Christian – LOVE | ACCEPT

Christian Pacifism

On the Turning Away…

On September 9, 1980, five years after the Vietnam War and a mere four years from the celebration of America’s Bicentennial, an activist group called the Plowshares Eight broke into a General Electric plant in Pennsylvania and hammered violently on the nose cones destined to cap nuclear warheads. This was not the first kinetic protest for at least two of the activists, the brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan. The Berrigans were well known among the Catholic antiwar and antiviolence community, following the tradition forged by others like Justin Martyr and Dorothy Day before them. Pacifism rooted in their Christian faith could not exist as mere doctrine or theory; for these men and women it must move from Word to action.

Christian pacifism is more than opposition to war; it is an intentional assumption of the reality of the peaceable Kingdom of God as inaugurated by the coming of Jesus. Shalom is the pervasive state of being in that kingdom as the Bible describes it, and the pacifist insists we are to labor for that peace in every situation, regardless of the personal cost. Because the pacifists within the Church usually gain the ‘activist’ label and seen as outliers from the rest of millions of believers, the central question to be addressed is not why they govern their lives by a biblical principle of peace at all costs, but what interpretative framework has enabled most Christians to respond indifferently to this issue and view non-violence as an optional belief?

The Berrigans did not root their pacifist worldview in philosophy alone. They interpreted the Bible as though it meant what it said and that the word of God demanded obedience and action. The Plowshares movement involved in the Pennsylvania protest took its name from the beautiful passage in Isaiah chapter 2 [cf. Micah 4:1-5] about the peace of the Kingdom welcoming all people to come under its comforting protection. Verse 4 paints a powerful picture of the core of this divine promise:

⁴He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
Isaiah 2:4

Father Daniel pointed to this verse as his authority to action, to be moved toward “doing it.” (Kierkegaard). “To the Plowshares community, this text of Isaiah has been a summons—a vigorous word, a word that sets the human in motion.” [1]

Isaiah’s prophetic allusion to future kingdom peace is not a one-off reference. A handful of chapters later, he prophesies that the warrior’s tools will again no longer be necessary, saying, “Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.” [Isaiah 9:5] The prophecy does not end with just foretelling peace at some undefined point; it continues saying that this peace will come with the Messiah:

⁶For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9:6-7

As Jesus makes his gospel announcement then, “The kingdom of God has come near” [Mark 1:15], believers should see prophecy fulfillment and take to heart both the present reality of that kingdom and the different life expected of its citizens. If Jesus is the Prince of Peace, then the lives of his people are to be marked by shalom. The pacifist presses this claim to its logical end: there can be no situation in which violence can be the solution to any situation for the Christian.

It is the authority of Scripture and its application to life that separates Christian pacifism from its secular-humanist counterpart. In simple terms, the humanist chooses the path of pacifism because the consequences of violence and war are damaging to other humans, both aggressor and defender alike. The argument assumes that all people can see this harm and come to the same ethical position, wanting to avoid the pain of violence, everyone living happily counting on everyone else wanting them to live happily. Fallen human nature, however, inveighs against this. The Christian pacifist is more clear-eyed about the damaged souls of humanity and obeys a different authority; he or she takes Jesus and His kingdom seriously and obeys the imperative to ‘turn [to them] the other cheek also” and seeks the blessing of being a ‘peacemaker.’

Father Berrigan’s application of Isaiah 2:4 reveals a core tenet of the committed pacifists within the Church: they hold firmly to the belief that the kingdom of God is a present reality in the world right now, even though it is not yet fully realized. This immediacy of the Kingdom of God is to prompt an urgency in the believer to live by kingdom values and ethics now and witness to this truth. A specific ‘existential’ hermeneutic is in view here, best explained by Kierkegaard [2] and his description of the Bible as a mirror. He argued the scriptures are perfectly clear, and the Bible presents truth in such a way that it should provoke a radical, life-changing response in the believer. To read the words of Jesus concerning non-violence and the seeking of peace is to hear a command to citizens of the Kingdom to live their lives in a like fashion. In the same stream of thought, Kierkegaard says that Jesus is not a historical figure simply to be admired; He is a prototype for Christian living. The Lord’s portrait in Scripture is given as it is to move us to imitate His life. If Jesus was non-violent and seeking peace in all He does, so must we. From this hermeneutic, the philosopher insists, believers must reach the conclusion that taking a life in war (or other violent action) is inconsistent with kingdom values and the teaching of Jesus. From this hermeneutic a pacifist is born.

As with many of the modern applications of biblical truth to the life of a believer, the interpretive framework one brings to the teachings of Christ is going to be a major determinant of what position you take on pacifism, and to a further extent, general non-violence. Shalom-Peace is a holistic concept extending beyond the lack of war or physical violence. In the biblical sense, the idea of wholeness communicated by shalom expands our idea of how we will pursue peace; it includes the principle of non-violence but justice as well. Will the same invitation to sacrifice your other cheek call you to sacrifice your treasure, time, and life to see similarly violent injustices continue unabated? A pacifist can insist that they will not join the military and kill another human being in war while still turning a blind eye to the oppression and discrimination that visits equally detrimental violence on those same people. Jesus is clear that citizens of His kingdom will live differently. Their lives, marked by kingdom principles, will serve as a winsome invitation for others to commit to Jesus and have their lives shaped by the same values. Early church father Tertullian offers further reasoning attributed to the redemptive project of which the kingdom is a part. He teaches Christians dare not take the life of a person whom Christ purposes to redeem.

Unlike the clear prohibition against murder in the Ten Commandments–“You shall not murder.” [Exodus 20:13]–the Messiah gives no such direct command. Instead (cf. Kierkegaard), Jesus offers Christians the prototype of His life of peace, a life that was studiously non-violent, modeling the ideal for citizens of the Kingdom of God. The kingdom principles He teaches are embodied in the life He leads, teaching His followers that this life is not only possible but desirable. There are many avenues to peace and even to the well-being of shalom. Pacifism in the Christian community chooses that path which they interpret as most closely adhering to the Lord’s teachings and the model of His life. Many within the kingdom will not elect to walk that same path, but there is much to be gained by giving their framework and principles a second look.

Notes:

[1] Isaiah. Berrigan, Daniel. Fortress Press.

[2] cf: Christian Discourses and Works of Love, Kierkegaard, Soren

Sparking a Movement

A summary of Spent Matches by Roy Moran

The Christian church has used a range of participatory metrics to evaluate her success in the modern era. Conversions, baptisms, the number of people present in worship: we fastidiously record these numbers throughout the year and then pore over them at year-end leadership summits. We define success as an increase in these totals; failure, plateau or decline. The analysis of these numbers governs the design and direction of the programmatic functions of the church. Leaders will tweak the edification programs to push for a more active evangelism, believing that transferring more information will make more effective evangelists. But how often are these same leaders referring to the commission given to the Church by her Lord to check the validity of their choices?

As Roy Moran states in his invaluable book Spent Matches, not often enough. The flaw in these metrics of success is that we no longer live in an era where information transfer to our neighbors and friends is effective in igniting their interest in God and His grace. To state this is a more colloquial fashion: the lives that surround the typical evangelical church are not the least bit interested in knowing what goes on inside. What people respond to is running into a radical life, one that is radically committed to Jesus and His teaching. Telling people what we believe puts their hypocrisy radar on full alert (as they have become conditioned to do in all areas of life). Living what we say we believe makes us stand out from the rest of the world clamoring for attention in the lives of our family, friends and neighbors.

It can be tempting to read the book as the outline for implementing a program, particularly because it includes ‘suggested’ outlines for meetings in the closing chapters. Mortify this temptation by slowly considering the imagery of the dire condition of the Church Moran paints at the beginning of the book. He suggests that our metrics should show the declining influence of modern Christian practice, likening the condition to a burning oil drilling platform surrounded by miles of churning sea. In the modern day we have two choices, jump or fry. To stay on our current platform is to die slowly on a long slope of decline. To jump is the join a movement back to the first principles of the Lord’s commission for His community of followers: make disciples who make disciples.

Moran is not the only author to put this idea into print. The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne leads to a similar conclusion, and has been influential in many churches by offering a ladder down from the burning platform. Moran is more forceful. We must jump and return with fresh eyes to the text of Matthew 28:18-20 and stop the bifurcation of the Gospel movement. Following a declaration of the expansive authority given to Him as the basis for the commission, Jesus commands His Church to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (ESV). The command to baptize these new disciples into the family and to teach “them to observe [obey] all that I have commanded you.” The Church has been obedient to this commission, but the methods have resulted in a bifurcated gospel practice where we separate life from faith. We have defined discipleship as an education process (information transfer) and then convinced ourselves that discipleship precedes evangelism (“sharing our faith”). The outcome of this process? Disciples never feel ready to evangelize others, so we double down on teaching them, hoping that someday their ship will launch. All the while, the platform burns.

The myth of preparation-perfection that plagues the information-transfer Church is refuted by reading the verses in the passage that are not a part of the memorized commission. The audience for the Lord’s command is His remaining eleven disciples, some of whom worshipped, but some of whom doubted! Perfection was not to be the enemy of progress, as Jesus commanded them to jump from the platform into the unknown. As Moran says,

“Jesus didn’t exhibit any sense of alarm indicating this was out of the ordinary or unusual. He was quite comfortable with a team that didn’t have it all together. In fact, He was comfortable commissioning people who not only lacked complete faith but were confirmed doubters.”

This is a catalyzing moment in the book, setting in relief the encouragement to jump and ignite a new movement within the Church, disciples who make disciples as they go along, each edifying and encouraging the other rather than relying on subject-matter experts that students feel they have to imitate before moving on the Mission. The Lord does not expect to create a class of mission-minded within the Church, specialists who carry on the Commission while others sit and watch. To be a Christian is to be a disciple, one involved in daily learning what it means to be a follower of Jesus and then putting that into practice. Moran’s take on John 15:8 (“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”) is accurate and puts our current process is stark relief:

“Jesus’ hope was that it would be normal for His followers to make disciples as they lived out a dangerous message that would divide families ad heal the brokenhearted, challenge the well-off and encourage the impoverished, transform the oppressors and bring freedom to the oppressed. To fail to make disciples would indicate followers weren’t connected to Jesus and the heart of His mission.”

Owning this concept is the spark of a movement that puts away information transfer and replaces it with community life. Jesus did not commission us to be taught principles about Himself, he said we were to be taught and then apply what he commanded. This obedience is the missing part in most programs in the modern Church; we are never challenged to show what we’ve done with what we’ve learned and so we never do. This is the source of the apathy we see in the pews. We have more information than we can possibly process at our fingertips, but scarce few opportunities to put it into practice and fewer still partners in the discipleship life holding us accountable. The discipleship patterns that Moran suggests through the book aim to fill this vacuum.

A fair number of churches today claim Acts chapter 2 as their model, seeing a return to the ancient church as a solution to moribund Christianity. The component missing in many is the discipleship pattern given by the Lord’s example and command: disciples, however imperfect, who make other disciples (who repeat the process) in community. This is what will capture the imagination of a world that has long ago become inured to the invitations of the Church. I invite you to read the book a few times and see if you are tempted to jump from the platform into the raging sea of the culture, trusting the Lord’s promise for our weakness, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

THERE’S NO I IN INTEGRITY

Integrity is the foremost measure of character between you and me. The dictionary will define integrity as an adherence to a code of values, but even that is ambiguous. Integrity means that you will do what you say you will do and I do what I say I will do. Anything less and the bond between us begins to fray and eventually snap. When it finally breaks it’s much like the rupture of a taut Achilles tendon. The two ends will curl away from each other and must be stretched under great pressure to even come close enough to begin the net back together. There is much pain and a long period of time elapses before the bond is trusted again, if it ever is.

Well, actually there are two. I and I. You and me. Integrity is the foremost measure of character between you and me. The dictionary will define integrity as an adherence to a code of values, but even that is ambiguous. Integrity means that you will do what you say you will do and I do what I say I will do. Anything less and the bond between us begins to fray and eventually snap. When it finally breaks it’s much like the rupture of a taut Achilles tendon. The two ends will curl away from each other and must be stretched under great pressure to even come close enough to begin the net back together. There is much pain and a long period of time elapses before the bond is trusted again, if it ever is.

In leadership, whether in the church or in a secular setting, surveys have demonstrated over and over that the most important character trait in a leader’s integrity. If people are going to follow a leader into battle or into ministry they must know that the leader’s word is rock solid. They do what they say they’re going to do. Always. Without excuses. Even if it requires sacrifice on their part.

They are often misappropriated verse in the epistle of James speaks to the impact that integrity can have.

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. James 2:18

It is as easy to claim to have faith as it is to pound your chest and claim the solidity of your integrity. Because we do not exist in a vacuum it’s also easy enough for those around us to evaluate our claims of both faith and integrity. If we claim faith in the God of the universe and His Son Jesus Christ but live lives contrary to the obedience and character demanded of a recipient of his magnificent grace that our faith is certainly questionable. In the same way, proclamations of integrity fall on deaf ears when our actions demonstrate that we cannot be trusted. The Christian leader who finds themselves in this position also has a ministry that is over before it starts. God is not going to bless something that begins by bringing dishonor to His name.

Our hope would be to be found like Israel’s leaders Samuel. After having led Israel for decade after decade Samuel stands before all the people and lays himself bare. (1 Samuel 12:1-4) He states without hesitation that if he has wrongly taken anything from anyone he will repay. If he has cheated or oppressed anyone he will make reparation. If he has been less than honest in any of his dealings he will confess and make right any illicit bargain. “I will make it right” are Samuel’s farewell words before Israel and his God.

The people reply “you have not cheated or oppressed us,” and “you have not taken anything from anyone’s hand.” Samuel had integrity.

SIDE BY SIDE: 2 audacious lists

Two Lists Will Revolutionize Your Relationship with God

Praise the Lord, O my soul; and forget not all his benefits– Psalm 103:2

In a busy life it is all too easy to miss God at work. We can become so wrapped up in our daily lives that the sometimes subtle moves of God all around us can fade into our surroundings and we walk right by.Some will not be noticed and missed forever. Others will be sensed at the amygdala level and later, through the prompting of the Holy Spirit, will receive the full attention of the brain. We can call these ‘near misses’.

It’s certainly possible to proceed through life unaware of God at work. We can remain faithful and repentant to the best of our ability. We can just exist, naïve to what we are missing but this is a difficult position to maintain. Once the Christian has tasted the briefest experience of knowing the living, active God at this level, he is driven to experience more. This is by design in the relationship between God and human kind and it serves a purpose in the course of discipleship.To become cognizant of God at work begins to form our confidence. He has promised to be at work and we have seen him at work. Confidence builds faith. Our witness to the work of God trains us to place ever greater trust in His promises. Faith builds boldness. If God has been faithful in promise A He will be faithful in promise B despite appearances to the contrary. Greater trust, greater faith and audacious boldness lead to the fullness of life promised to the people of God.

Two sheets of paper can start the trust building exercise. On page one, list the experiences you have had that evidence God at work around you. This is an easy list to start since the first experience you have to record is your own salvation. Build from there recording moments in which you have seen God at work in your life or the lives of others. Make note of the transformation that occurred. Search the scriptures for promises that align with that experience. Write it all down and set it aside.

The second sheet of paper will contain a record of near misses, those times in which you walked past God at work only to realize it later. Perhaps it was an evangelistic opportunity or a moment in which you could have encouraged another person, brought correction for them, comforted them. We call these near misses because the Spirit reminds us after the fact that we passed by the Father without notice. This activates the Reticular nerves and we become more aware of our surroundings, seeing things that had not been noticed before.

When you have completed both lists place them side by side. Ask yourself, if God has been faithful and actively working in those instances on list A, won’t He also be faithful and active when you become more aware of the moments on list B? Of course! The witness of list A builds your confidence and your increasing confidence contributes to a deepening faith. That faith and your heightened spider-sense will transform you from being an observer to one actively seeking to be involved with the Father’s work. Now, you’re living.

image by Ana C.

Who Gets a Pass?

Not too long ago, the Seattle Pastor and his cohort successfully lobbied to have a book withdrawn from the marketplace because the authors had committed the crime of utilizing the Ninja paradigm to title the book and organize their leadership ideas. This application was deemed offensive because it made use of racial stereotypes and the kerfuffle that arose became quite the cause-celebre’. Since then I’ve noticed that numerous far more blatant Asian stereotypes have made appearances without notice by this group. Now I’m puzzled by what earns a pass and what does not?

Never a group to miss instances of Caucasians making ‘asian eyes’, I’d like for someone of this lobby to explain why Challies’ mocking of the Thai server’s language pattern in this tweet gets a pass:

http://twitter.com/challies/statuses/13737260432