peace, we must represent it in all areas of life. We cannot injure love in any way or for any reason. So we cannot kill anyone; we cannot harm anyone economically; we cannot take part in a system that establishes lower standards of living for manual workers than for academics. We must spurn anything that breeds hatred or oppression. In other words, we must live like Jesus. He helped everyone in body and soul. Our whole life must be dedicated to love. From Eberhard Arnold, talks on August 9 and 17, 1934, translated by Gladys Mason. Originally published at Plough, used with permission https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/reconciliation/is-pacifism-enough

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

I want to thank Doug Wilson for the challenging and thoughtful dialogue about the issue of guns, violence, and the Christian way. I’m sure Doug’s a busy guy, so in no way do I assume that he needs to, or desires to, keep responding to my posts. My flurry of blogs on the topic began as an effort to continue our Q Denver dialogue, but over the last couple posts, I’ve moved beyond the Wilson-Sprinkle debate and have tried to shore up some thoughts on the topic in general. In any case, this will probably be my last post for a while on the topic. So I’d love to end where we began: by looking at the scriptural and theological support for what I call a Christocentric nonviolent ethic. But first, let me state a few things in summary form about our dialogue. I don’t view the gun control debate to be central to the Christian conversation about violence and nonviolence. Whether “more guns means less crime” or “more crime” is a step sideways in the discussion about Christian ethics. Even if “more guns” does “mean less crime,” this doesn’t make “more guns” the Christian way. As I’ve said before, just because something might beeffective doesn’t make it faithful to Jesus. There is a certain logic to stuffing every murderer and pedophile and thief in a gas chamber, and this might lessen crime and make society a better place. But this doesn’t mean it’s the Christian thing to do. The whole “love your enemies” nonsense pretty much throws a wrench in that engine. I actually haven’t decided on what I think about gun control and gun violence. Based on the research I’ve done, I would certainly lean toward more gun control as a way to lessen gun violence, but I still have a lot more work to do. And I certainly believe that America is infected with a militaristic spirit, which is celebrated on a national level yet mourned when it blows back in our faces on an individual level. Such spirit inevitably spawns societal violence. In any case, as a gun-owner myself (I own more guns than Doug Wilson; hippee ki-yay…!), I’m certainly not against guns per se. At the same time, my values as a Christian are not shaped by the 2nd amendment, which, as a man-made law, is neither here nor there. I sort of shrug my shoulders at how earthly kingdoms try to rule the world—the Babylons and Romes and Americas of our day. King Jesus rules over all, and this will become very clear in due time. As stated throughout my previous blogs, it’s a shame when the discussion of Christian ethics cites a few verses out of context and then spends the bulk of its attention drumming up theoretical scenarios to try to show the impossibility—or at least inconsistency—of the nonviolent way. To be blunt, most American Christians assume a secular narrative about how we should use lethal force to defend our families, kill the enemy if he’s trying to kill us, and support our troops as our nation fights against worldwide enemies.Then, when faced with a scripturally based nonviolent ethic, they turn to theoretical scenarios to show that this won’t work. It’s odd that I’m the one who is often ridiculed for suggesting a nonviolent ethic; ridiculed by Christians. Our whole method of going about constructing a Christian view of violence and nonviolence (and gun control) is deeply syncretistic. I’ve still yet to see a compelling case, driven by Scripture, biblical theology, and early church history, for using violence as a Christian way to defeat or confront evil—that is, stopping bad guys from doing bad things. Almost every argument I’ve seen is profoundly utilitarian, secular, and almost completely (sometimes completely) ignores the nature of Jesus’s upside down kingdom. It usually comes down to cultural assumptions salted with a few (mainly Old Testament) verses taken out of context, which are then baptized in the bloody images from Revelation. So, let me lay out my reasons for advocating for Christocentric nonviolence in the briefest way I can. The evidence for my following points can be found in my book Fight: A Christian Case for Nonviolence [now titled, Nonviolence: The Revolutionary Way of Jesus]. 1. Jesus’s vocation as “Messiah” was loaded with militaristic expectations. The Jews expected a military conqueror who would destroy his enemies. Jesus’s posture and teaching was diametrically opposite to these militaristic expectations. In other words, Jesus constructed an intentional paradigm shift designed to create new ethical categories for how Yahweh followers are to confront evil. People who say that Jesus and his followers didn’t use violence because they were a small group and it wouldn’t have worked against the massive Roman empire should stop saying they believe in a divine Messiah. There’s nothing in the New Testament that shuns violence for utilitarian reasons. 2. Jesus never acted violently to fight injustice or defend the innocent. And there were many innocent people suffering right under his nose in first-century Palestine. Jesus endured unjust accusations and physical attacks, and yet he never responded in kind. He was spit upon, punched, slapped (Matt 26:67), and had his head pounded with a stick (Matt 27:30), yet he never used violence to defend himself or attack his perpetrator. Jesus therefore models his own command to not “violently resist evil…but turn the other cheek.” Jesus was tortured and crucified unjustly for treason, yet he offers only forgiveness and love toward his enemy. Jesus’s life is peppered with violent attacks, yet he never responds with violence. He embraces suffering, not because he is weak, but because suffering contains more power in defeating evil than using violence, and suffering is the pathway to resurrection glory (Rom 8). In doing so, Jesus shattered all Jewish expectations of how a Messiah should act. It’s not that Jesus just happened to act nonviolently. Rather, he directly and intentionally demilitarized the meaning of messiah and kingdom. 3. Jesus taught his followers to follow the same rhythm of nonviolence and enemy-love. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also” (Luke 6:27-29). Whenever violence is mentioned, it’s always shunned. There’s no biblical evidence that only some of our enemies are to be loved, or that we should love our nonviolent enemies, but kill the ones who are trying to harm our families or our nation. Jesus’s countercultural commands are unqualified and absolute. And whenever the disciples try to confront evil with violence, they are rebuked (Luke 9; 22). Now, some will say that Jesus’s nonviolent journey to the cross was necessary for Jesus to atone for our sins. He had to suffer; he had to die. His nonviolence was theologically necessary not practically mandatory for all. But the Bible says that it was both… 4. Jesus’s nonviolent journey to the cross was both theological and ethical. Yes, Jesus had to die, so he chose not to resist his death. But NT writers view his nonviolent journey to the cross as a pattern for believers to follow. 1 Peter 2, Romans 12, Philippians 2, and other passages draw upon Jesus’s nonviolent journey to the cross as a model for believers to follow. The sheer volume of NT commands that flow out of Jesus’s teaching andposture in the face of violence is striking. “Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse” (Rom 12:12:14) “Do not repay anyone evil for evil…” “Never avenge yourselves…” If your enemies are hungry, feed them, if they are thirsty, give them something to drink” “Overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:17-21) When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly” (1 Cor 4:12-13) “Let your gentleness be known to everyone” (Phil 4:5) “See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all” (1 Thess 5:15). “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten” (1 Peter 2:21-23). “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless” (1 Pet 3:9) “strive for peace with everyone” (Heb 12:14). The author of Hebrews commends believers for “joyfully accepting the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” (Heb 10:34). Again, all of these commands flow out of the life and teaching of Christ; what he said and what he did; what he taught and how he lived—especially in his last days as he journeyed to the cross. By far, the most dominant WWJD moment in the entire New Testament is when later writers referred back to Jesus’s nonviolent teaching. There is no single ethical theme that garnered as much interest among our inspired authors as Jesus’s nonviolent posture. That’s kinda huge. 5. Even though injustice and evil were rampant in the first century, there’s no verse in the New Testament that commands or allows believers to use violence to confront evil or defend the innocent. Some say: using violence to defend the innocent or defend yourself is never forbidden in the New Testament, and therefore it’s okay. But given the dominant and pervasive rhythm of Jesus’s nonviolent posture and countercultural teachings on how we are to treat our enemies, I believe the burden of proof lies with those who think that violence can be used against our enemies in certain circumstances. There are many more passages which would suggest that Christians shouldn’t use violence against their enemies (Matt 5; Luke 6; Rom 12; the book of Revelation), compared to possible passages that would permit a believer to use violence. 6. The pre-Constantine early church almost unanimously read the New Testament the same way I do. This is striking. Shocking, actually, and profoundly so. The early church could hardly agree on anything. They couldn’t even agree on the nature of Christ or which books should be in the Bible! But when it came to the question of killing, whenever early church theologians (whose writings we have) address the question of whether Christian should kill, they all say “no!” Origin, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athenagoras, Lactantius, Arnobius, and others always condemned killing; Christians should never kill. They even went out of their way to distinguish between unjust and just killing—that is, killing bad people who deserve it. Yet Christians aren’t ever to kill, even if they deserve it. Across the board, killing is always and everywhere forbidden. Christians should never kill. Here’s just one example from Lactantius: When God forbids killing, he doesn’t just ban murder, which is not permitted under the law even; he is also forbidding to us to do certain things which are treated as lawful among men. No exception at all should be made: killing a human bing is always wrong because it is God’s will for man to be a sacred creature (Lactantius, Divine Institutes). Anyway, that’s a 1,000 word summary of my 70,000 word book, and the most concise way I could sum up a very complicated topic. I fear that my non-pacifist friends have not appreciated the upside down rhythm of the New Testament’s prescribed method of dealing with evil. And, as I said before, I have yet to see a compellingChristian case made for the sanctity of using violence against evil. One that makes sense of the nonviolent posture and teaching of Christ, the New Testament’s pervasive repetition of Jesus’s nonviolent commands, and the early church’s strikingly unified celebration of this ethic. The early church would have yawned at this blog. To be honest, I tend to ho-hum all the theoretical scenarios thrown my way, in light of such rich and multilayered Christian reasons for advocating a nonviolent way of life. Faithfulness, folks. Jesus calls us to faithfulness, not perceived effectiveness. When I face my Savior, I want him to know that I tried my hardest to live a faithful life which sought to replicate his own life on earth. Originally published by Preston Sprinkle at Theology in the Raw, used with permission https://theologyintheraw.com/nonviolence-in-brief/

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

The picture above captures me frantically running around during basic training at the Air Force Academy (Summer 2010). I had heard that it was said, “war is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.” I also believed in the Bible, but it seemed to be lacking color. It is hard to forget the summer after my first year at the Academy. After an arduous freshman year at the base of the Rockies in Colorado Springs, I received the sweet reward of visiting one of my dearest friends from growing up in Quito, Ecuador as a “missionary kid.” As we sat at the dinner table his family asked me what the Academy was like and my instinctual response involved performing air push-ups while seated and spewing John Stuart Mill’s famous words from the depths of my mind. Everyone had a good laugh and pointed out the extreme evidence of my thorough brainwashing. My first year of college had cleverly customized my core. Just war quotes did not always flow freely from my mouth. I had examined the differing views on Christian participation in war only one time, for a high-school English essay. To be honest, the default position on the Christian attitude regarding war embedded the conclusion to that essay far before I gave credence to unbiased research. Throughout high-school I had developed an interest in service, and the time quickly came to fill out those frightful college applications. I fervently populated application forms with my dreams of grandeur and used lines like, “I desire to be part of something far bigger than myself.” I wanted to be a world changer and my dreams neatly fit through the military door I perceived God had opened. The Academy seemed a world away, but off I flew. During my sophomore year at the Academy something began to itch and stir. I flew down to visit my parents who had moved to Haiti. Witnessing the intensity of need and suffering in that earthquake-stricken country drove me to a fretful realization that I lacked a vision for my education. In response, I postponed the Academy and flew off to Mozambique to work with a Christian non-governmental organization. My time in Africa culminated with me standing in a crowd of expats staring at a recently opened hospital. The wards were full, but there was not nearly enough medicine for the patients, and the administrator struggled to find food for his own staff. I had spent countless hours trying to get this hospital in operating condition after flooding, but I felt frustrated and fruitless. My efforts seemed to have no impact. I got on another plane with my tail between my legs and flew to my family in Minnesota. When I returned to the U.S. I reapplied to the Air Force Academy and considered some other options for college. I even had some time to ask the people around me what they thought about Christians serving in the military. With one lonely exception, the voices collectively recited the default position I had always heard. I heeded the majority position and off I flew back to Colorado. During my last two years of college I developed great friends, did well in school, and bounced around churches. But, to be honest, despite a desire to walk in holiness and purity with the Lord, my life was a perfect illustration of the lukewarm believer. This spiritual sloppiness carried forward with me as I moved on to Massachusetts to attend Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government for graduate studies. Graduate school bombarded me with new experiences and ideas. Although finding a church was at the top of my priorities, I always found a reason to move on to the next thing. I pressed forward with my studies and placed my hope in the plotline of my career, but I could not shake a sense of spiritual disarray and loneliness. One fateful morning I walked into a biblical Greek class offered in Harvard Yard taught by Dr. Finny Kuruvilla. He informed the students that reading the Bible in Greek is similar to reading passages in full color instead of black and white. I am colorblind so this hooked me. As I endeavored to study the Bible in its original language something surprising happened: I found a church fellowship who strove for obedience to God’s word, and I learned about early Christianity. The things I began reading made complete sense in a stunningly obvious way: the early Christians took the scriptures literally and seriously and did not provide contrived explanations to dismiss demanding teachings. They stood for non-resistance and peacemaking (Matthew 5:33-48). It is difficult to identify a piece of evidence that summarizes over 300 years of early Christian writings, but even the the Council of Nicaea presided over by emperor Constantine affirmed that Christians had cast aside their military girdles in response to Christ’s call (read the 12th Canon), placed their hope and efforts in His church, and chose to sacrificially serve those afflicted by war and injustice (1 Timothy 2:1-4). I could not say the same. An internal earthquake kept me up at night for months thinking about the implications of Jesus’ summons and the gospel of His kingdom. My whole life I had placed my hope in the plot of my career aligning with God’s will, but I had neglected simple truths. After a period of discipleship and fellowship with a faithful people, I had no excuses left to ignore the simplicity of Scripture. My sentiment echoed Martin of Tours, an early conscientious objector, “Hitherto I have faithfully served Caesar. Let me now serve Christ.” I could not continue in military service and take an oath of allegiance to words that contradicted a Nazarene with the eternal perspective. I explored different avenues to leave the military, but for a legion of reasons, applying as a conscientious objector and possibly taking on educational debt was my only option. Large cups of coffee got me through long nights of assembling a sixty-page application to leave the Air Force. My heart pounded in the moments leading up to the official submission of my application; there was no going back. On the one hand, it was agonizing to share my new convictions with many people I love, respect, and cherish who dutifully support and serve in the military. But on the other hand an overwhelming confidence and peace surrounded a new-found hope in the story of the Messiah who conquered evil with love. The high-school dreams of grandeur I chased throughout college and beyond pale in comparison to living as citizen of His kingdom. After a brief period at a base in California following my graduate studies, the Secretary of the Air Force approved my request for separation, and I received an honorable discharge. The decisions high-schoolers make will follow them forever. During college my thirst for righteousness was slowly quenched with laxity and other distractions I chose to follow. I wish I could replace the many hours I spent in devotion to government training with prayerful study of Scripture. Since I cannot, I will do everything I can to persuade others to learn from my mistakes and strive to compensate for lost time. I can say with confidence that out of all the kingdoms, states, governments, and military strategists I have studied, the empire that Jesus founded upon love is the greatest. I now seek to serve Christ through being a part of Sattler College and raising an army to bring forth His kingdom to all nations. In the picture above, an overwhelming joy had come over me by the time Dr. Kuruvilla was called to be a witness at my conscientious objection trial (3:41 pm on April 13, 2017). Many voices had vied for my attention in this journey but now Jesus’ words rang loudest of all: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” The simplicity of Scripture had at last filled my faith with color. Originally published at Sattler College, used with permission https://sattler.edu/blog/2017/11/6/color-vision-of-a-conscientious-objector

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

I finally feel free to admit it. I am (mostly) pacifist – I say mostly because my beliefs and thoughts have’t been field tested yet. Before you think I’m crazy and buy me a plane ticket to Pennsylvania to live with the Amish, let me share a few of the reasons why I am pacifist and clear up some misconceptions about pacifism. 1. Where you start determines where you will end, and I want to start with Jesus. Whenever I mention that I am pacifist, one of the first things people say to me is something along these lines: “What if someone attacked your wife and the only way to save her was to kill her attacker?” or “What if killing 10 people saved the lives of 1,000?” These hypothetical situations are intended to reveal the ridiculousness of my non-violence. They are fantastical situations that make violence seem like the only answer. Simply put, I don’t answer these questions, because I want an ethic based on the person, work, and character of Jesus, not hypothetical situations. If we start with hypothetical situations, we can justify just about anything under the sun. But if we start with Jesus, there is a clear trajectory. He came to fulfill the law and the prophets (Matt 5:17), said that being angry with our brother or sister was analogous to murder (Matt 5:21), taught us to love and pray for our enemies (Matt 5:44), and to bless rather than retaliate (Luke 6:27-31). In his death on the cross, he submitted to the violent means of the world and triumphed them, not with more violence, but with resurrection. When I look at the life and teachings of Jesus, I see him choosing non-violence instead of violence, extending love to everyone, not just those in his tribe. And I want to be like Jesus. So I start with Jesus and I trust that if I follow him, he will give me wisdom to discern the various situations I will find myself in. I do think the hypothetical situations betray how deeply pragmatism has influenced they way we think. The gospel of America is “The ends justify the means.” So if we happen to protect our family, but kill 20 people in the process, then it was a good thing. If violence gets us to the end or the goal that we want, then violence is a necessary means. When I read Jesus, he doesn’t seem very pragmatic to me. In feeding the 5,000, wouldn’t it have been better for him to teach the crowd efficient farming techniques? In healing the blind man, did he really have to put spit-laden mud in his eyes? “You can see, now go wash your face!” In fact, Judas was chastised for his pragmatism, wanting the woman’s perfume to be sold and the money given to the poor. Instead, Jesus let her pour it on his feet and head. The ways of Jesus are not the ways of the world. And when we begin to follow him, it is inevitable that we will be at odds with the world. 2. Pacifism is not abdication and it’s not “the easy way out.” For many, when they hear that I am pacifist, they think that I don’t care about the poor, weak, marginalized, hurting, and oppressed. People assume that my choice to avoid violence means that I am unable to care for those might be living under a dictatorship. But pacifism isn’t abdication and it isn’t indifference. In fact, I care deeply for the plight of the poor, weak, and marginalized. I want to see that they find freedom from the ills of society and from their oppressors. I want to see justice roll down the mountains like a river. And I want to pursue that justice through peaceful, non-violent means. If anything, my choice to be a pacifist does not make my life easier but calls me to a new level of creativity and imagination. To seek peace and justice without violence is not a common solution in our day and age. Our culture is so used to seeing violence as a means to solve problems that the idea of peace-making seems outdated and outright ridiculous. As a pacifist, I am committed to justice for all without the use of violence. And that is not easy. 3. I don’t have it all figured out. I am usually hesitant to label myself pacifist at all because it leads people to believe that I have it all figured out, that I’ve thought through every nuance and am able to stand behind each tenet. I wish I could say I was that thorough in my thinking, but I’m not. I sometimes still watch violent movies and enjoy seeing the bad guy beat up. I enjoy playing video games where I am the hero and the journey to justice is with fists and feet. I really like The Walking Dead and I’m pretty sure, in the zombie apocalypse, all pacifists either die or give up their pacifism pretty quickly. Do these examples reveal how far from pacifism I truly am? Maybe – I don’t know. I’m a work in progress and I don’t have it all figured out. I’m thankful that Jesus walks with me and is patient with me as I work out what it means to be a disciple in the 21st century. Originally published at The Two Cities, used with permission. https://www.thetwocities.com/practical-theology/why-i-am-mostly-pacifist/

“At times of crisis it is a natural human reaction to turn to the past for support.” [1] These words were written by evangelicals, to evangelicals. In 1983. Wait—1983? But Ronald Reagan was president at the time. What could possibly have been the source of evangelical angst back then? In fact, the causes were many. The wounds of Vietnam and Watergate were still fresh, the economy seemed on precarious footing, and the threat of nuclear annihilation persisted. Add to that evangelical concerns about their nation’s “flight from morality and godliness”—witness “the collapse of discipline in the schools, the spread of pornography, the strident voices proclaiming ‘rights’ for homosexuals and ‘freedom’ for abortion, along with the manifest presence of great social injustices.” In response to these uncertain times, American evangelicals looked to the past for guidance—specifically, to a time when America seemed truly to have been a “Christian nation.” In the wake of the recent Bicentennial, evangelical popular culture was rife with paeans to the nation’s Christian heritage. As they began to mobilize as a political movement, conservative evangelicals eagerly embraced an unabashed Christian nationalism. It was in the midst of this anxious yet celebratory moment that three prominent Christian historians—Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden—penned The Search for Christian America. At the time, they shared many of their fellow evangelicals’ concerns about the state of American culture. But as professional historians, they also harbored concerns about the mythical past that evangelical Christians were inventing. Knowing that views of the past shaped perceptions of the present, these three authors felt the need to set the record straight. There was “no lost golden age to which American Christians may return,” they insisted. Rather, a careful study of history made clear that “early America does not deserve to be considered uniquely, distinctly or even predominately Christian”—that is “if we mean by the word ‘Christian’ a state of society reflecting the ideals presented in Scripture.” To begin with, they urged Christians to reconsider the very notion of a “Christian nation.” “How much action is required to make a whole society Christian?” the authors pondered. And the flip side: “How much evil can a society display before we disqualify it as a Christian society?” When it comes to the Puritans, for example, should one focus on their desire to fashion a godly society? Or should one look to their theft of Native American lands, their displacing and slaughtering Native Americans whenever it suited their purposes, not to mention their persecution of Quakers, whose only crime was seeking to worship God according to their conscience. Similar questions could be asked of Revolutionary patriots and antebellum Americans, they maintained. Beyond these concerns, the authors raised a theological question: Is it “ever proper to speak of a Christian nation after the coming of Christ?” Is there any justification for ascribing to America the special status that Israel enjoyed in the Old Testament scriptures? Clearly they felt the idea of Christian America could do more harm than good. It is important to note that Noll, Hatch, and Marsden were not writing as secular critics of evangelicalism. They identified as evangelicals, and made clear that they, too, shared many of their fellow evangelicals’ concerns. However, they feared that by promoting the myth of Christian America, American Christians in fact weakened their own public witness, and paradoxically contributed to the secularization of American society. How so? They warned that misperceptions of the past served as stumbling blocks to effective Christian witness. “Positive Christian action does not grow out of distortions or half-truths,” they contended. “Such errors lead rather to false militance, to unrealistic standards for American public life today, and to romanticized visions about the heights from which we have fallen.” Perhaps more perniciously, a mythical view of “Christian America” discouraged “a biblical analysis of our position today.” Here’s how they explained what was at stake: “If we accept traditional American attitudes toward public life as if these were Christian, when in fact they are not, we do the cause of Christ a disservice. Similarly, if we perpetuate the sinful behavior and the moral blind spots of our predecessors, even if these predecessors were Christians, it keeps us from understanding scriptural mandates for action today.”By conflating a certain understanding of American history with scriptural revelation, proponents of “Christian America” risked idolizing the nation and succumbing to an “irresistible temptation to national self-righteousness.” They also sacrificed any ability to offer a scriptural critique of the cultural values they themselves embraced. And this, ultimately, leads to secularization—for “uncritically patriotic Christians” are no longer able to articulate a prophetic critique of their own culture, or of any religious impulse that “does not have its ultimate end in the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.” What, then, might a Christian understanding of the nation look like? To begin with, it would reject any notion that the United States, or any other nation since the coming of Christ, occupies a unique position as God’s chosen people. It would recall that God’s people, wherever they find themselves, were to be “strangers and pilgrims”—good citizens, yes, but always remembering that their real home lies elsewhere. And Christians must also remember that they will be judged not according to what they profess, but rather according to how they act. Thus, the righteousness of any society should be judged “not merely by the religious professions that people make, but also by the extent to which Christian principles concerning personal morality and justice for the oppressed are realized in the society.” Normally historians would be gratified to find their work holds up well over time—three decades of enduring relevance is an impressive feat. Yet the book’s prophetic witness only endures because its lessons have been rejected by the majority of American evangelicals for over thirty years now. I know there are more recent and excellent studies of the idea of Christian America—John Fea’s Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? and John Wilsey’s One Nation Under God?: An Evangelical Critique of Christian America come to mind. But I still like to assign portions of The Search for Christian America in my American religious history courses—it’s a wonderful primary source, a window onto questions of faith and culture in the early years of the Religious Right. In recent years, however, I’ve been struck by how compellingly these words speak to our contemporary situation. That said, I do think that evangelicals would do well to ponder, once again, the warnings these historians have offered. Perhaps the notion of a “Christian America” does more harm than good, and hinders the witness of the Christian church—robbing Christians of a prophetic voice, and hastening the secularization they have long feared. 1. Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch, and George M. Marsden, The Search for Christian America (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1983), 13. All quotes are taken from the book’s introduction. Originally published by Kristin Du Mez, used with permission https://kristindumez.com/resources/still-searching-for-christian-america/

First, in the face of severe suffering such as that many Americans began to experience on September 11th, our human response is naturally a desire for the downfall and destruction of our enemies. But Jesus taught clearly that we are to love them and not to retaliate no matter how much we have been hurt (Matthew 5). While the political and military powers may strike back aggressively, in our hearts we are called to peace. We do not wage war with the weapons of the world. Moreover the Bible says we are to pray for our leaders (1 Timothy 2). We are to desire good for our enemies and wisdom for our leaders. Failure to pray at a time like this is gross neglect of a biblical command. Finally it is my hope that, whatever happens, the end result may promote the gospel that it may open doors. God has already moved to bring down Apartheid in South Africa and the Iron Curtain in Europe. Could it be that now he is moving to deconstruct the Islamic empire, eroding confidence in its leaders who are fueled by religious nationalism? How will the stiff opposition to Jesus and his message throughout the world of Islam melt away? Could it not be that the Lord is moving in our world to pave the way for his church? May the Lord provide one day in the near future safe and free access to every nation, especially those under the Muslim crescent! Should a disciple kill in wartime? I know that if you haven't already been asked this question you will be soon: Should a disciple kill during a wartime situation? I honestly was surprised that a lot of disciples feel that we should kill during a wartime situation.... I believe there is a distinction between thoughts of personal vengeance and a desire to see societal justice done. Personal vengeance is wrong (as are the sins of the heart that may go along with it -- hatred, spite, ill will), but a desire for societal control, protection, and even societal punishment of wrongdoers is not is it? And is it not inconsistent for us to believe in societal justice in theory or on a limited scale, but then not support the national means necessary to carry this out with reference to the current crisis? After all, Jesus does not command any of the soldiers converted in the first century to abandon their profession... Now how should I respond? Both make some excellent points, and if we are quick to dismiss them we are oversimplifying the issues. So let me begin by saying I am fully aware that the war issue is one on which disciples have a range of viewpoints. The fact that there are so many differing interpretations of the scriptures should give us pause. For example, while we do not desire the demise of our enemies--since we are praying for them--sometimes there are overlapping or even conflicting principles which must be weighed. If the enemy if threatening my wife, my love for her being stronger than my love for him will naturally impel me to protect her, possibly to the point of force. One could actually reason that in some situations it would be wrong not to use force. And yet when confronted with the arrest party, Peter, drawing the sword to protect his Master, was rebuked for resorting to arms! Another principle always to be considered is conscience. One disciple may be forbidden by his conscience to use deadly force even in self defense. For him to violate his conscience would be sin (Romans 14). In no way do I wish to be ungrateful for the blessings many of us enjoy under (powerful) military protection. Yet as one who has traveled the world, I know how most people live (less affluently than, say, the Americans). Often our lifestyles are maintained at the expense of others. The minor prophets speak about those who "sell the needy for a sandal." Then there is another dilemma: the destruction of innocent bystanders victimized by their own governments. They may not agree with their governments' policies; they may not be violent persons themselves; yet in a bombing attack, let's say, they will be killed. Even more shocking will be the toll on the women and children. No war is waged without these casualties as a by-product. Every war begins with rhetoric talk of justice and the building of some sort of consensus. I am not claiming to be above the fray--I was hurt by the attacks of September 11th, and deep down I admit I would like to see all terrorists get justice too. But history shows us that it is not always that simple. Perhaps that is why Jesus himself did not get involved in politics. I do not believe everyone in politics is in it for wrong motives. All these principles need to be taken into account, and we must respect others' views when they have studied the scriptures--even if they disagree with our own. So to respond: of course I have a problem with any disciple who enjoys killing others or who has not thought about the innocent who may suffer the "collateral damage." I would strongly encourage all Christians to study this out. The distinction between societal justice and personal vengeance is an important one--as eloquently articulated by the second question. The truth is, you can make a pretty good case for the pacifist position. But, you can also build a (weaker in my opinion) case for military service. I think, however, that only the pacifist position resonates with the teachings of Christ, as in Matthew 5. Christians since the fourth century have been divided on the war issue. And yet that is also the time that the church en masse became apostate, drifting far from the teachings and the spirit of Jesus. originally posted from Douglas Jacoby, used with permission. https://www.douglasjacoby.com/q-a-0121-disciples-and-war/

I am news reporter and communications specialist by profession, I am not a theologian or a scholar. But when I think about the peace movement of Jesus, or Jesus’ stance on non-violence, it gives me pause and honestly takes me on an interesting journey in my mind and heart. One of Isaiah’s prophesies (Isa 9:6) that points to Jesus literally calls him the Prince of Peace, right? And in the Beatitudes, he calls peacemakers blessed, saying those are the folks who will be called children of God (Matt 5:9). Jesus declares that when we become active peacemakers, we have the same heavenly Father he does. But then I think of the times that Jesus got mad. He cursed the fig tree that was flowering but not bearing fruit. Then he gets so upset he starts flipping tables and driving folks out of the temple (Mark 11:12-15). In John’s gospel, he takes the time to braid a whip to clear out the temple. So I ask myself, is that “non-violent”? As a news reporter, if I were assigned to cover this story of Jesus at the temple, I’d say this was a “violent attack at the temple by a man who had recently unleashed his anger on a fig tree”. And if I were to speak to witnesses who saw this incident, they would likely call it violent too. But is Christian pacifism the same thing as being passive? The term pacifism today carries the meaning of “having an attitude or policy of nonresistance” (Merrier-Webster Dictionary). However, the “word ‘pacifism’ is derived from the [Latin] word ‘pacific,’ which means ‘peace making’”,[1] which is not the same thing as being passive. Being passive denotes “accepting or allowing what happens or what others do, without active response or resistance” (Oxford Dictionary). Jesus was a peacemaker, but he was certainly not passive. Jesus was active in making peace. He actively made peace between people and his heavenly Father, and taught God’s image bearers to make peace with one another. It was in fact this very thing that the religious were stunned, offended, and angered with him for as he “ate with tax collectors and sinners, in hopes of getting the sick to The Doctor” (Mrk 2:17). Jesus actively removes and resists the things that destroy that peace. Here’s another thing that I find interesting, in the first chapter of Mark’s gospel, when Jesus heals the man with leprosy, in the NIV translation, verse 41 is says, “Jesus was indignant”. Other translations say “moved with anger”, while still others translate it as “moved with compassion”, or “feeling deeply sorry”. When I’m moved to want to commit an act of violence, it’s rarely because I’m moved with compassion or feeling deeply sorry. It is not to actively make peace. When I hear that a person has done something horrible to another person or animal that can’t defend themselves, I want them “to pay”. Of course, justice is Godly, but If I’m honest, what I really want most is vengeance, not peace. Or perhaps I just get frustrated in my circumstances, such as sitting in Atlanta traffic, or feel deeply offended by some insensitive and idiotic thing someone said. When this happens, I am not usually indignant, moved with compassion, or feel deeply sorry like Jesus … I simply want retribution. So as much as I’d like to justify the use of violence to “right” a “wrong”, it’s simply not the way of Jesus, who innocently died on a cross at the hands of his enemies and entrusted himself to the only one who can truly judge justly (1 Pet 2:23). Jesus, help me follow you. 1 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Pacifism”. First published Jul 6, 2006; substantive revision Sep 15, 2018, accessed March 25, 2023. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pacifism

Perhaps you are asking, “Where is the best place for me to begin to understand what Christian nonviolence is all about?” Start with Jesus. Start with the message that Matthew puts front and center as he writes his Gospel to focus us on Jesus. I am talking of course about the Sermon on the Mount (Mat 5-7). Using one of the new artificial intelligence apps that will soon be ever-present in most of our lives, I asked what are some of the things people have called the Sermon on the Mount, and instantly, it spit out this list: The Greatest Sermon Ever Preached The Sermon of the Kingdom The Magna Carta of Christianity The New Law The Ethics of the Kingdom The Radical Teachings of Jesus The Sermon of the Seven Blessings The Sermon of the Disciple's Calling. I was encouraged to see the Sermon of the Kingdom listed as the second item. For the last ten to twelve years, I have been teaching that a better term is the “Sermon on the Kingdom,” believing that the sermon is about living out the life of the Kingdom—doing the Father’s will on earth (now) as it is in heaven. The AI piece ended by talking about the enduring influence this sermon has had on Western civilization. While in some sense that may be true, I believe it has not had nearly the influence that it should have. Many are those who will pay lip service to its loftiness and grandeur, but few are those who believe its message can be lived in the modern world. Fewer still are those who will commit themselves to follow it with all their hearts. Preferring a broader way—a much safer and less demanding way—the “many” will turn away from this narrow path that tests our resolve, determination and spiritual conviction. So taught Jesus in the sermon itself. We desire to be those who want to be serious about living these words Jesus both spoke and embodied. There is no question about it, the sermon is a biblical Mount Everest, rising high above normal ethics, religion and spirituality. To stand at its base and contemplate living its message humbles every heart that gazes upon it clearly. To actually leave the security of the flatlands and climb toward its peak is to embark on a journey that can only be completed by the receiving of abundant grace. But that is the incredible news! There are no physical or intellectual requirements for this expedition. One does not have to be blessed with self-confidence, self- esteem, creativity or high energy to embark on the journey. As Jesus makes clear in the first moment of the message, only those who realize their utter inadequacy have a chance of ascending its great height. What is needed is not smarts, good looks, or strong sinews … but allegiance. This sermon is for those who dare to trust God, and to continue trusting in Him. Along the journey they will be called fools and fanatics, aliens and strange … but in the end, they will have no regrets and will have the Kingdom of every blessing the sermon promises. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you journey into the heart of this message: 1. These are the words of Jesus Christ. The Sermon on the Mount is so contrary to what we have learned in the world that there will be times when something inside us will fight against what we are hearing. But we must remember whose words these are. These are the words of the Alpha and the Omega, he who was in the beginning with God, he who was God. In Understanding the Sermon on the Mount, Harvey McArthur has a chapter on twelve different ways people interpret the sermon. He says he could have called this chapter “Versions and Evasions of the Sermon on the Mount” because eleven of the twelve give “reasonable explanations” why you really don’t have to do what the sermon says. If we are honest, we are all tempted to come up with some ourselves, but our allegiance is to the risen Lord. 2. This is a message for all of us. At one time Roman Catholic theology taught that some of the teachings here were only for certain monastic orders. Protestants later said the things here were just to make us realize how badly we needed grace. But both of these views are wrong as Jesus makes clear by the way the sermon ends: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Jesus is teaching these things so people would embody them. Only those who put them into practice are wise. 3. Every word here is spoken out of Jesus’ love and wisdom. In a bookstore one day I perused a book by a well-known psychologist. A line referring to the Sermon on the Mount caught my attention. “Jesus Christ had no right to tell people to do such a thing,” wrote the highly regarded counselor and self-help guru. Convinced that what Jesus was asking was harmful to people, he virtually demanded that Jesus apologize for at least one of his extreme statements. Such religion, he felt, was a burden to people. The psychologist was in error on two accounts: (1) his very limited view from his own finite perspective and (2) the wisdom and love of Jesus Christ behind every word in this sermon. Jesus Christ does not lay upon us a new law of heavy burden, but of incredible blessing. 4. The Beatitudes are at the beginning for a reason. The opening 12 verses are not just an italicized poetic introduction. They are ripe with power. In fact, everything else in the sermon flows from this. Without embracing these attitudes, and without a continual renewal of them, we have no chance of embodying this sermon. Trying to live Matthew 5-7 without the Beatitudes firmly in place in our hearts and minds is like trying to go up Mount Everest without hiking boots. 5. The Sermon on the Mount is more than the words of Jesus, it was his life. He lived this message before he ever preached it, and after he preached it, he kept living it. Even as he hung on a cross wrongfully accused and oppressed by the wicked hearts of people and their power structures, he pleaded to God for their forgiveness and loved his enemies to his death. To see the heart of this sermon is to see the heart of Jesus. As disciples, our basic goal is to follow our Lord and be like him, to model ourselves after him in every way. There has never before, or since, been a message like this one. The Sermon on the Mount is to religious thinking what the cross of Christ is to human effort. It towers above the best that people have to offer – or can even conceive. But like the cross, when it is lived, it will either be loved or hated. It is a double-edged sword, threatening and frightening to those who fight against it, but helping and healing to those who submit to its summons. Families will both be divided over it, and will be transformed by it. Some families may first be divided by it, and then later transformed by it (as was the case in Jesus’ own family). One thing is for sure, this sermon will neither generate change nor controversy until there are those who will dare to put it into practice. But when even a few throw off fear, pride, and insecurity, and put on the climbing gear of grace and start up the mountain, the world will feel the impact. It did two thousand years ago and it continues to do so.

Of all the silly claims sometimes made by atheists these days, surely one of the silliest is that Christianity was in no way determinative of the politics of Martin Luther King, Jr. Just take Christopher Hitchens’s claim that, on account of King’s commitment to nonviolence, in “no real as opposed to nominal sense … was he a Christian.” Wherever King got his understanding of nonviolence from, argues Hitchens, it simply could not have been from Christianity because Christianity is inherently violent. The best response that I can give to such claims is turn to that wonderfully candid account of the diverse influences that shaped King’s understanding of nonviolence in his Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, and then demonstrate how his Christianity gave these influences in peculiarly Christ-like form. King reports as a college student he was moved when he read Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience. Thoreau convinced him that anyone who passively accepts evil, even oppressed people who cooperate with an evil system, are as implicated with evil as those who perpetrate it. Accordingly, if we are to be true to our conscience and true to God, a righteous man has no alternative but to refuse to cooperate with an evil system. In the early stages of the boycott of the buses in Montgomery, King drew on Thoreau to help him understand why the boycott was the necessary response to a system of evil. But Thoreau was not the only resource King had to draw on. He had heard A.J. Muste speak when he was a student at Crozer, but while he was deeply moved by Muste’s account of pacifism, he continued to think that war, though never a positive good, might be necessary as an alternative to a totalitarian system. During his studies at Crozer he also travelled to Philadelphia to hear a sermon by Dr Mordecai Johnson, the president of Howard University, who had just returned from a trip to India. Dr Johnson spoke of the life and times of Gandhi so eloquently King subsequently bought and read books on or by Gandhi. The influence of Gandhi, however, was qualified by his reading of Reinhold Niebuhr and, in particular, Moral Man and Immoral Society. Niebuhr’s argument that there is no intrinsic moral difference between violent and nonviolent resistance left King in a state of confusion. King’s doctoral work made him more critical of what he characterizes as Niebuhr’s overemphasis on the corruption of human nature. Indeed, King observes that Niebuhr had not balanced his pessimism concerning human nature with an optimism concerning divine nature. But King’s understanding as well as his commitment to nonviolence was finally not the result of these intellectual struggles. No doubt his philosophical and theological work served to prepare him for what he was to learn in the early days of the struggle in Montgomery. But King’s understanding of nonviolence was formed in the midst of struggle for justice, which required him to draw on the resources of the African-American church. King was, moreover, well aware of how he came to be committed to nonviolence not simply as a strategy but as, in Gandhi’s words, his experiment with truth. For example, in an article entitled “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” for The Christian Century in 1960, King says by being called to be a spokesman for his people, he was: “driven back to the Sermon on the Mount and the Gandhian method of nonviolent resistance. This principle became the guiding light of our movement. Christ furnished the spirit and motivation while Gandhi furnished the method. The experience of Montgomery did more to clarify my thinking on the question of nonviolence than all of the books I had read. As the days unfolded I became more and more convinced of the power of nonviolence. Living through the actual experience of the protest, nonviolence became more than a method to which I gave intellectual assent; it became a commitment to a way of life. Many issues I had not cleared up intellectually concerning nonviolence were now solved in the sphere of practical action.” In the same article, King observes that he was also beginning to believe that the method of nonviolence may even be relevant to international relations. Yet he was still under the influence of Niebuhr, or at least at this stage in his thinking he could not escape Niebuhr’s language. Thus, even after he argues that nonviolence is the only alternative we have when faced by the destructiveness of modern weapons, he declares: “I am no doctrinaire pacifist. I have tried to embrace a realistic pacifism. Moreover, I see the pacifist position not as sinless but as the lesser of evil in the circumstances. Therefore I do not claim to be free from the moral dilemmas that the Christian nonpacifist confronts.” That would not, however, be his final position. In an article entitled “Showdown for Nonviolence,” which was published after his assassination, King says plainly: “I’m committed to nonviolence absolutely. I’m just not going to kill anybody, whether it’s in Vietnam or here … I plan to stand by nonviolence because I have found it to be a philosophy of life that regulates not only my dealings in the struggle for racial justice but also my dealings with people with my own self. I will still be faithful to nonviolence.” Thus Martin Luther King, Jr., the advocate of nonviolence, became nonviolent. Which means it is all the more important, therefore, to understand what King understood by nonviolence. What does it mean to be nonviolent? In a 1957 article for The Christian Century entitled “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” King developed with admirable clarity the five points that he understood to be central to Gandhi’s practice of nonviolent resistance. The next year saw the publication of Stride Toward Freedom, in which he expanded the five points to six. Those six points of emphasis are: that nonviolent resistance is not cowardly, but is a form of resistance; that advocates of nonviolence do not want to humiliate those they oppose; that the battle is against forces of evil not individuals; that nonviolence requires the willingness to suffer; that love is central to nonviolence; and, that the universe is on the side of justice. Though these points of emphasis are usefully distinguished, they are clearly interdependent. This is particularly apparent given King’s stress in Stride Toward Freedom that nonviolence requires the willingness to accept suffering rather than to retaliate against their enemies. King approvingly quotes Gandhi’s message to his countrymen (“Rivers of blood may have to flow before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood”) and then asks what could possibly justify the willingness to accept but never inflict violence. He answers that such a position is justified “in the realization that unearned suffering is redemptive.” King identified Gandhi as the primary source of his understanding of the “method” and “philosophy of nonviolence.” But he could not help but read Gandhi through the lens of the gospel, as his use of the word “redemption” makes clear. Gandhi read Tolstoy, who convinced him not only that the Sermon on the Mount required nonviolence, but equally importantly, Gandhi says he learned from Tolstoy that the willingness to suffer wrong is finally a more powerful force than violence. Gandhi’s understanding of satyagraha, the belief that truth and suffering have the power to transform one’s opponent, was Gandhi’s way to translate Tolstoy in a Hindu idiom. King read Gandhi and learned as a Christian how to read the Sermon on the Mount; or, to put it more accurately, he learned to trust the faith of the African-American church in Jesus to sustain the hard discipline of nonviolence. In King’s own words: “It was the Sermon on the Mount, rather than the doctrine of passive resistance, that initially inspired the Negroes of Montgomery to dignified social action. It was Jesus of Nazareth that stirred the Negro to protest with the creative weapon of love. As the days unfolded, however, the inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi began to exert its influence. I had come to see early that the Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to the Negro in is struggle for freedom.” Gandhi’s “method,” moreover, gave King what he needed to challenge Niebuhr’s argument that a strong distinction must be drawn between non-resistance and nonviolent resistance. Niebuhr had argued that Jesus’s admonition not to resist the evildoer in Matthew 5:38-42 means any attempt to act against evil is forbidden. Niebuhr, therefore, maintained that Gandhi’s attempt to use nonviolence for political gains was really a form of coercion. Through his study of Gandhi, King says he learned that Niebuhr’s position involved a serious distortion because: “true pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart.” King acknowledges that there are devout believers in nonviolence who find it difficult to believe in a personal God, but “even these persons believe in the existence of some creative force that works for universal wholeness.” For King, however, it is the cross that is: “the eternal expression of the length to which God will go in order to restore broken community. The resurrection is the symbol of God’s triumph over all the forces that seek to block community. The Holy Spirit is the continuing community creating reality that moves through history. He who works against community is working against the whole of creation.” Love, therefore, becomes the hallmark of nonviolent resistance requiring that the resister, not only refuse to shoot his opponent, but also refuse to hate him. Nonviolent resistance is meant to bring an end to hate by being the very embodiment of agape. King seemed never to tire of an appeal to Anders Nygren’s distinction between eros, philia, and agape to make the point that the love that shapes nonviolent resistance is one that is disciplined by the refusal to distinguish between worthy and unworthy people. Rather agape begins by loving others for their own sake, which requires that we “have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution.” Such a love means that nonviolent resistance seeks not to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win a friend. The protests that may take the form of boycotts and other non-cooperative modes of behaviour are not ends in themselves, but rather attempts to awaken in the opponent a sense of shame and repentance. The end of nonviolent resistance is redemption and reconciliation with those who have been the oppressor. Love overwhelms hate, making possible the creation of a beloved community that would otherwise be impossible. Accordingly nonviolent resistance is not directed against people, but against forces of evil. Those who happen to be doing evil are as victimized by the evil they do as those who are the object of their oppression. From the perspective of nonviolence, King argued that the enemy is not the white people of Montgomery, but injustice itself. The object of the boycott of the buses was not to defeat white people, but to defeat the injustice that mars their lives. The means must therefore be commensurate with the end that is sought. For the end cannot justify the means, particularly if the means involve the use of violence, because the “end is preexistent in the means.” This is particularly the case if the end of nonviolence is the creation of a “beloved community.” It should now be apparent why nonviolent resistance is “not a method for cowards; it does resist.” There is nothing passive about nonviolence since it requires active engagement against evil. Courage is required for those who would act nonviolently, but it is not the courage of the hero. Rather it is the courage that draws its strength from the willingness to listen. For the willingness to listen is the necessary condition for the organization necessary for a new community to come into existence. A people must exist whose unwillingness to resort to violence creates imaginative and creative modes of resistance to injustice. King not only learned what nonviolence is, but he learned to be nonviolent because he saw how nonviolence gave a new sense of worth to those who followed him in Montgomery. Stride Toward Freedom begins, therefore, with the lovely observation that though he must make frequent use of the pronoun “I” to tell the story of Montgomery, it is not a story in which one actor is central. Rather it is the “chronicle of 50,000 Negroes who took to heart the principles of nonviolence, who learned to fight for their rights with the weapon of love, and who, in the process, acquired a new estimate of their own human worth.” King’s account of nonviolence reflected what he learned through the struggle in Montgomery. He never wavered from that commitment. If anything the subsequent movement in Birmingham, the rise of Black Power and the focus on the poor only served to deepen his commitment to nonviolence. But these later developments also exposed challenges to his understanding of the practice of nonviolence that should not be avoided. King’s dilemma Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in as well as practiced nonviolent resistance because he was sure that to do so was to be in harmony with the grain of the universe. The willingness to suffer without retaliation depended on that deep conviction. King certainly drew on the rhetoric of American democratic traditions to sustain the goals of nonviolence, but American ideals were not the basis of his hope. Rather, as John Howard Yoder contends, King and Gandhi shared “a fundamental religious cosmology” based on the conviction that unearned suffering can be redemptive. This is a Hindu truth Gandhi recovered, but Yoder observes that it is also “a Christian truth, although not all the meaning of the cross in the Christian message is rendered adequately by stating it in terms that sound like Gandhi.” The Christian truth that Gandhi’s understanding of satyagraha does not adequately express, according to Yoder, is “if the Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power, then no calculation of other non-lamb roads to power can be ultimately authentic.” According to Yoder, because King understood nonviolence to be the bearing of Jesus’s cross, King was able to choose the path of vulnerable faithfulness with full awareness that such a path would be costly. King operated with the conviction that the victory had been won, but also with the realization that the mopping up might take longer than had been expected. Yet the success of Montgomery meant King could not avoid becoming the leader of a mass movement. To sustain the movement with a people who were not committed to nonviolence as King was committed meant results had to be forthcoming. For example, in an article entitled “Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom,” in which King defended nonviolence amid the riots of the 1960s as well as the stridency of the Black Power movement, he acknowledged the importance of results for sustaining the movement. Results are necessary because King understood well that he could not assume that everyone who follows him understood that nonviolence is not simply a tactic to get what you want, but it is a way of life. But results can take months or even years, which means those committed to nonviolence must engage in continuing education of the community to help them understand how the sacrifices they are making are necessary to bring about the desired changes. Accordingly, King suggests that the most powerful nonviolent weapon, but also the most demanding, is the need for organization. He observes: “to produce change, people must be organized to work together in units of power. These units might be political, as in the case of voters’ leagues and political parties, they may be economic units such as groups of tenants who join forces to form a tenant union or to organize a rent strike; or they may be laboring units of persons who are seeking employment and wage increases. More and more, the civil rights movement will become engaged in the task of organizing people into permanent groups to protect their own interests and to produce change in their behalf. This is a tedious task which may take years, but the results are more permanent and meaningful.” Yet Stewart Burns suggests King discovered that nothing fails like success. King, and those close to him in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, had been captured by the need to produce results. They had no time for the “tedious” work of organization. The movement had become a trap. Every “success” required upping the ante in the hope that those who followed King would continue to do so even if they did not share his commitment to nonviolence. In Montgomery, King had been able to rely on the black churches and, in particular, the women leaders of those churches for the “organizing miracle” that made Montgomery possible. But the further he moved beyond Montgomery, the more he had to depend on results in the hope that through results community might come into existence. King was well aware of this dilemma, as is evident from his anguished reflections on the destructive riots in Watts: “Watts was not only a crisis for Los Angeles and the Northern cities of our nation: It was a crisis for the nonviolent movement. I tried desperately to maintain a nonviolent atmosphere in which our nation could undergo the tremendous period of social change which confronts us, but this was mainly dependent on the obtaining of tangible progress and victories, if those of us who counsel reason and love were to maintain our leadership. However, the cause was not lost. In spite of pockets of hostility in ghetto areas such as Watts, there was still overwhelming acceptance of the ideal of nonviolence.” But as King well knew, nonviolence is not an “ideal” but must be embedded in the habits of a people across time that make possible the long and patient work of transformation necessary for the reconciliation of enemies. King was, after all, a creature of the African-American church. In the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” even as he expresses his disappointment concerning the failure of the church he declares, “Yes, I love the church.” For understandable reasons, however, King did not see that his understanding of nonviolence required the existence of an alternative community that could sustain the hard and “tedious” work of organization. From Yoder’s perspective, therefore, some of the later tactics of the civil rights movement designed to secure results without transformation of those against whom the protest was directed may have made King vulnerable to Niebuhr’s critique that nonviolent resistance is but disguised violence. King’s attempt to combine nonviolent resistance with a social movement that aimed to make America a “beloved community” did not fundamentally challenge the Constantinian assumptions that America is a Christian nation. Christian nonviolence presupposes the resources of faith. King assumed those resources were available in Montgomery, and they were. However, the more he became a “civil rights leader” rather a black Baptist minister – two offices that were indistinguishable in his own mind – he could not presume his followers shared his faith, making the demand for results all the more important. Yet King was sustained by his faith. In the last speech he gave before he was assassinated King began observing: “I guess one of the great agonies of life is that we are constantly trying to finish that which is unfinishable. We are commanded to do that. And so we, like David, find ourselves in so many instances having to face the fact that our dreams are not fulfilled. Life is a continual story of shattered dreams. Mahatma Gandhi labored for years and years for the independence of his people. But Gandhi had to face the fact that he was assassinated and died with a broken heart, because that nation that he wanted to unite ended up being divided between India and Pakistan as a result of the conflict between the Hindus and the Moslems.” King is obviously thinking about his own life and dreams. He seems to know that he too will die of a broken heart. Yet King tells the congregation that he can make a testimony not because he is a saint but because he is a sinner like all of God’s children. And yet, he writes: “But I want to be a good man. And I want to hear a voice saying to me one day, ‘I take you in and I bless you, because you tried. It is well that it was within thine heart.'” It is, moreover, well with us who live after King as he remains a great witness to the power of nonviolence. We still have much to learn from this extraordinary man. Article first appeared in ABC Religion & Ethics, posted on Stanley Hauerwas, used with permission https://stanleyhauerwas.org/the-only-road-to-freedom-martin-luther-king-jr-and-nonviolence/