-
Soros Funds Anti-‘Torture’ Report
May 17, 2013 | 113 comments
-
Transsexual Flights from Reality
May 3, 2013 | 91 comments
-
State Funerals and Christendom
April 23, 2013 | 12 comments
-
The Hero of Star Wars
April 19, 2013 | 45 comments
-
Margaret Thatcher the Methodist
April 9, 2013 | 38 comments
Another Perspective
Christian Pacifism Against C.S. Lewis
Stanley Hauerwas’s boldly challenges a leading Christian voice of Just War understandings.
Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University, America’s most influential Christian pacifist, has a new article respectfully critiquing famed Christian apologist C.S. Lewis’s support for Just War. The piece is worth reading both because Hauerwas is guru to so many clergy and because few pacifists in the church have the verve to challenge Lewis so directly.
Hauerwas recounts Lewis’s service in World War I, in which he was wounded, and his support for Britain’s role in World War II. He emphasizes the former, which includes Lewis’ horror of what he saw and experienced. Not as much does Hauerwas describe and challenge Lewis on WWII, for which Lewis was a thoughtfully ardent enthusiast. Instead he cites Lewis’s discomfort during WWII over a clergyman’s citation in public prayer of the nation’s stance as “righteous,” which Lewis thought presumptuous. But in fact Lewis did think British resistance to Hitlerism was quite righteous. And perhaps Hauerwas is more comfortable in addressing WWI, in which the consequences of Allied defeat were not as morally dramatic as in WWII.
In his 1940 talk, “Why I Am Not a Pacifist,” on which Hauerwas focuses, Lewis speculated on the unpleasantness of a “Germanized” Europe absent Allied resistance in 1914. How much more Lewis must have believed so later in WWII when the full horrors of Nazism were unveiled.
Overall Hauerwas is relatively fair in describing Lewis’s views, which he notes mostly rested not specifically on Christian teaching but more on natural law assumptions. Hauerwas, like his influential teacher, the late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, and like their teacher, Karl Barth, mostly rejects natural law, though he declines to detail that view here. He describes Lewis as responding to liberal pacifism, which understands war to be mostly a misunderstanding among good people. Hauerwas does not disagree with Lewis in that critique of “far too easy a target,” i.e. the dreamy liberalism of post WWI.
“I have spelled out Lewis’s arguments against pacifism not only in an effort to be fair to him, but because he gives voice to what many assume are the knockdown arguments against any account of Christian nonviolence,” Hauerwas writes. But he claims Lewis “made little effort to understand the most defensible forms of Christian pacifism.” Hauerwas, relying on Yoder, espouses a “Christological” pacifism that understands Jesus’ work on the cross as a rejection of all violence.
Hauerwas insists his pacifism doesn’t depend on any single saying of Jesus but on the “very character of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection.” Yoder identified “such Christological nonviolence as the pacifism of the messianic community,” he recalls. “Christian nonviolence must be embodied in a community that is an alternative to the world’s violence.” After all, Jesus offered a “new moral option in Palestine, at the cost of his death.” Nonviolence is integral to being His disciple.
Countering Lewis’s concern to protect the innocent from homicidal maniacs, Hauerwas insists there are “nonviolent alternatives” to defend against “unjust attack,” without saying what they are. He complains Lewis only defended the “police function of governing authorities,” which is mostly “peaceable,” when war is a “different reality.”
Hauerwas affirms Lewis’s warnings against soaring idealism and urges “limited objectives” allowing “Christians in a world of war to do the small and simple things that make war less likely.” Rejecting war is the “necessary condition to force us to consider possibilities that would not otherwise exist.”
Not noted by Hauerwas is that Lewis, in his 1940 talk, rejected pacifism because he supposed the New Testament is “consistent with itself,” and that the Apostles Peter and Paul, in affirming the civil magistrate’s vocation for force, were not contradicting their Lord. Otherwise, he warned, we must believe Christ’s “true meaning” was hidden from his closest followers only to be “discovered in our own time.” For Hauerwas, the “true meaning” was largely unearthed even after Lewis spoke these words, in the books of Professor Yoder. Lewis notes that from the Apostles onward, “All bodies that claim to be Churches - that is, who claim apostolic succession and accept the Creeds - have constantly blessed what they regarded as righteous arms.”
Hauerwas is an unapologetic sectarian who believes the central message of Christianity, which he claims is non-violence, has been ignored or minimized by the vast majority of churches and Christians from nearly the very beginning. It’s a very elitist stance that understandably appeals to very smart, and sometimes very self-satisfied seminarians and professors.
In contrast, Lewis, although himself an academic, believed in a “mere Christianity” that transcended denominational boundaries. He was the writer of children’s novels and a popular radio broadcaster who affirmed the importance of worshipping at the side of the local grocer and not confining company to intellectual soul mates. Deeply unlike Hauerwas and his followers, who contemptuously reject patriotism as idolatry, Lewis identified it as one of the “four great loves.” Love of God is not confined to regard for His church but includes and even begins with affection for family, friends, and country.
Lewis is vastly popular across church traditions because he strove to convey essential truths to broad audiences. The far more narrow Hauerwas/Yoder attempt to redefine Christian orthodoxy is provocative and sophisticated. But will it endure?
About the Author
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (48) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Mark Tooley
More Articles From Another Perspective
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/05/christian-pacifism-against-cs
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Jack in Wi| 9.5.12 @ 6:33AM
There never has been a good war. WW2 was won by Stalin, Hitlers partner in starting the war. He was a worse mass murderer then Hitler was in 1939. The British entered the war to save Poland from the National Socialists. Stalin's USSR was never held accoutable for it's role in starting the war. Instead it ended up with half of Europe and China.
That said there is absolutly no justification under just war doctrine for he wars in Iraq and the long war in Afganistan. We were lied into Iraq by people who knew better. Afganistan was justified as long as it was an action to apprehend Bin Laden and his gang. This endless nation building has caused far more harm then good.
There is no justification for any unprovoked attack on Iran. Iran has renounced nuclear weapons and is living up to it's treaty obligations. It is heavily inspected. The military and intelligence communities both here and in Israel have said Iran Iran has no nuclear weapons programs. They want nothing to do with a pre-emtive or preventive war based on lies. That would be a terrible war crime. The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Generl Dempsey, has just stated he will not be complicit in any Israeli attack on Iran. The word complicit implies a crime.
Darin| 9.5.12 @ 6:43AM
"There has never been a good war." The Revolutionary Way, leading to the founding of the United States, was not a good war? The Civil War, ending slavery in America, was not a good war?
"Iran has renounced nuclear weapons and is living up to it's treaty obligations. It is heavily inspected." In what fantasy universe are you living? Iran is a known sponsor of terrorism. Iran has publically and repeatedly stated their goal is the destruction of Israel. Must we wait until there is a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv or New York before you graciously sanction action?
DTOM| 9.5.12 @ 8:25AM
What Jack means to say is 'there has never been a fun war.' And I think sane people would have to agree that there never has been a war that was fun for all its participants.
Also, Jack does not believe that there are evil people OUTSIDE of the US military. That is why Jack is so fond of Ron Paul and Barack Obama. Both men despise the US military-even as they oversee it.
Jack, no lover of the Jews in Israel, would be appalled should we as a nation move to help defend Israel against attack from Iran and now Egypt. The latter becomes more probable everyday as the Muslim Brotherhood consolidates its authority over every aspect of Egyptian society. Jack's fantastic construction of a crime because the current chair of the Joint Chiefs refuses to be "complicit" in aiding our ally Israel shows the depth, intensity, and imbalance of his attitude. It's sort of like accusing a Steve Martin of murder because some murder victim had been heard to say, 'Steve Martin kills me!"
Jack, you really need more sleep - have you had that sleep apnea test yet? Maybe that's your problem...back to bed, you!
Don't Tread On Me
CJW| 9.5.12 @ 8:02AM
Jack,
Do you believe that no war is justified, and you are a complete pacifist? What should we have done after Japan attacked us at Pearl harbor, don't tell me we provoked Japan.
C. Vernon Crisler | 9.5.12 @ 9:34AM
Paulistas like Jack believe the state is per se evil, and that only states carry out wars. Therefore, in the Paulista world-view there can be no good war.
RCV| 9.5.12 @ 4:18PM
And how about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Jack. Do you think it was "just" for us to go to war with Japan after the attack?
CJW| 9.5.12 @ 8:31PM
Good question. I have asked Jack what should we have done after the attack. He dodges the question by saying we provoked Japan.
RCV| 9.6.12 @ 11:19AM
So he thinks Japan's war against us was "just" because we "provoked" it? If not, we were surely justified in striking back. Or maybe he's just waiting for Ron Paul to tell him what to think....
CJW| 9.5.12 @ 8:34PM
Japan attacked us, then Germany and Italy declared war on us. Should we have not responded to the attack and declarations of war?
Darin| 9.5.12 @ 6:38AM
Pacifism is fine in theory, but I'd argue it's immoral in practice. Case in point. You see a man beating up a woman or child and have the ability to stop it. What do you do? A pacifist would likely argue they would do nothing. And by their inaction, a woman or child is killed. Evil must be opposed, if not in the defense of yourself, in the defense of the helpless.
I'm sure pacifists will argue otherwise and make good points, but consider this. Who is defending their right to make such arguments? Who will stand between them and those who mean them harm? To paraphrase George Orwell, pacifists sleep safe in their beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do them harm.
Appleby| 9.5.12 @ 6:41AM
I had a friend in Bible College who went to Vietnam as a CO, and trained as a medical corpsman. He was routinely sent to the sharp end of the war, and was usually under heavy fire, without any weapons. He served honourably and came home to New Jersey, where he joined the police force. To those who asked him how this squared with his non-combatant status, he said, "They can't make you fight; but they can put you where the fighting is and let you make up your own mind." Essentially what he learned was that there were some things worth fighting for, and some things worth fighting against. Protecting his friends, family and neighbours against the armies of the night was one of those things worth doing, he decided when he came home; because being under fire without arms gave him a really clear idea of what that was actually like for the average man on the street.
Common Decency| 9.5.12 @ 7:04AM
Jesus said he was the good shepherd. He never said that normal shepherds are bad. A normal shepherd is violent twice: when he delivers the sheep to the butcher and when he kills the wolves who want to eat the sheep. If Jesus believed in non-violence he would have said that being a shepherd is immoral. He never said that. His ommission means a lot.
KyMouse| 9.5.12 @ 3:55PM
Not only that -- Those of us who believe that Jesus is God must realize that He is also the God of the Old Testament. There is no indication in Scripture that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit disagreed or argued over such things as smiting the Egyptians during the Exodus, and making Israel victorious over their enemies (e.g. the Amalekites, in Exodus 17:8-16).
In verse 14 of that chapter, God says to Moses, "...I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven."
If Jesus is God, then He said that, along with His Father and the Holy Spirit.
Note the "song of Moses" in Exodus chapter 15:
"I will sing to the Lord...The Lord is a man of war..Your right hand, O Lord, has dashed the enemy in pieces...You sent forth Your wrath..."
DTOM| 9.5.12 @ 8:49AM
Mr. Tooley;
I was caught by Mr. Hauerwas's observation that Christ's "true meaning" managed to escape detection of millions of Christians for some 1900 years until the wise Dr. Yoder was able, single-handedly, to 'unearth' it from Christ's decidedly plain speaking.
So Christ, who Christians believe is the incarnate Son of God, gave His life for us, explaining His actions in a code that needed to wait 1900 years for a single interpreter to adequately and accurately understand Him.
Nice try, Hauerwasn't, guess again.
Christian ministers basing their preaching on Mr. Hauerwas might want to be careful - doesn't Hauerwas mean 'shifting sands' in German?
Don't Tread On Me
Ryan| 9.5.12 @ 8:57AM
Herwaus loses me instantly with his premise, that Christ's central message was non-violence.
It is not. In Revelation, God is rather violent to those who oppose Him. God is violent toward sin - the Cross is the ultimate example - and uses violence sinlessly.
The central message is Christ's atoning work on the Cross to pay for sins, to bring His creation back to God.
Mark30339| 9.5.12 @ 9:38AM
Thanks for pointing us to the article. A follower of Christ would see the crucifixion as an ultimate declaration that God does not do the killing in this world, men do -- and that follower knows Christ is challenging him every day to endure and absorb the violence of other men without propagating more. The original Christians watched as their wives and children joined them in being torn apart by vicious animals -- yet the Christian community did not rise up in a "righteous" armed rebellion. Why is our connection with the crucified and risen Christ so different from theirs?
.
This is a seemingly unbearable challenge, and the choice to resist evil with violence is understandable. But the choice is a serious human failing -- what is far worse, however, is rationalizing the violence as something done righteously in God's name. Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed that he risked his own salvation by joining the effort to kill Hitler and he made no effort sanitize the sin away. His profound appreciation for the darkness of that choice is an example that at least points us in the right direction.
Ryan| 9.5.12 @ 3:28PM
What of when God told the Israelites to kill? Not that it has a ton of modern relevance, but your argument about a pacifistic God - and a nonviolent Jesus - don't always hold water.
Mark30339| 9.6.12 @ 10:55AM
Your question is so valid; one cannot help but wince at the way Israelites portray Yahweh as the commander of their killing. A small consolation is that the Old Testament writers probably harbored some guilt over the violence and tried to sanitize it as God's will. We know that the killing soldiers were considered unclean and required a ritual cleansing period. Perhaps the consciousness of the Hebrew faith communities could only make it that far -- but God keeps pushing them forward. What I know is that when God catches Cain and then David in murder, He does not take their lives. If God really wanted the OT to be last word on who He is, why would He revolutionize our faith with the incarnation, the passion and the resurrection?
Nick| 9.6.12 @ 2:58PM
The Old Testament is intertwined with the New Testament, Mark. You can't have one without the other. The God of the Old Covenant is the same God of the New.
The Old Testament authors were not trying to assuage their guilt by blaming God.
What about the Flood? God killed every man, woman, and child on the planet to keep Noah (and his family) from wickedness & sin. How do you reconcile this fact with your personal view that the New Testament is God's way of setting the record straight?
The 10 Commandments make it clear that there a worse things than dying. Death is not most horrible thing that can happen to a person.
Disobeying God is the worst thing a person can do in this life.
Mark30339| 9.7.12 @ 7:27AM
I wholeheartedly agree that the OT and the NT are intertwined. But it was resolved early on that Christians did not need to be Jews first and did not need to observe the 600+ rules and commands found in the OT. Jesus himself condensed these 600 down to loving God with your all, and loving your neighbor as yourself. Now, regarding the flood:
.
The OT text says that our Creator lamented over what His creation had become and resolved to wipe it out. The Black Sea flood, an epic natural disaster was still fresh in the human psyche and motivates the story. The OT authors have a profound love of God and of His creation and they have a profound dismay for the callous wickedness of men. Putting 2 and 2 together leads to the conclusion that God sent the epic flood to wipe out the wickedness of man and start over. The genius and divine inspiration in the story is the notion that the faith of one man can change everything. It beckons each of us to be a Noah and it testifies to how nature can wash away wickedness. The notion that we have an immature creator who whimsically destroys all he has created in a fit of despair sounds misplaced -- it paints God in the image of man. This human limitation in OT authorship is understandable, and we make note of it because the identity of God is gleaned from an intertwining of Old and New Testaments and a tradition of Judeo/Christian faithful passed down for generations.
Nick| 9.7.12 @ 12:43PM
I made no mention of Christians having to obey the Law of Moses, Mark. My only point was that God is the same in the Old Testament and the New. The fact that Christians are dispensed from certain precepts of the Old Law doesn't mean the O.T. is somehow flawed.
The O.T. authors were inspired by the Holy Spirit as much as the N.T. authors were.
Whether, or not, there ever was a "Black Sea Flood" has nothing to do with the Great Flood recorded in Genesis. The fact that God sent the Flood to save Noah & his family from the wickedness that surrounded them is attested to by Saint Peter, when he says baptism saves like the waters of the Flood (cf. 1 Peter 3:20-21).
It sounds to me like it is you who is trying to paint "God in the image of man."
What about Sodom & Gomorrah? This is another instance of God destroying the wicked, in order to save Lot and his family.
The Levites slay 3,000 after the Golden Calf incident, are made priests, and given the honor of carrying the Ark, Tabernacle, and the Holy Furniture.
Or, what about when Saint Luke tells us, in Acts 5, that God smites Ananias and Sapphira because of their fraud?
There is no "human limitation in OT authorship," as you put it. Again, the ENTIRE Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
God Bless!
Mark30339| 9.7.12 @ 10:42PM
Excellent points. S&G were already on a path of destruction; the story is about how far God goes to change that destiny. Moses perceived God to be offended and ordered a slaughter to unify his community by terror, perhaps a standard response to insurrection in the day. God has pushed mankind forward to ever more enlightened standards ever since. Ananias and his wife died when confronted with their deceit -- for each of us, our days on this earth are numbered and our moment of passing may be in the midst of grace or sin or probably both. Mercy should be the presumptive outcome for Ananias given what Jesus teaches; if the message is that God kills sinners we should be experiencing a whole lot more sudden deaths.
.
Nick, I accept your discord with my view that the blood lust attributed to Yahweh in the OT is authored by a faithful but limited human consciousness not ready for the revelatory notions of incarnation, redemptive suffering and resurrection. God started this creation 13 billion years ago, I hardly think His consciousness and maturity is the item showing growth as we progress from Genesis to Revelation. Our precious Jesus is preserved in the crucifix as the piercing symbol showing that God shares in our suffering to such an extent that He can make suffering itself holy. Like nothing else, the crucifix tells us that God doesn't do the killing in this world, MEN DO.
Nick| 9.8.12 @ 7:27PM
It's nice that you accept my "discord," Mark, but I wish you would accept that the Sacred Scriptures are inspired by the Holy Spirit & not subject to the errors of man.
This will better help you to understand our Father's plan, as it is revealed to us in the pages of the Bible. Then you won't have to search for rationalizations to explain passages of Scripture you find unconfortable.
I don't know to which church you belong, but, I am a member of the Catholic Church. Just to let you know from where it is I'm coming.
God Bless!
gene| 9.5.12 @ 9:51AM
"..Hauerwas insists his pacifism doesn't depend on any single saying of Jesus but on the "very character of Jesus's life, death and resurrection..."
He is obviously not thinking of the part where jesus states his Father's House is a house of prayer and proceeds to drive the money lenders out of the temple. He did not "request" that they leave. He physically drove them out. And there was violence.
Harry the Horrible| 9.5.12 @ 10:37AM
Apparently he also missed the part where Christ instructed his followers to sell their cloaks and buy swords.
He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
—Luke 22:36, NIV
I don't have much use for pacifists.
Mark30339| 9.5.12 @ 1:40PM
Dave Williams comments below about Christians having a velvet glove over their iron fists -- HtH, you certainly aid the metaphor. But with your reference to Lk 22:36 it appears that nuance and metaphor are as useful to you as pacifists. Perhaps you welcome and embrace our Lord's words about living and dying by the sword (Mt 26:52). In another life, you might have joined the Crusaders' slaughter of every man, woman and child living in the city of Jerusalem. Do you seek a license for violence, or a relationship with the risen Christ?
Harry the Horrible| 9.5.12 @ 2:18PM
I might have. Don't think I would have, but I might have. After all, God didn't have any problems with Jericho.
BTW, we all die, so dying by the sword isn't a problem.
I sure as heck wouldn't let Moslems murder and/or enslave me and mine. Remember, the Crusades were a defensive war.
Ryan| 9.5.12 @ 4:20PM
Eh, that's a HUGE oversimplification of the Crusades, several which never made it to the Holy Land, and were more about the Papacy of the time trying to cement political power in Europe...
Harry the Horrible| 9.5.12 @ 8:39PM
So the Ottomans WEREN'T grinding away at the Easter Roman Empire? And they didn't ask for help? (Mind you they didn't get very good, help, but they did get some help - when idiot Crusaders weren't trying to loot Constantinople...). And Eastern Europe was not being attacked Turks?
It may be be a simplification, but its still true.
Ryan| 9.6.12 @ 8:16AM
Not saying it wasn't, but we cannot pare down the Crusades to one simple thing. It just cannot work, and borders on leaving out the whole truth of the matter.
C Smith | 9.5.12 @ 11:05AM
... many walked through the valley of the shadow of death rejoicing and singing Psalms and praying for their enemies and, like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, communing with each other and the Son of God in the midst of the flames. Their witness astounded even those who hated them:
They are far readier then followers of Luther and Zwingli to meet death, and bear the harshest tortures for their faith. For they run to suffer punishments, no matter how horrible as if to a banquet; so that if you take that as a test either of the truth of doctrine or of their certitude of grace, you would easily conclude that in no other sect is to be found a faith so true or grace so certain (Stanislaus Hosius (Polish cardinal and bishop of Warmis), Opera (Venice), 1573, p. 202).
http://theisraelofgod.blogspot.....zaria.html
http://theisraelofgod.blogspot.....-time.html
C. Vernon Crisler | 9.5.12 @ 12:50PM
What does this have to do with anything? Luther and Zwingli?
PHILLIPBERNAL| 9.5.12 @ 11:22AM
Tell this to the Dems at their nominating convention. Oh, I forgot that they removed G-D from their convention. BTW atheists. Christ will not return with lollipops and rainbows. He will be armed with a sword and blood will flow.
Dave Williams| 9.5.12 @ 12:41PM
Once again, the christian shows the iron fist in the velvet glove. Why are you relying on Christ -- who, by the way, is absolutely NOT coming back -- to enact your revenge fantasies against those who, by virtue of being able to THINK, don't buy into your cult? Btw, you need to read your Bible more...I don't know the chapter and verse, but I'm pretty sure Christ says something along the lines of "I shall return before many of this generation have passed away." Didn't happen...won't happen...BECAUSE THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!
Skippy| 9.5.12 @ 1:47PM
Until God comes to rescue us, I will continue to defend my family in His name.
If that offends Him, I'm sure He will let me know, should we ever meet.
Nick| 9.5.12 @ 3:54PM
"Hauerwas is an unapologetic sectarian who believes the central message of Christianity, which he claims is non-violence, has been ignored or minimized by the vast majority of churches and Christians from nearly the very beginning. It's a very elitist stance that understandably appeals to very smart, and sometimes very self-satisfied seminarians and professors."
This sounds like another form of Gnosticism to me, Mr. Tooley. Anyone who claims to have, or to have found, secret (or ignored) teachings of Christ is just preaching a neo-Gnostic gospel.
Especially, when it is claimed that a "vast majority of churches and Christians from nearly the very beginning" have ignored a newly found Christian principle or doctrine. If a tradition or teaching is not found in the Sacred Scriptures & the writings of the early Church Fathers, chances are very likely that the early Church did not follow it.
Paul A'Barge | 9.5.12 @ 5:42PM
Hauerwas insists there are "nonviolent alternatives" to defend against "unjust attack," without saying what they are
This is what the pacifists always do: demand alternatives but never offering any.
And do you know why? Because the specifics will not work. And in fact not only will the specifics not work, the specifics of pacifism are ludicrous on their face. You can dismiss them out of hand.
I have no time for braying ninnies like Hauerwas. Why do you?
Thom| 9.5.12 @ 7:43PM
Their "nonviolent alternatives" sound something like this, "I pray he runs out of bullets before he gets to me...."Amen
Mark30339| 9.6.12 @ 11:23AM
My what smug declarations. The next time you confirm your 98.6 body temperature, perhaps you will thank God that you weren't vaporized by US/Soviet thermo-nuclear conflict. We all owe a debt to the poise, dignity and sacrifice of the non-violent resistance movement counseled by Pope John Paul II. Their non-violent example won over rank and file soldiers who refused to intervene and the Soviet iron turned to rust. See also, Gandhi, MLK and Chile.
Thom| 9.5.12 @ 7:42PM
If early Christians were to have emulated Christ’s life and early demises then the Church of Christ would have died out in his time simply because all those that followed his example would have been killed by the Romans or local governments friendly to the Romans or simply ceased to exist because they didn’t “reproduce”. We know 1900 years later, those “pacifists” didn’t emulate Christ’s life in the later part and the first part is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy like you find with Jim Jones and alike. Everywhere you find “sheeple” like this you find them living in the shadows of shepherds that protect them from themselves…
If ever were there a place on this earth that needed what these “pacifists” preach it is the Middle East and I don’t see ships full of these people immigrating there and living the life they say is required to be “Christian”. Christians are fleeing the Middle East because they know how the story ends….
Mark30339| 9.6.12 @ 11:37AM
Remind me again, which of the early Christian armed rebellions won over the Roman Empire? And explain what lethal weapons were used by Christians to prevail over Emperor Julian the Apostate when he tried to restore pagan worship.
Herald7| 9.5.12 @ 11:27PM
It is another shameful mauling of the scripture to interpret Jesus Christ as primarily a good moral man.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 9.6.12 @ 12:47AM
I would argue that pacifism is for the clergy and the ascetics. A family of seven Armenian Christians were beheaded this week by the anti-Assad forces of the Free Syrian Army (who are Western backed). I don't see how an adult male Christian could ever stand by and watch women, children and the elderly be slaughtered. In such cases a Christian is called to be a warrior like the knights of old and protect his family, faith and country even if that means killing your enemies. The priests, monks and nuns may accept martyrdom without putting up a fight because they have all ready given up this world to follow Christ however us that have wives, children, elderly relatives and younger siblings to protect have a duty to take up the sword to protect those we love. We can be martyrs if we are killed protecting that which is our duty to protect, but we don't have the option of being pacifists like the clergy. We must fight just as Christians in Syria fighting for the Assad government are essentially fighting for the very survival of their families, communities and faith in Syria. God forbid what the Wahhabists in the FSA will do to them should Assad fall. Their war against the Sunni Islamists is just even if they must ally themselves with secular Baathists or the Shia of Hezbollah.
Scott P| 9.6.12 @ 8:47PM
Deuteronomy 20 gives a very good description of God's take on warfare (and pacifism; the "afraid and faint-hearted" in verse 8). It is also interesting that in Acts 10 Peter did not require the Roman soldier Cornelius to "go and sin no more" after he (Cornelius) came to faith in Jesus.
Paul taught in Romans 13 that civil authority is God's servant to punish those who do wrong, and that it does not "bear the sword" for nothing. In short- God has spoken on warfare, has instituted civil authority to administer justice, and that there is no contradiction between Christian faith and military service. But that's just me; I don't have the secret anointing to understand Hauerwas' true Gospel.
gray man| 9.8.12 @ 12:26PM
war at it's most fundamental level can be broken down to it's simplest form. one man against one man.
To defend ones life or the life of another against unjust aggression is just. hence there is such a thing as just war. simple as that. "war" is simply individual battle on a massive scale.