Jesus Teaches us to love our neighbors, even going so far as for us to pray for the good of our enemies, to bless those who curse us, and to love them.
Paul says we should be in submission to government, even a pagan government which killed Christians arbitrarily (the government he was under).
Revelation teaches us that in the end, judgement belongs to the Lord (this command is repeated throughout scripture), and other NT verses tell us that revenge is not for us to take.
All of the weapons that Paul mentions in the 'armor of God' are defensive, even the sword, because it was a short sword and would've been used to deflect blows (a javelin or spear or pike would've been the main offensive weapon).
Jesus offered himself to be killed by his enemies, and if any cause was a worthy one of 'justified violence', it was defending Jesus from the ultimate injustice, an unworthy death to the only sinless man, and yet when one of the disciples did just that, Jesus rebuked him harshly. "those who live by the sword will die by the sword."
We are told that love conquers all things.
Jesus, and all of the New Testament (especially Paul in his "powers and principalities" language), dismisses the idea of the power of the world being of importance to God. The powers of this world use force and political leveraging, even if sometimes it is for an assumed or real good. Jesus directly dismisses using that kind of power when the devil offers it to him during his 40 days of temptation in the desert.
Also, throughout much of the NT (think the same examples as above), Satan is seen as in charge of the Powers of this world, the powers which use (and excuse) violence.
Ultimately, Jesus tells us to be peacemakers, to love our enemy, to pray for those who persecute us, to be meek, to be gentle, to be humble, to be forgiving to the nth degree, and to be compassionate. All of these attitudes go AGAINST violence.
Thoughts?
-The Serene Nazarene
contribution from a friend: ""Pacifist" implies action. The word comes from the Latin "pax" peace, and "facere" to make. So, if you are pacifist, you are committed to the action of making peace. That is a noble calling."
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Thanks for directing me to this site. I see you post articles that expand on those in your xanga blog, so I will check in on this. Please alert us, your xanga readers, when you have a new post here!
ReplyDeleteMy question is how do you reconcile this with the violence in the OT?
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult but by no means impossible. To answer fully would require another post, and probably one that would be way longer than anyone would consent to read on an unacademic blog, but the basic thesis goes like this: Premise one: God has always used humans. Premise two: Humans are imperfect creatures, and therefore, though we try our hardest to to do God's will, our expression of his Will will NOT be perfect, our own biases, passions, interests, faults, prejudices, ignorance, etc, will get in the way. Premise three, the ultimate revelation of who God is was through the person, life, and revelation of Jesus the Messiah. My argument is that he spoke peace, and I can point you to awesome literature that agrees with me and displays the truth of it far better than I could. That being said, if the ultimate expression of God is through Jesus, and Jesus ultimately spoke of peace, love, and reconciliation, and we agree that men often make mistakes in their attempts to please God, then the places in the OT where violence was used in the name of God should be seen as the misconduct of the people whom God was using, and the positive outflows of that violence should be seen as the power of God to redeem negative situations and still use them to further his purposes.
ReplyDelete