Lausanne

Today I had the opportunity to view some of the video clips from this past year's Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. Lausanne is an evangelical conference dedicated to world missions. While browsing through some of the lectures and sermons I found an interesting piece in the section titled "Reconciliaton" titled "Our Boys on the Border". The video is a dramatic piece which shows two men being called to arms by their general. Later on in the clip a woman is shown praying for Jesus peace and shortly afterwards the two men lower their weapons which are pointed at each other and cast their rifles aside. Although the piece was unquestionably powerful, I had hoped for more. I was hoping that someone from Lausanne would urge the church to renounce nationalism, militarism, and all forms of violence towards their fellow man. Unfortunately, it would seem that the church is still convinced that somehow we can use the means of the Pax Romana (the Roman way to peace through force and violence) to bring about the Pax Christi when Jesus makes it clear that the ends must be present in the means. Christ has clearly forbidden violence from among his disciples and, as the early church theologian Tertullian said, "in disarming Peter, Christ has disarmed all Christians." There are no excuses nor any justifications for Christians to bear arms against other men, Jesus has made it clear that Christians are to love their enemies. The Lausanne conference used the scripture found in Ephesians that says, "For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility..." but has forgotten that Jesus accomplished this through the cross as is said in v. 16 "and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility." He makes it clear that his followers will bring about peace in the same way, when he tells them, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23) The cross is not only the way of our salvation but it is the example which Christians are called to follow. This has been a deep conviction of the Tanks to Tractors group and it has been our desire to bring this message to the church in Boston.

I am not only concerned about this issue out of a desire for deeper Christian discipleship, but also because I believe it to be a critical matter in the area of evangelization. I consider it a conflict of interests that Christians continue to engage in warfare and capital punishment after their conversion. How can we claim to care for and proclaim the Gospel to sinners if we do so while seeking to kill them? This would be like a doctor claiming to care for and heal his patients while slipping them a lethal dose of morphine. Why should we, who have been guaranteed eternal life, protect our mortal lives by taking the lives of those who are at risk of eternal judgement? We would be wise to remember that the blood of the martyrs is a powerful witness not only because of their testimony to Jesus in words but because of their willingness to go peacefully to their deaths and suffer well, not cursing their enemies but blessing them. It is shameful that the church has not had the faith and the courage to do likewise in this age.

I believe that if Christians committed themselves to Jesus ethic of nonviolence, there would be a massive harvest of souls. People around the world would see that Christ's Gospel is not cheap and purely ideological, but that it is practical and costly. The world would see how seriously we take Jesus commandments and they would wonder what makes him worth dying for. I hope someday to see this taught at conferences like Lausanne.

If you're interested in seeing the Lausanne clip mentioned here, follow this link.

Prince of Peace - God of War Film Screening

Thursday, Novemeber 10th, at 7:00pm, Tanks To Tractors will be showing the documentary film Prince of Peace - God of War by John Campea at Gordon-Conwell's Boston Campus: The Center for Urban Ministerial Education (90 Warren Street, Roxbury, MA). After the screening, the T2T crew will be holding a Q&A on the Christian Nonviolence position.

To RSVP, go to: http://bit.ly/warpeacefilm

Waging Peace: Resources by Paul K. Chappell

Capt. Paul K. Chappell is an Iraq War veteran, a peace leader, and the author of several books including The End of War. Chappell also travels the world and speaks to groups about the power of peace.

Check out his website and these videos:

How to Start a Revolution (Film)

Christians Who Practiced What They Preached

During World War II, in and around one village in Nazi-occupied France, 5,000 Jews were sheltered—by 5,000 Christians! The astonishing story of a unique conspiracy of goodness.

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon was a tiny Protestant farming village in the mountains of south-central France. Defying the Nazis and the French government that was collaborating with the Nazis, the villagers of the area of Le Chambon provided a safe haven throughout the war for whoever knocked on their door. Most of the villagers were proud descendants of the Huguenots, first Protestants in Catholic France. They remembered their own history of persecution, and it mattered to them. They also read the Bible, and tried to heed the admonition to love your neighbor as yourself. Henri Héritier in "Weapons of the Spirit" "The responsibility of Christians," their pastor, André Trocmé, had reminded them the day after France surrendered to Nazi Germany, "is to resist the violence that will be brought to bear on their consciences through the weapons of the spirit." There were many other uncelebrated individual and collective acts of goodwill and righteousness throughout the dark war years. But nowhere else did a persistent and successful moral consensus develop on a scale approaching what happened in the area of Le Chambon.

Urban Nonviolence: Pastor Efrem Smith

On the heels of our presentation to the Education Curriculum Subcommittee regarding the addition of a perspectives course on Jesus, Nonviolence, and Peace Church Tradition, I found this article very encouraging:

Pastor Efrem Smith writes about Jesus' Way of Peace as the Christian solution to urban violence

The Violence of Jesus

"Nonviolence" is the wrong word for Jesus' Way of remaking the world. Jesus taught us violence. Jesus taught us destruction. He just didn't teach us to direct our destructive violence toward human beings. The destructive violence Jesus taught and modeled for his disciples is a force that transcends the visible landscape. With his presence, his extended hand of healing, his voice calling forth Lazarus, his feet which trod on Samarian land, his blood that flowed from his broken body, and with his nail-pierced hands he let Thomas touch, Jesus exacted a kind of violence upon invisible wickedness and domination that utterly humiliated it. His violence was so perfectly aimed at what truly ensnares us that it was and is peace.

The problem with our violence is not that it is violent, it is that it is unlike the violence of Jesus. Instead of targeting the systems of oppression and exclusion that are often veiled behind religious language and pious acts, we tend to aim our destruction toward one another and God's creation. Then, when someone reminds us that our battle is not with flesh and blood, we accuse them of disembodied theology. Our battle with principalities ad powers takes place in the body. As embodied souls, we must use our bodies like Jesus did to violently oppose spiritual realities. If we are to share in his triumph, we must fight as he fought—and he fought with his body.

The body of Christ is not like Jesus' body. In Jesus' body was a thorn-pierced brow and a spear-thrust side. In Jesus' body were hands that touched lepers and lips that spit in the mud to heal the blind. In Jesus' body he waged war on darkness that blinded the eyes of the religious and oppressed the poor. In Jesus' body there was sorrow for the loss of Lazarus' life and for Jerusalem's lack of spiritual guidance. In Jesus' body he blessed children and drew them near to himself.

The Prizefighter Jesus, the MMA Jesus, who has become popular in US Christianity is an impotent loser. That Jesus does not transform the cosmos. That Jesus does not triumph. That Jesus is not violent enough.