Wednesday, March 12, 2008

  • Reflections of a Non-Passive Pacifist

    Currently Reading
    Philippians: Revised (Word Biblical Commentary)
    By Ralph P. Martin, Gerald F. Hawthorne
    see related

    The more I engage the New Testament text, the more I’m convinced it proclaims a non-violent kingdom founded on suffering, humility, and sacrifice, not violence, force, and aggression.

     

    For many people, their theology is the natural offspring of their personality – they emphasize peacemaking because they are naturally passive. It’s just pragmatically beneficial for them to be peace-keepers. Others emphasize confrontation and maybe even violent confrontation because they are naturally aggressive personalities.

     

    The second is the case with me. I’m a naturally aggressive personality. I’m the guy whose going to tell you all the things you don’t want to hear and I’m not generally too good at sugar-coating it (“Break-up Letter”, anyone?) It’s not even a product of my personality so much as it is a consequence of my spiritual gifts – my strongest spiritual gift being prophecy. It is my spiritual gift to nail up indictments on every door in town. It’s my spiritual gift not to back down to the Empire, the powerful, or the just plain-ole mean person.

     

    But how does this non-passive spiritual gift jive with the non-violent notions I discover present within the New Testament? I’m not sure. I always have to be on guard that my actions, though prophetic, do not also hold within them the seeds of violence. The use of powerful and emotion evoking words, though the greatest tool of the prophet, is also a significant tool in the perpetuation of violence. Indeed, in the past I have stepped over this line both on purpose and on accident.

     

    What is the boundary between telling people what they need to hear and being offensive? What is the difference between nailing up indictments and just being a jerk? I’m not sure. There have been times when I knew the ‘hard’ things I’ve said have come from the Spirit. There are other times when I think what I said came from the Spirit, but maybe not the way I said it. There are other times when I was just a jerk and I know nothing of what I said came from the Spirit (If any of that made sense). I think this is the burden of the prophetic mantle – bruising the reed, but not breaking it - Loving the person enough to tell them what they don’t want to hear, but telling them in a way that reinforces their personhood instead of destroying it. I don’t back down from anyone, but that doesn’t mean violence is permissible.

     

    Mercy is not my spiritual gift, but that is exactly why I need to pay more attention to it. Mercy is not passive, but prophecy is never violent.

Comments (1)

  • Galadhatan

    In my studies currently, I am taken with the medieval spirituality of the Crusades in relation to this passivism.  [First I should say, forget everything you thought you knew about the crusades -- it's probably wrong.  Most textbooks still have failed to update in consideration of the last 50 years of scholarship.]  The original crusaders' intention was to recover what was sacred - Jerusalem - away from an enemy that was literally and figuratively associated with the devil.  Yet their intention was not so much to kill and be aggressive - in fact the next 80 years the Latin state never fought to expand, only to survive - and not to convert by the sword (though some of that did happen).  Theirs was certainly a biblical perspective, judging from the Old Testament (as they did) -- but was it less than Christian?  Was what they did wrong?  If it was not a fight for land, could it too have been a Christian passivist's battle?

    Just some thoughts. 

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