In my quest for a US denomination which claims to be both "evangelical" and "pacifist" I've spent the last two days reading up on the Anabaptist (particularly Mennonite) movement. Churches with origins in the Anabaptist tradition seem to be among the few Christian movements today that still hold on to non-violence as a key value of the Christian life. I would encourage you all to go do some reading up on the history of the Mennonites. I think many of us would find that we hold many values in common with church denominations such as the Mennonite Church USA and the Mennonite Brethren. In particular I find myself drawn to the Mennonite Brethren church in the US, which seems to have a strong evangelical understanding of salvation while also maintaining a statement in their confession for non-violence as a central teaching of Christ's. You can read more about them HERE. Perhaps most interesting is article 13 in their detailed confession of faith which I took the liberty of posting below. Enjoy!:
"Article 13: Love and Nonresistance
God’s Community of Peace
— Believers believe that God in Christ reconciles people to himself and to one another, making peace through the cross. The
church is a fellowship of redeemed people living by love. Our bond with other believers of Jesus transcends all racial, social and national barriers.
Christian Peacemaking
— We seek to be agents of reconciliation in all relationships, to practice love of enemies as taught by Christ, to be
peacemakers in all situations. We view violence in its many different forms as contradictory to the new nature of the
Christian. We believe that the evil and inhumane nature of violence is contrary to the gospel of love and peace. In times of
national conscription or war, we believe we are called to give alternative service where possible. Alleviating suffering, reducing strife, and promoting justice are ways of demonstrating Christ’s love.
Exodus 20:1-17; Matthew 5:17-28, 38-48; Romans 12:9-21; Romans 13:8-10; I Peter 2:19-23."
I thought it would be good also to post the documentary we watched last week, "Prince of Peace, God of War" for those who were unable to join us last Saturday. It's a pretty good documentary, although we all agreed that it would have been made better by a more diverse collection of interviewees. I think it does a great job at explaining the historical basis for the churches rejection of Christ's teachings on peace as well as doing a great job at respectfully explaining arguments from both sides of this discussion.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Evidence of the Transformational Power of Peace: A Bishop Who Stood in the Way
Last night, the Tanks to Tractors Christian peace group met for the third time. Tim and Alice Colegrove were wonderful enough to allow our motley crew to converge on their beautiful home. THANK YOU TIM AND ALICE!!!
For the first time in our extremely brief history, we implemented a very important part of our reason for existence: Prayer. We all agreed that prayer must play a central role in how and why we gather. In particular, I was moved by Libby's prayer for the group that we be protected from self-righteousness and continue to 'walk humbly with our God.' This is certainly a real danger for Christians who hold the Peace position. We can easily give way to judgement of others who do not share our convictions. I am thankful that our group is already cognizant of this potential source of sin and is taking preemptive steps of resistance.
We also viewed a documentary film entitled "Prince of Peace, God of War" (which can be downloaded for free) by director John Campea. The film is made up mostly of short clips from interviews the director conducted with Christian scholars, that unfortunately did not represent the diverse Body of Christ, but hold to either the Peace position or Just War theory. Among the scholars interviewed was Dr. Tony Campolo. In his interview, he recounts a moving story of the power of peace. He tells of an Orthodox priest (Metropolitan Kirill) in Bulgaria during WWII who so identified with the Jews Nazi soldiers were rounding up to be transported to concentration camps, that he joined them in their confinement and proclaimed the words of Ruth, "Wherever you go, I will go. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God." When the SS saw that this demonstration was attracting a crowd too formidable to fend off, they abandoned the mission and none of the Jews in that Bulgarian town were killed.
I was so moved by this story, I wanted to seek out confirmation of its historicity. A few quick web searches returned overwhelming support. It seems this small town in Bulgarian was not alone. The Orthodox church in Bulgaria seems to have unanimously opposed cooperation with the Nazis and refused to hand over Bulgarians that happened to be Jewish. It also appears the Jewish community remembers this event well and has honored Bishop Kirill for it. I found an account of this story that is nearly identical to the one Campolo tells on the website of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship.
A detail they include that Campolo omits is even additionally inspirational. It is said in multiple locations I found, that Bishop Kirill and his followers threatened to lay down on the train tracks should the Nazi attempt to transport their Jewish neighbors out of the town.
This is truly the Christian witness that we are called to be.
Grace and peace
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Power of the Curse
Alice and I watched "Penelope" last night and although I didn't think it was an amazing movie, the moral of the story and the conclusion of the film was provocative to me. The film is about a rich girl (Penelope) who is born with a pig's nose because of a fairy tale curse on her family. Her mother spends the majority of the film trying to break the curse by finding her a rich young man to marry her in the hopes that the marriage would break the curse. The conclusion of the film is that she finds out that the only way to break the curse is for her to come to terms with herself and like herself for who she is, and at that point in the film her pig nose magically disappears. The film ends with her telling her fairy tale to a crowd of children who she then asks what the moral of the story is and the last child to answer her question says, "It's not the power of the curse, it's the power you give the curse." This line really stood out to me and I think captures well the churches condition here in America when it comes to our views of pacifism and social justice. The church in America has been lied to and told that "good theology" confesses that we are too weak to "fight the curse" of social injustice, sin, death, and war. This lie gives the enemy far too much power and in saying that we believe that we are helpless, we give power to the curse! What we need to do is to realize that where we were once helpless we are now strong enough in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to fight the curse and win. Not on our own, but as a part of His body. I have heard too many Christians, when presented with the pacifist stance that Jesus Christ teaches, tell me that my understanding of Christ's teachings is impractical and impossible to actually live out. They believe that we are unable to "love our enemies" and that therefore we can only do what we know how to do: fight evil through war. Again, I think in saying this these individuals are granting power to the curse: the curse that Jesus Christ broke at the cross and which we are not supposed to live under anymore. The Church today is like Penelope: It has an ugly pig nose and is only going to be able to rid itself of it when it stops giving power to the curse and starts to live out the gospel of the peaceable kingdom.
I had a dream several years ago that I think is relevant: In the dream I am worshipping with a small group of Christians in a small congregational church building. As we finish our liturgy and wait for the pastor to stand up and deliver the sermon, the side door to the front of the church opens and a man walks in and walks up to the front of the church. The man is extremely deformed and has no face, no arms, and is extremely overweight. He is covered in writing (tattoos?) and I can sense that his presence disgusts us and that we feel uncomfortable that he has taken the pulpit. He walks to the center of the front of the church and begins to make noises as if preaching, but we can't understand him and are revolted by him. We want to tell him to leave but don't know how. Thus the dream ends.
For the longest time I was convinced that the meaning of the dream had something to do with our judgement of the deformed man; that perhaps the dream was about how exclusive the church had become and how we needed to begin to accept people as they were. This interpretation however, had seemed unsatisfactory to me as it didn't quite capture the emotions I felt in the dream. So for the past several years I had been unaware of its real meaning until I recently narrated it to my wife and she wisely and tearfully pointed out to me what it meant: The deformed man in the dream IS the Church; we're supposed to be the beautiful body of Christ to the world but instead we are ugly, hypocritical, and deformed by hatred and sin: no face for people to recognize Jesus in, no arms to serve the poor, no voice to preach the gospel of peace with. We have become fat, ugly, and revolting to the world we were told to love and serve in Christ's name. The Christ we show people today is nothing like the loving, healing, and self sacrificing Christ of the gospels.
So friends, stop giving power to the curse of sin and death! Start looking and acting like Christ who is the head of the church. If we have a beautiful head to follow, we can and will have a beautiful body.
I had a dream several years ago that I think is relevant: In the dream I am worshipping with a small group of Christians in a small congregational church building. As we finish our liturgy and wait for the pastor to stand up and deliver the sermon, the side door to the front of the church opens and a man walks in and walks up to the front of the church. The man is extremely deformed and has no face, no arms, and is extremely overweight. He is covered in writing (tattoos?) and I can sense that his presence disgusts us and that we feel uncomfortable that he has taken the pulpit. He walks to the center of the front of the church and begins to make noises as if preaching, but we can't understand him and are revolted by him. We want to tell him to leave but don't know how. Thus the dream ends.
For the longest time I was convinced that the meaning of the dream had something to do with our judgement of the deformed man; that perhaps the dream was about how exclusive the church had become and how we needed to begin to accept people as they were. This interpretation however, had seemed unsatisfactory to me as it didn't quite capture the emotions I felt in the dream. So for the past several years I had been unaware of its real meaning until I recently narrated it to my wife and she wisely and tearfully pointed out to me what it meant: The deformed man in the dream IS the Church; we're supposed to be the beautiful body of Christ to the world but instead we are ugly, hypocritical, and deformed by hatred and sin: no face for people to recognize Jesus in, no arms to serve the poor, no voice to preach the gospel of peace with. We have become fat, ugly, and revolting to the world we were told to love and serve in Christ's name. The Christ we show people today is nothing like the loving, healing, and self sacrificing Christ of the gospels.
So friends, stop giving power to the curse of sin and death! Start looking and acting like Christ who is the head of the church. If we have a beautiful head to follow, we can and will have a beautiful body.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
God's Battles
Another thing I have learned these past few days: We serve the same God who caused the armies of Israel to win in battle and therefore any peace we are able to win here on this side of the cross will be won because of our reliance on God bringing about the victory. The minute we start thinking that it is US and OUR EFFORTS that bring about peace in the face of seemingly unstoppable violence it will mean that we have stopped pursuing the kingdom of God and that we are simply pursuing peace on our own terms, on the terms of the kingdom of men. If God is King then it will be Him bringing about the peace we so need. Not us.
A quote from Vernard Eller's "King Jesus' Arms for the Armless that I think drives home this point:
"If the war to establish the peaceable kingdom (the kingdom of God, which is the only truly peaceable kingdom) is fought on the basis of our numbers, our resources, our wisdom, our strategies, our good intentions, our peacemaking abilities, then it will fail; is is as simple as that. If, however, it is fought by God himself and by people who have put themselves totally under his command, then it does not make a great deal of difference what are our numbers, resources, etc.; there is no possible way the war can fail. The issue is not our ability but our obedience. Our success depends not upon the vision of what we can or will do but upon our faith that there is a God who already has given the victory into our hands if we are willing to accept it on his terms. Joshua's statement of the matter cannot be improved: 'Take very good care to love Yahweh your God.'"
Last night I had an intense exchange with a friend about the practicality of Jesus teachings (a topic which I have already written about) and something I need to continue to address is that Christ offers us a difficult task when he tells us to love our enemies, not because he knows we will fail, but because he knows we will need Him to lead the way and win this battle for us and alongside us. Are Christ's teachings practical? No. Are they possible without Him leading us in our doing it? No! Love is never easy and we cannot do it alone. God must be within it or our strivings for redemption and reconciliation with each other will fail.
A quote from Vernard Eller's "King Jesus' Arms for the Armless that I think drives home this point:
"If the war to establish the peaceable kingdom (the kingdom of God, which is the only truly peaceable kingdom) is fought on the basis of our numbers, our resources, our wisdom, our strategies, our good intentions, our peacemaking abilities, then it will fail; is is as simple as that. If, however, it is fought by God himself and by people who have put themselves totally under his command, then it does not make a great deal of difference what are our numbers, resources, etc.; there is no possible way the war can fail. The issue is not our ability but our obedience. Our success depends not upon the vision of what we can or will do but upon our faith that there is a God who already has given the victory into our hands if we are willing to accept it on his terms. Joshua's statement of the matter cannot be improved: 'Take very good care to love Yahweh your God.'"
Last night I had an intense exchange with a friend about the practicality of Jesus teachings (a topic which I have already written about) and something I need to continue to address is that Christ offers us a difficult task when he tells us to love our enemies, not because he knows we will fail, but because he knows we will need Him to lead the way and win this battle for us and alongside us. Are Christ's teachings practical? No. Are they possible without Him leading us in our doing it? No! Love is never easy and we cannot do it alone. God must be within it or our strivings for redemption and reconciliation with each other will fail.
Christianity and Practicality
These last few days I have had several eye-opening discussions with other Christians about war and peace. These conversations have left me for the most part discouraged… although they have certainly given me a greater sense of the scope of the task at hand. It has come to my attention that one of the most widespread objections to pacifism as a obligatory way of life for the Christ-follower is often the sense that pacifism is "unreasonable" or "impractical" in dealing with evil in our world. To this objection I offer two thoughts.
To start, I would suggest that the Christian is not called to a "reasonable" or "practical" life. Jesus never suggested that following Him would be easy or painless. The Christ-like life entails the carrying of our crosses and the sharing of each-others burdens. The Christ-like life entails dying for our enemies and asking that God would bless and forgive them (as Jesus did when he was put to death). The Christ-like life entails the giving away of possessions and a deep sacrificial love. The Christ-like life requires that we do not judge "lest we be judged". The Christ-like life requires of us that we seek "first the Kingdom of God" and not the kingdom of the world. Jesus does not offer us "practical" wisdom where "practical" is defined as "easy" and "common sense", he offers us Truth which when practiced, yields the good fruits of the kingdom. I have heard some say that pacifism is a "cop-out" and that pacifism is cowardly. To those that offer this view I would humbly suggest that in doing so they are calling Jesus a coward. Choosing to love our enemies though they spit on us, insult us, and nail us to a cross is not the way of the coward. It is the way of Godlike love.
The second thing I feel the need to point out is that "pacifism" does not imply "passive-ism". We are not simply called to a life of peacemaking but also to a life of love. Love is not passive. Love does not simply stand by while evil is done. Love does not take the side of the oppressor by staying silent while harm is done to the innocent. This is not the God that we follow either. If Jesus were teaching "passive"-ness he would have finished his teachings and died an old man, having neglected to save us from our sins. What Jesus teaches us is that "love" instead of violence is what puts an end to evil in our world. Those who say that the life of radical non-violence is an ineffective way of fighting evil have simply to look to the power of the cross to be proved wrong. History has shown that violence begets more violence and that killing our enemies only brings about further death.
On the 6th we will be meeting in the Cesar Chavez room at the Democracy Center. I would encourage you all to examine the life and actions of Chavez in order to see a good example of how non-violence can accomplish great good under great adversity. I will leave you with the following quote from him:
“Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak... Non-violence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.”
seeking the kingdom of God,
-timothy
To start, I would suggest that the Christian is not called to a "reasonable" or "practical" life. Jesus never suggested that following Him would be easy or painless. The Christ-like life entails the carrying of our crosses and the sharing of each-others burdens. The Christ-like life entails dying for our enemies and asking that God would bless and forgive them (as Jesus did when he was put to death). The Christ-like life entails the giving away of possessions and a deep sacrificial love. The Christ-like life requires that we do not judge "lest we be judged". The Christ-like life requires of us that we seek "first the Kingdom of God" and not the kingdom of the world. Jesus does not offer us "practical" wisdom where "practical" is defined as "easy" and "common sense", he offers us Truth which when practiced, yields the good fruits of the kingdom. I have heard some say that pacifism is a "cop-out" and that pacifism is cowardly. To those that offer this view I would humbly suggest that in doing so they are calling Jesus a coward. Choosing to love our enemies though they spit on us, insult us, and nail us to a cross is not the way of the coward. It is the way of Godlike love.
The second thing I feel the need to point out is that "pacifism" does not imply "passive-ism". We are not simply called to a life of peacemaking but also to a life of love. Love is not passive. Love does not simply stand by while evil is done. Love does not take the side of the oppressor by staying silent while harm is done to the innocent. This is not the God that we follow either. If Jesus were teaching "passive"-ness he would have finished his teachings and died an old man, having neglected to save us from our sins. What Jesus teaches us is that "love" instead of violence is what puts an end to evil in our world. Those who say that the life of radical non-violence is an ineffective way of fighting evil have simply to look to the power of the cross to be proved wrong. History has shown that violence begets more violence and that killing our enemies only brings about further death.
On the 6th we will be meeting in the Cesar Chavez room at the Democracy Center. I would encourage you all to examine the life and actions of Chavez in order to see a good example of how non-violence can accomplish great good under great adversity. I will leave you with the following quote from him:
“Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak... Non-violence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.”
seeking the kingdom of God,
-timothy
Monday, March 1, 2010
guns and God
check out this article, written by shane claiborne, that i found on sojourners. no commentary is necessary...
-dave-
-dave-
Friday, February 26, 2010
Where Does The Church's Error Lie?
I've been having a fascinating correspondence with the brother of a co-worker. He is a classic evangelical in regards to his views on war and violence and the Christian's response to them. He would say that it is sometimes justified and even sometimes holy for us to kill our enemies and that sometimes violence is our only course of action. The conversations we've been having have often been focused on his use of the Old Testament to defend "just war" and how we differ in regards to our interpretation of the Christian's position in regards to the Old Testament law and way of life. I would like to post my response to his last correspondence below for the groups examination so that I can be sure that my defense is strong and not in error. The second half of the email is in response to some practical questions he had for me in regards to pacifism as a way of life. Please leave your thoughts.
++below is the email response++
I believe that your use of the Old Testament to defend your ideas of a just war and justified violence point to the root reason for our differences. This conversation stems from differences in how we understand God's response to sin and how we understand "justice" and the law of God in light of the cross.
Let me explain my understanding of our position in regards to the law in as succinct a way as possible. In the time before Christ, followers of God were instructed (by God Himself) that the proper response to sin was to remove it from their midst and to destroy it. We can't ignore that there was a time in human history when it appeared that the only way to effectively stop evil from happening in our communities was to fight it violently, and God instructed us on how to do this in the Torah laws. It's interesting to note that this idea of justice (the idea that retribution is a fair system of law) is not only how the Israelites operated judicially but also how other nations throughout history have operated. It's a common, almost natural, response within mankind to resist evil by destroying those who perpetrate it. We currently live in a governmental system where this is true. If I kill a man, I run the risk of being killed by the state as a "fair" response. God gave Israel a set of laws which they were to follow in order to effectively fight against evil, often these used "violent" means. This cannot be denied. It also can't be denied that throughout the Old Testament, God leads the Israelites to destroy evil nations around them and that God used natural events (violently) to destroy evil men (the Flood). In the Old Testament we are given a picture of what it is that makes God angry and what is against his nature. In the Old Testament we learn what sin is.
Now I would suggest that we probably agree on the above paragraph but what follows is probably where we differ. I believe, as you probably believe, that Jesus ultimately paid for the sins of the world in his death on the cross. I believe that Jesus death on the cross represents to us a new way in which God deals with sin. In Christ's sacrificial death, he shows us not only the way in which we would all be saved (by God loving his enemies and dying for them) but also the way by which his followers were to live (by loving their enemies and dying for them). This is not to say that sin is no longer sin (as it is still repugnant to God and God hates it), as Christ says "not an iota will pass away from the Law", but it is to say that our RESPONSE to sin needs to change. The cross changes everything. It's not just a spiritual truth that we believe in and which saves us, its a practical response to sin that we live out every day. Hence why Christ tells us to carry our cross and to follow Him. Following Jesus implies US dying to give THEM life, not THEM dying to give US life. Non-violence is an essential doctrine because an understanding of it is the LIFE of the Gospel and what makes Christians uniquely different than the world. To believe that we must still follow the "eye for an eye" way of dealing with sin in our world (demanding justice through the destruction of our enemies) is to live under the way of the old testament and not in the new Gospel of Jesus. When we kill our enemies and sue our oppressors in court, we are essentially denying Christ's death for them on the cross. Saying that Christians sometimes must kill their enemies and that death is still a just way for Christians to deal with their enemies is to neuter the Gospel.
I hope the above explanation gives you a more holistic understanding of why I believe what I believe. Now let me answer your questions:
You asked whether a Christian could be pleasing to God as a soldier, police officer, or a judge: No. I do not believe these professions are Christian. In the case of the soldier or the police officer, their profession would require of them to potentially kill another human being. This is not how Christ has treated us. We are now obligated to forgive as we have been forgiven. God righteously should have destroyed us for our sin. He doesn't do this because of Jesus, neither should we do this to others. In the case of the judge I would say that it probably depends on the nature of the state under which the judge was working. If the state would obligate the judge (under the rule of law) to condemn prisoners to death or to have them tortured or to have violence committed against them , then no. If a state could exist which did not obligate the judge to do these kinds of things, then perhaps Christians could be judges. Given that this kind of state is unlikely, I would say it is unlikely that Christians could ever be judges. Their administration of "justice", given their Christian propensity towards forgiveness, would probably not be looked upon favorably by the state. In the same vein, I don't believe that Christians can serve on jury's (as your religious obligation toward the love and forgiveness of your enemies would cause you to be rejected during the selection process).
You asked whether I would use violence to protect my child from physical harm: This is, undeniably, where the rubber meets the road. To answer simply: No. I would not use violence. However, this is clearly not an easy thing to do. To clarify: I don't believe that God calls us to "passivity" in how we deal with violence. There are loving ways to resist evil. Perhaps in the kind of circumstance you describe I would choose to stand in between the offender and my child. Perhaps I would be able to come up with a way to explain to this man how much God loves him and how much he has been forgiven. Perhaps in suffering the blows that would be set against me and not hitting back I would change that man's heart. There is no way for me to know the future of a man's heart and I cannot, in taking his life or hurting him in response, trump God from being the judge and protector of my family. I am called to be like Christ.
Iran and World War II make for an interesting defense of my pacifism. Iran seeks nuclear weapons as a reaction to our oppression of the Middle East. This is a long ongoing struggle where many lives have been lost and represents an unending cycle of violence. It is hard to know who started it at this point. Violence as a method of the "restraint of our enemies" has been attempted time and time again without any success: people continue to die. The only way to end this conflict is for the oppressed to choose non-violent resistance and love their enemies.
World War II is often cited in these types of discussions. I find it interesting that people think the conclusion of World War II was a success. The results of World War II and the division of Europe and the middle East generated several more wars in its wake. Without World War II we wouldn't have the Cold War, Vietnam, the war in the Pacific (nagasaki, hiroshima), and the conflict in Israel. Perhaps if men had chosen radical non-violent means of resistance to show their enemies their humanity and love, we would have been able to avoid a war of that magnitude. Unfortunately, what's been done has been done. We are given an opportunity now to offer the world something different in Jesus.
I hope this lengthy email clarifies some things. Looking back on my last email I feel that my explanation of my understanding of the Old Testament, War, and God's wrath, was weak and not very well developed. I would offer this as my more well thought out response.
seeking first His kingdom,
-tim
++ end of email correspondence ++
I was telling my father about this correspondence last night and we got around to talking about Emperor Constantine and how the Church gave in to the authority of Rome. We were talking about the early witness of the martyrs and how willing they were to go to death in order to live out and profess the good news and how the witness of the martyrs would have been completely irrelevant if they had not gone willingly (even joyfully!) to their deaths in the face of a tyrannical empire. We forget that their words were unnecessary… their willingness to die for their enemies and to die joyfully for God without hate in their hearts for their persecutors was testimony enough to the power of Christ in them.
Also… I will leave you with these somewhat unrelated but awesome words from Walter Wink:
"I submit that the ultimate religious question today is no longer the Reformation's 'How can I find a gracious God?' It is instead, 'How can I find God in my enemy?' What guilt was for Luther, the enemy has become for us: the goad that can drive us to God. What has formerly been a purely private affair—justification by faith through grace—has now, in our age, grown to embrace the world. As John Stoner comments, we can no more save ourselves from our enemies than we can save ourselves from sin, but God's amazing grace offers to save us from both. There is, in fact, no other way to God for our time but through our enemy, for loving the enemy has become the key both to human survival in the age of terror and to personal transformation. Either we find the God who causes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, or we may have no more sunrises."
-Walter Wink, Jesus and Nonresistance
++below is the email response++
I believe that your use of the Old Testament to defend your ideas of a just war and justified violence point to the root reason for our differences. This conversation stems from differences in how we understand God's response to sin and how we understand "justice" and the law of God in light of the cross.
Let me explain my understanding of our position in regards to the law in as succinct a way as possible. In the time before Christ, followers of God were instructed (by God Himself) that the proper response to sin was to remove it from their midst and to destroy it. We can't ignore that there was a time in human history when it appeared that the only way to effectively stop evil from happening in our communities was to fight it violently, and God instructed us on how to do this in the Torah laws. It's interesting to note that this idea of justice (the idea that retribution is a fair system of law) is not only how the Israelites operated judicially but also how other nations throughout history have operated. It's a common, almost natural, response within mankind to resist evil by destroying those who perpetrate it. We currently live in a governmental system where this is true. If I kill a man, I run the risk of being killed by the state as a "fair" response. God gave Israel a set of laws which they were to follow in order to effectively fight against evil, often these used "violent" means. This cannot be denied. It also can't be denied that throughout the Old Testament, God leads the Israelites to destroy evil nations around them and that God used natural events (violently) to destroy evil men (the Flood). In the Old Testament we are given a picture of what it is that makes God angry and what is against his nature. In the Old Testament we learn what sin is.
Now I would suggest that we probably agree on the above paragraph but what follows is probably where we differ. I believe, as you probably believe, that Jesus ultimately paid for the sins of the world in his death on the cross. I believe that Jesus death on the cross represents to us a new way in which God deals with sin. In Christ's sacrificial death, he shows us not only the way in which we would all be saved (by God loving his enemies and dying for them) but also the way by which his followers were to live (by loving their enemies and dying for them). This is not to say that sin is no longer sin (as it is still repugnant to God and God hates it), as Christ says "not an iota will pass away from the Law", but it is to say that our RESPONSE to sin needs to change. The cross changes everything. It's not just a spiritual truth that we believe in and which saves us, its a practical response to sin that we live out every day. Hence why Christ tells us to carry our cross and to follow Him. Following Jesus implies US dying to give THEM life, not THEM dying to give US life. Non-violence is an essential doctrine because an understanding of it is the LIFE of the Gospel and what makes Christians uniquely different than the world. To believe that we must still follow the "eye for an eye" way of dealing with sin in our world (demanding justice through the destruction of our enemies) is to live under the way of the old testament and not in the new Gospel of Jesus. When we kill our enemies and sue our oppressors in court, we are essentially denying Christ's death for them on the cross. Saying that Christians sometimes must kill their enemies and that death is still a just way for Christians to deal with their enemies is to neuter the Gospel.
I hope the above explanation gives you a more holistic understanding of why I believe what I believe. Now let me answer your questions:
You asked whether a Christian could be pleasing to God as a soldier, police officer, or a judge: No. I do not believe these professions are Christian. In the case of the soldier or the police officer, their profession would require of them to potentially kill another human being. This is not how Christ has treated us. We are now obligated to forgive as we have been forgiven. God righteously should have destroyed us for our sin. He doesn't do this because of Jesus, neither should we do this to others. In the case of the judge I would say that it probably depends on the nature of the state under which the judge was working. If the state would obligate the judge (under the rule of law) to condemn prisoners to death or to have them tortured or to have violence committed against them , then no. If a state could exist which did not obligate the judge to do these kinds of things, then perhaps Christians could be judges. Given that this kind of state is unlikely, I would say it is unlikely that Christians could ever be judges. Their administration of "justice", given their Christian propensity towards forgiveness, would probably not be looked upon favorably by the state. In the same vein, I don't believe that Christians can serve on jury's (as your religious obligation toward the love and forgiveness of your enemies would cause you to be rejected during the selection process).
You asked whether I would use violence to protect my child from physical harm: This is, undeniably, where the rubber meets the road. To answer simply: No. I would not use violence. However, this is clearly not an easy thing to do. To clarify: I don't believe that God calls us to "passivity" in how we deal with violence. There are loving ways to resist evil. Perhaps in the kind of circumstance you describe I would choose to stand in between the offender and my child. Perhaps I would be able to come up with a way to explain to this man how much God loves him and how much he has been forgiven. Perhaps in suffering the blows that would be set against me and not hitting back I would change that man's heart. There is no way for me to know the future of a man's heart and I cannot, in taking his life or hurting him in response, trump God from being the judge and protector of my family. I am called to be like Christ.
Iran and World War II make for an interesting defense of my pacifism. Iran seeks nuclear weapons as a reaction to our oppression of the Middle East. This is a long ongoing struggle where many lives have been lost and represents an unending cycle of violence. It is hard to know who started it at this point. Violence as a method of the "restraint of our enemies" has been attempted time and time again without any success: people continue to die. The only way to end this conflict is for the oppressed to choose non-violent resistance and love their enemies.
World War II is often cited in these types of discussions. I find it interesting that people think the conclusion of World War II was a success. The results of World War II and the division of Europe and the middle East generated several more wars in its wake. Without World War II we wouldn't have the Cold War, Vietnam, the war in the Pacific (nagasaki, hiroshima), and the conflict in Israel. Perhaps if men had chosen radical non-violent means of resistance to show their enemies their humanity and love, we would have been able to avoid a war of that magnitude. Unfortunately, what's been done has been done. We are given an opportunity now to offer the world something different in Jesus.
I hope this lengthy email clarifies some things. Looking back on my last email I feel that my explanation of my understanding of the Old Testament, War, and God's wrath, was weak and not very well developed. I would offer this as my more well thought out response.
seeking first His kingdom,
-tim
++ end of email correspondence ++
I was telling my father about this correspondence last night and we got around to talking about Emperor Constantine and how the Church gave in to the authority of Rome. We were talking about the early witness of the martyrs and how willing they were to go to death in order to live out and profess the good news and how the witness of the martyrs would have been completely irrelevant if they had not gone willingly (even joyfully!) to their deaths in the face of a tyrannical empire. We forget that their words were unnecessary… their willingness to die for their enemies and to die joyfully for God without hate in their hearts for their persecutors was testimony enough to the power of Christ in them.
Also… I will leave you with these somewhat unrelated but awesome words from Walter Wink:
"I submit that the ultimate religious question today is no longer the Reformation's 'How can I find a gracious God?' It is instead, 'How can I find God in my enemy?' What guilt was for Luther, the enemy has become for us: the goad that can drive us to God. What has formerly been a purely private affair—justification by faith through grace—has now, in our age, grown to embrace the world. As John Stoner comments, we can no more save ourselves from our enemies than we can save ourselves from sin, but God's amazing grace offers to save us from both. There is, in fact, no other way to God for our time but through our enemy, for loving the enemy has become the key both to human survival in the age of terror and to personal transformation. Either we find the God who causes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, or we may have no more sunrises."
-Walter Wink, Jesus and Nonresistance
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