Posted on 06/10/2009 6:49:42 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Non-Violent Resistance
I am in favor of non-violence and non-violence resistance. I have written two books about it: "Trespassing for Dear Life" and "When Justice Is Aborted." Gandhi won, not because he used violence, but because he used non-violence, and his opponents used violence against him. The strategy of non-violence works because it calls forth the worst manifestations of the evil in the hearts of those against whom the non-violent protest is aimed. The public can see the police clubbing the protestors. They can see them breaking their arms dragging them out, throwing them into paddy wagons, putting them into jail for months at a time. The tactic's action is the reaction: public revulsion.
The strategy of non-violent resistance is premised on these facts: (1) the public as a whole is doing the wrong thing; (2) the public is allowing the government to do the wrong thing in the name of the public; and (3) the public's mind can be changed if non-violent tactics reveal that those who enforce the law have to do terrible things against righteous people who are standing up for principle.
The difference between non-violent resistance and violent resistance is very great. Non-violent resistance says that we must take a public stand against a public evil and suffer the consequences. Non-violent resistance says that those magistrates who represent the people as a whole are going to do evil things in public if what they have been authorized to do is essentially evil. Non-violent resistance against legalized abortion is aimed at calling the public to its collective senses. But if the public no longer has collective senses, and if the public in its heart is murderous, then non-violent resistance is not going to work directly. Non-violent resistant is going to call down the wrath of God on the society.
What you forgot, and what violent resisters want to forget, is that there is a God in this process, and He does act in history to bring His sanctions. You were not authorized by God to represent the public. You were authorized by God to do non- violent things and suffer the consequences personally. You were authorized by God to stand in the gap and get your head beaten in, maybe on videotape, to be broadcast at the six o'clock news. You were authorized to get the public infuriated against the agents who bashed you head in. That is what you were entitled to do. But you were not entitled to gun somebody down. God allows the sword to be used only by someone who is ordained to do it. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." So says Romans 12:19. Romans 13 says that the state is authorized, as a minister of God (v. 4), to act as God's lawful agent of vengeance. If he brings vengeance against evil doers, then God does not have to, and He will not bring vengeance in history against the society as a whole for authorizing a civil magistrate to do evil.
There is a biblical hierarchy of vengeance. God is at the top, and the civil magistrate is under him. You and any other private citizen are not part of this hierarchy. That is why it says, "vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." You forgot that. Those with a revolutionary bent in their psychology will also forget that.
What you are accused of was not only against civil law, it was against God's law. What you recommend is not only against civil law, it is against God's law. Individuals do not have the right under biblical law to bring violence in the name of the community. They have not been ordained to do it, and they are not part of God's lawful, ordained hierarchy of vengeance.
Your position would bring bloodshed to all of society. There are no judicial limits on your position; no boundaries around those who will be at risk from the self-ordained vengeance-bringers with their shotguns and their weapons of violence. Your position cannot be limited judicially to the abortionists around the corner. Logically, it must go beyond that. It must go to the civil magistrate who is the legal bodyguard of the abortionist on the corner. It must move from the civil magistrate to the judge who has authorized this protection, and must finally move from the judge who has authorized it to the public which approves of it. There are no limits on the bloodshed and the violence in your system. There are no limits because there is no hierarchy. There is no civil court of appeals. There is no hierarchy of vengeance in your system. It is each man bringing judgment on the others in his capacity as a self-ordained magistrate. You ordained yourself to serve the Lord's Supper as a minister of God in the church, and you ordained yourself to gun down individuals as a civil magistrate. You possessed neither authority.
If we had biblical law, you would be tried and, if convicted, executed by the witnesses who testify against you. You would have no possibility of appeal. You would be delivered into God's supreme court. The only reason you will probably not be executed is because we live in a society that does not believe in biblical law. The only thing that will save your earthly life is the corrupt legal system that would not prosecute your victim, the abortionist. The only thing that is going to give you time to repent is the moral and judicial corruption of the American legal system. The legal system you thought you could replace will probably not do what God says should be done with you.
That is the great irony here. You are going to be able to think about what you did and, by the grace of God, repent of what you have written and what you have done, only because this is a corrupt society. You will be given time that you do not deserve before God because this society pays very little attention to God. The society that legalized abortion is the society that is probably going to let you get off the hook compared to what biblical law absolutely requires be done with you.
....Your position would bring bloodshed to all of society. There are no judicial limits on your position; no boundaries around those who will be at risk from the self-ordained vengeance-bringers with their shotguns and their weapons of violence. Your position cannot be limited judicially to the abortionists around the corner. Logically, it must go beyond that. It must go to the civil magistrate who is the legal bodyguard of the abortionist on the corner. It must move from the civil magistrate to the judge who has authorized this protection, and must finally move from the judge who has authorized it to the public which approves of it. There are no limits on the bloodshed and the violence in your system. There are no limits because there is no hierarchy. There is no civil court of appeals. There is no hierarchy of vengeance in your system. It is each man bringing judgment on the others in his capacity as a self-ordained magistrate. You ordained yourself to serve the Lord's Supper as a minister of God in the church, and you ordained yourself to gun down individuals as a civil magistrate. You possessed neither authority.
Dr George Tiller, the infamous Kansas late-term abortionist was shot to death the last Sunday of May 2009. At some point, comparisons will be made to the shooting deaths of Dr. John Britton and abortion escort/bodyguard James Barrett in the summer of 1994.
This thread series features a letter written to Britton's murderer, Paul Hill while he was awaiting trial for the killings (Hill was convicted, sentenced to death, and executed for the double-murder). The author is "Christian Reconstructionist" writer Gary North. The letter (published in book form under the title Lone Gunners for Jesus: Letters to Paul Hill) articulates a Reformed response to the question of whether the killing of an abortionist can be considered morally justified in Scripture.
Pt 1: Introduction
Pt 2: Judicial Theology
Pt 3: Murder, Defined Biblically
Pt 4: The Fundamental Issue
Pt 5: The Guilt of the Community
Pt 6: The Question of Judicial Representation
Pt 7: Community Standards
Pt 8: The Technology of Low-Cost Murder
Pt 9: Voices of Virtue
Pt 10: Perfectionism and Unlimited Guilt
Pt 11: Non-Violent Resistance
Pt 12: Caught in a Crossfire
Pt 13: Conclusion
All very well, but Gandhi won largely because the British Empire was exhausted and demoralized by 2 world wars, and because the US strong-armed the Europeans into giving up their empires after WWII.
Maybe it was George Washington who won by non violence then. or Mao Tse-tung....
I know! European Jews won through non-violence.
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