Pacifists always bear the burden of proof. They do so because, as attractive as nonviolence may be, most assume that pacifism just will not work. You may want to keep a few pacifists around for reminding those burdened with running the world that what they sometimes have to do is a lesser evil, but pacifism simply cannot and should not be, even for Christians, a normative stance. Nonviolence is assumed to be unworkable, or, to the extent it works at all, it does so only because it is parasitic on more determinative forms of order secured by violence. Those committed to nonviolence, in short, are not realistic. In contrast to pacifism, it is often assumed that just war reflection is “realistic.” It is by no means clear, however, if advocates of just war have provided an adequate account of what kind of conditions are necessary for just war to be a realistic alternative for the military policy of a nation. Just war in the Christian tradition In the Christian tradition, realism is often thought to have begun with Augustine’s account of the two cities, hardened into doctrine with Luther’s two kingdoms, and given its most distinctive formulation in the thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. Thus Augustine is often identified as the Christian theologian who set the stage for the development of just war reflection that enables Christians to use violence in a limited way to secure tolerable order. It is assumed, therefore, that just war is set within the larger framework of a realist view of the world. With his customary rhetorical brilliance, Luther gave expression to the realist perspective, asking: “If anyone attempted to rule the world by the gospel and to abolish all temporal law and the sword on the plea that all are baptized and Christian, and that, according to the gospel, there shall be among them no law or sword – or the need for either – pray tell me friend, what would he be doing? He would be loosing the ropes and chains of the savage wild beasts and letting them bite and mangle everyone, meanwhile insisting that they were harmless, tame, and gentle creatures; but I would have the proof in my wounds. Just so would the wicked under the name of Christian abuse evangelical freedom, carry on their rascality, and insist that they were Christians subject neither to law nor sword as some are already raving and ranting.” Luther is under no illusions. War is a plague, but it is a greater plague that war prevents. Of course, slaying and robbing do not seem the work of love, but, Luther says, “in truth even this is the work of love.” Christians do not fight for themselves, but for their neighbour. So if they see that there is a lack of hangmen, constables, judges, lords, or princes, and find they are qualified they should offer their services and assume these positions. That “small lack of peace called war,” according to Luther, “must set a limit to this universal, worldwide lack of peace which would destroy everyone.” Reinhold Niebuhr understood himself to stand in this “realist” tradition. In his 1940 “Open Letter (to Richard Roberts),” Niebuhr explains why he left the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He observes that he does not believe that “war is merely an ‘incident’ in history but is a final revelation of the very character of human history.” According to Niebuhr, the Incarnation is not “redemption” from history as conflict because sinful egoism continues to express itself at every level of human life, making it impossible to overcome the contradictions of human history. Niebuhr, therefore, accuses pacifists of failing to understand the Reformation doctrine of “justification by faith.” From Niebuhr’s perspective, pacifists are captured by a perfectionism that is more “deeply engulfed in illusion about human nature than the Catholic pretensions, against which the Reformation was a protest.” Just war theory as limit to state action Paul Ramsey understood his attempt to recover just war as a theory of statecraft – that is, that war is justified because our task is first and foremost to seek justice, to be “an extension within the Christian realism of Reinhold Niebuhr.” Ramsey saw, however, that there was more to be said about “justice in war than was articulated in Niebuhr’s sense of the ambiguities of politics and his greater/lesser evil doctrine of the use of force.” That “something more” Ramsey took to be the principle of discrimination, which requires that war be subject to political purpose through which war might be limited and conducted justly – that is, that non-combatants be protected. Yet it is by no means clear if just war reflection can be yoked consistently to Niebuhrian realism. Augustine’s and Luther’s “realism” presupposed there was another city that at least could call into question state powers. For Niebuhr, realism names the development of states and an international nation-state system that cannot be challenged. Niebuhrian realism assumes that war is a permanent reality for the relation between states because no overriding authority exists that might make war analogous to the police function of the state. Therefore each political society has the right to wage war because it is assumed to do so is part of its divinely ordained work of preservation. “Realism,” therefore, names the reality that at the end of the day, in the world of international relations, the nations with the largest army get to determine what counts for “justice.” To use Augustine or Luther to justify this understanding of “realism” is in effect to turn a description into a recommendation. In an article entitled “Just War Theory and the Problem of International Politics,” David Baer and Joseph Capizzi admirably try to show how just war requirements as developed by Ramsey can be reconciled with a realistic understanding of international relations. They argue that even though a certain pessimism surrounds a realistic account of international politics, that does not mean such a view of the world is necessarily amoral. To be sure, governments have the right to wage war because of their responsibility to a particular group of neighbours, but that does not mean that governments have a carte blanche to pursue every kind of interest. “The same conception that permits government to wage war also restricts the conditions of legitimate war making … Because each government is responsible for only a limited set of political goods, it must respect the legitimate jurisdiction of other governments.” But who is going to enforce the presumption that a government “must respect the legitimate jurisdiction of other governments”? Baer and Capizzi argue that Ramsey’s understanding of just war as the expression of Christian love by a third party in defence of the innocent requires that advocates of just war should favour the establishment of international law and institutions to better regulate the conduct of states in pursuit of their self-interest. Yet Baer and Capizzi recognize that international agencies cannot be relied on because there is no way that such an agency can judge an individual government’s understanding of just cause: “absent effective international institutions, warring governments are like Augustine’s individual pondering self-defence, moved by the temptation of inordinate self-love.” Baer and Capizzi argue that a more adequate understanding of just war will combine a realist understanding of international politics with a commitment to international order by emphasizing the importance of just intention. This means that a war can be undertaken only if peace – understood as a concept for a more “embracing and stable order” – be the reason a state gives for going to war. The requirement that the intention for going to war be so understood is an expression of love for the enemy just to the extent that the lasting order be one that encompasses the interests of the enemy. My first reaction to this suggestion is: And people say that pacifists are unrealistic? The idealism of such realist justifications of just war is nowhere better seen than in these attempts to fit just war considerations into the realist presuppositions that shape the behaviour of state actors. The likes of Ramsey, Baer and Capizzi are to be commended for trying to recover just war as a theory of statecraft – that is, as an alternative to the use of just war as merely a check list to judge if a particular war satisfies enough of the criteria to be judged just. Yet by doing so, they have made clear the tensions between the institutions necessary for just war to be a reality and the presumptions that shape international affairs. For example: What would an American foreign policy determined by just war principles look like? What would a just war Pentagon look like? What kind of virtues would the people of America have to have to sustain a just war foreign policy and Pentagon? What kind of training do those in the military have to undergo in order to be willing to take casualties rather than conduct the war unjustly? How would those with the patience necessary to insure that a war be a last resort be elected to office? Those are the kind of questions that advocates of just war must address before they accuse pacifists of being “unrealistic.” Ultimately, I think the lack of realism about realism by American just war advocates has everything to do with their being American. In particular, American advocates of just war seem to presume that democratic societies place an inherent limit on war that more authoritarian societies are unable to do. While such a view is quite understandable, I would argue that democratic society – at least, the American version – is unable to set limits on war because it is democratic. Put even more strongly, for Americans war is a necessity to sustain our belief that we are worthy to be recipients of the sacrifices made on our behalf in past wars. Americans are a people born of and in war, and only war can sustain our belief that we are a people set apart. The Civil War as sacred war For Americans war is a necessity for our moral well being. Which means it is by no means clear what it would mean for Americans to have a realistic understanding of war. In his extraordinary book, Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War , Harry Stout tells the story of how the Civil War began as a limited war but ended as total war. He is quite well aware that the language of total war did not exist at the time of the Civil War, but he argues by 1864 the spirit of total war emerged and “prepared Americans for the even more devastating total wars they would pursue in the twentieth century.” Stout’s story of the transformation of the Civil War from limited to total war is also the story of how America became the nation called America. According to Stout: “Neither Puritans’ talk of a ‘city upon a hill” or Thomas Jefferson’s invocation of “inalienable rights’ is adequate to create a religious loyalty sufficiently powerful to claim the lives of its adherence. In 1860 no coherent nation commanded the sacred allegiance of all Americans over and against their states and regions. For the citizenry to embrace the idea of a nation-state that must have a messianic destiny and command one’s highest loyalty would require a massive sacrifice – a blood sacrifice … As the war descended into a killing horror, the grounds of justification underwent a transformation from a just defensive war fought out of sheer necessity to preserve home and nation to a moral crusade for ‘freedom’ that would involve nothing less than a national ‘rebirth’, a spiritual ‘revival’. And in that blood and transformation a national religion was born. Only as casualties rose to unimaginable levels did it dawn on some people that something mystical religious was taking place, a sort of massive sacrifice on the national altar.” The generals on both sides of the Civil War had been trained at West Point, not only to embody American might and power, but they were also taught to be gentlemen. The title of “gentlemen” not only carried with it expectations that the bearers of the title would be honourable, but they would also pursue their profession justly. They “imbibed” the code of limited war which demanded that they protect innocent lives and minimize destructive aspects of war. According to Stout they were even taught by Dennis Mahan, a professor of civil engineering, to use position and manoeuvre of interior lines of operations against armies rather than engaging in crushing overland campaigns that would involve civilian populations. Stout argues that Abraham Lincoln as early as 1862, prior to his generals, realized that the West Point Code of War would have to be abandoned. After Bull Run and frustrated by McClellan’s timidity, Lincoln understood that if the Union was to be preserved it would require that the war be escalated to be a war against both citizens and soldiers. In response to Unionists in New Orleans who protested Lincoln’s war policy, Lincoln replied: “What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or would you prosecute it in future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose water? Would you deal lighter blows than heavier ones? I am in no boastful mood. I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can, to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice.” Crucial to Lincoln’s strategy for the prosecution of the war against the population of the South was the Emancipation Proclamation which Lincoln signed on 22 September 1862. Lincoln’s primary concern was always the preservation of the Union, but the Emancipation Proclamation made clear to both sides that a way of life was at issue requiring a total war on all fronts. Emancipation blocked any attempt that an accommodation between the North and South could be found because now the war by necessity stood for moral aims which could not be compromised. Stout quotes Massachusetts’s abolitionist senator Charles Sumner who supported the Emancipation Proclamation as a “war measure” in these terms: “But, fellow-citizens, the war which we wage is not merely for ourselves; it is for all mankind … In ending slavery here we open its gates all over the world, and let the oppressed go free. Nor is this all. In saving the republic we shall save civilization … In such a cause no effort can be too great, no faith can be too determined. To die for country is pleasant and honorable. But all who die for country now die also for humanity. Wherever they lie, in bloody fields, they will be remembered as the heroes through whom the republic was saved and civilization established forever.” Stout’s book is distinguished from other books on the Civil War by his close attention to what religious figures on both sides were saying about the war. It was ministers of the Gospel that supplied the rhetoric necessary for the war to achieve its mythic status. To be sure, the South represented a more conservative form of Christianity than the North, as Christianity was recognized as the established religion in the Confederacy’s constitution, but for both sides, as Stout puts it, “Christianity offered the only terms out of which national identity could be constructed and a violent war pursued.” Stout provides ample examples of how Christians narrated the bloody sacrifice of the war, but Horace Bushnell’s contribution is particularly noteworthy for no other reason than his Christianity was liberal. Early in the war Bushnell suggested that morally and religiously a nation was being created by the bloodshed required by the war. According to Bushnell, through the shed blood of soldiers, soldiers of both sides, a kind of vicarious atonement was being made for the developing Christian nation. Such an atonement was not simply a metaphor, according to Stout, “but quite literally a blood sacrifice required by God for sinners North and South if they were to inherit their providential destiny.” Shortly after Gettysburg, Bushnell identified those who gave their lives in the war with the martyrs writing: “How far the loyal sentiment reaches and how much it carries with it, or after it, must also be noted. It yields up willingly husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons, consenting to the fearful chance of a home always desolate. It offers body and blood, and life on the altar of devotion. It is a fact, a political worship, offering to seal itself by martyrdom in the field.” As the toll of the war mounted the most strident voices calling for blood revenge came from the clergy. Thus Robert Dabney, at the funeral of his friend, Lieutenant Carrington, told his listeners that Carrington’s blood “seals upon you the obligation to fill their places in your country’s host, and ‘play the men for your people and the cities of your God,’ to complete the vindication of their rights.” One Confederate chaplain even prayed, “We should add to the prayer for peace, let this war continue, if we are not yet so humbled and disciplined by its trials, as to be prepared for those glorious moral and spiritual gifts, which Thou deignest it should confer upon us as a people.” Such a prayer makes clear that the war had become for both sides a ritual they had come to need to make sense of their lives. Stout’s account of the religious character of the Civil War, perhaps, is best illustrated by the most celebrated speech ever given by an American, that is, the Gettysburg Address. Stout observes that something “emerged from Gettysburg that would become forever etched in the American imagination. A sacralization of this particular battlefield would mark it forever after as the preeminent sacred ground of the Civil War – and American wars thereafter.” Stout is surely right, making these words all the more chilling: “It is for us the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” A nation determined by such words, such elegant and powerful words, simply does not have the capacity to keep war limited. A just war which can only be fought for limited political purposes cannot and should not be understood in terms shaped by the Gettysburg Address. Yet after the Civil War, Americans think they must go to war to insure that those who died in our past wars did not die in vain. Thus American wars are justified as a “war to end all wars” or “to make the world safe for democracy” or for “unconditional surrender” or “freedom.” Whatever may be the realist presuppositions of those who lead America to war those presuppositions cannot be used as the reasons given to justify the war. To do so would betray the tradition of war established in the Civil War. The unreality of war Realism is used to dismiss pacifism and to underwrite some version of just war. But it is not at all clear that the conditions for the possibility of just war are compatible with realism. At least, it is not clear that just war considerations can be constitutive of the decision-making processes of governments that must assume that might makes right. Attempts to justify wars begun and fought on realist grounds in the name of just war only serve to hide the reality of war. Yet war remains a reality. War not only remains a reality, war remains for Americans our most determinative moral reality. How do you get people who are taught they are free to follow their own interests to sacrifice themselves and their children in war? Democracies by their very nature seem to require that wars be fought in the name of ideals that make war self-justifying. Realists in the State Department and Pentagon may have no illusions about why American self-interest requires a war be fought, but Americans cannot fight a war as cynics. It may be that those who actually have to fight a war will – precisely because they have faced the reality of war – have no illusions about the reality of war. But those who would have them fight justify war using categories that require there be a “next war.” Pacifists are realists. Indeed, we have no reason to deny that the “realism” associated with Augustine, Luther and Niebuhr has much to teach us about how the world works. But that is why we do not trust those who would have us make sacrifices in the name of preserving a world at war. We believe a sacrifice has been made that has brought an end to the sacrifice of war. Augustine and Luther thought Christians might go to war because they assumed a church existed that provided an alternative to the sacrificial system war always threatens to become. When Christians no longer believe that Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient for the salvation of the world, we will find other forms of sacrificial behaviours that are as compelling as they are idolatrous. In the process, Christians confuse the sacrifice of war with the sacrifice of Christ. If a people does not exist that continually makes Christ present in the world, war will always threaten to become a sacrificial system. War is a counter church. War is the most determinative moral experience many people have. That is why Christian realism requires the disavowal of war. Christians do not disavow war because it is often so horrible, but because war, in spite of its horror – or perhaps because it is so horrible – can be so morally compelling. That is why the church does not have an alternative to war. The church is the alternative to war. When Christians lose that reality – that is, the reality of the church as an alternative to the world’s reality – we abandon the world to the unreality of war. Article first appeared in ABC Religion & Ethics. Posted at Stanley Hauerwas, used with permission https://stanleyhauerwas.org/the-end-of-just-war-why-christian-realism-requires-nonviolence/

Excerpt taken from Escaping The Beast: Politics, Allegiance, and Kingdom by Michael Burns, used with permission. Just two years later, in AD 313, an unimaginable blessing occurred. Constantine and his co-ruler Licinius made Christianity a legal religion in Rome. Overnight, the threat of persecution was gone. Over the next few years, state money flowed to restore seized land to the churches and build them places of worship. Constantine converted to Christianity (although he would not be officially baptized until he was on his deathbed), and its influence grew. It must have seemed like an incredible blessing. But was it? Earlier, in AD 244, the emperor of Rome, Phillip the Arab, wished to attend a Christian celebration of Easter along with his wife, who had become a Christian. The leaders of the church, however, would not allow him to partake in all aspects of the gathering. Unless he truly repented, walked away from his position of power, and submitted his allegiance to Jesus, he would have to stand with the visitors and leave the church when it was time to take communion. Unfortunately, this same level of commitment to the kingdom standard of separateness was not observed with Constantine. Once the church accepted the authority and support of the empire, it blurred the separation between state and kingdom. Before long, Constantine was inserting himself into church decisions and authority. He is often demonized today and charged with everything from deciding which books would be in the New Testament to changing the day of worship to Sunday, and many other things that are not true. But he did initiate a series of decisions that would lead the church down a path of compromise that would change the nature of the church faster than anyone might have imagined. Within a few decades, the church was intertwining itself with the state. They went from centuries of opposing military participation for Christians or violence of any kind for any reason, to allowing the Roman army to call itself Christian and persecute heretics for holding different beliefs. The distinction between the kingdom of God and the Roman empire blurred to the point that Rome became a nation under God in the mind of the church. Many Romans joined the church, but they were no longer held to strict allegiance to Jesus and his kingdom view of the world. Right doctrine, church membership, and obedience to the authority of the bishop were now the expectation. Constantine eventually exempted church leaders from paying taxes and called for formally paying church leaders a salary. They were also given the authority to decide many civil law cases, rather than people going before judges. Constantine did hold to the historic position of the church that people could not be coerced to be members. But by AD 380, Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity to be the official religion of Rome, outlawed all other religions, and began a program of destroying pagan temples and persecuting those who did not convert to Christianity. The church grew, but the kingdom was nowhere in sight. The actions of the church of the fourth century were at odds with the historic teaching of Christians in the first, second, and third centuries. A theologian named Ambrose rose to prominence in the latter half of the fourth century. He came from the schools of natural law and human logic and argued that Rome was a Christian nation and to defend the Roman Empire was to defend Christianity. He introduced the philosophy that if someone was in danger, it was immoral not to use violence to defend them if necessary. This was in stark contrast to the teaching of the first three centuries. Shortly after Ambrose, Augustine became the most influential leader in the Christian world. He taught that individuals could not control their sin and that it was up to the state to curb violence and keep order. War, he believed, was an inevitable tool that was a moral positive in the hands of a godly state. In his theology, it was now the state that would restore order in the world rather than the kingdom of peace. Augustine justified the use of violence by pointing to the violence of the Old Testament, though he did not advocate continuing other elements of the old covenant period such as animal sacrifice, a seemingly inconsistent position. He convinced the church to turn its back on the longstanding prohibition of violence in self defense, and he eventually came to advocate for coerced conversions. To justify the turn in philosophy toward embracing empire and advocating for violence and war, Ambrose and Augustine developed guidelines for “just war.” These principles are still largely accepted and followed to this day in much of Christendom, with only minor tweaks over the centuries. There have always been small groups that have held to the gospel of King Jesus and his kingdom of peace, operating as alternative societies. But since the revolution of Constantine, Ambrose, and Augustine, the face of Christianity to the world has been very different than it was for the three hundred years after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, and most of those small kingdom movements were harshly persecuted by the dominant strains of Christendom. As we continue to move forward, considering the role that Christians and the church can and should play in the world of politics, there is a reason that I have spent the first twelve chapters of this book talking primarily about the kingdom of God and very little about politics. For many Christians today, our vision of the kingdom is too small. If we do not grasp the vastness of the kingdom and what allegiance to Jesus truly demands, we are bound to develop grotesque caricatures of God’s kingdom rather than the radical vision of the future that it is supposed to be. We will create Christian movements that mix Christian morals with the methods of the world and sound godly but are a far cry from what the kingdom is to be. Without a biblical vision of how the kingdom should direct our lives, values, and passions, we will get off track rather quickly when we engage the world in difficult areas like politics and justice. Without the complete transformation of thinking that the kingdom is designed to bring about, we will be conformed, in one way or another, to the patterns of the world.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:41-47) We are called to actively love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. Do these words of Jesus nullify the Law? No, because the Law never commanded Israel to hate its enemies—although it only commanded them to love their neighbors (Lev 19:18). Still, there are multiple examples of love shown to enemies in the OT. We are challenged to go far beyond the minimum standard of social / familial decency (kindness to friends and family). We are to love even our enemies! The early church held to this teaching for three centuries: Justin Martyr: “We used to hate and destroy one another. We would not live with men of a different race because of their peculiar customs. However, now, since the coming of Christ, we live intimately with them. We pray for our enemies and endeavor to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live conformably to the good teachings of Christ.We do this to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God, the Ruler of all.” First Apology 14. Also: “We who formerly murdered one another now refrain from making war even upon our enemies.” ANF 1.176. Clement of Alexandria: “It is not in war, but in peace, that we are trained.” ANF 2.234. Tertullian: “We willingly yield ourselves to the sword. So what wars would we not be both fit and eager to participate in (even against unequal forces), if in our religion it were not counted better to be slain than to slay?" ANF 3.45. He adds, “The Christian does no harm even to his enemy.” ANF 3.45. Cyprian: “Wars are scattered all over the earth with the bloody horror of military camps. The whole world is wet with mutual blood. And murder—which is acknowledged to be a crime in the case of an individual—is called a virtue when it is committed wholesale. Impunity is claimed for the wicked deeds, not because they are guiltless, but because the cruelty is perpetrated on a grand scale!” ANF 5.277. Lactantius: “The Christian considers it unlawful not only to commit slaughter himself, but also to be present with those who do it.” Divine Institutes ANF 7.153. Also: “How can a man be righteous who hates, who despoils, who puts to death? Yet, those who strive to be serviceable to their country do all these things. ...When they speak of the ‘duties’ relating to warfare, their speech pertains neither to justice nor to true virtue.” ANF 7.169 Aristides: “They comfort their oppressors and make them their friends. They do good to their enemies.” ANF 10.276. Origen: “We are taught not to avenge ourselves upon our enemies. We have therefore lived by laws of a mild and wise character. Although able, we would not make war even if we had received authority to do so. Therefore, we have obtained this reward from God: that He has always fought on our behalf. On various occasions, He has restrained those who rose up against us and desired to destroy us.” Against Celsus 8. Lactantius: “Torture and godliness are widely different. It is not possible for truth to be united with violence or justice to be united with cruelty. …Religion is to be defended—not by putting to death—but by dying. It is not defended by cruelty, but by patient endurance.” Divine Institutes (ANF 7.156-157). The Didache: “If you love those who hate you, you will not have an enemy.” Didache 3 Chrysostom: “You should feel grateful to an enemy on account of his wickedness. This is so even if he is evil to you after receiving from you ten thousand kindnesses. For if he were not exceedingly evil, your reward would not be significantly increased. You may say that the reason you do not love him is because he is evil. However, that is the very reason you should love him. Take away the contestant, and you take away the opportunity for the crowns.” Homilies on Hebrews 19.5. Paul taught the same: Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ... Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 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.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom 12:14, 17-21). To illustrate, when the early Christian leader Polycarp was arrested, he first directed that food and drink be brought to the soldiers who were about to bring him to execution. Martyrdom of Polycarp 7:2 The observation of Ammianus Roman soldier and historian Ammianus Marcellinus (c.330-400 AD) noted that rival Christian parties exceeded wild beasts in their hostility toward one another! What changed in the 4th century? The state and the church become inseparably connected. From the disastrous 4th century till the present day In the fourth century, most of the Roman emperors professed to embrace Christianity. Nevertheless, they continued to kill their opponents (even family members) and to wage war—ignoring the teaching of Christ. At first, Christians refused to fight in their armies, as in earlier centuries, soldiers who became Christians refused to kill. However, in time the state church relaxed its teachings on nonresistance. Eventually, Augustine (354-430 AD) came up with a rationalization to defend both personal vengeance and war: It’s permissible to kill enemies as long as we still “love” them! As a result, fighting, killing and revenge became the norm in medieval “Christian” Europe. Professing Christians waged war against Muslims, pagans, and fellow “Christians.” They persecuted heretics (real or imagined), tortured people, and oppressed the weak in the name of God. Not surprisingly, Catholics and Reformers alike persecuted those genuine Christians who refused to go to war and who spoke out against torture and oppression. Some practicals: Act lovingly towards enemies, strangers, and people we do not like. Take some time to compare Paul’s teaching with Jesus’s. Invest in learning some early church history, and how the church embraced the teaching of the world regarding enemies. Refuse to take credit for behaving kindly and decently to friends and family. If you’re disturbed by any of these teachings, take time to pray. originally posted from Douglas Jacoby, used with permission. https://www.douglasjacoby.com/som-19-enemies/

Anchor-Cross Publishing and Followers of the Way sponsored a debate on the subject of just war. They sought to bring leading thinkers together to discuss the issue in historic Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston. Speaking on behalf of just war were Dr. Peter Kreeft (professor of philosophy at Boston College) and Dr. J. Daryl Charles (Berry College). Speaking against just war and for biblical nonresistance were David Bercot and Dean Taylor. Originally published by Followers of the Way, used with permission https://youtu.be/K4xQaDDKY7k

In the context of the Kingdom of God, Jon Sherwood takes a look at the passion week of Christ in the gospel of John to show how Jesus confronted the kingdoms of the world and subverted their power by overcoming death itself, not by force or war, but through peaceful, non-retaliatory self-sacrificing love and resurrection from the dead. Sermon from Jon Sherwood originally delivered to Asheville Church Network, used with permission: https://www.jonsherwood.com/post/kingdom-of-god-subversive-confrontation

One of the abiding difficulties of living as a disciple of Jesus and attempting to teach others about the way of Jesus is the wall of resistance that one meets when Jesus’ way of peacemaking comes up for discussion. It appears that the world has so thoroughly groomed us in the way of violence that I might as well be an alien from another planet when I speak of this – even among other Christians. This impulse was driven home for me when my church in Accra, Ghana had conversations around what to do in an armed robbery scenario, given the slow response of our already overstretched police forces. It was such a given that one had to defend one’s family through a ​“kill or be killed” approach that there was very little room for imagining a different approach. First Century Expectations of a Messiah But perhaps that state of affairs is a symptom of a disease with which centuries of Christendom has left the church. And that disease is a spiritualization of Jesus so we can ignore his context and background. So we will attempt to cure a bit of that here and help establish the fact that the way of peace is not a bug but a feature of Jesus’ life and ministry and of our discipleship after him. You see, in the world of first century Palestine that Jesus lived in, one thing that everybody expected of a ​“Messiah,” aka ​“the Chosen One,” was that he would lead the Jewish people to violently overthrow the Roman empire that dominated them at the time. Such a victory would have signified that Yahweh was indeed with this ​“Chosen One” and with his people. What many Christians are not aware of while reading the Gospels is that there were indeed many ​“messiahs” who came before Jesus and many who came after him. Many such ​“messiahs” only ended up suffering a violent death. If you are a well-groomed spiritualizing reader of the Bible like I was brought up to be, you might not notice that the fate of two of such revolutionaries is mentioned by Gamaliel the Pharisee in Acts 5:34 – 37 during the persecution of the apostles. In fact, the Macabbean family dynasty, centuries before Jesus, had achieved a semblance of this desire for a 150 year period as they violently overthrew the Syrian empire and won Palestine their independence. But the nation couldn’t withstand the might of the Roman empire’s military machine and were back in subjugation by Jesus’ day. It is against this backdrop and with these pre-established expectations that Jesus enters the scene and totally repudiates violence towards ​“the enemy,” the most obvious one of which was the Roman empire. And it is this that we intend to establish as we go along. Redefining Messiahship Let’s be clear. Jesus commended Peter for declaring him ​“the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16 – 17), which means he does accept the title. But his refusal to participate in removing the political ​“enemy” meant that for Jesus, being a Messiah meant something different than to the ordinary first century Jew. And this is part of what confused Jesus’ disciples about him. He obviously had the power through the signs and wonders he did – and hence the backing of Yahweh, Israel’s God – so what was power for, if it couldn’t be used against the enemy? The last thing anyone expected of a true Messiah was for him to die, not least on a cross, made doubly shameful because it was at the hands of the enemy. One can see the significance of Jesus’ rejection of the devil’s offer of ​“authority and splendor” as the NIV puts it in Luke 5:5 – 8. The only power that the devil can give is the same that he’s been giving since the fall – power by violence and lording it over, and not Jesus’ kind of paradoxical power that works by peace and nonviolent trust in God and in his wisdom to overcome by love. The devil offered Jesus something that God did intend him to have, but the temptation was to seize it in the wrong way. It’s no surprise that the devil exercised this power by violence – orchestrating the death of the Son of God – only for death to be the tool of the devil’s own defeat. So when Jesus tells his disciples to ​“love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44 – 45), it really is a manifestation of the radically different nature of Jesus’ ​“messiahship.” And yes, he means even the ​“wicked” political enemy – the Roman empire as represented by their soldiers dispatched to Palestine. That will certainly not have gone down well with his disciples, not to speak of the ordinary Jew suffering under the stifling control of Roman taxation and military brutality. Interestingly, this call to ​“love your enemies” is embedded in a much larger manifesto for living within his kingdom called ​“The Sermon on the Mount,” at the beginning of which is the ​“Beatitudes.” Here, Jesus teaches ​“blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). Just like his command to ​“love your enemies,” being peacemakers also shows whose children his disciples truly are. The two are intimately linked. Peace is the way of our God, and his children are manifested when they copy his behavior. But Jesus’ teachings thoroughly perplexed his disciples. Not only were they expecting him to use his power to violently advance his course and remove all resistance to his reign, but they were also quick to interpret any semblance of confrontation as one that will trigger that transformation from a peaceful messiah to a violent one. Jesus tells his disciples to get swords so he might look like a violent revolutionary, and his disciples think it means Jesus is finally going to be their hoped-for violent revolutionary (Luke 22:36 – 38). When two swords are made available, he shuts down their imagination with ​“that’s enough.” Anyone who knows anything about violent overthrows knows that two swords are light-years away from being enough. But that didn’t stop an impatient disciple from swinging that sword when Jesus was being arrested, cutting off an ear of a member of the arresting party (Luke 22:49 – 51). Not only does Jesus correct his disciple and heal the man’s ear, but he also questions his arresting party’s perception of him: ​“Am I leading a rebellion that you have come with swords and clubs?” (v52). That question was meant to drive home the point of how radically different he was from any ​“messiah,” past or future. Jesus practicalizes his own call to ​“love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” not only by dying naked at the hands of his enemy on a Roman cross but by also praying for forgiveness for them, ​“for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). As Peter pointed out in his sermonizing all over the book of Acts, Jesus may have been handed over to die by God’s plan, but the religious and political leaders of the day were certainly not blind to their active participation in the process. One of the ​“spiritualizing” failures of many church traditions today is to assume that the answer to the question ​“Why was Jesus killed?” is the same as ​“Why did Jesus die?” which then leads to religious leaders blindly behaving the same way now as the first century Jewish leaders behaved then. But perhaps Jesus’ statements in Matthew 23:37 hold a clue. For Jesus reminds Jerusalem of its sordid history of killing God’s prophets, then also reminds them that he had sought to ​“gather your children together … and you were not willing.” While many of us are quick to answer ​“Why did Jesus die” with one atonement theory or the other, a large majority of us fail to realize the challenge that Jesus’ alternative teaching of peace posed to his critics then and continues to pose to us today. Jesus’ death then triggered the same feelings that we can imagine all the other followers of previous failed ​“messiahs” had – feelings of fear and of failure. And in recorded history, every first century Jewish messianic movement either died with their leader or a brother of the dead leader was chosen to continue the course. And yet for Christianity, Jesus’ brothers didn’t take center stage and the course didn’t die. So what was different about this one? The Resurrection Makes Sense of Peacemaking Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father made all the difference. One of the important points to keep in mind about the Jewish belief in the resurrection was that not only was it meant to happen to the whole Israel at once, but it was also meant to happen only to those whom Yahweh had found to be faithful in keeping his commands. So Jesus’ resurrection on his own meant that he was indeed special. But more importantly, it meant that the claims he made about himself were true. Therefore, his radical, sometimes paradoxical teachings to his disciples were to be taken seriously, including those about peace and enemy love. New Testament scholar NT Wright puts it this way: “The resurrection and exaltation of Jesus proclaims and installs him as the world’s true lord and saviour … The future resurrection and glorification of Jesus’ followers will vindicate them as the true people of the one true God, despite their present suffering and humiliation.” ‑The Resurrection of the Son of God, pp 233. It is against this backdrop that his disciples went forth as witnesses to this nonviolent life, with Peter, the often impetuous and violent disciple, now ​“announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all” (Acts 10:36). The resurrection of Jesus now made sense of the way of life that he calls his disciples to live. It gave courage to his disciples that the way of peace was not only a possible way to live, but it was also the hopeful and true way to live. The resurrection of Jesus reminded his disciples (as it should remind us today) that peacemaking is not guaranteed to ​“work” every time, but it is their default way of engaging with the world because they are witnesses to a different kingdom than the kingdom that the world disciples them into. At the end of the day, his disciples knew that their pain and suffering in following the way of Jesus – including his call to be peacemakers – wouldn’t be in vain because their faithfulness to his way would be rewarded with resurrection from the dead. The Early Church: A people shaped by peacemaking This explains why we see such a strong emphasis on peace and nonviolence in the early church. Until the church gained political patronage and power in the fourth century with the conversion of Emperor Constantine, Christianity was a movement of people who took the way of peace seriously and required non-participation in military service for all its members. If a new member joined who was already in the army, it was made clear to them that they were in a compromised position and needed to look for an opportunity to exit the army. They refused to attend gladiatorial entertainment where gladiators fought to the death, a popular pastime in their day. They created communities where people from different ethnic and socio-economic groups were able to see each other as brother and sister, overcoming the barriers that the world had erected for such unions. Of course, there was friction between these ethnic and socio-economic groups which they tried to navigate within their communities, but the idea that the church was a place of welcome for all such people was driven by their belief that Jesus had brought peace to all near and far. If Acts 6 was anything to go by, then friction and its resolution according to Jesus’ example was par for the course instead of something to be afraid of. Many took on extra burdens and difficulties by rescuing abandoned infants from rubbish dumps so they could raise them in addition to their existing families. And when push came to shove and their way of life led to persecution, their leaders taught them to endure it faithfully, even to the point of death as martyrs. They weren’t ready to kill or hate for their cause. They were instead ready to die or suffer for it. Taking hope from Jesus’ example that the resurrection and not death was the true end of their lives, they came to not fear death for the sake of bearing witness to the unique kingdom of Jesus Christ. For them, peace meant not only nonviolence but also a wholeness of life that looked to live out the kingdom in self-sacrificial ways that the culture hadn’t even imagined possible. Athenagoras, a second century Christian apologist, captures the active peacemaking approach of early Christians this way: “Among us, however, it is easy to find simple people, artisans and old men who, if they are not capable of manifesting the usefulness of their religion in words, prove it by deeds. Because speeches are not learned by heart, but good deeds are manifested: not to hurt the one who hurts them, not to pursue in justice the one who despoils them, to give to everyone who asks of them and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.” ‑Athenagoras: Legation in favor of Christians, 11 How Power Ate Peacemaking for Lunch But what happened to this way of peace, this prioritizing of peacemaking among people of different backgrounds? You can start to see a move away from nonviolent peacemaking to the use of force and coercion as the church gained more political power with the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity. This transition was certainly not a sudden one. But because the church had experienced many bouts of persecution over the first four centuries of its life, many leaders of the church viewed Constantine’s supposed conversion to Christianity with such joy that they began to throw off the habits learned from being a persecuted people to being the favored people of the empire. Let’s explore two examples of such diversions from the way of peace. During Emperor Constantine’s reign, Christianity became an accepted religion, no longer meant to face persecution. But a few emperors later, during the reign of Emperor Theodosius I, not only was Christianity an accepted religion, but it was the official one. It’s on record that in AD 388 in faraway Calinicium (now Raqqah, Syria,) a Christian mob attacked a Jewish synagogue and destroyed it. Emperor Theodosius, a professing Christian, ordered the punishment of the arsonists and the immediate rebuilding of the synagogue at the church’s expense. Many Christians today will agree that this was the just and fair thing to do. But Ambrose, bishop of Milan whose church Theodosius regularly attended, is captured in his own words in ​“Epistle 74,” rebuking the emperor for such an order, claiming that in times past Christians had to rebuild their own temples when they were under persecution. To our shame today, Ambrose prevailed. Another example is St Augustine, a keen student of Ambrose of Milan, calling on the empire to use violent means to suppress the Donatist heretics who had risen in the church long before he arrived on the scene. He questioned the church’s received tradition on peace and patience in his ​“On Patience” treatise. He calls some forms of patience ​“false patience” and tells us not to look at overt actions but to ​“discern their inner motivations.” In this, he became one of the first Christian leaders to call for the use of violence against others of the same faith, even if they preached a heretical set of teachings. Augustine then goes on to lay the foundations of what is called a ​“just war” position. Whereas Jesus’ teaching posited the church as an alternative community that is able to live by his kingdom ethics, Augustine lays the foundation for just war theory – proposing that violence would be needed to run the world and to coerce others to do what is perceived to be good for society. With the church’s blessing, war became legitimized and Jesus’ way of peace further marginalized. These two examples show the gradual ​“sophistry” around the peace teaching of Jesus, which only got worse over the course of the 2000-year history of the church. For the church to maintain its positions of power and privilege, it has had to move further and further away from Jesus’ teaching, using the Bible and a large dose of the Old Testament to justify its love of violence. The way of Jesus has always been a way in which peace is both the means and the end, because the Christian life is one of discipleship after our master, Jesus the king. And if his life was marked by peace, so that his way was rewarded by resurrection from the dead, then peace isn’t an afterthought of our discipleship but core to it. Unfortunately, many church traditions have taught us to read Jesus with rose-tinted glasses that teach us to focus only on his spiritual benefits and not his earthiness and the real challenges he confronted. The church’s collective amnesia about the way of peace is rather the bug in our witness. If we are to be a people of peace, we must become a people who are deeply soaked in the hope that the resurrection of the dead gives us, so we can face the challenges of being faithful to Jesus, knowing that our faithful peacemaking will not be in vain. References Bainton, R. (1963) Christian attitudes to war and peace. Trad. Rafael Munoz Rojas. Madrid, Spain: Tecnos. Well, R.D. (1950). Apostolic Fathers. Madrid, Spain: Catholic. Originally posted at Jesus Collective, used with permission https://jesuscollective.com/media/blog/jesus-and-peace

Abstract In the course of Christian history, nowhere has the tension between the teachings of Jesus and valid application of those teachings in postbiblical socio-cultural circumstances manifested itself more clearly than surrounding the issue of violence. Stemming from the sixteenth-century divide between pro-statist Magisterial and anti-statist Radical Reformers, most scholarship on this issue may straightforwardly be split between “hawks”and “doves,”with each side open to the charge of reading the sacred text through the respective lenses of either the Protestant appropriation of Augustinian just war theory or the Anabaptist denouncement of the post-Constantinian alliance between church and state. Contents Introduction Justin Martyr: Apologia I (c. 150 C.E.) Authors during the Reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-80) The Works of Tertullian (197-212) The Works of Hippolytus (199-217) The Works of Origen (240-48) Concluding Reflections: Evaluating the Patristic Nonviolent Ethic Introduction In the course of Christian history, nowhere has the tension between the teachings of Jesus and valid application of those teachings in postbiblical socio-cultural circumstances manifested itself more clearly than surrounding the issue of violence. Stemming from the sixteenth-century divide between pro-statist Magisterial and anti-statist Radical Reformers, [1] most scholarship on this issue may straightforwardly be split between “hawks”and “doves,”with each side open to the charge of reading the sacred text through the respective lenses of either the Protestant appropriation of Augustinian just war theory or the Anabaptist denouncement of the post-Constantinian alliance between church and state. [2] Amidst the contemporary discussion, one important set of voices is often unwittingly silenced: the ante-Nicene Church Fathers, who, as the first New Testament exegetes and inhabitants of a Roman imperial climate continuous with the atmosphere experienced by the apostles, arguably stand in a better position to correctly interpret the message of Jesus as pertaining to violence than their early modern and modern successors. From the accumulated literature of the ante-Nicene church, three facts emerge as relatively noncontroversial. First, from the close of the New Testament era until 174 C.E., no Christians served in the military or assumed government offices. [3] Second, from 174 until the Edict of Milan (313), the ancient church treated those Christians who played such roles, including previous o ffice-holders who converted, with great suspicion. [4] Third, underlying this ecclesiastical antipathy to state positions exerting compulsion stood a theory of nonviolence hermeneutically derived from Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God. According to the ante-Nicene Fathers, the kerygma necessitated that Jesus constituted the Christian’s only commander, such that placing oneself under any other commander would spell treason. To explore the historical development of this theory of nonviolence, we must proceed chronologically, in the process focusing upon the writings of Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Origen, the three Fathers chiefly responsible for its exposition, along with brief references to the topic by other pre-Constantinian church leaders. [5] The soundness of this strategy is borne out by the fact that, as C. John Cadoux observes, this trio of thinkers provided a representative depiction of the prevailing sentiments among ante-Nicene church leaders: [T]he conviction that Christianity was incompatible with the shedding of blood, either in war or in the administration of justice, was not only maintained and vigorously defended by eminent individuals like Tertullian of Carthage, Hippolytus of Rome and Origen of Palestine and Egypt, but was widely held and acted on in the Churches up and down Christendom. [6] Thus we shall extensively delineate this nonviolent ethic from the primary sources, closing with a brief assessment of its strengths and weaknesses in light of historical Jesus studies and the ensuing course of Christian history. Justin Martyr: Apologia I (c. 150 C.E.) The first Patristic references to the issue of Christians and violence sprang from Justin Martyr (110-165), the early church’s foremost Greek apologist. Refuting the charge of sedition, which the Romans saw latent in the Christian proclamation of the Kingdom of God, Justin apprised Emperor Antoninus Pius that believers lived as citizens not of an alternative human kingdom governed by anti-imperial politicians but of an already inaugurated divine kingdom, presently ruled by Christ from the heavenly realm and soon to be physically implemented when Christ returns. [7] When the Kingdom is manifested on earth, Justin insisted, it will be a kingdom of peace fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 2:4, as people “will beinat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks”since nations will never again train for or engage in war. Since Christians find their citizenship in God’s Kingdom, Justin informed the Emperor that this prediction was starting to find fulfillment through the church and its missionary expansion: “That it is so coming to pass, let me convince you. . . . We who once murdered each other indeed no longer wage war against our enemies; moreover, so as not to bear false witness before our interrogators, we cheerfully die confessing Christ.” [8] The phrase “we who once murdered each other”proves all the more poignant when we realize that the first mass conversions from paganism to Christianity occurred publicly in the Roman army, as soldiers, risking life and limb, abandoned their posts to join the church. [9] Consequently in Pauline fashion, Justin reinterpreted martial language by announcing that Christians are warriors but of a special kind, namely, peaceful warriors. This apparent oxymoron is warranted because, on the peaceful side, Christians refused to practice violence and, on the warrior side, they excelled everyone, including Antoninus Pius’ own soldiers, in showing fidelity to their cause and courage in the face of imminent death. Such excellence stemmed from the fact that Christians, via the general resurrection, awaited a reward ontologically superior to the money earned by Roman soldiers: “But if your soldiers, who have taken the military oath, choose allegiance over their own lives, parents, countries, and families, although you cannot offer them anything incorruptible, then it would be absurd if we, who fervently long for incorruption, do not endure all things, so that we will receive what we desire from the One with the power to impart it.” [10] Therefore, from his complementary exegesis of the Hebrew Bible and the dominical message, Justin regarded non-violence as an essential attribute of discipleship, such that converts whose prior occupations featured violence as their modus operandi must abandon those occupations. Authors during the Reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-80) We now turn to indirect evidence for the early Christian repudiation of warfare provided by the anti-Christian satirist Celsus (fl. 170-80) and the apocryphal Acts of Paul (c. 175). A staunch patriot and leading representative of Roman bureaucracy, Celsus rejected Christianity in large part due to its nonviolent stance. Repeatedly attacking Christians for their refusal to fight in defense of the Roman Empire, Celsus sneered that if everyone behaved like the church, the emperor would be virtually isolated, and the empire would soon be conquered by the unruliest and fiercest barbarians. [11] Based undoubtedly on firsthand knowledge of Christian behavior, Celsus’ objection corroborates our observation that the church of his day would not permit believers to serve in the military. This impression is further substantiated by the presbyter of Asia Minor who penned the novel-like Acts of Paul. Here Jesus, the King of the Ages, is contrasted with Caesar, the earthly king, and Christians are portrayed as soldiers exclusively of Christ. In one notable scene, Nero accuses Paul of stealing soldiers from his army: “My prisoner, why did it seem good to you to sneak into the Roman Empire and enlist soldiers from my region?”Paul replies: “Caesar, we enlist soldiers not only from your region but from the whole world. . . . For we march not for an earthly king, but only for one who comes from heaven . . . to judge the world. . . . Thus I will never desert Christ, as a faithful soldier of the living God.” [12] The author then draws a sharp dichotomy between Jesus’ Kingdom and the kingdoms of the world: “Shall Christ, therefore, be King of the Ages and overthrow all earthly kingdoms? . . . Yes, he overthrows all earthly kingdoms and he alone shall live forever, and no earthly kingdom will escape him.” [13] Such “either-or”martial depictions make sense only on the assumption that, in the presbyter’s time, the church perceived military service and following Jesus as mutually exclusive, a choice which Roman soldiers attracted to the gospel were forced to make. The Works of Tertullian (197-212) Our earliest evidence for Christians serving in the military dates to 174 C.E., when a sizeable number of Christians in the eastern Cappadocian region of Melitene joined the Roman Legio Fulmata to fight against the central European Quadi tribe that was invading the region. [14] Although the evidence renders it uncertain whether these soldiers were chastised by their local congregations, the incident appears to have received little notice by either Christians or pagans outside Melitene. [15] Such an assessment is evidenced in the pre-Montanist writings of Tertullian, who in his early period showed categorical opposition to the military profession, notwithstanding that his father was a Roman centurion. Hence Tertullian articulated a position in Apologeticum (197) identified by Edward A. Ryan as “pacifism” [16]: “We are equally forbidden to wish evil, to do evil, to speak evil, and to think evil toward all people. . . . So if we are commanded to love our enemies, whom have we to hate? If injured, we are forbidden to retaliate, lest we become as evil as our attackers. No one can suffer injury at our hands . . . since we do not bear arms nor raise any banner of insurrection.” [17] This remained true despite the fact, as Tertullian provocatively pointed out, that in certain provinces Christians were sufficiently numerous and powerful to unite and stage an uprising: “For what wars, granted these unequal forces, would we not be prepared and eager to fight, we who so willingly surrender ourselves to death by the sword, if in our religion it were not better to be killed than to kill?” [18] But since the Kingdom of God belongs not to this world, Tertullian insisted that Christians could not, without forfeiting their citizenship in the Kingdom, defend themselves by earthly weapons but must accept death when under attack. In his treatise De idololatria, written between 198 and 201, [19] Tertullian explicitly answered the central questions of whether a believer may join the military and whether a soldier, once converted, can stay in the military. But now inquiry is being made concerning these issues. First, can any believer enlist in the military? Second, can any soldier, even those of the rank and file or lesser grades who neither engage in pagan sacrifices nor capital punishment, be admitted into the church? No on both counts—for there is no agreement between the divine sacrament and the human sacrament, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul cannot serve two masters—God and Caesar. And yet some people toy with the subject by saying, “Moses carried a rod, Aaron wore a buckle, John the Baptist girded himself with leather just like soldiers do belts, and Joshua the son of Nun led troops into battle, such that the people waged war.”But how will a Christian engage in war—indeed, how will a Christian even engage in military service during peacetime—without the sword, which the Lord has taken away? For although soldiers had approached John to receive instructions and a centurion believed, this does not change the fact that afterward, the Lord, by disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier. [20] Several features of this speech emerge as noteworthy. First, we find that around the turn of the third century North African Christians began to inquire as to the compatibility of belief and military service. This probably transpired because the Roman military presence in North Africa was considerably small, faced little threat of war, and featured garrisons staffed predominantly by local inhabitants; consequently, Christians there regarded soldiering as a relatively innocuous occupation. Second, notwithstanding the present tranquility, Tertullian left no doubt as to the intrinsic ungodliness of the military profession itself: one cannot serve both God and Satan; one cannot serve both God and the Emperor. For Tertullian, no Christian may be a soldier and vice versa, a rule applying during war and peacetime alike. Third, as Jean-Michel Hornus observes, Tertullian’s prohibition against military service was not based simply on avoiding idolatry but also on avoiding bloodshed and violence. [21] For this prohibition served as a corollary of Tertullian’s earlier verdict that Christians could not hold governmental offices due to the responsibility of such posts to preside over matters of life and death. [22] Christians, in Tertullian’s estimation, would arrogate to themselves divine prerogatives if they took the lives of persons God purposed to redeem. Finally, Tertullian maintained that Jesus ushered in a new era marking a radical break with the former salvific program: God no longer employs the nation of Israel nor any violence associated with its protection to achieve his goal for humanity; rather, God now uses the peaceful fellowship of the regenerate in the final unveiling of his previously veiled will. Echoing this sentiment was Tertullian’s contemporary Clement of Alexandria (c. 200), who acknowledged the restful simplicity in Christ’s new commandment of love: “For we are trained not in war but in peace. War requires tremendous scheming, but peace and love, simple and quiet lives, require neither weapons nor tremendous scheming.” [23] But the simple solution lauded by Clement soon gave way to a more sophisticated model, as the third-century dominance of the pax Romana led congregations to increasingly perceive peacetime military protection as relatively, though not entirely, innocuous. This was especially true among the progressive Montanist sect, which was already admitting noncombatants into its ranks. Not surprisingly, this new perspective found its way into the later writings of Tertullian following his conversion to Montanism in 202. Even so, Tertullian continued to display personal ambivalence toward the military profession. In his Corona composed c. 208, Tertullian somewhat reluctantly applied Pauline thinking on such matters as circumcision and slavery (1 Cor 7:17-24) to the military profession. Here he argued that, on the one hand, baptized Christians could under no circumstances join the military, but on the other hand, soldiers and public officials could become converts without renouncing their posts so long as they refused to enjoin violence. Is it lawful for a human promise (sacramentum) to displace one divine, namely, for a person to promise himself to another master after Christ. . . . Shall it, in this case, be regarded lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who takes the sword shall die by the sword? Shall the child of peace join in the battle when he is not even permitted to sue at law? . . . Shall he carry a flag, despite its hostility to Christ? Shall he request a command from the Emperor who has already received one from God? . . . The very transporting of the Christian name from the camp of light over to the camp of darkness constitutes a violation of God’s law. Of course, if faith comes later and finds any already enlisted in military service, their case is different. This is evident from the soldiers whom John baptized and the faithful centurions, namely, the centurion who believed in Christ and the centurion instructed by Peter. However, it needs to be emphasized that when someone becomes a believer and his faith is sealed, there must either be an immediate abandonment of military service (as has been the course with many) or all sorts of finagling must take place so as not to offend God (a strategy which scarcely works outside of the military). . . . Military service neither absolves one from punishment for sins nor exempts one from martyrdom. Nowhere may a Christian change his character. . . . If we were to make an exception for the Christian as soldier, when the command to openly live out the faith is binding on all Christians even in the face of mortal danger, one would overturn the essence of the sacramentum of baptism in such a way as to remove any obstacle even to voluntary sins. [24] From this quotation we can deduce several important points. First, when Christianity spread to the African army, many converts left the military service while others remained as soldiers. Second, congregations tacitly afforded converted soldiers exceptional treatment as pertaining to Christian discipline: soldiers were permitted to obey the commands of their superiors and carry out the demands of military discipline insofar as those obligations did not contravene the dominical prohibition against violence. Third, the fact that baptism constituted a sacrament, where the forensic Latin term sacramentum originally denoted an unbreakable promise or military vow, [25] spelled a palpable tension between the imperial vows taken by soldiers and the rite of Christian initiation. Hence, as Tertullian stated, soldiers trying to balance both sacramenta may well find themselves lost in hopeless wrangling. But notwithstanding his personal doubts, Tertullian allowed converted soldiers to attempt this balancing act of avoiding contamination with pagan coercion while serving as state representatives expected to implement such coercion. The Works of Hippolytus (199-217) As the latter sentiments of Tertullian evolved into mainstream Christian thought, they received reinforcement and amplification by the Roman presbyter Hippolytus. In the first decade of the third century, Hippolytus penned the Traditio Apostolica, one of the earliest church orders appearing to express the Christian consensus of his day. Several articles in the document delineate occupations forbidden to baptismal candidates, including brothel keepers, male and female prostitutes, actors, gladiators, idol manufacturers, magicians, and astrologers. Three succeeding articles address the question of the church’s attitude toward the military profession. A soldier, being inferior in rank to God, must not kill anyone. If ordered to, he must not carry out the order, nor may he take an oath (sacramentum) to do so. If he does not accept this, let him be dismissed from the church. Anyone bearing the power of the sword, or any city magistrate, who wears purple, let him cease from wearing it at once or be dismissed from the church. Any catechumen or believer who wishes to become a soldier must be dismissed from the church because they have despised God. [26] Here we again note the underlying subtext that baptism remains the sacramentum, a Christian’s military oath, with allegiance owed to Jesus as the imperator (commander and emperor). [27] Since purple garments designated an imperator, any Christian holding political or military position who dared to wear the royal color blasphemed Christ and exposed the disingenuousness of his faith. For Hippolytus, moreover, the Pauline maxim, “Everyone should remain in the state in which he was called”(1 Cor 7:24), could be applied to the soldier, but it must be counterbalanced by the Petrine dictum, “We must obey God rather than human beings”(Acts 5:29), through disobedience of all orders to exert deadly force. Such disobedience comprised the inevitable consequence of a Christian profession, which believing soldiers must accept even if, in the most extreme case, it cost them their own lives via martyrdom at the hands of their superiors or slaying at the hands of their enemies. In a linguistically primitive section of the Canones Hippolyti, which most Patrologists trace back to its namesake, [28] Hippolytus underscored the applicability of these observations to Christian soldiers and magistrates alike and, for the first time, expanded the treatment of nonviolence to the penitential requirements which must be undertaken by soldiers and magistrates who violate the dominical command against bloodshed. Rulers entrusted with the authority to take life and soldiers must not kill anyone, even if they are commanded to do so. . . . Anyone holding a prominent position of leadership or a ruler’s authority who does not keep himself disarmed, as the gospel necessitates, must be dismissed from the flock. Let no Christian become a soldier. Any official obligated to carry a sword must not bring bloodguilt upon himself; if he does, he must not participate in the mysteries until he is purified through correction, tears, and groans. [29] Here a significant distinction is drawn between soldiers, who were legally bound to bear the sword, and magistrates, who found themselves under no such compulsion. While Hippolytus refused any disciplinary leniency to magistrates, expelling them from the church for simply carrying the sword, he extended a great deal of flexibility to soldiers by mandating that they not be dismissed from the flock even if they killed but only suffer banishment from the Eucharist (i.e., “the mysteries”of Christ’s body and blood) until they completed a process of rehabilitation. This process consisted of “correction,”or receiving individual Scriptural instruction on the satanic nature of violence from the bishop or presbyter, followed by “tears and groans,”or publicly demonstrating contrition for the lives taken before the congregation. [30] Only when all members of the community accepted the genuineness of such repentance would the bishop or presbyter, acting on the community’s behalf, absolve the soldier of his crimes and readmit him to the Lord’s Supper. [31] To understand this reasoning, we must call attention to two features of Hippolytus’ thought delineated in his earlier exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount. First, commenting upon Jesus’ identification of anger with murder and lust with adultery, Hippolytus stipulated the equation of thought and act in determining the gravity of any sin. [32] Second, from the Pater Noster’s statement on tempting circumstances, Hippolytus argued that sins committed under inescapable temptation deserve little punishment, while sins committed under no such duress deserve severe punishment. [33] From these two sentiments, it logically follows that for Hippolytus, the magistrate who voluntarily takes the sword commits the functional equivalent of premeditated murder and hence merits ecclesiastical expulsion, whereas the soldier who sheds blood on the battlefield commits the functional equivalent of manslaughter and so warrants disciplinary mercy from the church. The Works of Origen (240-48) Taking a much harder line than either the late Tertullian or Hippolytus was Origen, who returned to the stance of the second-century church. For Origen, the army of Caesar was diametrically opposed to the army of Christ, which would ultimately stand victorious despite the Roman outlawing of Christianity and persecution against the church. As he wrote c. 240, The kings of the earth, the Roman senate, the Roman people, and the imperial nobility have banded together in order to vanquish at once the name of Jesus and of Israel, for they have established in their laws that there shall be no Christians. But under the leadership of Jesus, his soldiers will always triumph; hence we too say what is written in Ezra, “From you, Lord, is the victory, and I am your servant.” [34] Therefore, in an Isaianic vein, Origen’s classic Contra Celsum (248) absolutely forbade Christian military participation, such that soldiers must abjure their posts to become followers of Jesus: We must delightfully come to the counsels of Jesus by cutting down our hostile and impudent swords into plowshares and transforming into pruning-hooks the spears formerly employed in war. So we no longer take up the sword against nations, nor do we learn war anymore, since we have become children of peace, for the sake of Jesus, who is our leader, instead of those whom our ancestors followed. [35] Perhaps the most erudite biblical interpreter of his day, Origen supported this conclusion with two significant exegetical advances. Employing the technique of canonical synthesis, Origen first contended that the mitzvoth within Torah and the constitutional halakhah could not have remained unchanged if Israel had collectively embraced the gospel: “For Christians cannot slay their enemies or, as Moses commanded, condemn to be burned or stoned those who had violated the law.” [36] Notice that, contrary to the allegorical interpretation one might expect from Origen, this argument depends on the presupposition of Hebrew Biblical literalism. Similarly, as a bridge to his next insight, Origen remarkably proceeded to maintain that it was necessary for God to give Israel the right to use violence and capital punishment, since God knew in his omniscience the counterfactual truth that if Israel were not permitted to employ deadly force, then they would have quickly been vanquished by enemy nations. However, this same divine providence now elected to supplant the model of Jewish nationalism and install a new form, in light of God’s apprehension of the counterfactual truth that if Christ’s followers did not wield the sword, then paradoxically the church would become stronger the more it were persecuted. [37] Given this background, Origen made his second stride with a distinctive exegesis of Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17, two texts which have since functioned as the centerpiece of many just war arguments. Here Origen insisted that, indeed, Christians must obey the governing authorities; but the highest form of such obedience is to do whatever comprises the best interest of the authorities even if it contravenes their commands. Since underlying every physical battle is a greater spiritual one, when commanded to fight, Christians render obedience superior to the command itself by praying for the state, thus serving as warriors who fight the real battle of which the authorities are unaware: “Accordingly, no one fights better for the emperor than we do. We do not indeed fight under him, although he requires it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a special army—an army of piety—by offering our prayers to God.” [38] Origen cited as proof of this exegesis its ability to harmonize the texts under investigation both with 1 Timothy 2:1-3, which mandates prayer for the authorities so that believers may live peaceful lives, and with the logia Jesu. Reasoning by analogy from Roman religious praxis, Origen attempted to persuade the authorities that, while initially counterintuitive, his model of genuine obedience through formal disobedience proved ultimately compelling. We render assistance to the emperor by means of spiritual protection through our prayers. So we remind those who order us, ostensibly for the common good, to proceed into battle and to kill, that even their own priests are not allowed to be soldiers, because the Divine must be worshiped with pure hands. If that is reasonable, how much more reasonable is it that we, while others go to war, preside as priests and servants of God in the campaign by keeping our hands pure and praying for the lawful side and its victory. Consequently, we render a far greater service to the kings than the warriors in the field, because by our prayers we overcome the demons that provoke the war and destroy the peace. [39] After his martyrdom in 254, Origen’s unconditional ban against violence emerged as the official position of the Alexandrian church until 381, [40] when Theodosius I decreed Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. Moreover, this Alexandrian interdiction received acceptance among some Latin Fathers, even as late as the first decade of the fourth century. Thus writing c. 307, Lactantius, the traditionally styled “Christian Cicero,”declared that no just person could take the life of another, whether through combat or through capital punishment: “Before God it is unlawful for a just person either to engage in warfare, since warfare is injustice itself, or to judge anyone guilty of a capital charge, since it makes no difference whether you put someone to death by word or by sword—it is the act of putting to death itself which is prohibited.” [41] Likewise, in the anonymous Acta Maximiliani, the early fourth-century novelist portrays Maximilian, the son of a veteran who is thus obliged to serve in the army, declaring repeatedly, “I am a Christian, and therefore I will not serve.” [42] Concluding Reflections: Evaluating the Patristic Nonviolent Ethic Prior to the Edict of Milan, the ancient church leadership’s aversion to civic occupations invested with the sword, including magistracy and military, could be summarized in three observations. First, Christianity on principle rejected war and the shedding of human blood. Second, magistrates under certain circumstances were obliged to pass the death sentence, and soldiers were obliged to carry out all acts of violence ordered by their military commanders. Third, the unconditional imperial oath or sacramentum required of the civic official stood in direct conflict with the baptismal sacramentum to God. On this threefold basis, church leaders universally denounced the practice of baptized civilians serving in either the government or the military from the New Testament period to the reign of Constantine. Furthermore, while some segments of the post-174 church leadership permitted converted magistrates and soldiers to retain their positions insofar as they practiced civil disobedience when their duties violated the precepts of the gospel, other segments maintained the earlier ecumenical standard of not allowing converts this luxury. [43] With this ethic expounded, we shall now critically examine its validity against the absolute standard of Scripture, in order to reveal both our “blind spots”and those of the ante-Nicene church on the matter of nonviolence so that we may learn to emulate their successes and avoid their failures. Among recent historical Jesus scholarship, there has emerged something of a consensus (despite sharp disagreement on other points) that one of Jesus’ central aims in giving the Sermon on the Mount was to promote a countercultural program of nonviolent Jewish resistance against the oppressive Roman occupying forces. Through a series of real-life Palestinian examples, Jesus attempted to teach his Jewish contemporaries how to respond to the Romans in such a way as to not overcome evil with evil but to conquer evil with good, thereby proving to be the light of the world. [44] In sum, Jesus declared that any appropriate response to evil must refuse to let the evil define the sufferer (so the sufferer does not stoop to its level) and must poignantly expose the evil for precisely what it is to the one committing the evil. [45] Refraining from reading either pro- or anti-statist presuppositions into the text, an even-handed exegesis would therefore point out that, without demanding an exceptionless pacifism, the Sermon indeed compels believers to display extreme reluctance on matters of war and to exercise discernment toward political agendas by measuring them against Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Insofar as the ancient church correctly stressed this often underdeveloped aspect of Christian obedience, the contemporary church would do well to follow its lead by thoughtfully and prayerfully reconsidering the ethical viability of situations where believers take the acceptability of engagement in potentially violent government-sponsored causes for granted. To the contrary of the Patristic ethic, however, New Testament scholarship has reached something of a consensus as to the meaning of Jesus’ hallmark antithesis between the kingdom of the world (or, more simply, the world) and the Kingdom of God. On the one hand, the kingdom of the world denoted the philosophical system of self-centeredness, tribalism, domination, and oppression according to which the world operates and ultimately ruled by Satan. [46] On the other hand, the Kingdom of God conveyed the dynamic of God’s kingship being increasingly applied over all earthly affairs, whether social, political, economic, aesthetic, or religious, in a world that is not yet fully under his authority. But the way God rules is quite different from the “top-down”imposition of power over others endemic to the world; rather, God’s Kingdom functions as a “power-under”or “bottom-up”transformative system that works for the sole purpose of replicating agapÄ“ to all people at all times in all places unconditionally, carrying out the will of God at the probable cost of self-interest. [47] Now where in this scheme did the state fall? Understandably, because of their persecution by the Roman Empire, the second and third-century church conflated the world with the state. But although the state can become wrongly allied with the world, even to the degree of serving as the chief instrument of the world (as seen in the cases of the Babylonian and Roman Empires), no New Testament evidence indicates that the state in and of itself is identical to the world (or, conversely, the Kingdom of God). Rather, the biblical writers regarded the state as a tertian quid, providentially used by God for the protection of the good and the punishment of the wicked. We may also validly discern from Jesus’ relentless preaching against the blasphemy of conflating Judaism (whose redeemed community he was inaugurating) with nationalistic ambitions that church and government must remain separate since their divinely ordained roles are fundamentally distinct; confusion of one with the other inevitably destroys the purpose and structure of both. [48] Conjoining these insights with the testimony of the Hebrew Bible, it follows that the answer to whether Christians may serve in government seems to be yes, as long as they do so counterculturally. In other words, Christians in government must disregard the worldly standards permeating politics and instead govern by distinctly Kingdom-of-God standards. The classic example of Kingdom people so serving is Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego), who were pressed into service by the Babylonian Empire, the very government which had taken the Israelites captive and consequently became the paradigm of an anti-God and anti-Christian government throughout the remainder of Scripture. [49] Without trusting in the Babylonian Empire to accomplish God’s purposes, Daniel and his friends lovingly and responsibly served as “resident aliens”in this foreign juggernaut and thereby advanced the salvific plan of God. The fact that these Hebrew Biblical figures displayed obedience to God by serving in a state lying firmly within the world’s clutches further substantiates the fundamental distinction between these two concepts, a distinction that is not evaporated even when the world powerfully manifests itself through the state. Throughout church history, when Christians have disregarded this distinction and isolated themselves from participation in government, as seen in the separatist branch of sixteenth-century Anabaptism and in its contemporary descendants (e.g., Amish, Hutterites, Old Orders, conservative Mennonites), the case can be made that believers invite unnecessary suspicion of treason by the state [50] and, even worse, shirk their dominically assigned social responsibilities. Such criticisms were not only levied against the separatist Anabaptists by Magisterial reformers like Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, but also by evangelical Radical reformers like Balthasar Hubmaier. [51] For tolerating society through nonresistance is a far cry from Jesus’ mandate to change society through nonviolent resistance. We close by pointing out that our historical investigation, although furnishing the necessary background to informed decision-making, leaves unanswered a series of controversial questions which immediately transpire from this discussion. For instance, are Christians allowed to take up arms in self-defense? Is there ever such a thing as a just war? Can Christians ever validly serve in the military? Since these questions fall outside this piece’s historical domain of interpretation and within the pastoral realm of application, we shall make no attempt to adjudicate them here. Rather, we shall note that these are precisely the questions Christians need to continually ask and wrestle with, always being sure to demonstrate a charitable openness toward, and an eagerness to learn from, solutions proposed by sisters and brothers in Christ outside their own faith communities. By so shining multiple lights on this ethical prism from the widest spectrum of angles, the church procures the best chance of authentically living out the social implications of the gospel and thereby displaying obedience to Jesus in both word and deed. Footnotes: 1. “Magisterial”refers to the top-down approach to religious change, adopted by the Protestant reformers, through conversion of magistrates, who in turn impose the new beliefs upon their subjects—this approach is encapsulated by the principle cuius regio eius religio (lit. “whose region, his religion”). By contrast, “Radical”denotes the bottom-up approach to religious change, adopted by the Anabaptists and other evangelical reform theologians, through evangelism of individuals. For a thorough discussion of this nomenclature see Kirk R. MacGregor, A Central European Synthesis of Radical and Magisterial Reform (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006), 1-4. 2. For a representative sample of modern just war advocates see John C. Bennett, Foreign Policy in Christian Perspective (New York: Scribner, 1966); William R. Stevenson, Christian Love and Just War: Moral Paradox and Political Life in St. Augustine and his Modern Interpreters (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1988); Richard J. Regan, Just War: Principles and Causes (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996); Darrell Cole, When God Says War Is Right: The Christian’s Perspective on When and How to Fight (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook, 2002); and J. Daryl Charles, Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2005). Conversely, representative modern exponents of nonviolence include Ronald V. Sampson, The Discovery of Peace (New York: Pantheon, 1973); John Lamoreau and Ralph Beebe, Waging Peace: A Study in Biblical Pacifism (Newberg, OR: Barclay Press, 1980); Gerard A. Vanderhaar, Beyond Violence: In the Spirit of the Non-Violent Christ (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1998); John D. Roth, Choosing Against War: A Christian View (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2002); and Dale W. Brown, Biblical Pacifism (2d ed.; Nappanee, IN: Evangel Publishing House, 2003). 3. Guy F. Hershberger, War, Peace, and Nonresistance (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1944), 57-59. 4. This point is nicely made by W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 420, who ironically displays open criticism toward the third-century church for its so-called “inconsistent”and “impractical . . . inability to think out any positive evaluation of the soldier’s role.” 5. I have translated all primary source quotations directly from the Patrologia graeco-latina [hereafter PG], 161 vols., ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1857-64) and Patrologia Latina [hereafter PL], 221 vols., ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1841-80). Along with each quote I have, for the convenience of readers desiring further interaction with the sources, listed the corresponding page numbers from the standard English series The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to 325 a.d. [hereafter ANF], 10 vols., ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885). 6. C. John Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude to War (rep. ed.; New York: Gordon Press, 1975), 127-28. This general summary of the position of various churches is not negated by the fact that, as one stream of contemporary Patrology has inferred from late antique Mediterranean sociological analyses and epigraphic evidence, various individual Christians within those churches may have disobeyed their leaders by joining the military or assuming magisterial positions. 7. Justin Martyr, Apologia I, 11, in PG 6 (ANF 1:166). 8. Ibid., 39 (ANF 1:175-76). 9. Adolf von Harnack, Militia Christi: The Christian Religion and the Military in the First Three Centuries, trans. David McInnes Gracie (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 24. 10. Justin, Apologia I, 39 (ANF 1:176). 11. Celsus, quoted by Origen, Contra Celsum, 8:68-73, in PG 11 (ANF 4:665-68). 12. Acta Pauli aus der Heidelberger koptischen Papyrushandschrift, ed. Carl Schmidt (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1904), 10:3-4; for English translation see Edgar Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963-65), 2:385-86. 13. Ibid., 10:2 (Hennecke, Apocrypha, 2:384). 14. Cadoux, Early Christian Attitude, 229. 15. Ibid., 231-32. 16. Edward A. Ryan, S.J., “The Rejection of Military Service by the Early Christians,”Theological Studies 13 (March 1952): 14. 17. Tertullian, Apologeticum, 36-37, in PL 1 (ANF 3:45). 18. Ibid., 37 (ANF 3:45). 19. Timothy David Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (rev. ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 55, 326-28. 20. Tertullian, De idololatria, 19, in PL 1 (ANF 3:73). 21. Jean-Michel Hornus, It Is Not Lawful for Me to Fight (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1980), 158. 22. Tertullian, De idololatria, 17-18, in PL 1 (ANF 3:71-73). 23. Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, 1:98-99, in PG 8 (ANF 2:234-35). 24. Tertullian, De Corona, 11, in PL 2 (ANF 3:99-100). 25. Francis J. Hall, Theological Outlines Volume III: The Doctrine of the Church and of Last Things (Milwaukee: The Young Churchman, 1895), XXVI.141.2. 26. Hippolytus, Traditio Apostolica, ed. Dom Gregory Dix (London: Alban, 1937), 16:17-19; for English translation see Dom Gregory Dix and Henry Chadwick, The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome, Bishop and Martyr (3d ed.; London: Alban, 1992), 26-27. 27. Ibid., 21:9-11 (Dix and Chadwick, Treatise, 34-35); the same points would be asserted later in the third century by Cyprian, Epistolae, 15:1, 31:4-5, 54:1, in PL 4 (ANF 5:295, 313-14, 335-36). 28. Allen Brent, Hippolytus & the Roman Church in the Third Century (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 185-91. 29. Canones Hippolyti, in H. Achelis, Die ältesten Quellen des orientalischen Kirchenrechtes, Erstes Buch (Berlin: Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1891), 13-14; for English translation see Paul F. Bradshaw, ed., The Canons of Hippolytus, trans. Carol Bebawi (Nottingham: Grove, 1987), 19. 30. H. B. Swete, “Penitential Discipline in the First Three Centuries,”in Paul Finney, Christian Life: Ethics, Morality, and Discipline in the Early Church (New York: Routledge, 1993), 256-62. 31. On the same score, Basil the Great significantly ruled during the post-Constantinian period that those who shed blood in war should abstain from the Eucharist for three years: see Epistolae, 188:13, 217:56-57, in PG 32; English translation available in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, 14 vols., ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1890), 8:228, 256. 32. Brent, Hippolytus, 520. 33. Ibid., 166. 34. Origen, Homilia in Jesu Nave, 9:11, in PG 12 (no English translation available). 35. Origen, Contra Celsum, 4:82, in PG 11 (ANF 4:558). 36. Ibid., 7:25, in PG 11 (ANF 4:621). 37. Ibid., 7:26, in PG 11 (ANF 4:622). 38. Ibid., 7:73, in PG 11 (ANF 4:668). 39. Ibid., 4:82, in PG 11 (ANF 4:187). 40. Frend, Rise of Christianity, 630-42, 699-701. As previously suggested in n. 6, assessing how widely this official position was obeyed by the laity depends upon one’s interpretation of highly equivocal epigraphic evidence and the degree to which one believes sociological analyses remedy the shortage of textual evidence as to the behavior of lay Christians in late antiquity. For an excellent discussion of this problem see Virginia Burrus, ed., Late Ancient Christianity: A People’s History of Christianity, Vol. 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 1-25, 213-33. 41. Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones, 6:20,16, in PL 6 (ANF 7:186-88, 181). 42. Acta Maximiliani, in D. R. Knopf and G. Krüger, Ausgewälte Martyrerakten (3d ed.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1929), 86-87; for English translation see Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 248-49. 43. Early in the fourth century this situation became otherwise, as the Council of Arles (314), meeting one year after the Edict of Milan, demanded that Christians consent to being drafted into the military and forbade current Christian soldiers from deserting the military. As Harnack demonstrated (Militia Christi, 88-90), Arles marked a fundamental revision of the church leadership’s position concerning the army and war. 44. N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 530-31; Dale C. Allison, The Sermon on the Mount (New York: Herder & Herder, 1999), 27-40; John Dominic Crossan, God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2007), 116-18. 45. Walter Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 10-15; Wright, Jesus, 446. 46. Marcus Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2006), 225-35; Wright, Jesus, 608; Crossan, God and Empire, 78-82; cf. John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor 4:4; Eph 2:2; 6:12; 1 John 5:19; Rev 9:11; 11:15; 13:14; 18:23; 20:3, 8. 47. N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001), 36-37; Kirk R. MacGregor, A Molinist-Anabaptist Systematic Theology (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007), 275-77; Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 32. 48. MacGregor, Molinist-Anabaptist Systematic Theology, 295. 49. E.g., Ps 137:1, 8; Isa 43:14; 47:1; 48:14; Jer 50:13-14, 18, 23-24, 29; 51:7-24; Ezra 5:12; 1 Pet 5:13; Rev 14:8; 16:19; 18:2-21. 50. Here I am not arguing against suspicion of treason per se, as many times the state will exhibit such suspicion precisely as the result of believers living out their Kingdom vocation (e.g., the life of Jesus and the New Testament church), but rather against believers needlessly inciting such suspicion. 51. MacGregor, Central European Synthesis, 11-12, 227, 240-41. Originally published at Themelios, used with permission https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/nonviolence-in-the-ancient-church-and-christian-obedience/

Jesus’ message of peace for all time The earliest Christians embraced Jesus’ message of peace. Indeed, up until the time of Constantine the early church taught that Jesus forbade his followers to kill. The most profound theological foundation for this conviction was the cross – that Christians should love, not kill, their enemies, as Jesus had shown them. Miroslav Volf is right: “If one decides to put on soldier’s gear instead of carrying one’s cross, one should not seek legitimation in the religion that worships the crucified Messiah.” Even so, when Jesus commanded his disciples to love their enemies, did he mean that they should never kill them? Did Jesus literally want his disciples to put down their swords? One may conclude with Reinhold Niebuhr that Jesus said to love one’s enemy, but that it does not work in the real world. One may also note the obvious, with C. S. Lewis: “Does anyone suppose that our Lord’s hearers understood him to mean that if a homicidal maniac, attempting to murder a third party, tried to knock me out of the way, I must stand aside and let him get his victim?” and with that, discount pacifism altogether. Yet Jesus’ command remains: Christians are to love their enemies. What does this mean? For two thousand years, Christians have sought – more or less seriously – to grapple with this question. What can we learn from the history of the church? Could Jesus have really intended his followers to lay down their arms? Originally published at Plough, used with permission https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/nonviolence/christian-nonviolence-and-church-history

In America I’ve not found too many Christians who believe in the non-violent ways of Jesus. If anything our ethic on the issue has been that of the most men: Kill or be killed. And the above quote that I came across on Twitter the other day really spoke highly to me. Our society hears more about a non-violent ethic from fringe political groups than they do professing Christians. I feel we as Christians have a view of violence that is indistinguishable from the world. We have no distinct theological perspective or prophetic witness to offer. Which is really odd because Jesus said a lot of things about how we should respond to violence, which we happily ignore. Instead, we believe in the 2nd amendment as if it were a commandment of God and a line in the apostles creed. As the late Art Katz was fond of saying: “We are far too American.” (Check out my prior podcast on this: Christians, You Are Far Too American – Episode #14) My Personal Story I used to believe a lot of the typical things that most of my fellow conservative Evangelical Christian brothers believed on the topics of guns, violence, self-defense, and just war theory. I come from a large family that has had numerous members serve in every branch of the military, all the way from infantry positions to officer ranks. Many of my family members own guns. I’m comfortable around guns, and have shot them for fun. I used to believe in a lot of the typical theories behind self-defense and just war theory. In my Christian ethics class in Bible College, I even wrote an essay defending the issue. But after Bible College and Seminary, I started to feel more challenged by what I was reading in the Scriptures on the issue. And I realized I had been asking a lot of the wrong questions. Most my questions sounded like some variant of “If Hitler broke into your house to rape and kill your wife and children, what would you do?” The answer to such a question always seemed obvious, and ends up being answered the exact same way by almost everyone. Instead, I found myself asking better questions, like, “Who Is Jesus? What did He come to do? What did He teach us? And how has He called me to live?” So, in light of such things, I’d like to survey the Scriptures and see what we can learn. Please be sure to listen to this podcast episode, where I will spend a lot more time breaking down the passages below. …In The Beginning, It Was Not So When we examine the Scriptures from cover to cover, God did not initially permit violence in response to violence. Capital punishment wasn’t even permitted after Cain killed Able. Cain was worried someone would kill him. God actually forbade such. Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” So the Lord said to him, “Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him. Genesis 4:14-15 (NASB) It wasn’t until after the flood that God allowed man to kill other men in response to violence. Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man. Genesis 9:6 (NASB) However, as we learn from the apostle Paul, all things regarding the Law were only temporary in nature. Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions… until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. Galatians 3:19 (NASB) Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc all had various commands given them. But, they were only given for but a season. They were given until the seed of promise (Jesus) should ultimately come. And now that Jesus has come, the Law and all that it demanded has been fulfilled and replaced by the New Covenant. The Hope of the Prophets The Old Testament prophets ultimately looked forward to a world free from violence and war. Isaiah and Micah gave very similar prophecies regarding the Messianic kingdom and the impact that the reign of Christ would have on this world. They envisioned a world in which men responding to the teachings of Christ would ultimately beat their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, and never again learn war. And while there is still a very real future sense to these prophecies, make no mistake about it, these prophecies are also applicable to the here and now. While we still away the fullness of the kingdom of God to come with Christ at His return, the kingdom He preached has long been established, and is in our midst. We may be living “in between the times” and the “already… but not yet” aspects of God’s kingdom. But that doesn’t mean it’s not present, and that doesn’t mean we are awaiting for the fullness of that kingdom to come at the return of Christ before we start living in light of the realities of that kingdom. The prophetic hope that the Hebrew prophets looked forward to has broken out in the present, and we are now called to live out our lives in light of such. The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the Lord Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war. Isaiah 2:1-4 (NASB) And Micah making the same prophecy in Micah 4:1-3 also added the following lines to his oracle: Each of them will sit under his vine And under his fig tree, With no one to make them afraid, For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. Though all the peoples walk Each in the name of his god, As for us, we will walk In the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. Micah 4:4-5 What The Gospels Say About Non-Violent Resistance Make no mistake about it whatsoever, Jesus taught and practiced non-violent resistance. We now live in a different age, in which the prophesied kingdom of God has finally come. A new age has dawned. The world is now different. The cosmos have changed. And if the coming of the coming of the kingdom of God hasn’t changed our views on guns, bloodshed, violence, and war, if I might be so frank… I don’t know what will. We aren’t simply waiting on Jesus to return before we start living kingdom lives in the present. Here are some verses to consider from the Gospel: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Mathew 5:9 (NASB) “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ “But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. “Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. “Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:38-48 (NASB) And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus *said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. Matthew 26:51-52 (NASB) Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” John 18:36 (NASB) What The Apostles Taught About Non-Violent Resistance The apostles also taught the same thing Jesus taught about non-violence. And not only did the teach it, but they practiced it, and many gave their lives living out what they taught. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. Romans 8:35-37 (NASB) Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:17-21 (NASB) For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 (NASB) The Resurrection Changes Everything The belief that Jesus resurrection should change our perspective on death. Since death has been conquered we should no longer fear it, nor use lethal force as a tool to save our lives, but we should conquer it in hope of our own bodily resurrection even as Jesus did. Instead of being a people who love their lives, we need to be a people who are willing to lay down their lives for the sake of the peace the gospel came to bring. We need to stop holding onto this world and this life as if that is all there is. For the resurrection of Jesus should free us from the fear that causes us to do everything we can to protect our lives. Instead, we live in hope that though we may lose our lives that God will one day raise us from the dead, even as He raised Jesus Christ. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. Revelation 12:10-11 (NASB) But, What About Romans 13? Whatever role government may be authorized by God to use violence as “an avenging angel” that “bears the sword” is something that is ultimately a description of God’s “use” of a pagan government to carry out his will in this world, and is ultimately the prerogative unique to God to exact vengeance, something which we as Christians do not have the right to carry out on God’s behalf. We are ambassadors for Christ, and agents of reconciliation, not agents of His wrath. And this passage is sandwiched between a lot of text immediately before it in Romans 12 (cited above), and after it in the closing of Romans 13, that teaches us to sacrificially love our enemies and to not repay evil for evil, but rather, to love them even as we do our neighbor. Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:1-10 (NASB) Originally published at Jimmy's Table Podcast, used with permission https://jimmystable.com/why-i-dont-own-a-gun-and-would-never-kill-someone-episode-22/

Since the war broke out in Ukraine this week, I’ve had several people ask what a pacifist would say about all this. Over the last month, my co-author and I have been doing a lot of podcasts and interviews about the book, one of which came out yesterday as Russia invaded Kyiv. No author can predict the timing of their book, and a land war in Europe wasn’t on the radar when we wrote it, mostly because violence is an enduring feature of the world, and the occasions for talking about Christian nonviolence in that kind of world are legion. I didn’t write directly about this yesterday, for two reasons. The first—and this is not a dodge—is that the first action is that of prayer, an appeal to God for safety and for the kingdom to come on Earth. Seriously: stop watching the news, and pray. But the second reason that I didn’t write about nonviolence yesterday -perhaps the most serious one-is that discussion of nonviolence in the context of a conflict’s outbreak comes across as a judgment upon those who fight. One of the major faults of much pacifist discourse is that it speaks of nonviolence as a possession, a matter of the right structure or right set of tactics and beliefs, and that if employed properly, will end violence. Christian nonviolence, far from this, is a matter of discipleship in the world, and is much better seen, in all of its iterations, as an aspiration, and as a penitent journey. It’s sinners being called by grace into the life of God by way of the work of Jesus: this will involve the renunciation of violence and the embrace of reconciliation, but this is a life we lead within a world of violence, one in which violence always remains both a possibility and a feature in which we participate, structurally, relationally, and politically. The sooner that Christian pacifists stop talking about war in such high perfectionist terms, the better: it makes a mockery of the deaths of those in war to describe their deaths as examples of what happens when a moral theory is put into motion or when it fails, and not as flesh and blood beings who have died. As such, the time for discussing Christian nonviolence is primarily before and after conflicts: in the midst of things, Christian nonviolence remains no less true, but as a matter of discourse, having an analytic debate about Christian nonviolence makes it sound as if—on top of being exposed to violence—the dying should be judged for their failure of fighting back. Any proposals for “ending” violence which emphasize the structural first and solely don’t understand that violence always comes out sideways, in the cracks. Part of the legacy of the 20th century which we address in the book is that nonviolence becomes more fulsome as our acknowledgments about violence become more full: violence is not something “out there” in the political realm of geopolitics solely, but within the folds of our relationships, in our economic arrangements, within local politics as well as international relations. And so, violence is not something you can outflank structurally or tactically: it persists as an enduring feature of a world in which sin remains in operation. Violence is, at it were, a surd, and will persist. So, if it doesn’t solve wars, why Christian nonviolence? The short answer is that because it’s true, that it bears witness to the way of Jesus, a way which frequently fails and is destroyed. Another way of putting this plainly, one which just warriors will agree with (for wrong reasons) is this: Christian nonviolence does not solve wars. I say this plainly, because no other form of moral reasoning about war promises to solve wars either, apart from vile forms of realism which treat war as a phenomenon about which we cannot have moral discussions. [1] Just war reasoning, the other major option for thinking morally about conflict, sometimes pretends sometimes that it is a mode of reasoning which “takes seriously” violence, but does so at the cost of making violence’s ubiquity a structural liability of Christian discipleship: we have to accept not simply the presence of violence, but the active and disciplined use of it. This to my mind is a bit specious, and the trajectory of just war thought has emphasized the ways in which it links moral action to violence: just war thinking has done careful work for centuries about the conditions of engaging in war and the conduct within it, but little (until very lately) about the post bellum phase, what happens after the conflict. If moral action in war is linked to the right use of violence, then it is predictable that the post-war space has been left out the picture until recently. The predictable results have occurred: by not having this aspect, the peace which just war thinking aims at is better categorized as the cessation of violence, not the promotion of peace. [2] I say all of this to underscore this basic point: violence, as a feature of a broken creation, is not going anywhere, and so any moral accounting of a response to violence cannot begin from the premise of what “ends” it. That being said, any number of tropes about nonviolence, Christian or otherwise, persist. Nonviolence does not, contrary to its stereotype, exclude the need for the restraint of evil, the protection of the neighbor, or the long view of hope for a reconciled region, and this is where I think Justin E.H. Smith's essay today is just wrong: the pacifist is not one who exists in a pure state, but one who embraces suffering for the neighbor at their own cost, and who does so in fragmented ways which still entail violence. Do I think that nonviolence is true? Only if by that we mean that it will fail and yet still be true to the revelation of Jesus Christ, and what it means for Jesus’ disciples to be disciples in a violent world. In war, violence breaks open in a way which is equivalent to the demonic taking up flesh and walking around. And in that space, there will be some who continue on, but many who do not, taking up arms in defense of their loved ones. And the pacifist of all people must minister and support ministry in that violence, if for no other reason than to do so mirrors the truthfulness they proclaim, both with respect to violence’s ubiquity and God’s call. There are many resources which nonviolence has that do not involve washing their hands and walking away, including (and not limited to) praying for those in the fight, dismantling the machinery of war, working for the restraint of the aggressor, making way for evacuations, leveraging influence for conflicts to end, binding up the wounds, and work for reconciliation over and over again. That God accepts us while we were yet murdering God on the cross is the sign of both the depth of God’s love for enemies, and the hope that even death is not the end of the truth of that love. So, go pray. And then, do the things that your hand finds to do. 1. The fatal flaw here to this line of argument is this: placing wars beyond good and evil is done in a desire to provide solace for those who find themselves involved in them and in morally fraught situations. But if wars are those things beyond good and evil, but rooted in necessity, those who participate in wars always have war as a space that has no continuity with ordinary life and cannot be reconciled with the rest of their lives. Odysseus can never come home. 2. Augustine famously argued that the just war is aimed at peace, and that the violence done by the just warrior is in service to peace. This, to his mind, limited the means available to the just warrior in combat. Originally posted on Christian Ethics in the Wild, used with permission. https://myleswerntz.substack.com/p/pacifism-does-not-end-the-wars

I have hesitated to write this post for some time now. Military service holds a special place of honor in American society. Veterans are our heroes, and everyone who joins the military gives up their life. Some sacrifice their lives unto death, while the rest forsake their homes, their families, their friends, and a “normal” life within society. I would expect that almost everyone joins for noble reasons—for the protection of the weak and innocent and to secure the future of freedom in this world. I can also expect that many Christians resonate with these feelings of patriotism. I have many friends, Christian and otherwise, who have served in the military and who have fought overseas. I cannot stress enough how thankful I am for their sacrifices, and how fortunate I am to know them or to have known them. I must confess that I don’t know the answer to my own question, and I don’t believe that even a long blog post could handle all of the complexities and nuances of this issue. Here, I simply want to offer the forgotten perspective of the early Church Fathers. I have been wrestling with the idea of Christian non-violence and if a Christian should serve in the military for a while now. It started with my reading of Preston Sprinkle’s Fight: A Christian Case for Non-Violence (now, Nonviolence: The Revolutionary Way of Jesus). It provides a compelling case, complete with a biblical theology of non-violence and a whole section devoted to the tricky “What ifs?” (Like, what if someone breaks into my house to kill me?) But the thing that really struck me was his section on the theology and practice of the early Church Fathers. Was he really suggesting that not one single Church Father approved of killing or military service before the Edict of Milan? (That’s the decree by Constantine in 313AD that made Christianity legal; Nicene Christianity didn’t become the official religion until 380AD with the Edict of Thessalonica). It must be hyperbole. I had to find out for myself. What makes the conversation of Christian non-violence in the early church so difficult is that there is no straightforward treatise on it. Theologians spent more time battling various heresies and developing orthodox doctrine. Periodic persecutions also hampered systematic treatises from being produced like we have today. It is not as simple as googling “What did so and so think about military service?” This means that readers must piece together various strands of argument and exhortation, from different writers and texts to form a composite picture of the theology. However, one should not paint the picture of the case for Christian non-violence too thin and bleak. There are approximately 60 to 90 different texts (depending on how you count them) that address the questions and dispositions to warfare, violence, and military service in the church. These writings come from 10 named authors such as Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Lactantius, and a few anonymous authors who wrote the Didache, Epistle to Diognetus, and Apostolic Traditions (often attributed to Hippolytus). These works vary in terms of genre and audience; some are a defense of Christianity and written to a Roman official (usually the emperor), and others feel more pastoral as they are addressed to Christians. I found another great book on the subject by Wheaton professor George Kalantzis, called Caesar and the Lamb: Early Christian Attitudes on War and Military Service. What made this book so powerful was that he simply introduces each Church Father and lets the excerpts speak for themselves. And there were a lot of excerpts. Here are just a few that were the most shocking to me: “For what kind of war would we not be fit and ready, despite our inferior numbers, we who willingly submit to the sword, if it were not for the fact that according to our rule of life we are given the freedom to be killed rather than to kill?” – Tertulian, Apology 37.4-5. “It is as when the blaring trumpet sounds and calls the troops together, and proclaims war. Will not Christ, who has blared a song of peace to the very ends of the earth, gather together his own soldiers of peace? Indeed, O people, he did assemble a bloodless army by his blood and his word, and to them he entrusted the kingdom of heaven.” – Clement of Alexandria, Exhortations to the Greeks 11.116. “For when we, so large a number as we are, have learned from His teachings and His laws that it is not right to repay evil for evil; that it is better to suffer wrong than be its cause, to pour forth one’s own blood rather than to stain our hands and conscience with the blood of another.” -Arnobius of Sicca, Against the Pagans 1.6.1-3 “It is not right for those who are striving to stay on the path of virtue to become associated with this kind of wholesale slaughter or to take part in it. For when God forbids killing, he is not only ordering us to avoid armed robbery, which is contrary even to public law, but he is forbidding what men regard as ethical. Thus, it is not right for a just man to serve in the army since justice itself is his form of service. Nor is it right for a just man to charge someone with a capital crime. It does not matter where you kill a man with the sword or with a word since it is killing itself that is prohibited. And so there must be no exception to this command of God. Killing a human being whom God willed to be a sacred creature, is always wrong”. – Lactantius, Divine Institutes 6.20.15-17 “The Lord, by taking away Peter’s sword, disarmed every soldier thereafter.” – Tertulian, OnIdolatry 19.1-3 “But because for us even watching a man being slain is next to killing him, we have forbidden watching such spectacles [Gladiatorial Games]. How, then, can we, who do not even look on, lest guilt and pollution rubs off on us, put people to death?” – Athenagoras, responding to the charge that Christians are cannibals, Plea on Behalf of the Christians 35.5. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. After doing a little more digging, I decided to catalog these references and see if there was a pattern. Why was this aversion to killing, war, and military service so unanimous among the early Church Fathers? Here are a few things that I found: No early Church Father approved of killing in any context. This belief was rooted in Jesus’ command to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:39-44) as it is frequently alluded to or quoted. It was both Jesus’ teaching and his example of the cross that provided the foundation for this nonviolent ethic of enemy-love. The nonviolent response of Christians to persecution and defamation was seen as a fulfillment of prophecy and a major identity marker of following Jesus. (“We came in accordance with the commands of Jesus to beat the spiritual swords that fight and insult us into ploughshares, and to transform the spears that formerly fought against us in pruning-hooks.” Origen, Against Celsus 5.33). The nonviolent response of Christians to persecution and defamation was often given as evidence of the value of Christianity to the Roman empire. It was argued that Christianity was making Rome more just and virtuous. This means that the enemy-love ethic had become a widespread way of living for Christians. If not, the arguments would fall flat in the face of opposing evidence. The aversion to Christian military service is primarily a result of its commitment to enemy-love rather than a focus on idolatry. While the idolatry infused in the Roman military constituted by mandated sacrifices and the taking of a public oath (Sacramentum, the same word used for the Christian mystery and the sacraments), was a concern in the writings of the early Church, it was not the Violence was the main source of contention as both issues are almost always addressed together. (To my knowledge, there are only two explicit instances, Tertullian The Crown 12.1 and Clement of Alexandria Commentary on 1 Cor. 26.98, which deal with Idolatry only. Various accounts of martyrdoms occurring in the military, especially Marcellus and Julius the Veteran, also only address the issue of idolatry.) Military and war imagery within the Old and New Testaments were reused and reimagined by the Church Fathers to draw a distinction between the Church and the Empire. The early Christian community really did wage war, even on behalf of the emperor, but it was done in accordance to Scripture, like Ephesians 6:11-17. Armed with the word of God, prayer, and their nonviolent enemy-love, the Church fought against the spiritual forces of evil that were the source of violence and warfare. The imagery was retained, but it was clear that the Militi Christi was made of martyrs and those who prayed fervently for peace. Now, I know that some may want to draw a distinction between the modern military and the Roman military. I think we can all agree that there are a great number of differences. For example, there are many people who serve in the military who never see combat, who never fire their weapon at another individual, and will never have to serve in a potentially morally-compromising way (according to the Church Fathers). I think it is more than fair to point this out, for then, the military can be treated just like any other occupation. What if we were to reframe our question to “Should a Christian serve in a non-combatant division of the military?” I believe the Church Fathers’ opinions would vary because some would see that the military and the Church are still competing for a Christian’s allegiance. But still, it’s a good point to make. Another distinction that should be made between ancient and modern warfare is the increased effectiveness of military weapons, training, and tactics, as well as the greater risk of non-combatant causalities. Even excluding nuclear devices, our modern weapons have the capability of decimating landscapes and cities. This means that wars waged today have the likelihood of causing more deaths, innocent and otherwise, than it did in first 3 centuries. Let us again limit and reframe our original question to this, “Should a Christian fight in military combat during wartime?” According to the early Church Fathers, the answer is a unanimous, NO Now, I am a Protestant, and I must hold that the God-inspired, God-embodied, and God-illumined Scripture is my ultimate source of authority. I follow first and foremost the Bible. But, is it shocking that the early Church was so vehemently opposed to violence and serving in the military? I don’t think we necessarily have to follow the Fathers in everything, but we at least should be aware of when we are breaking ranks with them, especially on a topic in which there didn’t seem to be much disagreement. In addition, they were not just spouting things off the top of their heads. No, the Church Fathers were serious readers of Scripture who took following Jesus’ non-violent ethic of enemy-love seriously. Many of these writers suffered persecution for their beliefs, some even demonstrated it in martyrdom. We cannot so easily dismiss them or their reading of Scripture simply because they don’t live in the modern world. We also cannot make the cry that this theology is impractical today, dismissing by simply asking, “We can’t all be nonviolent, right?” First, we don’t follow Jesus because its practical, we follow Jesus because He is the Lord and King, and as Christians, he is our Lord and King. Second, Rome made that same argument about how impractical Christianity and their nonviolent ethic was, and Tertullian responded, “The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church” (Apology 50.13). Non-violence worked. In the first three centuries, the Kingdom of God did not require Christians to serve in physical combat, but in spiritual warfare. They were conscripted to love and serve their Lord, Jesus Christ, and reflect his non-violent ethic of enemy-love to the world. And it worked! Like a virus, the Christian faith spread throughout the Roman empire, thus conquering their persecutors through love, not war. Make no mistake, an ethic of nonviolence is not the gospel, but according to the early Church Fathers, it was the natural outworking of the gospel of peace. “and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths . . . . . . and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:3-4) “And that it did so come to pass, we can convince you. For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God; and we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ.” (Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 39) Originally published at The Two Cities, used with permission. https://www.thetwocities.com/culture/christian-culture/should-christians-join-the-military-a-forgotten-perspective/

In a sermon series through the book of Revelation, Jon Sherwood calls for the church to remain separate from "the beast" and applies it to modern America and its civil religion. Originally by Jon Sherwood, used with permission: https://www.jonsherwood.com/post/the-apocalypse-civil-and-uncivil-worship