Waging Nonviolence

Some extracts from a recent sermon at Canberra Baptist, Waging nonviolencel by Thorwald Lorenzen, reminded me of how central to the heart of Jesus' call to discipleship, this practice is.The full sermon is available, in both audio and transcript at the above link on the Canberra Baptist website. The following extracts get to the heart of the matter:

... the grand narrative of our faith is unambiguous and clear: in a violent world, Jesus introduced a new way of being: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God!"

The early Christians followed Jesus in that. For the first three hundred years Christians refused military service and tried to live nonviolently. But then, in the 4^th century, when the church became interlocked with the Roman government, the church also became involved with war and violence.

While acknowledging the failure of the church we should, Thorwald argues, move to a way of being where nonviolence, rather than violence, is the default position. The Sermon on the Mount, and the Beatitudes do not call for a passive approach to engagement with the world.

A commitment to nonviolence in a violent world is not weakness but strength. It means marching out of step with the ways of the world. It invites us to swim against the stream. A commitment to nonviolence does not mean being passive or withdrawing from responsibility for life. Nonviolence must be pursued. It must be actively lived. It must be waged!

... On the basis of the resurrection of the Crucified One, we may therefore speak of nonviolence as God's way of being....On that basis we can affirm in a world of war and violence, that peacemakers are the children of God. We can confess in a world where political, economic and military power seems to dictate what is right and what is wrong, that ultimately the meek will inherit the earth.

 How then can we live this new way of being?

May I remind you that we have already done so. With our faith in Christ and our baptism into his sphere of influence we have been born to a new way of living. We only need to remind each other what this new way of living is, otherwise we easily fall back into the old ways of violence.

Intentionally with our prayers, our words and our actions we can tune in to the new consciousness of letting Christ rule our lives. We shall then be kind with each other, we shall walk softly on the earth, and we shall seek new and nonviolent ways to deal with human conflicts.

We need to examine and unmask elements in our thinking about God and the church to see whether violence has crept into our language and thoughts. Whatever we think and do, it must be an echo to the central Christian confession that "God is love" and that God is the “God of Peace”.

We can encourage our churches and our government to contribute to the United Nations Millenium Development Goals. The reduction of poverty and injustice and the empowerment of the oppressed are more effective antidotes to terrorism than the ever turning spiral of violence. 

There is no better way to end than to remember the words from the prophets Isaiah and Micah that are hewn into the United Nations Headquarters in New York:

"They shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more."

 

John Howard Yoder on Nonviolence

John Howard Yoder  Nonviolence: A Brief History - The Warsaw Lectures edited by Paul Martens, Matthew Porter and Myles Werntz (Baylor University Press, 2010)

John Howard Yoder’s Nonviolence: A Brief History, is yet another in what is proving to be an extended series of posthumously published books. The text is comprised of lectures that he gave in Warsaw Poland in 1983. To remind you of the historical context, at that time the Solidarity Movement had became a powerful nonviolent force trying to affect change in Communist Poland and Pope John Paul II was to visit Poland just a month later.

While the material contains little that is original it is good to have the lectures as they pull together in a simple accessible way a coherent overview of Yoder's account of the history and practice of nonviolence and its theological underpinnings. Hopefully the lectures might eventually be published in paperback as the hardback version is highly expensive for a book of 150 pages.

There is a good review by Andy Alexis-Baker at Jesus Radicals.

Violence and nonviolence

We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence.

- Mohandas Gandhi

Zimbabwe - a voice for nonviolence

In June this year the Mennonite World Conference, the Reformed Ecumenical Council, and the
World Evangelical Alliance wrote to the African Union and the Southern African Development Community to express their distress over the deepening crisis in Zimbabwe. arising from their
strong ties to Zimbabwe through their member churches there. they stated that:

We further believe that, given the potential for ongoing lack of clarity and resolution following the runoff elections, for the long-term re-stabilization of Zimbabwe, it is crucial for international bodies to insist that the ruling party in Zimbabwe come to a negotiating table to map out future directions for the country. This table must also include not only leaders of the Zimbabwean opposition, but members of Zimbabwe’s military and security forces and leaders of church and civil society groups. Only with a carefully negotiated agreement can the deep divisions and distrust that has grown over the past decades begin to be healed.

We insist that the time for quiet diplomacy by friends of Mr. Mugabe to be effective is long past. Any further inaction by the African and international community will result in the continued repression of the people of Zimbabwe, and the deepening instability of the Southern African region.

Six months later there has been little response by the leaders of neighbouring countries.

As we come to celebrate Christmas this reflection from the midst of violence reminds me that the birth of Jesus took place in a time and place of oppression and violence and that the call to discipleship has little in common with the consumerism of the holiday in Australia.

Danny Ndlovu Bishop of the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe reflections on "The other cheek - The second mile" on the call to nonviolence in Zimbabwe today makes sobering Christmas reading.


You have heard that it is said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. … If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.—Matthew 5:38-41

When I read these words from the Sermon on the Mount, I wonder if what Christ says makes sense for today. Take our current situation in Zimbabwe, for example.

Our people exercised their constitutional right to vote for new leadership. They did so peacefully. But the powers that be were not happy with the outcome, and they have pursued violence against their own people. Some have been brutally assaulted, left with broken bones, scarred for life, and denied access to medical care. A few have lost their lives.

How do we as a people, as Christians, respond? Some have fled, crossing the borders to neighboring countries. Others of us have stayed. We are humiliated and our dignity has been
stolen from us. Many outside our country view us as wimps. If Zimbabweans were really suffering as they would want the world to believe, they say, the people should be out in the
streets violently demonstrating.

How then do these words of Christ speak to us in our situation? Do they have any relevance at all? I find Christ’s words incredibly empowering. In these verses, Jesus suggests that no one should be given the right to be in charge of another person’s destiny, no matter the circumstances. To do so is to allow another person to be God in someone’s life. However, by turning the other cheek, by walking the second mile, we disempower the one who tried to assume power over us.

Perpetrators of violence tend to assume the place of God in other people’s lives and judge
them harshly for non-compliance. According to Christ, we should respond to such injustice
in nonviolent ways. Responding in nonviolent ways exposes hatred and other machinations of the evil one and his agents. Only then can nonviolence triumph over violence. The call of Christ does not mean allowing other people to treat us as they please. Rather, we respond to injustice in nonviolent ways that will, we hope, bring about a positive outcome even on the part of the perpetrator. It is calling the perpetrator of injustice to think twice about the actions that person is taking. Through nonviolence, we offer the aggressor an opportunity for soul searching. It offers time for the perpetrator to listen to the heart as it cries for help!

For in reality, those who pursue violence are in need of help more than the victims of injustice. In that respect, nonviolence is a way of responding from a position of power on the part of the victim rather than that of weakness and fear. It is taking away the power of control from the perpetrator and owning it as a victim, regardless of what follows.

The Zimbabwean church—and the church around the world—has a responsibility in the harsh realities in which it finds itself to respond in ways that will honor God. The church must demonstrate what it means to be disciples of Christ through radical responses to unreasonable
demands. Christ himself set the pace and example. Up to his death, he responded to every form of injustice against him in powerful but nonviolent ways. The church must continue to give
the other cheek and to walk the second mile. This is the way to call for better and equal treatment. It is also the way of respect and dignity of humankind.

Olympic torch is a symbol of?

Eureka Street in its new electronic incarnation continues to produce material worth reading.

Michael Mullins in todays mailing draws attention to the history of the Olympic torch as a symbol not of freedom and sportsmanship but as a symbol of state propaganda by oppressive governments and brings to our attention a little remembered piece of history and pranksmanship that even the Chaser should be envious of.

The power of marketing has obscured the original symbolism of the Olympic torch as an effective celebration of human rights violation.

The modern Olympic torch relay was initiated by the organisers of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It was carefully orchestrated by the Nazi leadership to uphold the image of the Third Reich as a dynamic and expanding influence on the international culture and economy. It fitted perfectly with the Nazi belief that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich.

Olympic officialdom has since cast aside the torch's original link with political oppression and human rights violation by asserting that it's about sport, not politics, and that the two are mutually exclusive.

2008 is not the first occasion on which protestors have attempted to expose the flame's link to human oppression. Before the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, a veterinary science student at St John's College at the University of Sydney was successful in upstaging the torch with a fake flame that rose from kerosene-saturated underwear, before Sydney Lord Mayor Pat Hills. Prankster Barry Larkin and fellow students organised the action because of the torch's Nazi origins, and the fact that it was given 'too much reverence'.
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=6631

Such pranksters are what we need more of - they show up the principalities and powers by demythologising them by creating roars of laughter.

This is non-violent activism at its most imaginative.