Posted on 10/23/2001 6:54:50 AM PDT by Clive
Suppose a man is walking past a park after dusk when he hears the desperate cries of a woman screaming, "Help, rape." What should he do? Rush to the defence of the victim, of course, and try by all means, violent and non-violent, to stop the attack.
Christian pacifists and their secular counterparts disagree. They reject the use of force to resist evil, even when there is no other means of curtailing the depredations of wickedness.
If a Christian pacifist were to arrive on the scene of a rape, what would he do, counsel the victim to stop pulling the hair of her attacker on the grounds that violence begets violence? Would he remind the desperate woman of Jesus's admonition in the Sermon on the Mount, "Do not resist one who is evil"?
Surely not. Only a lunatic would preach to a victim under attack. Yet Christian pacifists have no compunction about insisting to the rest of us it's sinful and wrong to use any form of violence to stop a rapist or a tyrant such as Hitler.
The great majority of Christian theologians reject this argument and for good reason: The Bible, taken as a whole, makes clear Christians are called upon to use force whenever it is absolutely necessary to prevent evil.
Granted, unlike Mohammed, Jesus did not take up the sword and did not allow his disciples to do so. Yet Jesus did not shrink from using force to achieve justice. He drove merchants from the temple and overturned the tables of corrupt money changers.
When a Roman centurion asked Jesus to heal his son, Jesus did not tell the officer to leave the army and take up life as a pacifist. Rather, Jesus marvelled to his followers: "Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith."
Christian pacifists take literally the passage in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus counselled non-resistance to evil. Yet in this same sermon, Jesus also said: "If any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well." Should this latter statement be taken literally, too?
If not, why not?
In an address entitled, Why I Am Not a Pacifist, given to a pacifist society in Oxford, England, in 1940, C. S. Lewis suggested respect is owing to a Christian pacifist who donates all his belongings to the needy.
Who, though, can admire the inconsistent person, said Lewis, "who takes Our Lord's words a la rigueur when they dispense him from a possible obligation (to use force to defend the innocent) and take them with latitude when they demand that he should become a pauper."
Lewis held that the text on non-violence in the Sermon on the Mount was meant to be taken literally, but only in the context of the everyday frictions among neighbours.
"Insofar as the only relevant factors in the case are an injury to me by my neighbour and a desire on my part to retaliate," said Lewis, "then I hold that Christianity commands the absolute mortification of that desire. But the moment you introduce other factors, the problem is altered. Does anyone suppose that Our Lord's hearers understood Him to mean that if a homicidal maniac, attempting to murder a third party, tried to knock me out of the way, I must stand aside and let him get his victim?"
Some Christian pacifists maintain violence can never be justifiable, because it's intrinsically evil. What, though, is evil about using force to rescue a woman from a rapist? Theologically orthodox Christians take the sensible view that violence is sometimes an essential means of attaining justice.
In Good Wars, an article in the current issue of First Things, (http:// www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0110/articles/cole.html), Darrel Cole concedes Jesus was a pacifist, but only insofar as pacifism was inherent in his unique role as the redeemer. Cole insists: "No Christian can or should try to act as a redeemer, but all can and should follow Christ in obeying the commands of the Father. And the Father commands the just use of force."
"What does the Lord require of you but to do justice?" proclaimed the prophet Micah. To this end, the Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Protestant, and Count Klaus von Stauffenberg, a Catholic, took part in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. Rather than condone the evils of Nazism, they resorted to the just use of force.
Alas the plot failed. Like other heroes of the Nazi resistance, Bonhoeffer and von Stauffenberg were arrested and executed by the Gestapo. They died as they had lived, as soldiers of Christ, striving by all means to repel evil and defend the innocent.
This phrase is a particular bit of idiocy that never seems to die. And it is especially sickening given that it actually works against itself when invoked a deterrent.
If one is urged not to "react violently" for a violence already suffered, and obliges, the very phrase becomes untrue. Violence has stopped, and the original violence has not "begotten more violence." What then, does the peacenik say to discourage the original perpetrator from behaving violently again? That "violence will only beget more violence?" No, that's been stopped. There is no longer that deterrent. So the violence can now continue, undeterred by the squandered truth of the original observation.
Violence must always beget more violence. Otherwise it has no cost. And methods with no cost are used in great frequency, and never reserved for last resort.
Gandhi actually believed that Britain should have surrendered to Germany during WWII, and that Jews should adopt "active nonviolence" that "would melt the stony hearts" of Nazis stuffing them into ovens. That about says it all.
Jesus said to "give to Caesar what is Caesar's," indicating that there is nothing inherently evil about government requiring taxes from its citizens. How else would you fund a military? Regarding unnecessary expenditures, you and I would probably agree.
"The term "tax collectors" hardly ever appears in the NT without "and sinners" nearby (anyone ever see a Biblical reference to "rug murchants and sinners" or "tent makers and sinners"?"
The term "tax collector" carried a less than complimentary reaction due to the Jewish men who were paid by the Roman government to collect the taxes for them. These Jews would oftentimes collect 4-5 times more than what the citizen was required by Rome, all of which went into their pockets.
Virtually every occupation can be corrupted to the extent that it loses respect with people. Being a "tax collector" is not necessarily a bad thing.
"Jesus refused to even speak to Pilate, the hightest ranking govt official He ever dealt with (although I'm doing this one from memory) except to say "If you say so" when Pilate demanded answers or some sort of defense from Him."
Jesus had to refuse to answer Pilate for the mere fact that Pilate was already inclined to release Him. Had Jesus revealed who He was to Pilate, He would have been immediately released, thus negating the purpose for Him coming to earth (i.e., to die for all sinners).
"The pivotal act in the Gospels is the govt murder of an innocent man."
Agreed, although there were "witnesses" that testified of the so-called "crimes" that Jesus committed. Because He chose not to defend Himself, He set the stage for His crucifixion.
"For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good." (Romans 13:3-4 [in part])
I believe that Paul was clearly stating that in order for a government to recognize what is good, it must first have an understanding or foundation of "goodness;" in other words, a moral standard. If not, how can a government justifiably punish its citizenry for doing what itself does? In doing so, it loses all legitimacy, as it relates to the thrust of Romans 13.
Generally, government is the creation of its populace and a creation that reacts to the desires of its populace. For good or bad, government upholds a standard of behavior that is established by the populace that gives it its power to enforce that standard of "good," however subjective that definition may be.
Christians are not only commanded to obey government whose actions are based upon a clear understanding of the Word of God, but to disobey those actions that are not.
For Hillary Clinton is not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of Hillary? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same; for she is a minister of God to you for good."He is not saying to only obey a govt that does good or only obey when it does good. Nobody wants to read it the way it is written because a literal reading is so clearly false. Its like when the gun-grabbers take the "well regulated militia" clause of the 2nd to mean that RKBA only applies to the National Guard.
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