Shaun Groves
SEE THE COMMENTS ON THE PREVIOUS POST REGARDING MARTIN LUTHER KING’S QUOTATIONS TO SEE WHY AND WHERE BRANT ASKED ME THESE QUESTIONS:
BRANT ASKED:
“Is your [brand of pacifism] one that holds that our nation, or any nation, should not use force to defend itself, or innocents in other nations?”
MY ANSWER:
I don’t know. Here’s what I think though. I think this scenario of nations using violence to defend themselves or other innocents is fantasy. I don’t know that it has ever happened in modern history – that I’ve learned of. I can think of no situation in which violence was used by a nation to defend itself or save the innocent in which that was the ONLY motivation, and the result was that harm came to the “guilty” and armed only. It’s just not a real situation you’re asking about.
But, in case that seems like a dodge, while I don’t know for sure what God would say in such instances, I can find no loophole for such instances in the teachings of Christ, the example of Christ, Paul’s Epistles, the teachings of the early church or the examples of the battling Jews of the Old Testament. So, no, using violence to end violence is not just. Or, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr, to think we can arrive at peace through war is like thinking we can arrive at purity through fornication.
BRANT ASKED:
“Is your [brand of pacifism] one that holds that police should not use force to defend the innocent?”
“Police” is too general a term. It does not factor in one’s faith, one’s relationship with and commitment to God. I do not, as a Christ follower, expect those outside the Church to be moral and do not judge them or expect them to behave virtuosly in any way. Moral expectation is reserved for fellow Christians, beginning with myself. (This is why it’s odd to me when folks boycott non-Christians for acting like non-Christians). So, to answer your question and change it a little, no, I do not think Christians should use force with the intent to harm, punish, kill, cause pain to another human being regardless of what it is that human being is doing. The intent matters. So, no, I do not think a Christian should be in an occupation that requires them to be violent in order to fight violence. Tertullian, an early church bishop, instructed that Christians who are part of the military should be disciplined out of the church even if they do not bear arms in the course of their duties. That’s how strongly many early Christians believed the teaching of Christ to be against violence.
BRANT ASKED:
“If so, and given that you believe we have political responsibilities to advocate for justice—understandably—will you advocate for the eradication of police and military?”
MY ANSWER:
I don’t know how you’re defining “political” but if you mean political in the nation-state/government involvement sense, the answer is an emphatic no. I have no “political responsibilities to advocate for justice” in that way. I do not vote. I do not pledge allegiance. I do not respect our flag over any other. I do not live for or die for a nation and have no faith in impotent governments incapable of legislating beneath skin, in the soul where law must be written in order for justice to be lived naturally. There is no such thing as justice without Christ and no government can therefore create true justice – only the Church.
Romans 13 says there will be governments (local magistrates, police etc) that have swords (weapons) and will use them to punish those who break their laws. Some use this passage to say Paul is prescribing them to do so, that he is commanding government to punish the law breaker with force. IF he was doing this in Romans 13 (and he isn’t) then the scope of this punishment and violence is, using only this passage, only local, within the borders of that magistrate’s territory. But Paul is not being PREscriptive here. He is being DEscriptive. This matters immensely – the context. He is warning people to obey the laws of men when they don’t cause us to break the laws of God because 1)we don’t want to cut our lives and our impact for the kingdom of Heaven on earth short by getting our heads chopped off. That would be stupid. 2)we should represent Christ well by being respectful and civil and not causing unnecessary problems for society. Following Jesus will bring us enough problems of it’s own without adding to them with negligence and petty law breaking. Die for a good reason, the right reason, the Gospel of Christ, Paul seems to be saying. Don’t die by the magistrates sword over some avoidable infraction. He’s warning us. He’s not saying Hey, magistrates feel free to make any rules you want and kill your citizens if they break them – God doesn’t mind. This is especially true when we read Romans 12 and THEN read ROmans 13. There’s a fishy chapter break thrown in there that really confuses things. Romans 12 ends by talking about how vengeance and punishment are God’s job and that we should love always, even those who harm us, and never seek revenge. THEN the magistrate is contrasted against that, against OUR Christian way of living.
So I admit that police and the military do much much good, when they’re not violent. Traffic laws are not God laws but they help society work better and don’t go against God’s laws so, sure, let’s have them and let’s enforce them with fines. Laws against murder, rape, theft – same thing. They make society safer and don’t break God’s laws so, again, have those laws and enforce them. But don’t use violence in the process of law enforcement.
The obvious follow up question to all of this that I’d ask myself is “So what do you suggest instead of violence mister unrealistic high horse hippie? How do we defend folks and enforce laws without using violence? What’s your alternative? How would YOU stop Hitler or Sadaam or Osama?”
Great question. How would you answer?
Unknown says:
oh lordy, as if this topic could not get any more mind-twistingly complicated and exhausting. (but very fun) you just had do drop the A-bomb huh? here comes abortion in all here controversial glory.
ill get to some of this tonight, but its a GREAT question so ill try to regroup and do the rest later. and even then im pretty sure that i or anyone wont have a perfect answer for it.
first off, i never said blowing anything up was the first thing that I would do. I said if ALL other alternatives have been exhausted then some-kind of force would be necessary. AND if abortion were illegal then you can bet there would some force employed by the GOVERNMENT to intervene. secondly, blowing up abortion clinics is against the law of the land, protecting my wife from rape with force is not. thridly, pacifists and just-war adherents (sp.?) or Christians in general should be way more active in the prevention of abortion…
great question man, ill be pondering that one for days on end. THANKS ALOT!!!!
Seth
foleyma says:
Excellent discussion, though it seems so hard to get to a conclusion. So many angles.
It is possible, I suppose, that God can have different answers for different situations. I may walk in on a man raping my wife and God’s answer may be for me to stop and pray. Completely counter-intuitive, of course, but that might be His answer for that time and event.
I need to listen to that answer. What seems to be missing in this discussion is the idea that God’s Will is the will that matters. Not our brains, not our philosophical pov’s, and definitely not our political allegiances.
Was it God’s will to, say, invade Iraq? Who is to say? The only evidence we seem to have one way or the other is the lying that had to take place in order to justify the invasion. In my experience, God does not ask us to lie in order to do His will. But perhaps it wasn’t a lie? God knows – I do not.
Finally, let me just add two things. First, many Christian philosophers have advocated a break between believers and The Powers. Meaning that we are not be concerned about the affairs of this world (Power), but instead to concern ourselves only with the affairs of Christ. Christ has already won the battle and has already destroyed (or will destroy) the Powers (this would include Hitler, Stalin, etc.). It is not our concern. This works for me, and helps me to not get worked up about injustice in the government. My job is to work in my world and to avoid the government at all costs (sort of).
My other point would be to look at the founding fathers of our faith. Those who went to their deaths proclaiming Jesus. Were they not innocents who were killed? Should the police have stepped in and stopped it from happening? Should the Christians have united, gathered weapons and stormed the jail to free, say, Paul? What kind of story would that be? Is that what we believe in?
I think not. I think Christians often become Christians because they want to let go of their lives in order to gain real life. We should be willing to die for our friends and our faith at the drop of the hat.
But should we be willing to kill for it? That’s not the Jesus I know.
caparoon says:
Hi Shaun,
I hate internet discussions like this,
and I also really like your blog.
That being said… Maybe I’m reading wrong, but if you’re defining “violence” how I think you are, then how do we square something like your *not* being willing to hit an intruder in the head with a bat when he’s raping your wife with Jesus’ little whip-trip through the temple?
thanks,
-j
margrave says:
i know that my own difficulty in wholeheartedly swallowing pacifism is my fear of death. in other words, my addiction to this life.
those who don’t believe in eternal life should hypothetically be the strongest advocates for saving earthly life at all costs (using violence if need be) because for them “it’s all there is”.
those who do believe in eternal life, one would think, should be the strongest advocates for peace, because like a martyr from any era, by remaining committed to peace even unto death, they enter into wholeness physically testifying that in fact life is eternal and purposeful. true martyrs are really the most proactive not passive people in all of history.
my convoluted point? the Church should embody, to the rest of the world, the hope of eternal life (already and not yet) rather than the fear of death.
so how does this play out in regard to hitler, bin laden, or a burlgar in my house threatening my family? like bonhoffer, i’d probably fail my beliefs and choose the violent path…
…but, we nonetheless should work peacefully to remove the conditions that create people like hitler and bin laden and would-be murderers in the first place. perhaps there is an important difference between pre-emptive peacemaking and pre-emptive and reactionary violence?
bridgett says:
Beth,
In my day job, I’m a historian of the American Revolution and Early Republic, specializing in the legal history of the new nation. Think this one through with me. If we followed original intent in the manner you suggest is good, you (and me and any other women among the readership) would not be voting. Our political role in the nation would be dramatically circumscribed, as would the direct participation in governance of most of the men in the readership. Universal white male suffrage was slow to arrive, in some places not taking effect until 30 years after the Revolution was over. The conversation we are having—with men, in a public space, our opinions listened to and our views intelligently addressed —would have been improbable in the late 18th century. And it is not just women who were not included in the original conception of who was to be an actor in civil society. If one argues for original intent, there are a lot of horrifying oppressions that go along with that. Picking and choosing appeals to modern Christians, but the law is a system of ordering power in secular society—one cannot go down the cafeteria line merely taking what we like and leaving the rest. If you really want original intent, you get the bathwater along with the baby.
The freedoms you have assumed were there at the beginning often were not, or were not well-protected by the courts. The bright line between church and state was there for a reason; they were a religiously diverse lot who feared state involvement in the financing of church activities. The commitment to nation as a concept, too, was pretty rickety among the majority of common folk. One of the real anxieties on the minds of early federal officials is the lack of identification with a national vision—they complained all the time that citizens were too self-interested and didn’t behave patriotically. They dodged taxes, bailed out on militia service, etc. There’s no golden haze on this period that makes it more virtuous than our own—sinners are sinners, even when they wore shoebuckles and wigs.
By the way, the “Under God” was added to the Pledge during the Cold War—to differentiate Americans from “godless Communists.” There was no such state-sponsored commitment to Christianity—and indeed, no pledge to a national flag—in the immediate post-Revolutionary period.
And just to bring us full circle, pacifists were considered “trubblesum” people and paid heavy fines for what they insisted was an exercise of their religious freedom. So Christians arguing about the assumption of compulsory military service were among the first to demonstrate why church and state should not be so closely aligned.