I'm conflicting with myself about this right now. I dont currently consider myself a pacifist, but I may be swinging that way.

I don't support the current wars, or any wars that have occurred since WWII, and recognize the evil that war is, but don't know if I can get behind it being a evil greater than all others which it may prevent (e.g. Holocaust).

I'd love to hear opinions from both sides.

from a christian standpoint, i believe its very hard to justify violence in any form. while throughout the bible there are instances of violence there are also repudiations and cleansing that go hand and hand with those.

outside of Jesus' teachings of loving our enemies and blessing our persecutors (which could be persecution due to anything - faith, the watch we are wearing, the car we are driving, the person we voted for, for not voting, for supporting gay marriage, for being against it, etc) the apostles paul and peter also said not to return evil for evil in romans 12 and 1 peter 3 respectively. in the old testament God told david he could not build a temple due to the fact that he was a man of bloodshed. throughout the minor prophets they take stances against warfare and even call for the destruction of weapons and converting them to tools that bring forth life (isaiah and micah).

once you get past that the second part of your question it gets to the really telling part about how we as christians think. we are reactionaries. we dont practice prevention at all. the jewish holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s is a blemish on the church just as much as the spanish inquisition. hitler rode to power on the back of the church. they supported him. they supported his plans. i think the idea that church in germany was just as tied to nationalism in the 1920s and 30s as the church in america is now is quite frightening. people place the importance of country over the importance of their neighbors around the world. we see borders and walls instead of tearing down those walls and loving our enemies.

so what does prevention look like? one, it doesnt practice violence and warfare because violence begets violence. it educates on the value of life despite differences and sees the beauty of life within differences. it learns to look at people's weaknesses not as a way of exploitation but as a way of mending. prevention is being an arbitrator and peacemaker between those whose hostilities are rising. prevention educates and empowers the oppressed to find a means of existing without the dominant society lording anything over them. prevention also takes unwanted truths to those in power and demands a new way of interaction.

i think the question is, how can we love our enemies and bomb them? and lets put that into perspective. how can we, in love, blow up hospitals, schools, community centers, apartments, etc? and then break it down further, how can we, in love kill someone for committing a crime? especially we Jesus stopped a crowd from killing a woman who was an adulterer and according to jewish law should be stoned to death? how do we, in love, see justice as revenge? we cannot.

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
—Romans 12:17-21, NIV

anyone else have any thoughts?

i want to hear from adam/tyler

Dan, the reason I haven't posted in this thread isn't because I've been ignoring you, but because I honestly can't summarise it better than John did. I agree with him. I explained this to you before, but just for everyone else's edification, I have not shifted even a minute distance from this standpoint: that you cannot love people and kill them at the same time. You will do one and fail in the other. The revelation of the nature of God in the New Testament, and specifically within the person of Jesus, is that He is a God of nonviolence. We would have an argument for a God of violence if Jesus had gained victory over sin and death by means of conquering (which is what His followers actually wanted Him to do), but instead we get a God whose idea of defeating the powers and reclaiming the world is by submission unto death. The Gospel turns everything upside down. In the Gospel, victory is gained by defeat, and new life is gained by death. So then, if God is the God of nonviolence and true peace not as the world gives, then it stands to reason that we who willingly follow this God, this Jesus, must lay down our swords just as He commanded Peter to do, and must be willing to accept the way of sacrifice just as He Himself did.

woot, thanks man.

after a month of deliberation, i think i believe in nonviolence to an extent now.
i basically started with the concept of loving one's enemies. Jesus instructs us to do this, and i cant see war as loving in any way whatsoever. "But what if you are doing it to protect the innocent" i countered myself. regardless of how hard it may be sometimes, loving my enemies and blessing those who persecute me is still something which I am scripturally obligated to do. There is no caveat in scripture which says love your enemies, except when they are oppressing the innocent. (and, realistically, there are no innocent.) The Bible is very clear about nonviolence in several places. It says that if a man strikes you on one cheek you should turn an let him strike you on the other. I think this is a real command, and applies just as well on an international level as a personal one.

Thank you so much for that honest and prayerful testimony, Daniel. I've always been encouraged by your sincere desires to grow as a person of faith, and I'm thankful that your journey has a new chapter to it.

I would also like to add that nonviolence isn't just about taking a stance on violence and war. Christians are called to nonviolence, but even that is in itself a consequence of being called to embody the Kingdom of God. Violence is something which goes beyond matters of conflict and war; In Moses' time, violence was wrought in the form of the prevailing attitude of that time's society, which was that slavery is acceptable and even necessary to drive the Egyptian Empire. The response of God to this situation is that He hears the cries of those who suffer as a result of this prevailing attitude, and He intervenes to challenge and subvert the system of things, doing so through the agency of human beings (Moses and Aaron). Similarly, in Jesus' time, the prevailing attitude is that peace is maintained by the sword, that exclusion in certain situations is appropriate, and that Caesar is the Son of God. God's response to these blasphemies is to Himself take on human form, to engage once more through human agency (His disciples), and to bring about the nonviolent subversion of this abominable system of Caesar-worship. This subversion, of course, comes through the supreme truth that Jesus and Jesus alone is Christ the Lord. When one accepts this truth, one's mind undergoes renewal and transformation, no longer being conformed to the ordinary patterns of the demonic powers and principalities which manifest themselves on earth through violence and death. Thus, when the Gospel is preached, it rests upon the rearrangement of things over which we have become complacent.

For me, nonviolence is exactly this: to strive for peace wherever violence is present. So to be a Christian called to nonviolence won't just compel me to voice out opposition to the involvement of the Church in warfare, but it will also compel me to care for the homeless, the widow, the orphan, the refugee... it will compel me to campaign for justice... it will compel me to challenge the idols of capitalism and Empire-worship... it will compel me to seek God's shalom even toward the earth, her plants, and her animals... and it will compel me to constantly discern the sin and violence present in my own life, that I might invite Christ's help to conquer it.