The Violence of
Pacifism
Marc LiVecche | February 26, 2016
In a recent post,
Sojourners blogger Stephen Mattson suggests four questions by which
today’s Christians will endure history’s judgement. His second, inquiring why
Christians don’t recognize and fight systemic racism, will go largely
unaddressed here; though neither because it isn’t important nor because there’s
no answer to it – there is and it includes a good degree of pushback.
The other
three questions, however, are these:
1) In the midst of a historically horrible refugee crisis, why didn’t you actively pursue helping the poor, the destitute, and those in desperate need?2) Why were you so supportive of national agendas associated with violence, destruction, and death?3) Why did you crave martial, economic, and political power when God has already warned you against putting faith in such foolish and temporary things?
About the
first question, Mattson insists contemporary Christians are not “to forsake
compassion, sacrifice hospitality, and abandon love” in favor of national
security and personal comfort. On the second question, don’t think it has to do
with anything as passé as abortion; rather, in a nutshell, Mattson is insisting
that because we worship a God who died for humanity, Christians cannot support
war. The third point is a rather scattershot gripe against a great many things,
but appears to boil down to a screed against the accumulation of power.
Now, it’s
impossible to know precisely against whom Mattson is writing and therefore
it’s difficult to address his complaints in context. But as I am myself a
contemporary – and comparatively belligerent – Christian, I’ll just assume he’s
complaining about folks like me. So, standing as I do in the Christian realist
stream of classical just war casuistry – trickling forth from its Greco-Roman
headwaters before finding depth and a confident course via the wellsprings of
Judeo-Christian thought – what have I to say to this three-pronged
Mattsonian condemnation?
Well, much; but
I will limit myself here to an observation and a complaint. The observation is
that Mattson’s three questions are incompatible. The complaint is that
Mattson’s theological ethic, in all appearances – from this and other writings
– pacifism, commits a great deal of unjustified violence.
Providence writers
have made some effort (in these pages
and here
and here)
to point out that the Syrian refugee crisis is too often falsely portrayed as a
choice between compassion and security. We’ve argued that allowing refugees
entry to the West is by no means the only way of manifesting Christian charity,
nor the best way. The refugees largely represent the kind of anti-totalitarian
and -extremist individuals who ought to populate the Levant and greater Middle
East. Rather than drain the region of those who oppose Assad and ISIS, it would
be better to help them return home. But that home needs to be secured and
secure. In our world, if we can trust scripture, the preservation of justice,
order, and peace is the work of a sovereign backed by a capable military. Prior
to reestablishing security, charity must continue to be manifest in the massive
efforts and resources (over 5 billion dollars by the United States alone
at the end of last year) expended for the maintenance and improvement of
refugee camps, with a special emphasis on providing conditions – housing,
economic, recreational, cultural, and educational – to approximate, as
closely as possible, those required for the flourishing of families. So
the observation is that if today’s Christians were indeed, per Mattson’s second
and third judgments, to refuse power and to counsel against the use of force
against evil, then we would render ourselves and those who listen to us
impotent to best demonstrate compassion to the suffering refugees. Neighbor
love is concerned not simply with the welfare of the neighbor, but with that of
their neighborhood as well.
Now the
complaint: pacifism does great violence.
First,
pacifism does violence to scripture and theological witness by presenting the
cross as a solution to human belligerence. Certainly the crucifixion of Christ ought
to have rendered all of humanity so profoundly grateful to God that we cast
down, for all time, our weapons, lusts, and hates. Alas, it has not. The cross
saved us, indeed, from our sins; but it did not save us from sinning: that is,
it reconciled us to God but not necessarily to our neighbor. Scripture
certainly doesn’t pretend so, as demonstrated by Paul’s assertion that God
provides the sword as a necessary answer, however temporary and ultimately
inadequate, to the practical problem of human evil.
The cross’
efficaciousness carries over to my next point. Christ’s sacrificial death achieved
its purpose. Without doubt, human self-donation very often meets its purpose
as well, though not always. The just war tradition recognizes that those who
mean the innocent harm cannot always be talked out of their evildoing and must,
instead, be knocked out of it. In fact, for an example of this we can gesture
briefly to Mattson’s concern about racism. In September of 1957, in order to
support the Little Rock Nine’s attempt to integrate Central High School in
Arkansas, President Eisenhower needed to order the Army’s 101st
Airborne Division to protect the nine from the ongoing threats of white
mob violence hellbent on preventing black students from going to class. Force
and power, the very things Mattson wants Christians to abandon,
were necessary to desegregate schools. Force cannot create peace,
but it can create the conditions necessary for peace to have
any chance at all of taking root. In any case, while there is a divine
mandate that speaks to turning our other cheek to our attacker, there is
never such warrant to turn our neighbor’s unstruck cheek to their
attacker. This should all be rather self-evident. If our actions in history
result in greater harm for our innocent-neighbor getting their teeth
kicked out but great delight for our enemy-neighbor doing the kicking, we
ought to wonder if there’s something amiss in our policy. When the cost
of the preservation of our own piety is our innocent-neighbor’s
annihilation, then this act of self-centered other-donation is a moral
perversion. So pacifism also does violence to the innocently assailed neighbor.
Finally,
pacifism does violence to Christian responsibility. It will do no good to
claim, as some pacifists do, that while God indeed provides the sword to
maintain peace, order, and justice this is the business of the government
and not the business of Christians. The idea that Christians are called away
from supporting the use of force and power in order to provide a witness of an
alternative, peaceable kingdom is the real theological infidelity. As I’ve
argued before,
if the peaceable kingdom were a viable alternative to hard coercion then,
surely, God would have ordained such a kingdom instead of, rather than alongside,
the government’s sword. Given that God has ordained the sword, I stand among
those who infer, therefore, that the sword is necessary. And if the sword is
necessary than that makes the peaceable kingdom parasitic – because it cannot
long remain in a world in which the good do not bear arms. The idea that
Christians should allow others to dirty their hands while keeping their
Christian souls clean is, abhorrent.
It is not
that the pacifists choose non-violence and the Christian realist chooses
violence. If the decision were simply that, the Christian realist would choose
non-violence every time. But there are times when violence is already in
play and no amount of prayer or sweet language can stop it. In such moments of
conflict, the Christian realist attempts to discern and to then protect
the innocent from the guilty. “History” may well judge such
Christians in the manner that Mattson presumes; perhaps. But even if it
turns out it does, and it is partly the work of Providence to help
ensure it does not, it will not be because “history” has a moral clarity absent
in those standing in the tradition of Christian realism. It will only be
because “history” has lost its way. Christians – whatever their era – can only
have any hope of remaining faithful to God – and to their
neigbhors – if they are more concerned with His judgment than
“history’s”.
———
Marc
LiVecche, PhD, is
the managing editor of Providence and
the Scholar on Christian Ethics, War, & Peace at the Institute on Religion
& Democracy.
Image:
Sometimes all that stands between the victim and the beast is a sword and one
who can wield it. “St.
George & the Dragon”, Stained glass panel designed by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, about 1862
INTERNET SOURCE: https://providencemag.com/2016/02/the-violence-of-pacifism/
No comments:
Post a Comment