Late Night Theology [101]

This is (as are many of my posts) a response to a post on Antique Song about the rights and wrongs of violence.

The questions raised boil down to:

1. Should Christians be pacifists?
2. Should I personally use violence in my dealings with other people?

Emma thoughtfully approaches these questions from a Biblical framework.

Let me first give my answers succinctly, then waffle about them for a while. No, I don't think Christians should be pacifists. Yes, I think it is sometimes appropriate to use violence in dealings with other people, with a large set of restrictions on when.

Now, the waffle. First, let me briefly cover some basics of Biblical interpretation, then some biblical data, then draw some conclusions.

As evangelical Christians we take as our starting point that the Bible is God's primary way of revealing himself to us. There are a variety of ways of justifying it, but for my purposes I will just assume that when God reveals something of himself that he is telling the truth. The implications of this that I think are important for this discussion (and many others) are:

1. All parts of the bible should be treated equally. So it is no good to build a framework from one part of the Bible, then use that framework to discount or seriously distort another part. Note that this is not saying we treat them all the same; different parts are treated in different ways. But no part can be used to the exclusion of another part.
   
2. Logic occasionally (not often) breaks down when considering the ideas in the Bible. This should not always mean that we don't accept what it says. Usually apparent contradictions in the bible result from the dual nature of God. God is both transcendent, all-powerful, all-knowing, outside of time and space and infinite, and yet at the same time is personal and relational, and relates to finite beings who are limited in space and time. These things are apparently contradictory, but we don't completely understand God, nor should we expect to; how can finite, contained, limited beings comprehend an infinite, transcendent being? Part of humility is to admit that we will not always understand God completely, and therefore we will not always understand his works completely.

On to Biblical data. The range is large, and Emma only covered a small fraction of it. I will by no means cover all of it. I probably don't have time to sort it all well or even properly reference all of it. Some relevant bits and pieces:

1. God judges. Examples: The curse of Genesis 3 is the beginning. At the tower of Babel, God judges the arrogance of men (Genesis 11). Saul (1 Samuel) and Solomon (1 Kings) are both judged for turning away from God. David is judged for taking the wife of Uriah (2 Samuel 11). Uzzah is judged for touching the ark of the covenant (2 Sam 6). Israel and Judah are both judged for turning from God (most of the second half of the OT). The Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, and those on whom the tower of Siloam fell, died in the judgement of God (Luke 13:1-4). Annanias and Saphira were judged for trying to deceive God (Acts 5:1-11). This is by no means a complete list.
2. God uses people to execute his judgement. The OT law is basically a long list of offences that should be punished by the state of Israel (OK, there's other stuff too). Israel is judged through the Assyrians, and Judah is judged through the Babylonians.
3. The fact that God uses one nation to judge another does not excuse either nation. Babylon, Assyria and Philistia will be judged for their arrogance and presumption, because they think they are greater than God (Is 14). They do not recognize that their victory comes from him.
4. God exclusively reserves the right to set wrongs right. "Vengenace is mine... for the Lord will vindicate his people..." (Deut 35-36). Paul applies this to mean that you should "never avenge yourselves" (Rom 12:19). Note that at times this is achieved through human intermediaries, but again that does not justify the intermediary.
5. God has a constant concern for the poor, weak and oppressed. The OT references are too numerous to cite. Of particular interest is Isaiah 1, "Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." Also Amos 5, "Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice... I hate, I despise your feasts... Take away from me the noise of your songs... But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." (Selectively quoted, and emphasis added).
   
6. Jesus instructs his followers to "turn the other cheek" (Mat 5:39 paraphrase). Even more explicit is the phrase preceeding that, "But I tell you, Do not resist the one who is evil." If we are sued for even the coat of our backs, we should offer our shirts, too. If we are conscripted to carry soneone's goods for one mile, we ought to volunteer to help out for another mile.
   
7. Jesus drives the money changers and animal sellers from the temple with a whip (Mat 21:12). Note that John emphasizes the considered nature of this action; when he saw the state of the temple, he went away and made a whip to drive them out (John 2).
8. Paul tells the Corinthians to prefer being defrauded to taking a brother to court (1 Cor 6:7).
9. Paul establishes the example of not demanding his rights, "But we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel." (2 Cor 6, emphasis added)
10. God establishes authorities as his specific agents to restrain evil in the world. "[The one in authority] is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer." (Rom 13:4)
    
11. There is probably much more, but it is late and I will limit it here.

A few points that I think arise from this data:

1. As an individual Christian, you are not to use violence (or indeed other means) to defend yourself or establish your rights. This is specifically reserved for God.
   
2. There is a strong imperative to defend those who are weak, oppressed or poor. This is primarily the responsibility of the state, but is also important for the individual. In some situations this will necessarily involve violence, but it should be restrained and by no means the first option, probably the last.
   
3. The love of God can not be used to "filter out" the justice and wrath of God. Both are true.
4. The state has a specific responsibility to create structures that restrain evil and to enact punishment on those who do evil. This implies both a civil responsibility, to enact and enforce law for the well-ordering of society, and a military responsibility, to restrain the evil of other states. I tend to the view that the military option should be a last resort, but I'm not actually sure that the Bible makes that distinction; we would certainly not say that law enforcement should be a last resort, and it is derived from the same Biblical responsibility.
5. The individual does not have a specific responsibility to create structures that restrain evil and to enact punishment on those who do evil. Defend the poor and weak, yes, but anything else, and even often that defence, is the specific duty of the state. Vigilantes are not justified Biblically (except perhaps where there is a total absence of a state). Note that a state going off the rails does not justify vigilanteism. God's agents are accountable to him who said, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." Not to individual people.
   

Lastly, the primary concern of Christians ought not to be the rights and wrongs of wars, but rather the spread of the Kingdom of God. This is a kingdom that spreads not through war and conquest, nor through peace and stability, but in spite of war, in spite of peace. "You will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place," (Mat 24:6, emphasis added). War is inevitable in a world full of fallen, evil people. Where it is unjust we ought to have some concern to restrain it, but our principal interest ought to be the gospel of our Lord.

Freedom to Enslave...

Paul continues to provide thoughtful critique:

Tom,

Don't forget, in the free societies in which we live, people have a right to be wrong (from your perspective) about their religion. And they have a right to let their moral compass guide them.

Yet, as you stated earlier, head hunters aren't allowed, because their moral absolutes don't mesh with most other peoples morals.

So, I guess what puzzles me, and now confronts the Australian court system is how do free people decide which moral code to adopt?

I have spent several days considering a reply to this, and I don't think I really have an answer. However, I will make a few points.

What this comes down to is the right that has variously been called freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and others. Keep in mind that freedom of religion as it is in Western culture was not originally intended as freedom for any religion, but freedom for any Christian religion. It was a reaction to the European tendency for a state to select a church denomination and persecute anyone not in it. In England Catholics (and non-conformist protestants) were repressed, in France protestants (ie. non-conformist Catholics ;-) were repressed, etc etc. It is only since then that it has been extended to, at least in principle, include all religions.

But in practise no-one actually practices freedom of religion. The US will claim that it does, but this is laughable. It is trivial to disprove it by this example: Osama bin Laden's views are primarily theological (ie religious). No freedom of religion is extended to him.

Now, it is easy to say, and many do say so, that bin Laden misrepresents Islam for his own purposes. But that is the very height of arrogance. What you are then doing is deciding for yourself what the content of Islam is, and then imposing that definition on others. This is exactly what the framers of the US Constitution were trying to prevent; then it was Christianity they wanted freedom to interpret, now its Islam you are denying freedom to interpret. To deny bin Laden the right to his religion is unconstitutional and extremely hypocritical.

How does anyone get away with it then? Basically, our society has tacitly agreed that some things are beyond the pale, and we won't tolerate them, even if our constitution says we should. So there are some people's views which we will classify as terrorist ideologies instead of religions and ban them. The difference is often completely artificial, but we'll play along, because otherwise we actually have to think about things, and realise that perhaps freedom of religion isn't always quite so great.

Usually the media is the arbiter of what is a terrorist ideology and what is a religion. The procedure for determining what is what goes like this:

1. Find someone who uses violence to further their ideas.
2. Do we feel sorry for them?
3. If so, their ideas are religious in nature, and their use of violence is a brave fight for freedom.
4. If not, their ideas are a terrorist ideology and they are a menace to free society.
5. If anyone tries to suggest that we got it wrong, and that people we thought were a menace to free society are actually engaged in a brave fight for freedom, then we howl them down.
6. If we can't howl them down, then we jump on the bandwagon and pretend that we always thought that they were engaged in a brave fight for freedom.
7. If, on the other hand, someone tries to suggest that we got it wrong, and that people we thought were engaged in a brave fight for freedom are actually a menace to free society, then we write long editorials about how the poor are always oppressed in our society, and never get any help in their brave fight for freedom.
   

If you want an example or two, consider Osama bin Laden and Irish Catholics. The Irish Catholics are engaged in a brave fight for freedom from the British oppressors, so we are on their side, no matter how many bombs they plant or people they shoot, basically because we feel sorry for them. Osama bin Laden uses the same methods for roughly the same ends, but we don't feel sorry for him, so he must be, you guessed it, a menace to free society.

I am not suggesting that Osama bin Laden is in the right, by the way; I am just pointing out that his ideology is a theology in a very similar way to many other theologies that are accepted around the world. To reject his religion simply because it involves violence is hypocritical, since that is just using your own moral standard to judge someone else's moral standard, and your constitution says that's not on.

Rather than sticking our heads in the sand and letting everyone believe whatever they like, we should critically examine religious claims in the same way we examine any other claim, and discard those that are found to be false.

So in the end I suspect freedom of religion doesn't really work, and in practice no-one implements it.