Shaun Groves wrote a post today comparing Martin Luther King’s philosphy during the civil rights movement to that of Huey Newton, founder of the Black Panthers, and then asks how those differing philosophies should affect our thinking today about peace and violence. He concludes his post by saying this:
I have a question for the white faces in my audience, dimmed with disapproval: Does the shoe America is kicking her enemies with today fit Martin [Luther King]? You and I, well, our grandparents and their parents, were the terrorists once. They stole humans, caged them like animals, denied them the practice of their religions. They blew up a church and killed three little girls. They made it legal to rape a dark skinned woman. They lynched and burned “niggers.” Their politicians and Sunday School teachers hid behind Klan hoods. And the goal of many whites was to eradicate African Americans or, at the very least, keep them from participating in our government and society. It’s as if their generation wrote a chapter of the dictator handbook used by our enemies today.
Would you have argued in the sixties that terrorized African-Americans should follow Huey [founder of the Black Panthers]? Would you have argued for “regime change” and cheered an army of dark faces fighting the U.S. government for “justice, freedom and democracy” with bullets and bombs? Would you have defended their violent revolution by quoting Just War doctrine?
Is it only godly to “kick @$$” now that we’re the one’s wearing the shoe? What about when we were the ones so many wanted kicked?
I like his post a lot because of how it holds a mirror up for us to look into our own souls on the issue, but on the key question “what would you do?” I find myself mixed. As one commenter pointed out, perhaps one of the reasons for Kings sucess was the good cop – bad cop roles he and Huey played. Perhaps more important to the sucess of Kings approach was the moral identity most Americans held at the time, one that did not allow them to see themselves as lynchers, promoters of mob justice, beaters of non-violent women, children, and men, or any of the other litany of abuses that Kings approach thrust before the public eye. Perhaps in this case, Huey’s approach would have blinded the average American to these things with it’s own violence and fed the stereotypes instead.
I would agree that it is never right to do violence, even in the form of resistance, simply for the sake of kicking ass, but that’s not the tough question here. The question is, what does justice demand? Sure, things have changed since the 60′s, but has justice been done for what went before? And if, for the sake of peace and moving forward justice must be denied or delayed until some future time (say the 2nd or 3rd Coming of Christ) then how do we answer to those who’s injustice will not be reconciled?
King and Ghandi are romantic figures who died both literally and sybolically for their passion. We hold their examples high as evidence that in the long run the strategy can work. But sometimes I think we forget how great a cost and what great restraint such an approach demands. Furthermore, we forget all the times that a would-be King failed, murdered years, perhaps even centuries before the (now considered just) changes they sought took place.
Of course violent uprising has its costs and litany of failures as well, perhaps equally great if not greater than those of civil-disobedience. But it seems to me that there are certain circumstances in which each cannot work and circumstances where either might work (though with different side-effects). Where there is hope for non-violence I believe it is sincerely a moral duty to try it. Perhaps that means that in nearly every case where a revolution could succeed, so could civil-disobedience. But ruling out all violence, is over doing it in my book. Especially when arguing from the Bible, where the OT seems clearly to make provision for at least some violence.
Wow, very well said. Why didn’t you post that over on my blog? Very well said.
I’m cherry picking your words to argue one point, or, rather, ask one question: If violence and non-violence, in your opinion, could both “work” what, greater than works or so doesn’t work, do we make our decision to war or embrace non-violence based upon? What, beyond pragmatism, do we Christians build our ethics upon?
My answer would be the imitation of Christ – God revealing to humans what He would do in our shoes asks us to follow, to imitate Him.
OT wars do not make a strong case, for reasons, for making war on behalf of an ideal or nation or “justice.” One is that those wars are examples of what GOD does while founding a nation of purely GOD followers for his Name’s sake. They are not an example of what God does with skin on as a citizen of a warring nation in a world full of injustice. This is what is meant when I sometimes say we have to study violence and OT precedent Christologically.
Christ has come and taken the sword. Tertullian, an early church father, said this when he asked rhetorically how a Christian could join a military that wields the sword taken away by Christ. He demanded soldiers be de-churched. And he wasn’t alone. The men who learned from the men who learned from Jesus were pacifists. No exceptions that I’ve found. One generation later this began to change and the farther we get from the day of Christ’s first coming (and the farther West we head) the more concerned with pragmatism the Church becomes when forming her ethics and the less pacifistic.
Coincidence?
Perhaps it was because by the time I got to your blog post the coversation had drifted off elsewhere.
I come from a tradition (Seventh-day Adventism) which has long been pacifist and discussed it extensively in an ethics class I took while I was attending university. I have great respect for the position and think it the most preferable approach from both a humanist and christian perspective. Things like Ben Witherington’s recent post make my eyes well up and put a bittersweet smile on my face. I keep such stories and heroes in my mind so that I will not fail to remember how powerful and Christian a thing the honest pacifistic response is.
But I have some serious reservations about pacifism as an absolute principle in Christian Theology or Ethics. Tertullian notwithstanding, I find it hard to believe that God has removed “the sword” from the state. Perhaps Romans 13:1-7 is most influential for me here. I am certainly willing to believe that Jesus removed “the sword” from the hand of the believer and the religious believer. But Romans 13:1-7 seems to indicate to me that the God has reserved for the state “to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:4b) Of course this does not offer carte blanche for the state to use violence. There are clear restrictions on it even in that fragment of a text. The Old Testament itself is replete with criticism of states abusing their power in ways that are clearly not acceptable to God. But in mind this text (and others) support the idea that God has made the state responsible for seeking what justice humans can accomplish even if it means force of violent means.
And what about the believer? Should he avoid service in the military or police force? Should he seek positions that do not require him to kill or use force? Should he not associate or serve in those organizations at all for fear of contributing to an unjust use of force? I feel uncomfortable trying to answer these questions in a absolute or universal sense. The statement I am comfortable making is that God has given everyone a conscience and a duty to seek his will in their life. If a Christian feels called to serve in the military or police, whether in a combat or non-combatent role and feels that they can keep a clean conscience then I would not be comfortable condemning them.
Another way to look at the above questions is to think about how specious the distinction between the actor (physically involved in doing violence) and the non-actor. Exactly how much more righteous is it to simply tolerate violence done in your name or claimed to be done in your interest? Are you perhaps just as responsible since you voted for the law, or for the politician who authorized it? Because you didn’t protest. Because you enjoy the benefits of it while others pay the price for it? Is not your responsibility just as great? Can you escape it simply by saying “I don’t approve” or “I didn’t think it would end up like this” as an excuse? Will even protesting clean your hands?
I am not suggesting that there are clear answers to these questions, only that I have observed many pacifists operating like there are easy ways of avoiding all responsibility for the use of violence. I do not believe it is that easy. I believe we live in a sin-sick world and that many of the things which seem easy to forgive such as ignorance do not justify it in God’s eyes. Thanks be that he is a forgiving God, willing to extend his mercy in spite of our ignorance and shortcomings.
For another opionion arising from my tradition that seems very coherent to me (maybe even more so than my own) please check out this post by Ronald Osborn.