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Christians & Violence, Part 4

By Preston Sprinkle on May 17, 2012 in The Bible, The Christian Life, Worldview with 16 Comments

In this post, we’ll dig into the issue that’s been lingering in the back of many of your minds, I’m sure, and one which has come up here and there in the comments thus far: What about the Old Testament? Surely the Old Testament’s clear allowance, and in many cases command, of violence would suggest that Christians are also allowed to use violence. After all, we don’t want to say that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New, right?

Of course not. But the issue of the Old Testament is much more complex than that. Here’s a few things to consider.

First, the nation of Israel was a theocracy, and this relates to their command to wage wars, act violently, etc. In other words, Israel was a nation of God’s people under God’s law with God as their president, so to speak. If you wanted to “get saved” and join God’s covenant, you had to pack your bags and move to Israel (in most cases). Church and state were one. Since wars and violence are part of the fabric of a broken society, Israel as a nation would be partakers in this societal structure, but it was never the ideal (as we’ll show in our third point).

But today, God’s people are not a theocracy; we are a global community scattered among the nations. The myth that America is, or ever was, a Christian nation has been so thoroughly disproved that I won’t even get into it. Needless to say, we as the church give our allegiance to Jesus and our citizenship is in heaven—whether you’re reading this blog in Andorra, Angola, or even in America. In short, while the nation of Israel fought wars and acted with violence in the Old Testament, this does not in itself carry over as part of the mission of the church. The church is never commanded or even allowed (explicitly) to act violently, but to “love our enemies,” “turn the other cheek,” “never repay evil for evil,” “overcome evil with good,” and to “never avenge yourself” (Matt 5 and Rom 12). So the difference between Israel as a theocracy and the church as a dispersed group among many nations necessitates that we view national warfare differently.

Second, most of the wars in the Old Testament were explicitly connected to the land promise. The conquest of Canaan (Josh 6-12), wars against the Philistines (1 Sam 4), and the slaughter of the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:1-3) were all tethered to the ongoing struggle to settle in, and maintain control over, the land of Israel. The point being: the land promise was unique to Israel’s relationship to God under the Old Covenant and is not carried over into the Church’s mission; hence, one of the many reason why violence and warfare has no place in the mission of the church. Our covenant relationship with Israel’s God is not wedded to a strip of real estate in the middle east.

Third, and most importantly, the Old Testament (the entire Bible, really) is a dynamic unfolding story that progresses, and the progression culminates in Jesus—the goal of the Law and the Prophets (Luke 24:44; Rom 10:4; cf. Matt 5:17-19). Now, throughout Israel’s history, there were times when God commanded violence. The conquest of the Canaanites and the command to annihilate the Amalekites (1 Sam 15) immediately come to mind. So war and violence is part and parcel with Israel’s existence. However, war and violence are never really viewed as the ultimate goal. Peace is. The whole direction of the Old Testament, especially seen in the prophets (Isaiah 2:4; 11:1-6; Mic 4:2), is that there will come a time when God would bring healing, restoration, and the cessation of violence by means of his suffering Servant. As Isaiah and Micah both creatively proclaim: “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Mic 4:3; cf. Isa 2:4). Instruments of war will be turned into tools for agriculturally productivity; as God’s redemptive purposes unfold, we move from war to peace. This is such a consistent theme in the prophets that I hardly feel the need to belabor the point: God’s promised messianic kingdom will inaugurate a time of peace, healing, restoration, and the cessation of war. As Myron Augsburger writes:

“While the Bible is one unit, and one great covenant of grace, it is also an unfolding revelation in which God is continually saying more and more about himself. All through the Old Testament, God had something more to say about himself until he said it better in Jesus Christ. This means that the incarnation is final, the full disclosure of God” (Augsburger, “Christian Pacifism,” 61-62).

Violence was allowed and even commanded in the Old Testament, as was polygamy, divorce, slavery, stoning of children, and killing people for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. But this was not the goal of redemptive history; rather, it was part of God’s dynamic (not static) story of salvation, which climaxes in Jesus who bore a plowshare and not a sword. Jesus inaugurated that promised period of peace and healing, and therefore violence is allowed in the Old Testament but not in the New.

One more passage needs to be dealt with and that’s Genesis 9:5-6:

“5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”

Here we have a pre-Old Covenant command where a death-penalty-like law is instituted. If you kill, then you shall be killed. The punishment, in other words, should fit the crime, and the Old Covenant Law is replete with similar “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” commands (Exod 21:24; Lev 24:19-22). In its own context, I would say that Gen 9:6 supports capital punishment: if somebody kills another person, he too should be killed. The question, however, is: Is this ideal? (It certainly moves away from the Edenic way of life.) Does this still apply for Christians today? Should we seek to retaliate life for life?

I say yes and no, but mostly no. Jesus clearly overturned the law of retaliation in Matt 5:38, when he said: “you have heard that it was said, ‘and eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say to you do not resist the one who is evil.” Don’t retaliate, Jesus says, and Paul says the same thing in Romans 12. So I think that we must read Gen 9 through the lens of the cross and in light of Jesus’ (and Paul’s) own ethical teaching, which prohibits retaliation.

So where does my “yes” come in? As most of you know, Rom 13:4 does say that God uses the government to “bear the sword” to punish evildoers, and (as Colby pointed out yesterday) this is one of God’s ways of avenging evil. (Interestingly, however, as my good friend Andrew Rillera has pointed out, the cross and not the dagger-like “sword” referred to in Rom 13 was Rome’s means of capital punishment.) But God’s vengeance of evil through the government is instead of the church’s own vengeance of evil (note the connection between Rom 12:17-19 and 13:4). Vengeance by Christians is everywhere prohibited and nowhere allowed in the New Testament. That’s God’s business, not ours.

Okay, I know that was a brief treatment of a very difficult issue. There’s going to be a lot of “what abouts” and “ya buts” that I couldn’t cover, and I’ll do my best to wrestle with your comments and concerns. But I’m really eager to get to the issue that most people race to whenever pacifism is discussed: what about the person breaking into your home to kill your family? Do pacifists believe that there’s never a place to use violence on an individual level? Stay tuned…

Christians & Violence, Part 3

By Preston Sprinkle on May 16, 2012 in The Bible, The Christian Life, Worldview with 34 Comments

As we wrestle with the issue of Christians and violence, it’s interesting to note that prior to Constantine (4th Cent. A.D.), Christians were basically pacifists. Few Christians ever joined the military and rarely would a believer pursue a vocation where killing someone else would expected. (There’s no evidence of a Christian serving as a soldier of Rome until A.D. 174.) If you did happen to kill someone—say, you were already a soldier and got converted—it was viewed as a sin that required tearful confession and repentance, rather than celebration. Violence for the early Church was viewed as contrary to the cross of Christ, and there really wasn’t much of a debate about it.

This, of course, isn’t a biblical argument for pacifism, though it should cause us to question our assumptions as we approach the text. For pre-Constantine Christianity, non-violence was a fundamental Christian ethic. For post-Constantine Christianity, or more specifically in American Christianity where warfare is what brought us our religious freedom purchased by the blood of Native Americans, violence is rarely questioned except when embedded in a rated-R movie. (The contradiction between some Christians’ support for war and yet disdain for violent rated-R movies is ironic, to say the least.) All in all, we absolutely need to stick close to the biblical text in order to think Christianly through the issue of violence.

In the last post, I mentioned three passages that often head the list of biblical support for the so-called Just War position, or violence by individual Christians when it’s appropriate: Luke 22, Romans 13, and the temple cleansing (John 2, among others).

Luke 22:35-38 says:

35 And he said to them, “When I sent you out with no moneybag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “Nothing.” 36 He said to them, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. 37 For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.” 38 And they said, “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” And he said to them, “It is enough.”

So, Jesus tells them to go buy a sword, and low and behold, two of them (Peter and probably Simon the Zealot) already had a sword. “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” The question is: What did Jesus mean by the last phrase “It is enough?” Two swords are enough for what?

I don’t think this text can be used to support Jesus’ (new) allowance for violence. First, a few verses later Peter will wield his sword, cutting off a dude’s ear, and Jesus rebukes him: “No more of this!” (22:51). Obviously Peter (along with many later interpreters) misunderstood Jesus’ previous command to go buy a sword. The swords weren’t meant to be used for violence by Jesus’ followers. Second, Jesus’ quotation of Isaiah 53:12, that he would be “numbered with the transgressors” (Luke 22:37) reveals the point of the two swords: Jesus had to be viewed by the Roman authorities as a threat—a potential revolutionary—in order for Rome to have legal grounds to crucify him. When Jesus hung on the cross, he was placed between an insurrectionist (Barabbas) and another criminal; he was numbered among other revolutionary transgressors and was therefore crucified. Understanding Luke 22 in this way makes much better sense both of the quotation of Isaiah 53 and the flow of Jesus’ ethical teaching, which has consistently discouraged violence up until this point.

Let’s go to Romans 13:1-5:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.”

This passage is often used to advocate for the use of violence by Christians. Now again, the passage isn’t a command or even a direct allowance for violence by the church, but a command that the church submit to its—can I say—evil, corrupt, anti-Christian, and immoral governing authorities. Paul is not praising the government. He’s not saying to love the government. He’s not saying that the government is inherently good. In fact, at the time of writing, Caesar Nero was on Rome’s throne and he was a pedophilic maniac who thought he was divine! In A.D. 64, the same “governing authorities,” whom God commands the church to submit to, will end up dipping Christians in tar and setting them on fire to illuminate Nero’s garden at night. So Paul isn’t saying that Nero’s Rome is on our side, so to speak.

So what is Paul saying? In the spirit of the Old Testament prophets, Paul is saying that God is the ultimate authority and He is so sovereign that He can even work through evil earthly authorities to carry out his will. We see this in Daniel (5:1-31). We see it in Isaiah (44:24-45:7). We see it in Zechariah (1:15-21). We see it all throughout the Old Testament: God works through the evil institutions on earth to carry out his will, and God’s people shouldn’t resist or revolt against those institutions that God has placed over his people. God is ultimately in charge.

But this doesn’t mean that the evil institution is morally good or “on God’s side.” God uses earthly authorities, but He will ultimately judge them. Again, we see this throughout the prophets, where God will judge the very governing institutions that he uses. And we see this in Revelation 17-18—follow me here—where God ruthlessly condemns and pronounced judgment upon the same Roman Government that he told the church to submit to in Romans 13. The apostle John would be quite shocked, I think, at the contemporary Church’s affectionate love for and unconditional allegiance to the Babylons of their day. The question of a Christian’s participation in Babylon’s governance is simply not in view in Romans 13.

I’ve got to cut this short, so for the sake of space let me just say that in all the accounts of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple (Mark 11:15-19; John 2:13-22; and others), never does the text say that he physically harmed the people he was rebuking. Yes, he made a whip and drove them out (John 2:15), but it doesn’t say that he was lacerating people with it. The temple cleansing demonstrates Jesus’ non-violent righteous indignation toward greed and corruption, and ultimately foreshadows the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70, but it doesn’t show that Jesus reversed his non-violent posture by snapping a few money changes in the butt.

For the next post, we’ll dig into violence in the Old Testament.

Christians & Violence, Part 2

By Preston Sprinkle on May 15, 2012 in The Christian Life, Worldview with 21 Comments

In the previous post, I declared myself to be a pacifist. In this post, I’m going to show why the Bible endorses pacifism. Again, I’m arguing for the so-called “non-resistance” version of Pacifism, which states that the church/Christian should not participate in War as a combatant and that violence—along with lying and intoxication—should not be the mark of a Christ-follower. Here’s why.

First, Matthew 5:38-45 says:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also…Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matt 5:38-39, 44-45)

Now, I grew up in a context where taking the Bible literally was the mantra sung every Sunday, and yet I often heard that we can’t take this passage literally. But I’m pretty sure Jesus meant what he said: Don’t retaliate violence with violence; retaliate violence with love. Fundamental to the Christian faith is that we love—not kill—our enemies, since Christ loved his enemies (i.e., us) and was unjustly killed for them (Rom 5:8-11). He served his enemies, loved his enemies, died for his enemies. The point seems very clear: love, and not violence, should be the church’s posture.

But isn’t this passage just talking about retaliation, rather than violence as a whole? Yes, the context is about retaliation, but if violent retaliation is prohibited, then what other violence could Jesus possibly have endorsed? Certainly, a preemptive war strike would logically be excluded, as would be a bullet to the head of the person breaking into your house. If violence is prohibited in retaliation, then violence is probably not looked upon with approval in all (or at least most) circumstances by Jesus.

Moreover, Matthew 5 is part of the Sermon of the Mount, which is the “definitive charter for the life of the new covenant community” (Hays, Moral Vision, 321). As the law of Moses was for Israel, so also the Sermon on the Mount is for the Christian community (the parallel is not exact, but is still close for reasons we can’t get into). Moreover, the sermon is the first of five speeches in Matthew (chs. 5-7, 10, 13, 18, 23-25), which constitute the content of the phrase “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” of the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20). The point: non-violent love of one’s enemies is fundamental to the church’s discipleship and its mission to disciple the nations. Somehow that’s been lost in the post-Constantinian church.

Second, Jesus lived out the truth of his own command by never acting violently against those who were either attacking him (physically, verbally, etc.), or other innocent people who were being attacked. The first point is clear; the second one is a matter of speculation. And yet, as Jesus walked around Palestine in the first century, it’s nearly certain that he observed all sorts of injustices taking place and yet never are there any instances of Jesus acting violently to defend the innocent. In fact, he reached out to soldiers, tax-collectors, and suicide bombers like Simon the Zealot. Again, non-violent love of one’s enemies seems to be the pattern and effective means of confronting evil (see below). And in one instance, Peter whipped out his sword to violently defend Jesus and he was rebuked! “All who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt 26:52).

Third, when Jesus said “my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36a), he explicitly means that his kingdom is not a violent kingdom. “If my kingdom were of this world,” Jesus told the violent governor, “my servants would have been fighting” (John 19:36b). But my kingdom is not a violent kingdom; it’s not of this world. A fundamental feature of Jesus’ kingdom and all who participate in it is non-violence in the face of a very violent world.

Fourth, Paul and Peter both prohibit retaliation, including, of course, violent retaliation. They commanded the same counter intuitive love of one’s enemies that Jesus announced (Rom 12:14, 17-21; 1 Pet 2:18-23). Paul’s final exhortation in Romans 12:21 is particularly noteworthy, since it says “overcome evil with good.” This would suggest that evil people should not be overcome with evil, but with good, which challenges our basic assumption that evil people (e.g., Hitler) should be overcome with evil (e.g., murder). Now, I didn’t say Romans 12:21 rules it out; I just said that it challenges it—and Bonhoeffer’s intense struggle with this very issue illustrates the tension.

Now, there are many other passages that need to be dealt with, and many questions left unanswered. What about Romans 13? Didn’t Jesus command his disciples to pick up swords (Luke 22)? What about Jesus’ violent actions in cleansing the temple? All of these will be addressed in the next post. For now, it’s fitting to end with two points that as far as I can see aren’t subject to much debate: (1) Jesus acted non-violently, which lays down a pattern for his followers, and (2) violence is everywhere prohibited and never commanded for the church in the New Testament. All arguments that support the use of violence by Christians must wiggle it out of indirect implications from the text in the face of clear, direct commands of the text. Romans 13 is case in point. Here, Paul says that God uses governments to punish evil violently, and so if we assume that Christians are serving in such governmental positions, then they would logically be allowed to act violently. Not a bad argument, and we’ll wrestle with this. But again, this argument builds on indirect implications from Romans 13 and not the explicit authorial meaning of the passage.

So, in the next post, I’ll address Romans 13, Luke 22, and the temple cleansing, along with any other juicy comments that arise from this blog.

Until then, peace!

Christians & Violence, Part 1

By Preston Sprinkle on May 14, 2012 in Social Justice, The Bible, Worldview with 31 Comments

I’m going to begin a series on the relationship between Christians and violence, which, as you might already know, can be a pretty heated discussion. Here’s a few questions related to the topic:

Should Christians participate in national war?
Should Christians ever think positively about the use of violence to accomplish justice?
Should Christians support a national war?
Can a Christian use violence on an individual level?

We’ll wrestle with these questions over the next few posts. But first, a brief summary of my journey.

I grew up, like most Evangelicals, loving war and violence. I played with toy tanks and soldiers, loved watching old war films, and rooted with all my might when America fought against the Iraqis in Desert Storm (1991). My favorite movies growing up were Rocky III, Top Gun, and Gladiator. Throughout high-school and college, I hunted, fished, chewed tobacco, and voted Republican no matter the candidate. I had an NRA sticker, even though I never paid my membership dues. I pretty much was the dude on the cover of Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” album. The idea that someone could be a Christian and be a pacifist was weird and confusing. Could someone actually read the Bible and still be a pacifist? They must be biblically illiterate or anti-American, is what I thought.

When I got saved at 19, none of this changed. (Gladiator came out when I was 24 and I was first in line!) It wasn’t until I taught a class on Ethics at Cedarville University (Ohio) in Spring of 2008 that I began to wrestle with the issues, and for the first time I was forced to consider what the Bible actually said about violence. I was quickly shocked at how many passages in the New Testament discuss  violence and how few of them (if any) support the use of violence by a Christian (the Old Testament is a different story). My worldview was sent into a tailspin as I searched long and hard to find New Testament support for the so-called “Just War” position (we’ll discuss this anon). I didn’t find any.

And so by Fall of 2009, I became—and in many ways still am—a pacifist. In short: I don’t believe that the Bible endorses the use of violence by the church or by individual Christians, except in extraordinary circumstances. Violence, along with lying and intoxication, is not the normal behavior that befits the church.

Let me go a bit further and stick my neck out: I think that of all issues, the relationship between Christians and violence/warfare is largely cluttered by a worldview that’s shaped by our American culture more than the Bible. I really think, and will seek to show, that pacifism has by far much more biblical support than any other view on violence held by Christians, and it’s ironic and sad that so few Bible-believing Evangelical Christians are pacifists. It’s even more depressing that many Evangelicals think—as I used to think—that pacifists are weird, limp-wristed, or non-biblical. The apparent “weirdness” of the pacifistic position only reveals how culturally conditioned we are.

Fighten words, I know (pun intended). But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I hope that I will be able to defend pacifism biblically over the next few posts. In order to get the ball rolling, let me lay out four different Christian positions on violence and warfare. (I’m using the two terms “violence” and “warfare” somewhat interchangeably for now).

View 1: Pacifism (non-resistance). This view says that Christians should not kill people, but they can join the military (or police force, etc.) as long as they serve as non-combatants (psychologist, medical doctor, etc.)

View 2: Pacifism (total non-participation). Christians should not join the military or any other institution that endorses and participates in violence.

View 3: Just War. Christians can participate in a war that is waged on a “just” basis. The seven-fold criteria for a “just” war include: (1) Just cause, (2) Just intention, (3) Last resort, (4) Formal declaration, (5) Limited objectives, (6) Proportionate means, (7) Noncombatant immunity.

View 4: Self-defense and Justice. This view focuses on the individual’s encounter with evil, as opposed to his/her participation in national warfare. The view says that a Christian may use violence when defending oneself against evil (i.e. being attacked in a dark alley, etc.) or to achieve justice for someone being oppressed (e.g., executing Hitler).

By the way, I sort of made the forth view up. I’ve never seen it called this, but many people describe their view in such a way that I thought it deserves a place at the table.

In the following posts, I will defend view 1 while allowing for view 4 in some extreme cases and with qualification. For now, I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, or pushbacks.

Does Prayer Actually Do Anything?

By Preston Sprinkle on May 10, 2012 in The Bible, The Christian Life, Theology with 12 Comments

As I’ve said in previous posts, I believe God is sovereign. Not just vaguely in control, but possesses the freedom to do whatever he wants. “Our God is in the heavens, and he does whatever he pleases,” declares the psalmist (115:3). God has the freedom to kill, make alive, harden hearts, condemn, regenerate, and send floods of water to (nearly) erase the earth’s population. God does all things to bring glory and honor to himself, as the prophet Ezekiel redundantly stated over 70 times.

So God’s in control. He ordains, he saves, he condemns, and he extends mercy to “whomever he wills” (Rom 9). So does prayer actually do anything? When humans pray, does it actually move God to act?

Yes.

Sounds like a contradiction, I know, but I prefer the term “tension.” The Bible says that God has absolute freedom; the Bible also says that prayer moves God. And how it all works out, we don’t know. Consider the following texts:

“Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him…” (Isa 37:21-22).

“Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the presence of the LORD…and after that God was moved by prayer for the land.” (2 Sam 21:1 14)

“ David built there an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Thus the LORD was moved by prayer for the land, and the plague was held back from Israel.” (2 Sam 24:25)

“The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.” (James 5:16-18)

Hezekiah and Jerusalem were saved from the Assyrians “because” the king prayed; God was “moved” by David’s prayers; and James argues quite explicitly that prayer doesn’t just do something, it “can accomplish much.” The very language that God chose to tell us about prayer is unambiguous. Prayer does not just teach us to depend on God (though it does do that), and prayer does not just acknowledge that God is in control (though he is). The Bible says explicitly and consistently that prayer is dynamic, it is powerful, and it can actually move the God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

Does this sound totally outrageous? Or is it a no-brainer? I’d love to hear any pushback you might have. A lot of folks seem to either cling to God’s sovereignty or endorse the real power of prayer. It seems to me that the Bible firmly endorses both without explaining how it all works out behind the scenes.

Now, a confession. I believe this with my head, but not with my heart. I’ve got a plethora (cf., The Three Amigos) of other passages I can throw out to show that prayer moves God, and yet my prayer life does not reflect my intellectual endorsement of these texts.

Ugh! I’m 36 years old, I’ve been a Christian for 17 years, I have a Ph.D. in Bible, and yet my prayer life reflects spiritual infancy.

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