Resist

Whoever can reconcile this, 'Resist not evil', with 'Resist violence by force', again, 'Give also thy other cheek', with 'Strike again'; also, 'Love thine enemies', with 'Spoil them, make a prey of them, pursue them with fire and the sword', or, 'Pray for those that persecute you, and those that calumniate you', with 'Persecute them by fines, imprisonments and death itself', whoever, I say, can find a means to reconcile these things may be supposed also to have found a way to reconcile God with the Devil, Christ with Antichrist, Light with Darkness, and good with evil. But if this be impossible, as indeed it is impossible, so will also the other be impossible, and men do but deceive both themselves and others, while they boldly adventure to establish such absurd and impossible things.

Robert Barclay, 1678

Ever since I spent time at L'Abri I have been thinking about what it means to be a pacifist. I have always said that I was a pacifist only because I never liked fighting. Maybe its because I'm not very strong so I would just say that I was a pacifist so I would have a reason to not back up my friends in a bar fight. Luckily I have well behaving friends and I never had to show my stripes in that situation.

One might think there would be a lot of pacifists at L'Abri. Surprisingly, there were only a few. I was one of the only people who really spoke up about it. Maybe I should define this better than I am. Pacifism is a tricky word because it denotes (at least to me) an extremely passive, almost non-caring attitude towards violence. I would say that Christian pacifism is more of an active non-violence. I didn't make that up, I think I stole it from Ron Sider's old book Christ & Violence. This is the same book that introduced me to the idea of systematic injustice. It was also the only book in the L'Abri library about nonviolence (in a positive light).

I guess I have always been a Christian pacifist for two reasons (more now, but from the beginning just two.) First, I could never reconcile violence (especially war) with Jesus' words to love our enemies and 'do not resist evil'. This was never well thought out but more of a gut-feeling about how we need to take those things seriously even if it messes up what we want to think about our enemies or violence done to us. Second, I never liked the idea that nonviolence needed to be defended. Violence was always the initial reaction and then we should present a case for nonviolence. It seemed that nonviolence should be the standard and one should try to be convinced of why violence should be allowed. More gut than anything else, but I could never get around those two things.

The other thing about nonviolence and pacifism is that I think it should be carried to its logical conclusion. Just like the idea of 'pro-life' should enlarged to include not only human birth but the environment, marriage, the death penalty, and all forms of life-giving and life-taking, I think that nonviolence should be extended too. Nonviolence in its fullest form should include nonviolence to the earth and its resources, nonviolence to enemies, nonviolence to our bodies, nonviolent words and actions towards our family, nonviolent speech in general. Its kind of like the difference between peace-loving and peace-making. Not just people who want peace, but people who make peace.

I wrote most of that last night. I don't know where I was going...so I'll stop there.