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So far in our discussion Simon you have mentioned and quoted Gandhi, and that raises a worthwhile question. Everyone has heard of people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., 20th Century icons who brought about significant social change and who were influenced by the nonviolent teachings of Jesus Christ.
But to most people these figures seem legendary, almost superhuman; what have their legacies got to do with us, in our lives?

Hagiography has a lot to answer for in setting up Gandhi and MLK Jr. as unattainable ideals. You really need to read their stories to learn their struggles and failures. MLK was a notorious philanderer and adulterer who spent much of his life in depression and self-doubt. I mean, the civil rights movement was often a mess of egos, backstabbing and embarrassing failure. Gandhi was often a terrible father and husband – his eldest son ended up dying young and homeless. To some people these failings invalidate their work and witness – but to me it humanises them, makes their example more compelling. If they were able to achieve everything they achieved despite their brokenness, perhaps I have something to offer too.

We also have to realise that MLK and Gandhi alone – just like Hitler alone – couldn’t really achieve much at all. They were made to look good by the people who surrounded them – the ones who did the hard yards out of the public eye, going to gaol, being beaten. Certainly those people no doubt learned from the Gandhis and MLKs and looked up to them but did just as heroic things without the glory.

I guess it comes back to what you practice for, the stories in which you are formed. John Dear taught me to stop reading the newspapers, and just read the stories of nonviolence heroes – people who lived this stuff. Immerse yourself in it. That’s the kind of dedication it takes to untrain the myths we’re fed through the dominant culture, and learn the alternatives. Gandhi and MLK aren’t perfect, but their lives have much to teach us, as do the lives of those who surrounded them and have since lived out of their example.

Changing track a little bit, you mentioned before how your discipleship journey led you from addressing issues like poverty and climate change to advocating for peace. How is violence and warfare connected with other global issues, such as poverty?

Most warfare is perpetuated in order to gain or maintain domination over various national interests, usually resources and geopolitical space, and usually by the rich (who have or control the weapons) over the poor (who are often too preoccupied with survival to provide sufficient resistance to stop it). That’s the context of many recent wars (despite the humanitarian rhetoric used to justify them).

Development simply can’t happen under the kinds of insecure conditions that result from war. Shops shut because supplies are scarce or inaccessible, people don’t or can’t access the services they need, and all effort goes into survival instead of building the kind of interactions that will build civil society and stabilise the situation.  This means countries in conflict are under a double disadvantage – not only are they starting behind, but also they’re going backwards because there’s no stability from which to build.

War destroys every condition under which human life flourishes – in particular the trusting relationships necessary to build the kind of stable civil society that characterises healthy communities. Families, friends, communities are torn apart and traumatised for generations. For example, countless generations of farming expertise in Afghanistan are gone because one generation of men with the knowledge and skills have gone to war and never returned.

I’m not saying don’t give aid, but I am saying that when it’s combined with military objectives, lacks accountability and is not locally driven, it complicates the situation in a myriad of ways.Add to that instability the clumsiness of what is often highly militarised aid and you’ve created a recipe for corruption. Corruption breeds cartels and militias, fuelling the internal conflict. The way aid is distributed is often poorly thought out, tied to military objectives, or the result of siloed thinking by people with no idea of local culture or customs, and the flow on effect is more damaging. For example, in Afghanistan at the moment, the more insecure a province is, the more aid money it gets. So there’s actually incentivised insecurity, while the places in a position to develop receive nothing. Billions of dollars in aid have been poured into Afghanistan in the last ten years, but very little of it has reached the people – much of it has been wasted on corrupt warlords or bribes and payouts, even to the Taliban, who we’re supposed to be fighting. There are good organisations there doing wonderful work, which are well worth supporting – mostly organisations that are Afghan-led or have been there a long time and thus know the culture. But around conflicts like this the culture of corruption is allowed to breed, and people become dependant on handouts. There are some in Afghanistan now calling not just for an end to the war, but an end to aid as well.

Global Arms Trade Infographic (Click to Enlarge)

On a broader level, the sheer amount of money and other resources (and in particular I include the amazing creativity and imagination of human beings) that is poured into violence is both unjust and counterproductive. The United States alone spends just shy of a staggering $1 trillion per year on the military – 43% of the world’s military spending, and six times the budget of its nearest rival. Even in Australia we spend around $70m a day. Now bear in mind this money goes mostly towards machines whose sole purpose is to destroy life and property. And this in a world where billions of people can’t afford the basic necessities – food, shelter, sanitation, medicine – and who die in enormous numbers as a result. Just a tiny, insignificant fraction would meet all of the Millennium Development Goals – all of them – and another small fraction would solve world poverty. So this money represents a double theft – both from the poor and from the lives of those on whom we unleash these weapons.

What do you say to an Afghan mother who can’t afford to feed her children, when the missiles you destroy her village with cost $58,000 each?

Think about the creativity and innovation required to make a UAV, or unmanned aerial vehicle, or any other modern weapon. What if that kind of creativity was directed towards solving climate change – which is the greatest threat to humankind – or even something like poverty? As Gandhi said, “We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamed-of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence.” Let’s hope so.

Simon, in 2011 you travelled to Afghanistan to see for yourself how the war there is playing out. In your experience what do the poor and marginalised have to say about warfare and violence in countries such as Afghanistan where wars are currently occurring?

The day I left for Afghanistan the Red Cross, a fairly conservative organisation, released a report declaring human life in Afghanistan to be ‘untenable’. Afghanistan is the second poorest country in the world; it is the most food insecure country, with two thirds of the population unable to feed themselves year round. It is (according to Save the Children) the worst country in which to be born, to be a mother, and to be a child. While I was there I met one of the World Health Organisation workers who was responsible for sanitation – he said (in Kabul, the most developed place in the country) there was nothing separating the sewerage from the water supply.

What is more, a survey in December 2010 demonstrated that 93% of Afghans were not aware of the attacks on September 11^th 2001. One girl I talked to asked why the richest, most powerful military in the world were taking more than ten years to defeat a ragtag bunch of militants armed with fertilizer and some 30 year old AK-47s.

Afghans have a saying, “Blood cannot wash away blood.” That’s wisdom borne of thousands of years of interethnic rivalries, power grabs, conflict and bloodshed.

It’s only a very small percentage of people who gain from war, and that’s mostly those already in positions of power and privilege. In the context of Afghanistan, it’s the warlords, the weapons manufacturers, the politicians and the generals. The rest are the victims – the ones terrorised as expelled Afghan Parliamentarian Malalai Joya puts it “between two enemies – one from the sky and one from the ground”. I’m talking about soldiers as well as civilians – US soldiers are committing suicide at the rate of 18 a day, and that’s before we get into deaths and injuries from combat.

My friends in Afghanistan are delighted by the Occupy movement because it tallies with their experience – a recognition that the 1% maintain their wealth and power by subjugating the 99%. That’s what war is – it’s the 1% getting the 99% to suffer and die for the profit of the 1%. The 1% don’t send their children off to fight and die, let alone go themselves. They get the poor to do that for them.

There is a lot of fear around a return of the Taliban (who the U.S. are currently negotiating a settlement with), but primarily what I’m hearing, particularly from Afghans outside of Kabul, is that there is no security for them anyway – in fact, the international presence makes them less secure because it is fuelling the insurgency and causing further instability and danger.

The concept of waging a war for security would be laughable if it weren’t so serious. What is more insecure than war? One Afghan friend describes it as being like a house fire – you can’t go about your ordinary business while it’s happening, you have to put all your energy into putting it out. And even once it’s out, you then need to spend your time rebuilding.

Thanks so much for your time Simon. I’m sure your experience and reflections about peace and violence will provide readers with a helpful and challenging perspective. In wrapping up, what message do you have for Christians who seek to faithfully follow Jesus along the journey of nonviolence?

Keep it up! Really, it’s the most exciting life, much better than anything offered by our culture. It’s certainly not easy, unlearning the dominant culture’s priorities and values, going against the grain and sometimes embracing difficulty and pain. When Jesus says he’s come to bring “life to the full” I don’t think he meant avoiding all difficulty, but it’s more than worth it.

I would also want to say that any commitment to nonviolence must emerge out of response to the love of God revealed in Jesus. Otherwise nonviolence either becomes a deadening legalism, a graceless drivenness, or a moral superiority, all of which are motivated more by how we look in the eyes of others than of God, and none of which are sustainable, life-giving or transformative.

And where possible, don’t do it alone! Have a community (it could be just one other person) with whom you can journey and act and be of mutual support and assistance. Don’t wait until you’re perfect or have it all worked out before acting – experiment, be gracious and forgiving with yourself (as God is) and take time to reflect and evaluate afterwards. And have fun!

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You can download the entire interview in PDF format here. Please feel free to share it around, ensuring credit is given to interviewee (Simon Moyle) and interviewer (Matt Anslow).

However in light of the current subject my discomfort is jovial at best, and I would do well to remember that.

January 26 is a day of celebration for most Australians, of our history, identity and future. However in remembering our history many Australians prefer to screen out those episodes that do not paint the colonisers in a venerable light.

Aboriginal Nations (Click to Enlarge)

Exactly one year ago I wrote a post entitled Happy Invasion Day, a reminder of the fact that this land was taken from its first peoples. Since then I have come to prefer the label “Survival Day”, a commemoration of the fact that despite the recent history of this land the Aboriginal people are still here. Whatever the label, I can no longer celebrate Australia Day in the same way I have in years past; I cannot celebrate only the positive aspects our history knowing the pain and suffering of innocents on which it is built. Both must be acknowledged.

I do not wish to speak on behalf of Aboriginal people, for I am aware I have no right to do so. But I am also aware that in our current situation the gap between black and white is increasing in the areas of health, housing, education, child mortality and imprisonment rates. One day I want to celebrate January 26, but not until things are being set right.

Which leads me to wonder, what is the theological imperative for White Australia, and particularly for white Christians like me? Many of us have used the excuse that the fault is not ours, but the generations preceding us – the sins are not ours.

There is of course some merit to this argument. But in another sense our prosperity is built on past sins, and wiping our hands of wrongdoing will not wipe away ongoing responsibility.

Meanwhile the biblical prophetic witness cries out for justice. We may remember that the Moses tradition expects land to be returned to the family who originally owned it every fifty years in the event of foreclosure. This is still the case even if the initial generation involved had died. Indeed, the succeeding generations who have inherited the land must nonetheless take responsibility to do justice and return it:

Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.

“‘In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.

“‘If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other… (Leviticus 25:10-14)

If this the case with land that was legally bought, and not stolen, how much more seriously then is land theft to be viewed? 1 Kings 21 may serve as an important reminder – Naboth refuses to sell his vineyard to king Ahab who is subsequently counselled by his wife, Jezebel, to take possession of it dishonestly. Naboth is eventually murdered and Ahab takes his land.

Elijah’s subsequent judgement is indicative:

‘Thus says the LORD, “Have you killed and also taken possession?”’ And you shall say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD: “In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick your own blood.”’” (1 Kings 21:19)

All this is a rather truncated and unsophisticated way of arguing that the Bible presents God as considering land ownership to be a serious matter.

What then does this mean for modern Australians?

I don’t know. But I do think we have a theological impetus to work toward reconciliation and reparation. What might this look like? My Aboriginal friends constantly tell me that they do not seek the return of all the land, but simply to have the land shared fairly and justly and for Aboriginal people to be treated equal to everyone else.

It is true that most of us have drifted from our lands of racial origin; it is unrealistic (and undesirable) to seek the impossibility of racially pure nations. But reconciliation is not some untenable return to pre-White Australia; it is an acknowledgement of our whole history and a future together characterised by friendship and equity, the making of a beautiful home together.

Perhaps this is a welcome reminder to a contemporary Australia that largely ignores the first inhabitants of the land, annually celebrating the inauguration of their colonisation, while simultaneously doing what it can to “protect” itself from new peoples.

(A friend once suggested that Australia will never deal with its fear of asylum seekers until we come to terms with what did to the Aboriginal people.)

Most of all it is a challenge for Christians to champion the cause of the Aboriginal people and the existence of a just Australia. It is a challenge to repent of the sins of Ahab and to proclaim the beauty and generosity of the Jubilee.

This is no easy task, when even Aboriginal people are divided as to what the future should look like. But this disagreement is no different to any other controversial issue, and it should not stop us striving forward to the goal, together.

And maybe then I’ll be able to celebrate January 26 with pride.

MCA

I would like to dedicate the comments section of this post to prayers for the Aboriginal people and the future of Australia. If you would like to offer a prayer, please feel free to add it below.

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People often cite Hitler as an example of a historical case where violence was necessary to end greater suffering. Is this true; was violence necessary to stop a person like Hitler? Could there have been another way?

Hitler is too convenient a scapegoat I reckon. Now certainly, Hitler had some truly horrific ideas and did some terrible things. But Hitler was just one person. Average height, average weight, normal intelligence (some would say abnormal, but you know what I mean, he wasn’t a supergenius). How is it that one man carries the weight for an entire regime, and the evil it unleashed?

Well partly because we like to have a simple scapegoat, because once we begin to unravel the myth of Hitler as the solely responsible evil agent it asks some uncomfortable questions about ourselves. Because let’s face it, Hitler alone could not have been a murderous regime, started a war and killed six million Jews. He needed a whole bunch of people to help him. He also needed a whole bunch of people to stand passively by and do nothing to resist him.

But we have to understand the conditions which produced Hitler, which allowed him to be put into the position of Chancellor. And to do that we need to go back to World War 1 and the Treaty of Versailles and the way the Allies used it to crush Germany into the ground. It was the humiliation and privation the German people were made to suffer that allowed Hitler to rise to power. Most of the West saw that as a great triumph – but in retrospect, it was a massive mistake.

So when we ask “what about Hitler?” we’re really asking, “what about the whole Third Reich?” or “What about all of the Axis countries?” We’re talking about millions of Germans, Italians, Japanese, and others, many of whom supported the regimes by manufacturing food or munitions, or sat passively by while their countries perpetuated terrible evils. Which means when we’re talking about contemporary evil, we have to not just ask, “What about Ahmedinejad?” or “What about Obama?” but “what about me?” That is, what am I doing about the contemporary evils around me that I’m currently silent or passive about and thereby allowing to continue? This is the question we don’t really want to ask, because it’s much easier to ask abstract hypotheticals about Hitler.

The irony, of course, is that those who advocate war as a response to Hitler do so on the pretense of saving life, ignoring the fact that war is designed for one thing only; to end life and destroy property. If it’s saving life you’re after, you’re going to want another strategy – one which doesn’t perpetuate the cycle of deadly violence, but interrupts and transforms it.

So what we’re talking about here is not no response to Hitler but a nonviolent one. And that could have taken many forms, including the ones that Gene Sharp outlines in his taxonomy of 198 methods of nonviolent action.

When nonviolent resistance was used against the Nazis, it was often effective, and this without preparation, training or coordination.

Check out the stories of Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement, Franz Jäegerstätter, André and Magda Trocmé, the countries of Bulgaria, Norway and Denmark, all of whom engaged in nonviolent resistance to Nazism, albeit with mixed results (mostly positive). And no doubt there are many more instances of nonviolent resistance to Nazism which aren’t documented.

But the question I’m much more interested in is what are we doing about contemporary evils? What is the best thing to do right now?

At the other extreme to the Hitler scenario, people often ask how you could be nonviolent if a person came into your home intending to do harm to you or your family (abuse, murder, rape etc.). How could a person possibly act nonviolently in such a situation?

This is a hypothetical scenario that people ask about a lot. Unfortunately it’s a scenario which has so little detail or basis in reality that it functions as a blank canvas onto which people project their worst nightmares, even though their worst nightmares have no likelihood of coming true. When we’re thinking in that zone, we’re reacting totally out of fear rather than reason. So it’s a scenario which I like to walk through with people, to put faces feelings and flesh and onto it, to reduce that fear and think it through a little more rationally.

Firstly, who is this person who has come into your home? Certainly in the overwhelming majority of cases (up around 90%), people are not attacked by random strangers but by people they know. What this demonstrates is that usually there is a history and a reason behind why they’re attacking you – while it’s not justifiable that they do so, at least you a) have a sense of why they’re doing what they’re doing, b) an opportunity to treat your friends, family, etc. in ways that will reduce this possibility and c) have enough relationship with them to reason with them or call on their compassion. This increases the importance of nonviolence in your everyday relationships, in order to prevent conflicts escalating in this way. Either way, it’s not the random, sudden, anonymous threat the scenario envisages.

If it is the far less likely scenario of a random stranger, one possibility is that someone has invaded your home looking to steal things, and you or your family disturb them. In which case, the person is likely on edge, ready for such an eventuality and therefore a confrontation, but with no desire to have one. Giving them an opportunity to leave is far less likely to result in harm to anyone.

Or, let’s look at it another way. If your opponent is stronger, larger, and more prepared than you, what could possibly be gained by forcing a violent confrontation? Your best option is not to contest them in the areas they are strongest, but to reduce their reason for attacking you or your family. At the very least, your best option is to be smarter, more creative, more human, not try to outdo them with violence.

So the remaining alternative is a scenario where a totally deranged person who you don’t know who for no apparent reason has targeted you AND your family to harm or kill you, and is physically weaker and less prepared than you for a confrontation. This is such a farfetched scenario that I’m mystified as to why people even spend energy thinking about it. But let’s explore the options anyway.

Let’s assume the person is armed (because if they’re unarmed, there’s much better chance of you escaping unharmed). In this scenario, the person has a weapon and is ready to use it. Posing a threat to them in any way (such as reaching for a weapon) is not likely to end well for anyone.

So what can you do that’s nonviolent? Well, the options are endless (that’s the beauty of the creativity that opens up once we start thinking about it!). One friend of mine (Angie O’Gorman) asked an intruder for the time. This led to a conversation which humanised the other person to her, and vice versa (you can read a play of what happened here).

So I think the question we need to be asking isn’t, “Is it ever OK to be violent?” Rather the question is, “Am I going to be equipped with the right tools that will be most likely to keep me safe?” And the majority of people have only one tool in their toolbox, and it’s the one that is least likely to keep them safe.

All this talk about nonviolence is good and all, but for Christians the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, seems to portray God as rather violent. Such divine violence has been attacked, even ridiculed, by contemporary atheists who label Christianity as a violent and undesirable religion.
How do you deal with the Old Testament accounts of YHWH seemingly acting violently? How do you reconcile these accounts with the Gospels’ image of Jesus as peaceful and nonviolent?

This is where broad brushstrokes are not very helpful; you really need to do a proper, detailed exegesis of particular texts. Yes, the OT has been used to justify all sorts of horrific things.

Yet Gandhi insisted (and I agree) that Jesus was the most active practitioner of nonviolence in history – and the only people who don’t know it are Christians. If Jesus is the image of God, the embodiment of God, as his followers insist that he is, then we need to look at all claims about God in that light, including biblical claims.

I do think the Bible is more of a conversation – or even an argument – than an encyclopedia. That’s what makes it a living word, and is far more exciting and challenging than taking every word literally (as if that were possible or even desirable through our 21^st Century Western lenses). So part of that ‘argument’ is the question of what God is like, a question which is at least partially settled by the Incarnation.

At the centre of it all stands the cross – what God does with our sin and shame and violence and domination. And it turns out he doesn’t destroy us, or punish us, or even hate us – he takes it all on himself, and exposes it for the sham that it is. More than that, he dies forgiving. But that’s not even the end! Christ’s victory is completed in resurrection – God’s triumph over our death-dealing and domination, not by greater violence or greater domination, but by love, life and vulnerability being stronger than the worst we can do. That’s pretty good news!

Of course, as people who call themselves Christians we haven’t done a very good job of following Christ – more often mirroring the world with a religious veneer. I think with the end of Christendom we stand a better chance of posing the kind of radical alternative to which God is constantly calling us, because we’re finally re-learning to separate what is Christ-like from the dominant culture.

You talk about how Christians should follow Christ in living out a radical alternative to the dominant culture. That raises an important question – can a Christian serve in the armed forces? 

Badge of the Royal Australian Army Chaplains Department (Christian)

The question to me is, “Can I be unChristlike and be a Christian?” The answer, of course is yes and no – yes because of course none of us are entirely like Christ. But presumably if we’re committed to becoming like Christ we’re working by God’s grace to change that, so the answer is ‘no’ if we’re going to willfully persist in refusing to be like Christ, to love like Christ. Why would you want to call yourself a Christian if you’re going to ignore what Christ was like, what he said and did? This is the guy who defines discipleship by a cross, by the willingness to take suffering upon oneself rather than to defend oneself with violence (a choice vindicated in resurrection). Whose last message to the church before his death was, “Put down your sword.” Whose central teaching was the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest teaching on nonviolence in history. Who after defining discipleship as taking up our cross (rather than our sword/gun/Hellfire missile), says, ”those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake or the sake of the Kingdom will gain it.” Can you love your enemies while killing them or threatening their life?

The word ‘Christian’ isn’t an abstract identity. It’s a discipleship process, a lived out practice, an orientation in the world, based on a very concrete person in Jesus Christ. I ask my brothers and sisters keep me accountable to being Christlike in the same ways when I fall short.

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Look out for  the third and final instalment of this interview on Friday.

This has raised a variety of questions, some of which I have received many, many times throughout the life of this blog. To help respond to some of these questions I recently sought out a friend and nonviolence trainer, Simon Moyle.

Simon is an ordained Baptist Minister in Melbourne, nonviolence trainer with Pace e Bene Australia, husband, and father of three children. He is an antiwar activist and writer. You can read some of his work at New Matilda, Eureka Street, ABC Religion, The Drum and Waging Nonviolence.

This is the first of what will be a three part interview. Enjoy!

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Simon, you are a peace activist who has been especially active in resisting Australia’s engagement in Afghanistan. How did you get involved in peace activism?

I did my theological training in the early to mid 2000s. Having grown up in a well-off church in Melbourne’s bible belt, but always found something lacking in the Christianity I was taught, stuff that just didn’t add up, I was finally able to ask all the questions I wanted to ask and find some answers. One of the primary discoveries in this was looking at Christ through the lens of nonviolence. It was like the story of Jesus, which was previously blurry, suddenly came into focus.

So as my head sorted that stuff out, following Jesus suddenly became real, urgent and exciting rather than a rather dreary, restrictive, optional extra to ‘salvation’. To make a long story short I ended up getting involved because my head told me that this is what discipleship looks like; challenging the powers of death as Jesus did, through the power of love, and so participating in his story or “fitting our life into Jesus’ life” as Daniel Berrigan describes discipleship.

Even having discovered nonviolence I confess the last thing I wanted to do was peace work – it was too clichéd, and “world peace” is the quintessential unrealistic dream, associated with naïve, ditzy beauty queens. So I started out with Make Poverty History and Fair Trade, but soon realised that at the root of all of these problems – poverty, climate change, etc. – was domination. And the primary, visible, extreme form of domination is war. And if the antidote to domination is nonviolence, then I realised I’d better start teaching it. And once I started teaching it I realised I’d have no credibility unless I started doing it.

I remember after my first act of civil disobedience against war, I wrote to Fr. John Dear (who is a good friend, priest, and long time nonviolence activist) and explained how exciting and liberating it had been. His response was, “So you see! The gospel is true.” Those seven words summed up the whole experience for me, and still do.

So I must say, I’m not a huge fan of the term ‘peace activist’, at least when it implies something separate to discipleship and to the gospel. Insofar as we who follow Jesus are all agents of reconciliation and ambassadors of God’s love, I don’t think we can be anything else.

You say we cannot be anything but people of peace when we follow Jesus, but so many Christians support war and violence. I wonder if this is partly due to a lack of education, since it is often assumed by people that there are only two responses to violence, namely more violence or pacifism – fight or flight.
When people hear the term “nonviolence” they tend to associate it with pacifism. What is nonviolence? Is it the same as pacifism?

Nonviolence is neither passivity nor merely the absence of violence, but action which is nonviolent. In fact, if someone allows violence or oppression to go unchallenged, they are not being nonviolent. I would go so far as to say that violence is not the opposite of nonviolence, passivity is. Even Gandhi said it is better to be violent in the face of oppression than to be passive (but always added that he had never seen a situation where nonviolence would not yield results superior to that of violence), because passivity is born of fear, and nonviolence is about love which overcomes fear.

Nonviolence is love in flesh and bone, what Christ calls “complete love” – for God, self, the cosmos, neighbour and enemy – everything!

Gandhi called nonviolence satyagraha – a word meaning holding/grasping truth. Nonviolence requires embodying your truth to such an extent that you live it out rather than forcing it on others. If I want to convince someone of my truth, then forcing them by threat of violence to think like I do is counterproductive. Being willing to suffer for one’s truth demonstrates a strength of conviction that makes something more likely to be true than a truth which depends on causing others to suffer. The dynamics of violence are fairly simple; you make the other person suffer more than they are prepared to so that they back down (or vice versa). It doesn’t win them over, they’re unlikely to agree with you as a result, they’ve just conformed to your behaviour out of a desire to avoid suffering.

Nonviolence is not about defeating your opponent (creating a win-lose scenario) but winning your opponent over (creating a win-win). Of course, that requires an openness to your opponent’s truth as well – because perhaps it’s you that’s wrong, and you’ll never find that out if you’ve killed your opponent.

Nonviolence insists that the means are the ends in seed form – that, as Gandhi put it, “the means are to the ends as a seed is to a tree.” In the same way that if you plant an acorn you get an oak tree, if you want to create a world that is safe for all and in which we handle our differences with forthrightness and grace, then we have to act in ways consistent with that.

Nonviolence requires enormous training, discipline and strength, because it means acting in ways which don’t depend on the actions of our opponent. In this way, we refuse to mirror what we oppose, and begin to create the kind of world we want to see.

Many Christians support the theory of Just War, arguing that in some circumstances violence is necessary to end worse violence. What are your thoughts on Just War? Do you think warfare or violence is ever justified?

Most Christians who support the theory of Just War don’t actually know what the theory is, they merely cite it as justification for waging any war with which they personally agree, or at the very least think there must be circumstances where war is justified, and as a result say they believe in Just War Theory. Just War theory is actually quite specific and strict. There hasn’t been a war that conforms to the theory in living memory, yet it is continually evoked as justification for them.

There are three aspects to the Just War theory – one which describes conditions for beginning a war (Jus ad bellum), another is the rules for how that war should be conducted (Jus in bello), and finally conditions for ending a war (Just post bellum). For example, Jus Ad Bellum requires that there be Just Cause – that is, it cannot be used simply as punishment, but can only be used to rectify a wrong. That’s a very nuanced position, and certainly one that is rarely even contemplated let alone carried out.

Just War was a theory written at a time when you had armies which marched out to meet one another on a battlefield. Armies were easily distinguishable from civilians, and the weapons mostly involved hand to hand combat. That’s why you get the principle of ‘distinction’ in the Just War theory, which requires acts of war to only be directed towards enemy combatants. Such warmaking is impossible in practice today, given the types of weapons and warfare we employ. Wars are not conducted on battlefields anymore, they’re conducted in cities and towns, farms and villages, with weapons which are indiscriminate in their nature, which leave unexploded ordinance and pollution for up to thousands of years into the future.

Basically the Just War theory is the best friend of warmakers because it’s dragged out to raise questions in people’s minds and then abandoned as soon as war begins (or sooner). And by the time war begins, national fervour simply doesn’t allow serious questioning of the kind that could possibly stop it.

That’s why you get the World Council of Churches at their Ecumenical Peace Convocation last year declaring Just War Theory to be “obsolete” and calling for Just Peace theory to be implemented by the church.

If there were any structures set up to police or even evaluate wars according to the Just War theory (let alone the political will), then it might have some credibility. As it is – completely toothless – it’s worse than useless. What would it take to actually see to it that the strictures were applied, and there were sanctions when it was violated? What would it look like, for example, if the Catholic Church applied this theory in practice, and actually declared a war to be unjust? Would Catholic soldiers then have to conscientiously object? If people want to be serious about the Just War theory, that’s the kind of work that needs to be done.

Having said all that, I don’t think you can get to Just War theory from Jesus. But I’m sure I’ll have an opportunity to talk about that later.

Modern history classes at school are focused on major wars in the 19th and 20th centuries. We seem to assume that major movements in history are almost always dominated by violence.
Can you tell us about major social change that occurred in recent centuries in which nonviolence was adopted?

As Walter Wink observed, “In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations … If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (Korea, the Philippines, South Africa … the independence movement in India …), the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn’t work in the ‘real’ world.” And this was before the Serbian movement that ousted Milosevic in 2000, the Colour Revolutions across Eastern Europe in the early 2000s, and the Arab Spring last year.

And they’re just the mass movements. That’s before you get into the millions of individual stories. Gandhi used to say that the reason people still exist on the earth is because everyday millions of people use nonviolence, without knowing it or naming it that way – people forgive, or are gracious, or stand up for themselves or others. If we really operated on an eye for an eye we’d all have killed one another by now.

But we often don’t recognise or remember these stories because of the way we’re socialised to value violence and domination over love and forgiveness. Our imagination is shaped not just by history books but by the films and television shows we watch, the games we play. Most of them reinforce the myth of redemptive violence – that it is violence which saves us, which makes us secure. Hence the need to tell the stories of nonviolence, which are often less spectacular, but give us the kind of world in which it is worth living.

How do you respond to those who might suggest that nonviolence is too idealistic and that force or violence is at least sometimes necessary?

Actually, the evidence suggests the opposite. It’s not nonviolence which is too idealistic, but violence. Over ten years ago, we invaded Afghanistan, bent on inflicting whatever violence would achieve our political aims there; yet it has been almost a total failure despite several strategy changes. It is much the same in Iraq. Our blind faith in violence to achieve stated objectives is total.

The events of 2011 alone should have been reason to shake our faith in violence. While the nonviolent movements of the Arab Spring were largely effective, the West was in its tenth year of the quagmire in Afghanistan and made a total mess of Libya.

Of course, if nonviolence “doesn’t work” (in the sense that it doesn’t achieve the aims we set out for it to achieve within a given timeframe) it’s not the strategy that is blamed, but nonviolence as a method. And usually we give it a much shorter timeframe to achieve the objectives than we would give violent tactics (if we give it a chance at all). On the other hand when violence “doesn’t work” we don’t tend to blame violence as a method, we blame the strategy employed, and simply seek out a different violent strategy. That’s a double standard that should make the kind of blind faith I’m talking about a bit more visible.

The same double standard is applied to loss of life. If people employing nonviolence are killed by the opponent, it is seen as evidence of its failure. But if people are killed in violent action, that is seen as a necessary sacrifice.

A recent study of the last century found that major nonviolent campaigns achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns, and that the nonviolent campaigns resulted in much less loss of life and vastly more democratic outcomes. So who are the idealists really?

That’s not to say that nonviolence always “works”. But then neither does violence. As Joan Baez often says, “Nonviolence is a flop. The only bigger flop is violence.”

—

Keep reading Part 2 of this interview with Simon…

I’ve been thinking about the place of art in resistance movements and social change, everything from the American Civil Rights Movement to the Jewish apocalypticists.

(Currently that Dewey Cox movie is on in the background, and he’s taking off Bob Dylan. It’s kind of off-putting given the present subject.)

So here’s what I’d really love your reflections on:

1. What place does art (any kind) have in social change?
2. What effects does/can it have? (feel free to include stories)
3. What are your favourite expressions of resistance art?

Feel free to answer any or all of those broad questions.

If you know people who might be interested in this subject, or who could contribute to it, I would love for you to point them here. I think this could be a really interesting and rewarding conversation.

MCA

It is the penultimate discourse of Jesus, his magnum opus within the Gospels. If there was a handbook on Christian living, the Sermon on the Mount would probably be it.

One topic major topic present in the Sermon on the Mount is that of peace and nonviolence. This is, unfortunately, one of the aspects of the Sermon that Christians often ignore. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. called the Sermon on the Mount the greatest manifesto of nonviolence ever written, yet so many Christians feel free to support war and violence.

When you open Matthew 5 to experience Jesus’ stunning sermon you are first greeted with the Beatitudes. These eight statements are a blueprint for the values of the kingdom of God as preached by Jesus (cf. Matt 4:17). These values are taught by Jesus over-against the dominating values of his day; violence, greed, pride etc.

Things have not changed in our time. The values of our culture are antithetical to the Beatitudes taught by Jesus. This is perhaps nowhere more obvious that in our penchant for war and violence.

In his book Put Down your Sword, John Dear says that, “every culture of war, such as Jesus lived and died in, fuels itself by an antithetical set of maxims”* to that of the Beatitudes. Dear calls these “the anti-Beatitudes”.

In our culture we have been tutored in these values, what Dear calls “the false spirituality of violence.” Jesus countered these unstated anti-Beatitudes, and so must we:

Blessed are the rich; the reign of this world is ours.
Blessed are those who make others mourn.
Blessed are the violent and the invincible, the proud and the powerful, the domineering and the oppressive.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for injustice.
Blessed are those who show no mercy.
Blessed are the impure of heart.
Blessed are the warmakers.
Blessed are those who never stand up for justice, who do not rock the boat.

The first time I read these I needed time to reflect – which Beatitudes have I really bought into, those of Jesus or those of our violent culture?

As a disciple of Jesus I cannot reject Jesus’ teachings simply because they seem unpragmatic or idealistic in our culture. Indeed, Jesus’ wisdom is not unwise because our culture cannot digest it…

… because we cannot digest it.

… because I cannot digest it.

When the anti-Beatitudes are stated as they are above, it makes the Beatitudes of Jesus seem even clearer. I wonder if the effect on you is as confronting as for me.

MCA

—
* John Dear, Put Down Your Sword: Answering the Gospel Call to Creative Nonviolence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 6.

Since I’m Australian I am not exposed much to American Football, so I apologise to my American friends for my ignorance.

Additionally I apologise to my Australian and other non-American friends who simply don’t care.

My exposure to Tebow did not result so much from football per se as much as from Christians getting mega-excited about the new Christian-sportstar on the block who reportedly once touted the Bible passage John 3:16 on his eye-black.

One of the things I have seen in the news (and on my Facebook feed) over the past couple of days is Tebow’s “miraculous” 316 passing yards on Sunday during the NFL playoffs. Here is how CBS, the American television station who aired the game, reported the event:

As our brilliant commenters point out below, Tebow completed 10 passes. That means he averaged 31.6 yards per pass. His final pass was to Thomas who just happens to have been born on Christmas Day. (!)

Oh and this: the Steelers-Broncos game was the most-watched wild-card game since 1988. In the final quarter-hour, the overnight rating was 31.6. Weird stuff man, weird stuff.

As it turns out, the lone interception thrown in the game on Sunday night came from Ben Roethlisberger. What down and distance were involved when he threw it? Third and 16. Of course.

Now let me state for the record, I know almost nothing about Tebow. For all I know he is probably a great guy, and sincere about his faith in Jesus. This post is in no way a criticism of him.

However comments by others I have seen, including by some on my Facebook feed, have treated his 316-laden playoff performance as some kind of portent, a sign that God has ordained the victory of Tebow’s Broncos.

One person commented:

Love it and BELIEVE! God working through others…

And another:

Maybe God is writing it for him…check this out….

Really?

Let me get this straight. In 2010 7.6 million children under the age of five died around the world, most from easily preventable diseases. There are currently 40+ conflicts raging around the world with a total fatality list stacking into the millions. Millions of Christians around the world are persecuted for their faith, often suffering physical violence and death.

Yet God chooses to involve himself in a football game?

The idea that God is active in a sports game while millions of people around the world suffer reveals a disgusting sense of how many Christians view God’s priorities.

I won’t make many friends by saying this, but perhaps it even strays into idolatry.

“Mummy, Daddy… if Tim Tebow exists, why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?”

MCA

Luke 19 – parable of the 10 Minas. Please explain?

Straightforward. I like that.

The Parable of the Ten Minas is a well-known parable whose popular interpretation has God as the nobleman and Christians as the servants. In this reading faithful servants are those who are productive. We all have different levels of resources, and this is taken into account by God. Ultimately though the faithful are rewarded and the unproductive are punished.*

The problem with this reading is that it portrays God as a cold, cruel, greedy elitist. It assumes that the nobleman in the parable, who is a wealthy character, should be equated with God. As I have said previously this is a mistake; Luke consistently portrays the rich in less than flattering ways throughout his Gospel:

• … he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. (1:53)
• … woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. (6:24)
• … the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. (12:21)

It would be strange if Luke suddenly equated God with a rich man.

If the nobleman is not God, and the story is not about productivity, what exactly is going on in this parable?

The preceding story sees Jesus meet Zacchaeus, a man who commits himself to giving a great deal of his wealth to the poor. Jesus uses this as an opportunity to explain that salvation belongs to Zacchaeus not because he is a Jew, but because he embodies the compassionate ethic of the kingdom of God (outlined throughout Luke).

As a tax collector Zacchaeus’ money would have been gained by aiding the Romans in collecting tribute and taxes from the local populace. By promising Jesus to redistribute the wealth amongst the poor Zacchaeus was setting himself up for a bad meeting in the future, one where a Roman superior would ask him where all the money had gone.

Zacchaeus would have no option but to admit he had redistributed the money to the poor. Given the ruthlessness of the Roman authorities this would not likely go well for Zacchaeus.

Following this episode the text explains that the crowd around Jesus think that the kingdom of God would come imminently (19:11). This may be because they had overheard about and misunderstood the salvation that had come to Zacchaeus (19:9-10). No doubt they thought this implied the violent overthrow of the oppressive Romans.

In response Jesus tells the Parable of the Ten Minas.

We should be immediately alerted to the identity of the nobleman when we read that:

… his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’ (v.14)

If Jesus is speaking to a crowd who are looking forward to the coming of the kingdom of God and the overthrow of the Roman Empire, surely it is obvious that the nobleman, whose citizens hate him, refers to Rome, and in particular Caesar. The crowd long for the “nobleman” to be destroyed.

Perhaps the crowds, listening to this parable, would have been thinking that the next step in the story was for the nobleman to return from his trip only to be overthrown by his citizens. Jesus instead adds an important twist.

The nobleman returns from his trip to address his servants. He had endowed them with one mina** each and he expects that they will have made a profit.

The first servant, from his one mina, has made ten more. Can you imagine that? He has made a ten-fold profit! How is this possible? Jesus’ audience would have known that in first century Palestine to be rich invariably meant exploiting others through mechanisms such as land foreclosure or charging interest, actions not looked well upon in the Old Testament. This profit was dirty money.

The second servant, also from one mina, has made five. Like the first servant his money is ill-gotten.

Both servants are given power over cities as a result of their actions. They have benefited the rich nobleman, and now they themselves benefit, becoming powerplayers in his oppressive kingdom.

The third and final servant is confronted by the nobleman, only to reveal that he has made no profit. Instead he stored away his mina since he was afraid of the “severe” nobleman who “takes what he did not deposit, and reaps what he did not sow.”

Does this not remind you of the imminent fate of another character, namely Zacchaeus? Remember that he will have to face up to a Roman overlord sooner-or-later with the news that he has made no profit.

The nobleman reacts furiously, condemning the third servant. “You should have at least put it in the bank,” he says, “so that I could have collected interest!” Keep in mind that interest was forbidden in the Old Testament – the nobleman expected his servant to act unjustly.

In the conclusion of the story the mina is taken from the third servant and given to the first, most productive servant. It is said that he who has will be given more, while he who lacks will will have even that taken away. Finally, the citizens who spoke against the nobleman at the start of the story are set up to be slaughtered for opposing their ruler.

The ending of this story is anything but happy. Nonetheless it teaches the overly optimistic crowd a lesson – the kingdom of God will not come as you think. The Roman Empire will not be imminently overthrown. In fact it will continue to wield power in a bloodthirsty manner.

More than that, good people who seek to do justice, like Zacchaeus, will be punished by this and other evil regimes. In his commitment to serving the poor and redistributing wealth Zacchaeus will likely experience the wrath of the violent and powerful. In addition those citizens who protest the rule of Caesar will be slaughtered, as happened countless time in Roman history (and as happens today in our world under imperial powers).

This is Jesus’ prediction; he is being a realist – the inauguration of the kingdom of God does not protect disciples from harm and death.

For Jesus the kingdom would not come in its fullness imminently. His people would continue to undergo the condemnation of the ruling powers for choosing to follow him and stand against evil.

We must remember that for many Christians this continues to be the reality even today. We in the West do not really understand the nature of persecution, nor do many of us stand against evil in any significant way. But all across the world disciples of Jesus continue to be abused, raped, maimed and murdered for their commitment to justice and God’s kingdom.

Despite the demise of the third servant we are meant to imitate him (even in spite of preaching that asserts the contrary). More obviously we are meant to imitate his equivalent, Zacchaeus, in self-sacrificially giving to the poor, redistributing wealth, and protesting evil and injustice.

As I have said before it is a telling indication of the perspectives of Western Christians when they assume the rich, unjust nobleman is meant to represent God – we interpret the Bible in ways that support our radically wealthy, profit-hungry lifestyles.

We must rethink the way we read the Bible, particularly the parables, lest we make them the opposite of what was intended and distort the message of Jesus.

MCA

Note: This reading of the Parable of the Minas in Luke 19 has been articulately outlined by Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat in a presentation at the Wheaton College Conference in 2010. The mp3 can be found here and the video here. Brian and Sylvia will be appearing at TEAR Australia’s National Conference from July 6-8, 2012. Check the TEAR website (www.tear.org.au) for details.

—
* The more popular version of this parable is found in Matthew 25. I have heard it said that this parable, which has talents instead of minas (both monetary amounts) is speaking about literal talents, in the sense of skills. This misunderstanding leads to an even stronger belief that this parable is about productivity – use your talents well or else God will punish you.
** Approx. three months wages for a labourer.

Despite the overwhelming failure of New Year’s resolutions to affect change in our lives we continue to make them year after year. Why?

In our mind there is something special about particular times. We make resolutions on New Year’s because in our minds it is a time of new beginnings, of fresh starts.

Of course New Year’s is not the only such special time. Indeed we find all sorts of special designations of time to mark off moments in life. We esteem the (rather arbitrary) ages of 18 and 21 for example. In Western culture these birthdays mark off a sense of adulthood.

Throughout history particular times have represented important periods for whole communities. In modern Australia public holidays tend to be the closest we thing we have, such as on Australia Day and holidays celebrating/commemorating military events.

These pale in comparison to past societies where festivals were extended periods of celebration or remembrance for whole communities.

I think particularly of the Israelites throughout their history. The Old Testament insists that it was God who commanded the Israelites to mark off certain times to celebrate, remember, worship and act justly. A number of these festivals were reasonably lengthy (Passover, for example). These continued to exist in the time of Jesus, and some even today.

If God indeed commanded such times they must have been important. Indeed these events would certainly have helped bring the community-at-large together. In addition they would also have helped instil a sense of identity, meaning and purpose within the people.

I wonder whether we have lost this in modern Australia. I wonder also what effects this might have in our wider society.

When I have taught courses on youth ministry I have made the suggestion that the lack in our culture of special times of community-formation and initiation into the adult world cause young people to develop their own “rites of passage”, including binge drinking. Such generous alcohol consumption is, contrary to popular belief, not merely an arbitrary experience but a communal activity amongst young people. It is a shared experience and a rite of passage developed in the absence of more meaningful pathways into and participation in the adult world.

A couple of posts ago I talked about the importance of place in our lives, and here I want to assert the importance of time. Deep down we know that setting aside special times is important (as with our senses about New Year’s), but somewhere along the road we lost our way.

Now it seems we can barely find a few minutes a day to sit and do nothing but rest. Worse, such an aspiration is derided in our culture – I am made to feel guilty for doing nothing.

In the midst of a time-starved culture perhaps a week-long community festival would be a fantastic thing.

What are the chances?

MCA

Since there are literally thousands of theological articles on the web about Christmas 2011, and since I have basically nothing original to say, I will keep mine short.

—

What do we say about Christmas? What does it mean for us?

It seems common for Christians to chide society for the reduction of Christmas to a consumeristic holiday, though the irony of simultaneously engaging in said consumerism seems lost on them.

The problem is that merely insisting on the presence of Christ in Christmas is not an articulate expression of the meaning of Christmas.

Some go further, emphasising the birth of Jesus with a view to him eventually dying for our sins – Christmas is really about Easter. This might be caricaturing things a little, but for some the birth of Jesus, and indeed his subsequent life, holds little to no meaning apart from the atonement.

Are these adequate ways of articulating the importance and power of Christmas? It may help to remember what Mary the mother of Jesus had to say of the impending birth of her son; here is her song, the Magnificat:

And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” (Luke 1:46-55)

If you have time I encourage you to sit and reflect on this passage for a few moments.

What stands out is that God is both mighty and merciful, and he will act accordingly.

What is God going to do for his people through the coming of Jesus? Mary’s song of praise suggests he will bring down the proud and rich while lifting up the humble and hungry – he will turn the world upside down. This is a recurring theme throughout Luke’s Gospel.

God’s plan to turn all things upside down through Jesus, bringing down the rich, is a sobering point of thought as we reflect on the meaning of Christmas and the consumerism that has enveloped the occasion.

It’s easy to criticise society for the bastardisation of Christmas, but do we match up to our own insistence on putting Christ back into Christmas?

How are we different?

MCA