Peace and Holiness: NON-VIOLENCE IS NOT THE SAME AS NON-RESISTANCE

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

NON-VIOLENCE IS NOT THE SAME AS NON-RESISTANCE

Walter Wink's clear interpretation of Matthew 5:28-48 reflects Jesus' original intent

[Here's how one Wesleyan/holiness preacher (me) works with good Biblical scholarship adn interpretation on non-violence and works it into preaching, teaching, writing and advocacy.]

RESIST EVIL NON-VIOLENTLY. Many people dismiss Jesus' teachings about "resist not an evil person" and "turn the other cheek" as impractical and misguiding in a world of domination and neighborhood and international bullies. Jesus' teaching has been misinterpreted as non-resistance instead of what it actually means. But Walter Wink points out that within the context of the Middle Eastern culture and social interactions of his day, Jesus' guidance is clear: resist evil, but do so without violence, in a manner that claims human dignity and points to possible redemption for both the would-be victimizer and would-be victim.

DISMISSED TEACHINGS RECLAIMED. Walter Wink's work on such tough Bible references is widely available in his books (such as Engaging the Powers) and on the Internet. He, perhaps more than any other New Testament scholar in this generation, has laid the interpretative groundwork for bringing Jesus' teachings about non-violent Kingdom living into practicable range at personal as well as international levels. Do a Google search on "Walter Wink + non-violence" and see what all you access. Wink recovers many Biblical directives that have been dismissed by those choose, instead, to counter violence by violence.

PASSIVE CAPITULATION OR NON-VIOLENT STAND? For instance, Wink deals with the statement, "do not resist an evil person" (Matthew 5:39) first by pointing out that the Greek word (anti-stenai) interpreted in the King James Version as "do not resist" is under-interpreted. It's more correct meaning would be "do not retaliate against violence with violence." Wink writes:

"Jesus did not tell his oppressed hearers not to resist evil. His entire ministry is at odds with such a preposterous idea. He is, rather, warning against responding to evil in kind by letting the oppressor set the terms of our opposition... Jesus was no less committed to opposing evil than the anti-Roman resistance fighters like Barabbas. The only difference was over the means to be used."

BREAKING DOMINATION AND SERVITUDE. Within their cultural context, Jesus' "non-violent" teachings--to "turn the other cheek," "give your undergarment to the one who takes your outer-garment," and "go the second mile" when compelled to carry a Roman soldier's burden--are all acts of defiance, dignity, turning the tables, confusing the evil-doer, and undermining the very principles of domination and servitude that prevailed in the social order of the day. As a response to bullish behavior, these actions make clear that neither passivity/compliance nor violent reaction/vengeance were in Jesus' mind. A third way--the way of non-violent action that reclaims human dignity and opens the way for liberation for all--is being introduced.

JESUS' THIRD WAY. In an article, Wink points out some of the principled actions of Jesus' "third way:"
* Seize the moral initiative.
* Find a creative alternative to violence.
* Assert your own humanity and dignity as a person.
* Meet force with ridicule or humor.
* Break the cycle of humiliation.
* Refuse to submit or to accept the inferior position.
* Expose the injustice of the system.
* Take control of the power dynamic.
* Shame the oppressor into repentance.
* Stand your ground.
* Force the Powers into decisions for which they are not prepared.
* Recognize your own power.
* Be willing to suffer rather than retaliate.
* Force the oppressor to see you in a new light.
* Deprive the oppressor of a situation where force is effective.
* Be willing to undergo the penalty of breaking unjust laws.

FORGIVING OUR ENEMIES. I was reminded of the power and promise of Wink's Biblical interpretation as I was doing research for a Palm Sunday message on "facing" (giving faces to) and forgiving our enemies. This is one in a six-part series on forgiveness. I invite you look in on the series notes on the WEMO website (click on "The Compass"). It's also possible to listen to these sermons too, via our WEMO website (click on "Sermons Online").

1 comment:

Greg said...: Thanks for this. Wink is great. I'm reminded of Yoder's warning against a "hyper-spiritualized" gospel. I think Wink understands this as he holds together both the physical and the spiritual in his understanding of the Powers. - Greg Coates; 9:59 PM

Post a Comment

PEOPLE OF PEACE

“What we set about when we began following Jesus was to become radically Christian persons linked in Christian compassion to a world of great evil… We really can’t find anything better to declare than ‘the peace of God that passeth all understanding.’ His shalom can fill those who trust in Him with the spiritual resources which will enable them to wage war on war, and provide them with weapons which by their peaceableness partakes of the nature of the kingdom for whose coming they both pray and work.” -- Timothy L. Smith

FIND THE HABITS OF PEACE

"Christians are prohibited from ever despairing of the peace possible in the world. We know that as God’s creatures we are not naturally violent nor are our institutions unavoidably violent. As God’s people we have been created for peace. Rather, what we must do is to help the world find the habits of peace whose absence so often makes violence seem like the only alternative. Peacemaking as a virtue is an act of imagination built on long habits of the resolution of differences.... The great problem in the world is that our imagination has been stilled, since it has not made a practice of confronting wrongs so that violence might be avoided. In truth, we must say that the church has too often failed the world by its failure to witness in our own life the kind of conflict necessary to be a community of peace. Without an example of peacemaking community, the world has no alternative but to use violence as a means to settle disputes.” -- Stanley Hauerwas

PEACEABLENESS

"What leads to peace is not violence but peaceableness, which is not passivity, but an alert, informed, practiced, and active state of being. We should recognize that while we have extravagantly subsidized the means of war, we have almost totally neglected the ways of peaceableness. We have, for example, several national military academies, but not one peace academy. We have ignored the teachings and the examples of Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and other peaceable leaders. And here we have an inescapable duty to notice also that war is profitable, whereas the means of peaceableness, being cheap or free, make no money." - Wendell Berry

THE END OF VIOLENCE

"Violence is immensely compelling. Those who witness spectacles of violence can be seduced by its logic even when -- perhaps especially when -- they are morally scandalized by it. Violence is labyrinthine. It turns back on itself in serpentine ways. The paths that seem to exist from its madness so often lead deeper into its maze. Violence is literally a-mazing. The traditional way of resisting evil causes the contagion of evil to spread, perpetrated by those who are most determined to eradicate it. How to resist evil in ways that prevent its spread is now history's most fundamental dilemma..... Both Christianity's scriptural sources and its creedal formulae pivot around a public execution, an act of official violence regarded as legally righteous by the political authorities and as a sacred duty by the religionists. The Christian Scriptures and creeds make the outlandish assertion that because of this public execution the grip of sin has been broken, the human race has been offered a new lease on life and, at the same time, placed in grave peril if it refuses the offer..... By moral effort alone one cannot free oneself from the grip of the sacred and the logic of violence. The logos of conventional culture consists of so pervasive a web of conditioned reflexes that we remain largely oblivious of its influence. If we are to be freed from it, something from outside the cultural mix must break in on us. Structurally and anthropologically speaking, there is only one thing truly outside this matrix: the victim whose expulsion brought the system into being in the first place, the stone rejected by the builders of all culture, the Lamb slain since the foundation of the world.... The spiritual and anthropological revolution set in motion by the crucifixion is a glacial process the driving force of which is the 'Spirit of Truth,' -- the Paraclete (John 16:7-8). It was to be the task of this Spirit of Truth to gradually 'accomplish' historically what was 'accomplished' in the hearts of Jesus' disciples at the crucifixion and in the days that followed it.... From the moment of the crucifixion onward, the Paraclete would be at work in the world, slowly giving the victim's voice the ability to sweep away the logic of the mind, the logic of history, the logic of politics, and whatever contemporary myths might lend violence a momentary aura of righteousness. However formidable the structures of the sacrificial system might be, however beguilingly and discretely these structures might resort to their scapegoating mechanisms, relentlessly the Paraclete would 'show the world how wrong it was,' gradually leading humanity to 'the complete truth' (John 16:8, 13)." - Gil Baillie in Violence Unveiled