What’s Enemy-Love Got To Do With It?
Written by Brandon.D.Rhodes : July 22, 2008
My friend Rod recently said he’d enjoy having a few of us – his Mennonite friends – try to persuade him to pacifism. The other three of us there all looked at each other and grinned.
“Oh, this isn’t a one-day kind of decision, friend,” Rusty said to Rod with a laugh. We all nodded.
Soon enough, though, Rusty slipped in a 20-second pitch for what brought him around to pacifism (a Christological reading of the Bible, wherein everything goes through the lens of Jesus – “If the Bible seems to disagree, let Jesus be the referee”). Jacob and I braced for the same old tit-for-tat eye-roll-a-thon of the same old arguments from each side. Old Testament this, and Romans 12 that – we’ve all probably been there, on one side or the other. Thankfully, though, this exhausting specter was hastily deferred to another time.
“Besides,” I said, “We’ve each arrived at Christian nonviolence, Christian pacifism, enemy-love, the Way of Jesus, or whatever you want to call it, through different paths.” For Jacob, it was reading John Howard Yoder’s What Would You Do?, while for me it was studying Jesus’ enemy-love teachings through the lenses of first-century history and a robustly Jewish theology of the ‘image of God’.
But it’s got me thinking a lot about how pacifists became pacifists, and why they remain pacifists. As with our first turning to Jesus at conversion, sometimes what turned us to Him isn’t what keeps us turned toward Him.
Our arguments usually run along the lines of one of the following:
• Utilitarian – “War makes corpses of us all”, “What has war ever solved?”, etc.
• Jesus said so – “Jesus taught enemy-love.”
• Jesus lived it – “God died for his enemies, so should we”
• Heart appeals – telling stories of the futility, brutality, and horror of war.
• Nonconformity – “We follow the Way of Jesus, not the Way of the World.”
• Christarchy – “Jesus is Lord, and therefore Caesar isn’t” (actually a line from non-pacifist Bishop N.T. Wright)
That’s certainly not a complete list of any kind, but I’ll bet it’s a net big enough to capture most of us somewhere in it. For a similar (and larger) list, see Yoder’s Nevertheless: The Varieties and Shortcomings of Religious Pacifism.
But there are a few angles of pacifism that I think we could better and more loudly argue. Two defenses of pacifism that I’d like to unpack in future Doxis posts here are “Inaugurated Eschatology” (the church as the microcosm of the Age to Come, as those called to live in the present world according to the rules of the one to come) and “Most War Still Sin, Says Romans 13” (the just-warrior’s favorite passage here winds up shooting itself in the foot). I will bring them up here in more detail in the weeks to come because I think that a robust inaugurated eschatology is becoming a tent-pole of emergent theology, and because the possibility of radically reclaiming Romans 13 as a stalwartly antiwar text can prove a particularly fruitful rhetorical coup in an election year.
In the coming weeks Rod will hear testimonies to how Rusty, Jacob, and I all became Christian pacifists. Rusty’ll talk about Christological lenses, Jacob will talk about utilitarian practicality, and I will talk about enemy love and inaugurated eschatology.
• If you are a pacifist, what would you talk to Rod about? What brought you to pacifism? And what arguments or experiences have become sunk in toward keeping you in pacifism?
• And if you’re not a pacifist, but have struggled with the issue, what would you tell Rod?
(Disclaimer: I realize many – perhaps most – of the Jesus Manifesto’s readers and writers are not strict pacifists/nonviolent/what-have-you. That so many of us here believe in a revolutionary gospel that resists Constantinianism needn’t guarantee that we also self-label as pacifists/etc.. Indeed I am entirely stoked to know and engage both sorts here.)
Brandon Rhodes lives, works, writes, and worships in Portland, Oregon. He enjoys long conversations over coffee, yerba maté, and beer. He is also one of the co-editors at Jesus Manifesto.If you appreciate articles like this, consider making a donation to help Jesus Manifesto pay the bills.
Print This Article
Comments
Add New Comment
Viewing 62 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.