I don't think I am a very violent person. Actually, if anything I find I very passive in nature. I've never punched anyone. I would say pacifism is a natural way of life. However, pacifism as a way of life that avoids parts of life that requires force or violence is not really a pacifism that Jesus talks about. I think my thinking on pacifism have evolved to a thinking that Jesus wasn't a pacifist in a passive sense. Rather, in a very proactive sense. In reading The Powers That Be by Walter Wink, I have been mulling over what does it mean to act non-violently in a world that seemingly blindly accepts what Wink calls "The Myth of Redemptive Violence." What this myth deals with is the idea so violence brings peace. That when we confront problems of justice that we are able to use violence since our ends are valid.
However, Gandhi always said that if your end is a good end your means must be equally good. In this I find the truth that reveals the inherent sinfulness in any form of 'just war theory.' While some may say this is merely my pacifism shining through. I acknowledge this however Gandhi is by no means a pacifism but merely recognizes the lie that is found in the myth of redemptive violence. Gandhi even said that violence is preferred to cowardice. The fact that any kind of peace can come through violence is void and our world is a glaring example of this truth. Wink give countless examples of how in World War 2 how there were people within this war resisted to fight through violent measure and many were saved from concentration camps through these kind of non-violent methods.
Winks words still haunts me. How violence is so easy to give into. Wink however gives a quite good argument to that Jesus came to die for the worlds sins and this idea of redemptive violence is something of the world and the Powers are holding onto this lie of violence with all its might. However, that the cross exposes the lie of violence in its most dehumanizing form of cruxifiction, and reveal that it hold no real weight.
A question that I continually struggle with is the seemingly shift of talk of violence between the Old Testament and the New Testament. While the Old Testament, almost canonizes violence as God's ordained way of working through problems and Jesus, talks about violence as have no power in the Kingdom of God. Wink gives the idea that this violent God of the Old Testament is merely due to that the people of the Old Testament was violent. While that may be the case, i find this conclusion a bit escapist. Then how can these violent stories be part of the christian story, if they are mere people being violent thus inferring violence on God. I struggle with the conquest narrative in Christian Canon as merely a form of inferring violence on God. It seems that there needs to be a deeper discussion on this. Just a thought....
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Chris,
I agree that the canonical portrait of God is very troubling in some respects, especially in the way God is implicated in violence (in both the Old and New Testaments!).
My approach to this has changed gradually over time. I now believe that not everything the Bible says about God is trustworthy. I think it's the job of the church (or the synagogue) to decide which parts of the Bible proclaim the Gospel and which parts work against the Gospel. For example, much of the Bible is what we would call "sexist" or "patriarchal" and, since the Gospel calls us to move beyond that, I think we need to consider that patriarchal grid to be anti-Gospel. So, in a sense, I agree with Wink, even while I agree with your comment that sometimes that approach is just to easy...
Of course, that leaves everything complex...
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