[I am contributing to the Xanga Council of Christian Pacifists, which features answers to questions about pacifism, and then further questions of those answers. It's in the beginning stages of development, but we're hoping it will catch on with your help. Come by and start asking questions! Here is my response to the 3rd 
question.]A problem that Christian advocates of nonviolence often face is that the God of scripture seems not to be an advocate of nonviolence. While violence in the church (the Crusades, the killing of Quakers) can be fairly blamed on a departure from following the way of Christ, the violence God enacts throughout scripture (flooding the earth, striking Ananias and Sapphira dead, the book of Revelation) cannot be simply explained away.
This is made more problematic when several passages in the New Testament specifically call the disciple to imitate God while simultaneously calling for a nonviolent life. Matthew 5 tells us to love indiscriminately, just as God sends the rain and sun to both the good and evil. Ephesians 5 explicitly calls us to "be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us."
So which is it? Do we live nonviolently with God as our example, because God has revealed himself in Christ to be a God of nonviolent, even suffering, love? Or do we live nonviolently because we trust God alone to be righteously violent? What's more, how can it be true that the fullness of the deity is revealed in Christ, if Christ's nonviolence is in primary contradiction to God's character?
Here are some observations.
There is no problem. If I was a sculptor, I would be in a position to destroy every work I've ever made, and nobody could hold me to moral account. But let anyone else destroy what I've made, and I will be justifiably upset. God can exercise violence and take life as he will, and also command the church to refrain from taking life. The shortcomings of this observation are obvious, however. It may leave humans with no more dignity than a sculpture, for one. It also does not deal with the imitation texts mentioned above, or the problem of an internally inconsistent Godhead. So we need to think deeper.
A 'nonviolent God' would be a nightmare for the world. While many Christian thinkers, including especially pacifists and Girardians, argue that God is fundamentally "a nonviolent deity," theologian Miroslav Volf, also a committed pacifist, has consistently and passionately argued against this understanding. To those who would claim God to be a pacifist, Volf offers this challenge. Imagine:
[Y]ou are delivering a lecture in a war zone. Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned, and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: A Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God's refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die.
According to Volf, God's wrath is an aspect of God's love. "If God would not be angry at the injustice of the world, and act to punish it, then God would not be worthy of human worship."
But 'violence' is not accurate to God either.
Willard Swartley has argued compellingly that while scripture uses the term 'violence' in its various forms quite commonly, the term is never applied to God's actions except in two questionable cases (Job 19:7, Jer. 20:8). Rather, violence always figures as that which is enacted against God and his people, and as that to which God responds. Even an act of judgment like the flood is enacted specifically
against violence, as God acts because "the earth was filled with violence."
According to Swartley, this shows that "God stands against violence, and violence is precisely that which ignites God's wrath and brings divine punishment upon humans. If we choose to call that violence and attribute it to God, we have slipped a step exegetically, failing to recognize a fundamental fact about Scripture: God "hates the lover of violence."
Distinction precedes imitationThat the New Testament calls disciples to imitate the character of God (which is not 'violent,' but which is actively opposed to violence) is secondary to the duty of not wanting to
be God. Volf, again: "Preserving the fundamental difference between God and nonGod, the biblical tradition insists that there are things which only God may do." One of them is to exercise wrath (Rom 12).
The prohibition of idolatry is just as fundamental, perhaps more so, than the prohibition of exercising violence.
But Mennonite theologian James Reimer argues that the distinction does not
negate the call for imitation.
God's means of achieving the ultimate reconciliation of all things are not immediately evident to us. God cannot be subjected to our interpretation of the non-violent way of Jesus. Our commitment to the way of the cross (reconciliation) is not premised on God's pacifism or non-pacifism. It is precisely because God has the prerogative to give and take life that we do not have the right... We o not avoid the reality of violence in ourselves and in our world, but we side with the dynamic power of peace and reconciliation which is mysteriously at work in the scrabble game of life, knowing that ultimately all things rest in God's providential and loving hands.
My thoughts, then.To summarize, I believe that Christians are called to trust in God enough to allow God to be God, while we follow the example of suffering love put forward in Christ. We are only able to do this because we know that God ultimately settles all debts and puts all things right. Paradoxically, we know the center of God's victory is the self-relinquishment and suffering love of Christ.
You may think this may seem as much like a non-answer as an answer, and I think you may be right. But for now all I can do is live in the paradox that "The God
of peace will soon
crush Satan under your feet."
Does this change your thoughts on violence in society and our own lives? Do you believe God is non-violent, and do you believe He's called you to that purpose?
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Comments (18)
It doesn't change my view (non-pacifism), but it's interesting. I don't believe a reconciliation of opposites need to take place, since I don't believe pacifism is a Christian tenet. For pacifists, I can definitely see the difficulty.
xccp always blows my mind. thanks guys.
here's something i'm wondering....... if wrath is God's domain alone, is it logical to assume that He can use humans in expressing His wrath? or does it always come in the form of something natural?
I don't consider myself a pacifist, but that is still some hard sh* to swallow. God may do as He pleases, for He is God, and we are not His jury. We are simply required to be obedient to His commands. I think what Reimer had to say about subjecting God to our interpretation of Christ's non-violent actions is something many of us ought to think about. Good post.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - We see the God of Creation use all elements for his wrath. He used the Assyrians as the rod of his wrath against Israel. So yes, he has used humans. We also know he uses government (Romans 12-13). The New Testament doesn't give an real instances of this happening but that doesn't mean it is off limits to our Father. Though, I wouldn't necessarily expect Him to pour out his wrath in all the ways he has before. Should our Father desire to pour out his wrath on the world using his Church (unlikely according to Romans 12-13) then there would be clear revelation. Though, I think this sort of deal has more to do with the second coming of Christ than anything else. Christian nonviolence is strongly tied to eschatology. Christians who decide to be tools of His wrath though action without the command to do so are not doing the will of their Father.
"Go sell your cloak and buy a sword"?
The Apostle John testified, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world will pass away, and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of GOD will abide for ever.” (I John 2:15-17)
The Apostle James testified, “Where do wars and fighting among you come from? Do they not come of your lusts that war in your members? You lust, and have not: you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and war yet you have not, because you ask not. You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts. You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know the friendship of this world is enmity with GOD? Therefore, whoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of GOD.” (James 4:1-4)
And The Apostle John testified, "The WHOLE world is under the control of the evil one." (1John 5:19)
Question is, "Why is it that the multitudes believe that a certain portion of this world is not "under the control of the evil one""?
Discernment has taught me that the multitudes compare one portion of this "evil world" to another, "which is not wise", and then that portion which is the lesser evil in their own mind, becomes their version of good ;-(
Sadly, seems it's a game people play, the "gevid" game, and all who play are losers ;-(
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light, and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isa 5:20)
So it is that the multitudes love this evil world, it's things, and their own life in and of it ;-(
And "the few" who follow The Messiah "on the narrow way"?
They have "set their affections on things above", Heavenly things.......
They are "In, yet not of this world" indeed and Truth.......
Peace, in spite of the dis-ease(no-peace) that is of this evil world....... francis
@MusicologyNut85@xanga - I tried to approach that passage from one direction in this post, and from a different direction in the comments on the post. I'm convinced that the passage describes a metaphor that the disciples took literally, which led to Jesus' frustrated comment, "That's enough," exactly parallel to Mt. 16:5-12.
I'd love to have your input on the post itself, though.
forgot how much i like reading your posts, nick don.
refreshing. maybe i should start reading my subscriptions again.
I have several questions to pose to you:
I've known many Christians who serve in the military (including my own parents). Would you say they are violating their faith in some way by doing so?
David is described in the Bible as "a man after God's own heart." Yet he was also a warrior. He slew Goliath, battled lions and bears to protect his flocks. How do you reconcile this? For that matter, what about the other godly warriors found throughout Scripture (Joshua, Gideon, Samson, etc.)?
This is an overused example, but let's say I come home one night and find someone raping my sister. What would be the more godly thing to do: take a "pacifist" route and allow the man to continue with the rape, or to use violence to stop it?
Can you guy's spell Christophany (Psalms 110)???
@The_messenjah777@xanga - pacifism cannot be justified in any culture. It is the pinnacle self righteousness and cowardliness. Just tell your sister after she is raped that you stood by and watched because you wanted to be more like Christ.
This argument will never end as long as we view life and God from a third person perspective. The arguments and confusion go back and forth endlessly. In war, those who fight on either side have been convinced of two things. It is the patriotic thing to do and God is on their side but violence begets violence. Yes, standing in the middle of a war torn city in the throes of battle, preaching non-violence is not using common sense but this doesn't justify the actions of those who bombed the city and raped its women. One must realize that the true nature of all things exists within oneself. Once that is the view from which one looks out at the world, he or she sees the oneness of all things. We no longer need try to believe in love because we read it in a book somewhere. We know it with our whole being. Just like you can never know what pizza tastes like by reading about its ingredients, you'll never know the true nature of life that exists in everything until you discover it inside of yourself. It might be wise to ask why it is that although the New Testament has been around for close to 2000 years and the Old Testament even longer, people still haven't come up with an answer everyone can agree upon.
Btw, your posts are always good, and thought provoking.
Here's a quote I've mentioned several times on other blogs is one I think is pertinent here. It's attributed to Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha who lived in India about 3,000 years ago.
"Though one may conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, yet he indeed is the noblest victor who conquers himself."
I've loved that quote since I first read it between classes one day at college.
@The_messenjah777@xanga - Your first question is actually the next one to be featured on xccp, sometime in the next few days. Personally, I don't judge anyone for serving in the military, whether Christian or not, and I think there is honor and sacrifice in such service that is to be praised. Their understanding of Christian discipleship is clearly different from mine, and that's something that as family we have to hammer out, but regardless of disagreement, I wouldn't accuse them of violating their faith. Perhaps misunderstanding it, but it's a very complex question to begin with. That's my initial thought, but look for the post on xccp for some more depth.
My basic perspective on the OT is that Israel was called to live in ways that the church isn't.
As to the rape question, it's a misunderstanding to think that the pacifist route is to allow the rapist to continue. Being a pacifist doesn't meant you don't involve yourself, you just don't try to injure or kill the guy as you intercede.
If you're interested in a more comprehensive explanation of Christian nonviolence, I put one together here. Warning: it's long.
@ChevalierSeingal@datingish - Fun fact: Psalm 110 is the most quoted passage from the Hebrew scriptures in the New Testament.
Also, don't confuse pacifism for nonresistance. Being a pacifist means you aren't going to kill the guy after you stop him.
@TheSutraDude@xanga - Are you sure it's Shakyamuni? I thought it was a Taoist proverb.
@SirNickDon@xanga - Yes I am sure it's from Shakyamuni. It's in a volume called The Dhammapada, a collection of verses attributed to him. It's in the section called "The Thousands". It wouldn't surprise me if the same or similar statement was found in Taoist proverb or somewhere in any other religious doctrine for that matter. It's no coincidence that all of the worlds great teachers say the same things over and over and over. The Bible contains the phrase, "As ye sow so shall ye reap." Buddhism clarifies the law of causality or cause and effect. In the vernacular we often say to each other, "What comes around goes around."
@SirNickDon@xanga - Wow I didn't know you knew that as well. Great job not many christians know that but I respect christians a lot more when they know there bibles. Very impressive! :)
Do you believe God is non-violent, and do you believe He's called you to that purpose?
The major error in this post is that non-violence equals peace. This is not true.
God is not non-violent. He has mass murdered thousands who were evil and threatened his Chosen People. It's in the Bible. Heroes such as King David were military men and came to prominence by violently slaying the enemy.
There is no commandment, Scripture, or Tradition that dictates non-violence equals peace.
Non-violence equals peace is a sorrowful, erroneous, completely unjustified interpretation of Revelation.
...do you believe He's called you to that purpose?
This is another profound error. Non-violence is a method not a purpose. In civilized society non-violence is the preferred and lawful method of association.