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In his Cover Story to the February issue of Christianity Today, “The Best Ways to Fight Poverty—Really“, Mark Galli provides a thought-provoking sketch of the current state of global poverty and a generous critique of action on poverty within the Church.

Galli’s insights, however, suffer from a number of critical issues that should be discussed, notably his understanding of development, global poverty trends and the intersection of eschatology and Christian and ecclesial practice.

Toward the beginning of his article Galli refers to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), specifically MDG 1a (halve the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day), arguing that about three years ago this goal was met. To the average reader this sounds promising, as if progress on poverty was substantial.

What goes unmentioned by Galli however is that there is debate amongst development theorists over how appropriate the MDGs are as indicators of the true state of global poverty. To illustrate, Galli’s assertion that MDG1a was met three years ago is true, statistically speaking. However in terms of raw numbers the amount has not dropped anywhere close to that. Between 1990-2005 the percentage of those living in extreme poverty did drop from around 46% to 27%, but in real numbers this was only a drop from 1.8 billion to 1.4 billion (UNDP figures) in light of population growth.

More importantly the MDGs are, methodologically speaking, a set of indicators for which there is not always available or comparable data, and for which there is no consistent methodology across countries (Maligalig, “Measuring the Millennium Development Goals Indicators,” 2003 provides a helpful overview). The MDGs can be a helpful indicator, but they are an oversimplification, not necessarily definitive in addressing the complex state of poverty. In any case, MDG1 addresses what we call “extreme” poverty (living under $1.25 a day), not poverty generally; Galli’s claim that poverty has been halved, as related to MDG1, is a misunderstanding of that particular goal.

The point is that for Galli to make such a certain claim that poverty has been halved necessitates doing so in the face of unclear indicators and debate in the development sector. It is not at all clear that as a species we are making significant progress on the issue of poverty.

It is also untrue to say, as Galli does, that poverty is being reduced in any major way in Africa. Galli claims the rate in Sub-Saharan Africa is down below 50%, which is true, except that it was not that much higher in 1990 at 58% (according to UNDP figures; the World Bank figures show a shallower decline). Again percentages hide the raw numbers – according to the UN the number of people living in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa increased by 100 million people between 1990-2005 according to the UN. The reality is more complex than the figures quoted by Galli would suggest.

More central to the article is Galli’s claim that the church has been behind on this issue. This is true, in my view. But I’m not sure where Galli derives the idea that Christian activists are saying “churches should create their own anti-poverty initiatives (like microfinance)” – this is a terrible idea! Such initiatives would inevitably be disastrous since the vast majority of Western churches do not have the training and expertise to navigate the difficulties inherent in such projects. And why should they? Western churches are, quite simply, not in the business of development.

Even more central to Galli’s article is the claim that macroeconomics is responsible for lifting the vast majority of people out of poverty. This assertion seems to be based on and commonly implied and erroneous definition poverty as being under $1.25 a day. There are in fact many development theorists who would argue that this figure is misleading, leading to an underestimation of the number of poor and an overestimation as to the effects of economic growth. The fact that urban slum communities are increasing at a frightening rate should warn us, for example, that urban drift and the resulting rise in income does not necessarily equal liberation from poverty.

A crucial fact that casts doubt on Galli’s faith in economic growth is that most of the world’s poor, around 75%, now live in middle-income countries. The effects of economic growth are debated by development economists, though Galli simply assumes growth is the key element to alleviating poverty. The Aboriginal people of Australia, an OECD country, might disagree – they have, on the whole, not experienced the blessings of Australia’s booming economy. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics Aboriginal people have a life expectancy 20 years lower than the rest of the country, and a 2004 Senate Inquiry reported that around 30% live in income poverty. This is despite the fact that Australia’s GDP doubled between 2000-2010. Economic growth might play a part in poverty reduction, but to claim that “sheer economic growth has effected this change” over-against all other factors is reductionistic and incongruent with the entirety of available data.

The truth is that poverty reduction does not come solely through government; it also comes through faithful people working hard on the ground to develop communities. Galli seems to ignore the immense effects of small-scale grassroots community development, particularly amongst rural communities in the developing world. Community development doesn’t simply result from growth, since communities are built on more than money. In any case development through economic growth only occurs when people have access to the incoming wealth; that 75% of the world’s poor live in middle-income countries suggests this is not always the case.

A more fundamental problem with Galli’s article is the separation of poverty reduction from other issues (“abortion, human rights, and a hundred other causes”) – this quite simply misunderstands the nature of poverty. Poverty is not simply a lack of money; it is, at its core, a dislocation of relationships that leaves people without the power to make their own choices and thrive as human beings. Human rights, climate change, globalisation “and a hundred other causes” all have a part to play in this drama. Governments currently do not deal well with the multi-dimensional phenomenon that is poverty since it occurs on levels beyond just economics. Churches must speak up to tell our governments how they can fight poverty in holistic ways which address the multi-dimensional causes including war, human rights abuses, climate change and trade.

Concordantly the idea that “doing our little part makes very little difference when it comes to large-scale poverty” is in my view quite simply false - since we live in a globalised world we must come to terms with the fact that supply chains for goods and services are now wrapped all the way around the planet, sometimes multiple times. Who is my neighbour in such a globalised world?

My consumer choices necessarily affect people I have never met, whether it be producers of cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire, cotton in India, or coffee in Colombia. It may be true that doing my part alone makes very little difference, but when we join together to do our part to change our lifestyles for the benefit of the poor real differences can be made. The same goes for when we speak up in order to lobby our governments to act holistically on poverty; the Jubilee 2000 movement is a beautiful example.

Galli goes on to argue that poverty will probably never end until the renewal of all things, and with this I agree. I also affirm his claim that our acts now point towards that final renewal. However I’m not sure why a dichotomy must be created between effective action, motivated by love of neighbour, and eschatological witness. Galli paints a picture of Christian action that is too humble for its own good, almost impotent, a charitable cleaning up act after government has done its job. I don’t know how he derives this from the model of Christ, who spent much of his time amongst the poor, resisting the oppressive effects of life in the Roman Empire such as sickness, mental illness and economic exploitation. Surely a truly eschatological witness, in which we proclaim the eventual end to poverty at the coming of Christ, seeks to incarnate that very proclamation, precisely by striving to compassionately end poverty, even if such a goal will not be fully realised for now. If, for Galli, the concern is enacting obedience over-against pragmatism, then surely Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 act as a jolt-from-slumber for obedience in serving the poor.

It seems that for Galli there is some confusion over what exactly churches should do about poverty. I know of no activists who suggest individual churches should “match the sweep of national and global initiatives”. Rather they tend to suggest churches pray, support the work amongst the poor of other local churches in regions of endemic poverty, change their own consumption habits and speak out to government and corporate powers. If Galli is suggesting that poverty activists have argued for individual churches to involve themselves in international poverty efforts, he is creating a caricature – the way the Church involves itself is not as independent cells trying to stretch across the globe but as a universal body with different parts serving those in their local region. To set a dichotomy between personalised engagement in a church’s “sweet spot” and effective global action implies a faulty ecclesiology – the Church acts as one across the globe. Again Jubilee 2000 serves as a poignant example.

In suggesting ways churches can act, Galli’s example of child sponsorship undermines his entire point. Child sponsorship, as a development methodology, is ineffective – that is precisely why many organisations have moved away from it, retaining only the marketing aspect. The money actually goes largely into community development, and that is in fact what “works”. Given Galli suggests the church can help those who are personally put in our midst, I do not understand how a sponsor child technically fits into that scope; child sponsorship is by definition the kind of global initiative that Galli rejects. What is truly personal about it?

In the end, Jesus’ call to love our neighbour is complicated in our modern world by globalisation. When chains of production extend right around the world, and when my choices affect those on the other end of that chain, should not i consider those people my neighbour? It is true, I may not be able to personally affect much change in their lives. However when the (universal) Church acts together, not merely local institutions but the fullness of the body of Christ, including individuals working in the development sector, supporting each other (even financially)… real change can come to a world weighed down by the demon of poverty.

MCA

G’day Matt

I am enjoying reading your blogs on life remixed, especially the most recent on non violence and the debate that it is raising, brilliant, well done.

As you are one of the few who like to challenge the orthodox and traditional Christian beliefs there are a couple of bible verses that Christian Fundamentalists quote incessantly to justify that Christianity is the only way to salvation and therefor all other faiths / religions are false. One of these verses is John 14:6 which seems extremely exclusive and supports the Fundamentalists teachings. This teaching is to the detriment of billions of people all over the world who are not Christians due to the simple fact of where they were born and the culture and beliefs of their parents.

Your thoughts?

Cheers

A popular understanding of John 14:6

Thanks so much for the great question. I think it is a really important issue in the context of our pluralistic culture. In regards to John 14:6: there is perhaps no verse that has been interpreted with greater arrogance. 99% of the time I have, like you, heard it used as proof that other religions are false and that to enter heaven one must believe in Jesus. It has been used for so long by some groups for the purpose of asserting faith in Jesus as the sole way of salvation that we have stopped asking what the verse might actually mean in its context!

The problem with the regular interpretation of John 14:6 is that this is not valid conclusion in light of the context.* Jesus isn’t talking about going to heaven when you die (a mistaken view of salvation in my understanding), much less about religions with which he has probably not come into contact (either because of geographical distance eg. Buddhism, Hinduism, or chronology eg. Islam). In terms of local religions at the time, Jesus is unlikely to be referring to them in John 14:6 since there is no mention of them in the surrounding literary context.

What is this context? Jesus is speaking to his disciples who are confused about the nature of his ministry and impending fate on the cross. Generally speaking Jesus’ message was not, after all, about going to heaven when you die, but about the kingdom of God coming on earth. In John’s Gospel “kingdom” language is generally avoided and replaced with an equivalent language of “life” – eternal life, life abundant etc.

The disciples seem perplexed by the meaning of this; in the previous chapter (13:1-20) Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, an expression of the kingdom and a subversion of normal practice – leadership is about servanthood, not domination as was the case with all other kingdoms.

Following this Jesus predicts his betrayal by Judas, who leaves the meal (13:21-30). He then begins to talk about being glorified (13;31f) - what is the connection? It is ambiguous at this point, but it is obviously related to his betrayal. In any case, Jesus makes clear that the place he is going is somewhere that his disciples cannot follow him, at least not until later (13:31-33, 36). In the meantime the disciples must love one another – this is a new commandment, a new Law for the community, a summary of his teaching.

Peter responds by ignoring Jesus’ new command, returning to the subject of where Jesus is going by asking where Jesus is going (13:36). Perhaps Peter expects Jesus (along with many of his followers) to stage an uprising since he goes on to say he will follow his master by laying down his life (13:37). This is the vital clue in my opinion – Peter understands that the place where Jesus is going may require him to lay down his life. Jesus’ glorification is the cross, his impending humiliation and suffering, a complete subversion of what most of his followers would have expected glorification to look like (nothing has changed today). This glorification is not heaven.

Indeed it is the cross, namely an embrace of subversive suffering, that Peter and others will follow in later in their deaths; for now they are not ready.

Jesus follows this with a word of comfort in light of the discouraging reality that Judas betrays, Jesus will die and the disciples are cowards – Do not let your hearts be troubled (14:1). The consolation includes that the Father’s house has many rooms which Jesus is going to prepare (14:2-4). Contrary to much contemporary interpretation there is no notion in the text that this refers to heaven. It seems to me that instead it refers to the Jerusalem Temple since back in John 2:16 this is what Jesus is talking about when he uses the phrase “my Father’s house”.

In that episode John has Jesus redefining the Temple as his own body. If we allow this theological redefinition to remain consistent throughout John we should conclude that in John 14 Jesus is preparing a place for the disciples in himself! For Jesus this is the same as being in the Father, since the Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son (14:9-14).

In my view this concept of being “in the Son/Father” is a way that John talks about the kingdom of God; it is a deep “knowing” of Jesus (being in him) and thus an embrace of the Way of Christ and the reign of God. It is entry into the new life of the ages that Jesus is promising.

But it only comes by way of the cross…

Thomas, still puzzled, misses the point and asks, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (14:5) Though this is a misunderstanding of Jesus’ words note that Thomas has not asked, “How do we get to heaven?” or “What about people in other religions?”

Jesus responds with the famous statement – “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (14:6-7) In context this is clearly not about heaven.

Jesus does not directly answer Thomas’ question, since it implies a misunderstanding of what he has been saying. Rather Jesus’ famous reply in 14:6 is a restatement of his point all along; to paraphrase - you can enter the life of the ages (the kingdom on earth as in heaven) by following me (to the cross).

In other words Jesus says, “If you want to know what God is like, and what being his people looks like, then look at me.” What follows from Philip’s response (14:8) onwards in which Jesus discusses the life of discipleship seems to confirm this interpretation.

In terms of the initial question, I can’t justify the view that John 14:6 expressed exclusivism based on my reading. It seems to me the crux of “coming to the Father” is not about salvation of the soul but about knowing Christ and following him to the cross. In doing so we come to our place of belonging – we embrace the will of the Father. We know him.

MCA

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* I have before been accused of interpreting contentious passages such as John 14:6 with a bias toward unconventional readings. I should make clear at this point that now, as always, I do my best to read the text as honestly and as contextually perceptive as I can. I have my assumptions and biases, of course, but no more than those who seek to assert the status quo. If one has a good reason to challenge my reading(s) with a sound argument for the standard Evangelical reading then please feel free to comment.

Since I’ve been away for a little bit this post will be reflecting on an event from last week. Though it is a little old, I feel that this event deserves some treatment, particularly since I have been asked about it a number of times.

On Wednesday last week the Christian Post ran a story entitled John Piper: ‘God Gave Christianity a Masculine Feel’. It reported that Piper, at the 2012 ‘Desiring God’ Conference (which he founded), declared “God has given Christianity a masculine feel.”

The full transcript of the sermon records that Piper, speaking to a room full of pastors, backed up this claim by saying:

God has revealed himself to us in the Bible pervasively as King, not Queen, and as Father, not Mother. The second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son. The Father and the Son created man and woman in his image, and gave them together the name of the man, Adam (Genesis 5:2). God appoints all the priests in Israel to be men. The Son of God comes into the world as a man, not a woman. He chooses twelve men to be his apostles. The apostles tell the churches that all the overseers—the pastor/elders who teach and have authority (1 Timothy 2:12)—should be men; and that in the home, the head who bears special responsibility to lead, protect, and provide should be the husband (Ephesians 5:22–33).

The sermon goes on, concentrating largely on the ‘masculine’ life of 19th-century English bishop John C. Ryle. I will refrain from quoting it at length (click the link above for the full text). Much has been written on other blogs, so I will simply offer some points of interest as to why I think Piper’s claims are simplistic, exegetically sloppy and ideologically-driven.

1. It is obvious that the Bible paints God in masculine language the majority of the time. It is obvious that Jesus was male. It is obvious that the vast majority of leadership figures in the Bible were male. What is unexplored however is why this is the case. Some of the reasons are equally as obvious as the above points – The biblical authors were likely all male and so described God mainly in masculine terms (very few women would have been able to read and write); Jesus would have had to be male to lead the movement he did in his cultural context, as would other leaders in the Bible; these were simply cultural necessities. There is no reason why any of these things would have needed to be the case had they occurred today. If the Bible were written today women may well represent half the authors since many females can now read and this would surely affect the language used of God. Jesus would not necessarily need to be a man, nor do leaders need to nowadays be uniformly male, since in our context women can lead world-changing movements. Piper bypasses context altogether, failing to appreciate that the social worlds of the ancients is vastly different from our own, and that maybe, just maybe, this has a bearing on the biblical text.
2. Following on from the last point, if there was a cultural status quo regarding women in early Judaism then Jesus and the early Christians shattered it in their community lives. Jesus took on female disciples, a huge no-no in most strands of Judaism. Women became the first witnesses of Jesus’ Resurrection even though their testimonies were not considered trustworthy in Jewish society at large; such was the counter-cultural value given women in early Christianity.
3. Paul’s writings are often used to support patriarchy, especially by those of Piperian ilk. These passages are, however, largely taken out of context revealing a hermeneutic that is no better than the most basic form of fundamentalistic proof-texting. While I cannot address all the contentious passages, here are a couple. In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul does not universally ban women from speaking in the ekklesia, he counsels against the church acting in ways that will negatively affect its witness to the rest of society – read all of 1 Corinthians 9 for the context; for the Corinthians it seems that having outspoken women may have been just such a social issue. In Ephesians 5 Paul may counsel wives to obey their husbands, but two things should ward us from applying this universally; 1) we would need to apply the same universalising ethic to the section about masters and slaves in Ephesians 6, something we do not do, and; 2) by naming wives before husbands in Ephesians 5 Paul subtly gives them the literary position of greater value – check out every other pair of names in the Bible, the dominant party is always named first – what might Paul be trying to say?
4. What seems fairly unambiguous in Paul is the definitive statement that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free. These barriers are dismantled in Christ; why then does Piper insist on reassembling them?
5. In terms of Church leadership specifically, Paul names ”Prisca” and ”Junia” amongst the church leaders in Romans 16. Idiot! Didn’t he know those were women’s names? Hmmm…
6. Changing focus slightly, nothing is said by Piper of the female attributes of God as found in the Bible (see this post from the archives). Interesting that the aspect of ‘salvation’ so emphasised by Piper and his friends is illustrated by the image of giving birth (“born again”). Who is it that is giving birth exactly? Can this be said to be masculine? How does this reflect on the Church?
7. Related to the above point, if the Church is the Bride of Christ, does Piper ignore this metaphor? If not, does he expect the Church to be a kind of masculine bride? Why should some metaphors be definitive for the “feel” of the Church while others are bypassed?
8. As Scot McKnight has said, there is a word for “masculine” in Greek; andreia. You would get the idea from Piper’s sermon, and indeed his wider androcentric theology, that this word is common in the New Testament since he seems to squeeze everything through it. Interesting that in fact, and I can’t stress this enough, that the word andreia does not appear in the New Testament at all. Not even once.
9. In short, Piper makes no attempt to show that the “masculinity” of Christianity is an ontologically inherent property. That is, Piper does not show that such masculinity is anything but a cultural trait. Since there is no reason to translate cultural values embedded in the Bible without good reason, Piper makes the jump from description to prescription without warrant.
10. Piper’s patriarchal theology smacks of cultural-driven ideology. This is perhaps best illustrated by his esteeming of the “frank and manly” John C. Ryle, a Victorian era bishop. Why esteem this man? No real reason is given but that he was “a strong and forceful personality.” This sets up a very particular view of masculinity that is exported to both the biblical text and to the expectations placed on contemporary men. It also betrays a fear of the perceived threat of cultural change and a desire to return to the “good ol’ days” – good for whom, exactly?
11. Piper, who in Western Evangelicalism embodies a kind of pop-scholarship (not a criticism), should deal with complexity far better than he does. To speak as if there were static categories of “biblical” masculinity and femininity, manhood and womanhood is a reflection of either laziness, ignorance or dishonesty. If there were such categories, who would represent them? The polygamous Abraham? The sexually licentious David? The authoritative Deborah?

I’m sure there are lots more things that could be said beyond these rather loose thoughts, and indeed you should check out some of the fantastic blog posts around the internet on this subject if it interests you. Interested in your thoughts.

MCA

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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.

If you are new to the life.remixed blog you might want to subscribe to receive articles like this regularly. You can sign up via RSS Feed, or by using the email subscribe function in the column to the right, near the top.

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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.”

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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

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* 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