(This is part 2 of a series on violent Christian Nationalism. In this segment, we will see that Christian pacifism has run concurrent to the violence perpetrated by the church and stands as a resounding success in modern times)
Violence is Easier than Pacifism
Pacifism is hard, much harder than violence. Using violence to take revenge on an enemy or to retaliate is easy. Dropping a bomb and incinerating a building, along with the people in it, may bring a momentary sense of satisfaction, still, it does nothing to heal a society, relationships, or nation.
Violence is the lazy person’s way and a coward’s choice when it comes to conflict.
Israel’s justified outrage against Hamas is a case in point. It was a crime against humanity to launch the Oct. 7 attack, kill innocent human beings, and take hostages in the name of revenge for the oppression that has lasted for several generations. Violence begets violence, and Hamas has accomplished nothing except extending the killing, misery, and oppression.
Think how things in the Middle East might differ if Palestinians had committed themselves to a project of non-violent direct action. Think further about how it might be different if Israel had committed to a non-violent response to Oct. 7. There are options. Violence and more killing are not the only path.
What we know from centuries of experience is that violence and killing almost never settle any dispute with finality and never create conditions for peace and reconciliation. Violent response only creates a new generation of grievance, a new generation bent on revenge, a new round of terrorists, and a new round of eventual violence.
A new generation of terrorists is forming as we speak in Gaza. It is a merry-go-round of killing going on year after year.
I will confess that I have struggled with the issue of violence vs. non-violence, pacifism vs. war, just or otherwise. But now, after 68 years of observation and experience, I can tell you that I have finally come down firmly on the side of pacifism. Killing and violence have no place in the future of humanity on this earth.
Pacifism is the way of Jesus and is a humanistic approach to conflict. I am convinced that it is the only way forward for the continuation of humankind. And don’t try to convince me that pacifism is impractical in the modern world. I would say in response that pacifism is the only path that will allow for the continuation of our species, and we have historical examples to view.
Let’s look at a few of those historical examples of non-violence and then trace the origins of the doctrine of non-violence back to its ultimate source, Jesus’ teachings. There is a straight line between the first-century sage and modern manifestations of this idea.
Black Majority Rule in South Africa
We’ll start with the most recent non-violent success…South Africa. Nonviolent resistance was a major factor in the ending of apartheid in South Africa and the establishment of a democratic government led by the Black majority. The African National Congress' nonviolent resistance was based on Gandhian ideas, which originated in South Africa in 1906. The ANC used mostly legal protest tactics for the first 40 years but became more militant in the early 1950s and began using nonviolent direct action.
Large groups of Africans would peacefully break the law, such as by walking through "whites only" entrances, sitting in parks reserved for whites, breaking curfews, and refusing to carry passes. The goal was to get arrested and fill the prisons, which would draw public attention to apartheid laws and force the government to abolish them. In 1960, Nelson Mandela himself burned his passbook as part of a civil disobedience campaign.
By the 1980s, a concerted grassroots nonviolent civil resistance movement in coalition with international support and sanctions forced the white government to negotiate. On March 17, 1992, two-thirds of South Africa’s white voters approved a negotiated end of the minority regime and the apartheid system. Nelson Mandela was elected the President of the new South Africa in the first free elections by the entire population.
American theologian Walter Wink suggests the movement was “probably the largest grassroots eruption of diverse nonviolent strategies in a single struggle in human history.” The main point I want to draw is that this movement had its origins with Mahatma Gandhi.
"While Nelson Mandela is the father of South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi is our grandfather," said Harris Majeke, South Africa's ambassador to India. "Mandela was inspired by the Satyagraha campaign led by Gandhi. It was a compelling act of passive protest against oppression. This would later inspire the formation of the African National Congress and strengthen Mandela's belief in our shared humanity."
This is the thread we will be able to follow back to the first century.
American Civil Rights Movement
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as the leader of the 1950s and 60s Black Civil Rights Movement, was a student of Gandhian philosophy and techniques. King learned about Gandhi through his writing and a trip to India in 1959. King drew heavily on the Gandhian principle of nonviolence in his civil rights activism, writing that “while the Montgomery boycott was going on, India’s Gandhi was the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.”
Most Americans understood and saw firsthand the peaceful protests that were met with police brutality and violence. Peaceful protesters were beaten, water hosed, bitten by police dogs, and harassed even in their own homes. The cruel system of segregation and discrimination of the Jim Crow era met its doom by the peaceful, non-violent resistance of a determined people.
“King saw [nonviolence] as an expression of love for all people,” says Clayborne Carson, a history professor and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. “It’s a way of reaching people and convincing them of the rightness of your cause.”
By the mid-1960s, Congress had enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ending Jim Crow segregation and laws that forbade Black people from voting. It was an astounding success that was based on peaceful protest and non-violent direct action.
Indian Independence from British Rule
Mahatma Gandhi was born in India and went to law school in England. He also worked as a lawyer in South Africa. He returned to India in 1915 to strongly support Indian nationalism and joined the Indian National Congress to advocate for Indian self-rule.
He used many forms of nonviolent resistance, also called passive resistance, to draw attention to the cause of self-rule and gain support. These methods included writing speeches and letters, leading marches, organizing protests and demonstrations, boycotting British goods and institutions, leading prayer meetings, and more.
In addition to bringing the people of India together behind the cause of an independent country, his protest methods inspired future civil rights leaders around the world, including Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela. But as we will discover, Gandhi’s commitment to non-violence is rooted in the Christian teachings of Jesus to “love your enemies” and “turn the other cheek.”
In 1942, Gandhi organized the Quit India Movement, a large push to get the British to agree to leave India. Many British officers and policemen responded to the protests of the Quit India Movement with violence. In response, Indians destroyed bridges and railroad tracks and sometimes reacted with physical fighting. Unlike previous situations where Gandhi chastised Indians for not using passive resistance, Gandhi did not condemn the non-peaceful actions of the protesters and instead blamed the British for having not given up control.
It wasn’t until World War II's devastation and financial disaster that a weakened Britain began to look for an exit door from India. On August 15th, 1947, India became an independent country. Much of the credit goes to the non-violent, passive resistance that wore the British down under the leadership of Gandhi.
Non-Violent Roots in Jesus’ Teaching – Leo Tolstoy
As I looked at Gandhi's influences, I found an interesting thread that would wind its way back to the first century. This story begins in 1908 when Gandhi was in London, early in his career, leading efforts to gain freedom for his countrymen. A friend handed Gandhi an essay published by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, who was 80 at the time.
In the essay entitled “A Letter to a Hindu,” Tolstoy urged Gandhi and other Indian Nationals to rethink their position on violence and said that resistance to aggression is not simply justifiable but imperative. Tolstoy argued that love and love only is the way to rescue Indians from enslavement.
Tolstoy warned, "Forcible resistance to evil-doers involves such a contradiction as to utterly destroy the whole sense and meaning of love.”
Gandhi had already been dramatically influenced by Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You. Gandhi described the change he underwent in a speech in 1928 commemorating Tolstoy’s death.
“At that time, I was skeptical about many things… I was a votary of violence. I had faith in it and none in nonviolence. After I read this book, lack of faith in nonviolence vanished.”
This was the turning point for Gandhi and, ultimately, for the non-violent movements of the 20th century. Gandhi absorbed non-violent lessons from Tolstoy, which contained the essence of Jesus' teachings: to love one another and to love your enemies. In the hands of a leader like Gandhi, non-violence became a powerful tool for social change.
Back to the Middle Ages – Petr Chelčický
Learning of Tolstoy’s influence on Gandhi, I decided to pick up and read The Kingdom of Heaven is In You. Reading Tolstoy’s philosophy of Christian non-violence, love, and pacifism was a life-changing experience. Tolstoy’s view of the evil of violence, whether by an individual or the state, is radical and unyielding. But Tolstoy credits his views to a Czech Christian reformer of the 1400s by the name of Petr Chelčický.
is a lesser-known Bohemian reformer of the pre-Lutheran Reformation who also preached absolute pacifism based on the teachings of Jesus. In his key writing called “The Net of Faith,” he taught that no physical power could destroy evil and that Christians should accept persecution without retaliating. He believed that even defensive war was the worst evil and thought that soldiers were no more than murderers.
Chelčický called the Pope and the emperor "whales who have torn the net of true faith" because they established the church as the head of a secular empire. Chelčický believed Christians should follow the law of love and not be compelled by state authority. He taught that the believer should not accept government office or even appeal to its authority, as for the true believer to take part in government was sinful. He argued that capital punishment and other forms of violent punishment were wrong.
Chelčický would most certainly be radically opposed to the Christian Nationalist movement of today. He was an early proponent of the separation of church and state and called any confluence of the two evil.
His influence extended to various Czech reformation groups such as the Unity of The Brethren, the Moravians, and the Anabaptists. The non-violence of Chelčický has been handed down to reformers and abolitionists in the 19th century, including William Lloyd Garrison, the Quakers and Mennonites who opposed violence and killing, and Leo Tolstoy, the Russian Christian anarchist. Then, from Tolstoy to Gandhi, King, Nelson Mandela, and Bishop Desmond Tutu.
Through this chain of influence, the non-violence and message of love that can so easily be found in the Sermon on the Mount has continued to be passed down from generation to generation, just as the distorted teaching of Christian Nationalism and violence has been passed down from Constantine’s day to ours.
The lessons of non-violent resistance from history show us that it is a more difficult path for a few practical reasons:
Non-violence takes more time.
Non-violence many times prompts violence against those resisting.
Leaders of non-violent movements become targets of assassination: Jesus, Gandhi and King being paramount.
Non-violence requires discipline, unshakable commitment, and courage.
Being a pacifist is not for the faint of heart. But it yields more enduring and sustaining results than those gained through violence. Violence only begets more violence. It is time for generations of the 21st century to choose the path of love, non-violence, and passive resistance to evil. We cannot afford any other pathway at this point in the development of human civilization.
It is time to follow the way of Jesus…the way of love, peace, and non-violence. It is the only way that can save us.
Thank you!
I needed this today. And thank you for the introduction to Petr Chelčický. As a Czech descendent, I am embarrassed not to have known about him.
Dan, you are the best!