Defiant, but hanged
There has been a lot of comment over the last couple of days about the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Some of it has even penetrated the busyness of the season to resonate a little. I have been reflecting a little on a photo that was on the age website (which I now cannot find). It was a side on picture of Hussein, his head lowered with the noose around his neck. And for some reason I thought that I had seen a very similar image before recently. Or that the image was evoking reactions in me that had stirred in relation to something similar. For the life of me I couldn’t figure it out.
It came to me in the end. The image was evoking for me the photos of the Abu Graib torture. The last time I saw such a high profile image of someone with a noose around their neck, it was damning evidence of torture. I haven’t read much commentary so I don’t know how original this response was, and maybe it is entirely appropriate that a known torturer die with these sorts of images echoing in my head.
But I can’t really believe that. I don’t remember very much about the victims of the Abu Graib torture. Because it was irrelevant what crimes the victims may have been guilty of. I do remember a fair bit about the people in those photos who were putting nooses around necks. When talking about outrageous and obscene acts such as torture, the perpetrators commit a crime against humanity itself, not just against the individual victim. Such acts diminish the human race.
I am pretty comfortable calling Hussein evil. He was certainly a man worthy of criminal punishment. But in hanging him, and in condoning or accepting or allowing or refusing to condemn that action, we are smaller and less just and just less.
January 15th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
“Isn’t a country with no army and no allies a sitting duck?
Isn’t a modern country with no functioning police force and no legal system inviting anarchy?”
I don’t think any state will ever allow Christian pacifists to gain positions of power and I wouldn’t dictate to the world how it should organise itself. The best we can do is have an influence on governments and each person should follow his conscience. I don’t think Christians should participate in the taking of life but it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the rule of law or think that nations shouldn’t have armies. They will, regardless of what we think. Christian pacifism doesn’t assume that states are ‘Christian’. No country swears allegiance to Christ first and foremost that I know of. Christians will participate up to the point where they believe there is a conflict between the teachings of Jesus and their occupational or national duty.
The early Christians for example figured that if you were in the military, or a government officer when you accepted Christ then you could remain there but you must not kill anyone. If ordered to do so then you were to refuse, although many left military service as soon as possible.
But the issue of Capital punishment was/is a lot clearer. Christians shouldn’t participate in or support it.
January 15th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Halieus, I agree that the issue of capital punishment is far clearer than the issue of wars between nation states - and I really don’t think the two can be compared.
January 15th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
I have made my view very clear, it is always wrong to use violence, always everytime. If we are to follow Jesus, then many of us will die. It is the seeds of the church. The first three hundred years of the church shows exactly how we are to live. Gandhi showed it. Martin Luther King, showed it. And the Christian communities in China showed it.
Homer, what are you suggesting? That Jesus would have said to the thieves you are wrong, you don’t deserve to be here, I will send you down? The Roman government killed people, often unjustly, are you suggesting Jesus approved of that? You really do know nothing about Jesus.
rev
January 15th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I am suggesting Jesus was in the perfect position to state what you wished him to but didn’t rev.
We are ONLY talking about the two criminals who were to be punished ‘justly’ for their offences.
As ever your biblical evidence withers away with reading.
Halieus, are you saying if a person was ready to kill you you would do nothing?
January 15th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Nor did Jesus state they deserved to be killed Homer.
January 15th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Bec, I agree, they shouldn’t really be compared. War and military participation is a separate issue from CP.
Homer, I know that only Grace can keep me from corruptly reasoning why I shouldn’t turn the other cheek in this instance or love my enemies in that instance or why I shouldn’t repay evil with good in some other instance. The important thing for me is to understand and believe the truth even when I don’t think it’s possible for me to live it, to carry the message in my heart and trust God to do the work.
Stephen died asking God not to hold his murder against his killers.
It’s extraordinary to forgive the people who hate you and are in the process of bludgeoning you to death. Stephen was an example of living Christianity, the opposite of what might be considered a natural response.
I don’t know if I would be the saint that Stephen was. I hope that I would. I’ve had my life threatened and managed to diffuse the situation through a passive response and I know that the truth is not to retaliate or repay evil with evil.
That was the practice of the earliest Christians. They also didn’t participate in capital punishment.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
It’s a really interesting issue isn’t it? I agree if there we’re a “critical mass” of pacifists it would change the world… albeit with some martyrdom along the way.
But… it’s certainly an issue that involves some agonsing decisions. Deitrich Bonhoffer made the decision to be involved in a plot to assasinate Adolf Hitler in an attempt to save the lives of many… I don’t think I could “play God” in that way… but you’d have to say in a world where evil exists there are tough choices to make.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Rev - that’s just answering, not really grappling with, the complexities of my post.
The point I was trying to make is that I used to feel like you. And then I went to countries where I was confronted with the reality of the cost of what I professed to believe. And I found that my beliefs just didn’t stack up with the reality. Maybe that’s selling out, but I just feel it’s really easy for you or I - as white people living in Australia - to say that violence is always wrong.
Can you delve into methodology? Ie, what would you propose instead for places like Rwanda, Sudan, Bosnia etc…
January 15th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Sorry, I should have added - it’s one thing for ME to be prepared to die for my beliefs, it’s quite another for me to offer up the life of someone else - which is what I think pacifism can often do. This is the point I was trying to make with the Solomons - Australia was REPEATEDLY asked for assistance.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Janet, the early church did not start with a “critical mass” yet they conquered an empire but their refusal of violence and their dedication to love.
Homer, can you list one singe reference of the early church fathers that says they understood scripture like you do? One letter approving of war, or capital punishment? Can you list one New Testement verse in favour of war or capital punishment? Just one, Homer, surely there is one isn’t there?
When Jesus was in the situation to participate in capital punishment he refused and said that only those who had never sinned were worthy to do the killing. In other words, Jesus was the only living person in the entire history of the world that was qualified to take life, and He refused, but you would not! that is very telling. All of your talk of societal laws is bullshit, there is not one verse in the new testement that conquers with that thesis. You are arguing completely from the old testement, yet Jesus came to show us a different way. I the old testement we had to kill an animal for forgiveness, now we don’t. In the old testement we were to take “justice” yet now we are called to suffer wrong doing. In fact Jesus tells us that if someone takes our coat to give them our shirt as well. Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to pray for those that abuse us, to turn the other cheek, and then follows that all up by saying if you do not put these teachings into practice you are a foolish man who is building upon an unstable foundation.
You are so far away from Jesus example, yet continue to rationalize your own sick need for retribution and violence. Why Homer? Whe are you so against the Jesus of the bible, that you search over every page trying to negate what Jesus actually said and did?
It is a sad and disgusting thing, I am trully saddened for your souls putrid state.
rev
January 15th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
ouch!
January 15th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Bec,
I have been to places in Mexico where the oppression of people is unbelievable, I would not kill for them, but I would die for them. That is the way of Christ, in what seemed like his failure, you find His glory. Your statement is basically, “I have experienced this so I am more qualified to speak about this” which is not very polite debate. The way of Jesus is very hard, a narrow, difficult path, yet is the only one we are offered. If you want to take the power of life into your hands you do so without Jesus on your side, no matter how “humanitarian” your goals.
That is why the song, “if I had a rocket launcher” by Bruce Cockburn is so powerful to me, when you see the suffering and injustice in the world you desire to strike back, and Bruce struggled with the dichotomy of his heart and his head. Yet Jesus confronted with the continuing violence of human history, calls us to pray for the abusers, to stand and be martyred if neccesary for the oppressed, but not to fight. Every single one of his disciples new this, and the first three hundred years of the church they lived it, even when they were being set on fire alive, to light the games where others were fed to gladiators or animals in front of a bloodthirsty crowd. They did not fight back, the sowed their blood, and from it sprouted the new faith of converts to the point where the Roman empire was forced to bow.
This is the way of Christ, and though it may seem impractical, it is the path that we say we are called to follow.
rev
January 15th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Rev,
I was most definitely not saying “I have experienced this so I am qualified to speak about this”. I wasn’t trying to prove my “credentials” - I quote those experiences because they were very profound for me, and had an enormous impact on me.
You say you’re prepared to lay down your life for your friends, but what exactly does that mean, and how do you propose to halt the conflict occurring around the world? What do you propose for a country like the Solomons, where people from all levels of society are requesting intervention, and where they still say it was necessary (people in the Solomons are quite anti-RAMSI, but when you dig beneath that statement, they’re pro-intervention but don’t like the postcolonial manner in which it has occurred, nor do they like the fact that the focus is on law and order rather than social and economic development)? To me, it would seem really hypocritical for me to sit on my high horse as a white Aussie girl from a middle-class background and with a tertiary education and go “nup, I’m just gonna come over and try and talk to the leaders of the militia”.
The people you’re referring to, the martyrs…they all made their own choices. They chose to give up their own lives. I hope I’d be prepared to give up my own life, but I’m not prepared to offer up the lives of others - that’s their choice to make, not mine. So I return to my question: what do we do when people request armed intervention?
Or on a smaller scale, what would you do if someone bigger and stronger than you was threatening your wife or daughters, and it had become very, very clear that you simply could not save their life unless you took the attackers? (Sorry to make it personal - I know it’s a touchy example, but I can’t think of anything else right now).
January 15th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Gah, doing the “oh and…” thing again.
Rev, I referred to those experiences because they profoundly challenged the way I thought about things. When your ideals and reality come into sharp relief like that, you can’t help but refer to your experiences when trying to tell the story of how you came to be where you are. And so far, I’ve never come across a pacifist Christian that could convince me that my confusion - NOTE I said my CONFUSION - is unjustified. I appreciate what you believe, I respect it immensely - but so far you haven’t proposed an alternative to me. So far you haven’t shown me how I could intervene so as to save the lives of the people I love. That’s the nub of it for me.
January 15th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
If my wife or daughters were attacked, I would like to say I would defend them nonviolently if possible. I would like to say I would stand and get slain rather than fight back, but as the emotional man I am I do not know if I could do that. My “confusion” is not about what I should do, but what I am capable of doing in an extreme circumstance.
As to what can we do about the Soloman Islands, we most likely can do one of two things:
Send in armed troupes
Or go stand in solidarity with the people, and let them know that they are loved and that you would die for them.
Jesus didn’t save us from violence, He invited us into a new world of nonviolence. When we refuse to take violence into the world, even though we suffer violence the way of love wins, even if we die. For three hundred years this is the way the followers of Jesus acted. Was there injustice? Was there violence? Was their loved ones suffering, and being murdered in the most horrible of ways? And how did the disciples, and their disciples react to this? In the same way they were taught by word and deed by Jesus. THey stood in love with the oppressed and took upon their own bodies the wounds meant for others. They trusted that God would convict hearts, and hearts were convicted. They challenged Diocletion so completely that he had his own son and wife murdered as they had become followers of the way.
The blood of the martyrs was not only shed in their own refusal to stand against their own oppressors, but they had wives and children that were being persecuted as well, and they refused to arm themselves and fight.
So rather than say, well this is a hard one, so I will make allowances for it, I am saying this is a hard one, and I do not know if push comes to shove if I can follow it to its limit, but I will try to the best of my ability, and trust God’s Spirit to strengthen me. There may be just wars, but there are not Christian ones.
rev
January 15th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
people in the Solomons are quite anti-RAMSI - what is RAMSI?
January 15th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Oh and I do understand your confusion, or difficulty. Completely. I understand why Bonhoeffer tried to kill Hitler. I understand how hard it is to not take matters into your own hands. That is why I love that song I mentioned earlier, here is a peace activist and pacifist bound up with so much tension, because when he sees innocents dying, he wants to put an end to it by any means neccessary. It is an intense struggle, very hard, and to be honest my position just doesn’t seem to make sense in todays world, but…
God’s ways are not our ways. Peter scolded Jesus for his ridiculous plan to be murdered, but it was in that act of love against violence, that the church was born, and we were redeemed and given keys to the kingdom. Unfortunately those keys are seldom used.
rev
January 15th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
For all those who feel that lethal force or any form of violence is an acceptable Christian response to aggression then please tell me what’s wrong with this picture?
January 15th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
and in fact Jesus told Peter to put his sword away!
January 15th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Greg,
Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands - it’s a regional force, initially comprised of army and police, now mainly police plus public servants working in government departments. It’s focusing mainly on institutional reform, rather than community development, which is the issue most Solomon Islanders have with it. They talk about how now they have “peace without security”…most people think that RAMSI just put a lid on the violence, it hasn’t achieved any long-term solutions.
Rev, I would always choose standing in solidarity with people over sending in troops. But the reality is that not enough people are prepared to go. Now, I know this is a chicken-or-the-egg thing - you would no doubt respond, quite legitimately, that well, we have to model the change we want to see in the world. That’s true. But I guess Bonhoeffer felt that such change was going to take too long, and that hundreds of people were dying in the mean-time…and that’s where I find myself.
BTW, you might all be interested to know that the peace keeping force that went into Bougainville was very small (I think it was only 20 people or something) and unarmed. Bougainville is fairly similar to the Solomons culturally, so it would be interesting to look at the two conflicts, the responses etc, and possibly draw some conclusions…I’m not sure whether anyone’s done that yet…
January 15th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
well I guess you could say that waiting for two thousand years to complete things was taking a bit too long too!
rev
January 15th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
“and in fact Jesus told Peter to put his sword away!”
Christians changed their swords into plowshares.
Also, Saul was a murderer yet no-one in the church called for his death. Jesus’ followers simply didn’t support or carry out executions.
January 16th, 2007 at 7:48 am
Jesus told us to turn the other cheek, and he told Peter to put his sword away - in the first example, Jesus was telling us how to respond when someone wrongs us, and the second example demonstrates Jesus telling Peter not to defend him (Jesus) with violence. I’m really not up with the arguments, but I do know that Christians in the military often point to the fact that in the early church, there were Christians in the military. (I don’t know whether this is historically accurate, and the Rev seems to think not??)
January 16th, 2007 at 8:05 am
rev brings up the very poor example of the adulterous as a reason for saying Jesus did not support capital punishment.
Firstly what was the motives of the people there? Justice?
secondly was anyone there obeying God’s laws so drawing people to his kingdom which was the reason for the laws? err no
thirdly Jesus was setting up the church which meant the old levitical laws applying to Israel specifically did not apply. funny about that.
rev always avoids the punishment of the criminals beside Jesus despite the man saying they were just and no discussion from Jesus.
What we have here are people trying to justify their views through the bible which to this stage they have been unable to do.
People have mixed up forgiveness and punishment.
Oh Paul did not do anything illegal as it was according to Jewish law.
January 16th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Hippolytus, one of the early church fathers says point blank: the professions and trades of those who are going to be accepted into the community must be examined. A military constable must be forbidden to kill, neither may he swear (this is talking about oaths not bad words); if he is not willing to follow these instructions, he must be rejected. A proconsul or magistrate who wears the purple and governs by the sword shall give it up or be rejected. Anyone taking or already baptized who wants to become a soldier shall be sent away, for he has despised God.
The early church rejected power, and ruling by power!
rev
January 16th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Homer,
You are a stiff necked and hateful man, that refuses to see his own wrongness. Jesus did not tell the man on the cross next to him that he was wrong in his assesment of the situation? Well, the fact is according to Roman law he was guilty. But Jesus does not rule by Roman law does he? Jesus also says that his followers will be thrown before rulers and judged, yet He doesn’t condemn that so does that mean Jesus approves of the government killing Christians? Ofcourse not, your arguements are complete and utter crap. You are protecting your politics rather than seeing the truth of Jesus, and that is quite disgusting.
rev
January 16th, 2007 at 8:56 am
thirdly Jesus was setting up the church which meant the old levitical laws applying to Israel specifically did not apply. funny about that.
Jesus did not come to set up a church - in fact I am quite sure that what calls itself the church of Jesus in this day and age causes Jesus to weep - I am more and more considering dropping the descriptor ‘Christian’ in favour of a more simple ‘follower of Jesus of Nazareth’. The attitudes and crap poured out by the likes of you young homerpaline, my fine feathered friend, make that option even more attractive.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t love the church
January 16th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
actually rev what we are talking about is not being guilty but the punishment involved.
Just for the rev
Luke 23: 41
and we are indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man has done nothing wrong.
as we see rev brings up a biblical passage he knows has no relevance to this topic and then ignores his own argument.
In this way he is actually worse than Lance at least he is ignorant about what he says.
rev merely says the opposite of what the bible says and then brings in irrelevancies into the argument.
I do note all the anti-capital punishment people have yet to spell out what god is saying in Genesis 9:6
Greg, it may have escaped your notice but building the church is part of creating the Kingdom of God
January 16th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Rev mentioned Hippolytus (170-236AD) giving the instruction concerning Christians,
“A soldier of the the government must be told not to kill men; if he should be ordered to do it, he shall not do it.”
Apostolic Tradition 16:17-19.
There are many others that show us where early Christians stood on capital punishment. Here’s a few more.
Lactantius (260-330AD):
“Nor is it lawful for him [a Christian] to accuse anyone of a capital charge. For it makes no difference whether you put a man to death by word, or by the sword instead. That is because it is the act of putting to death itself that is prohibited. Therefore, with regard to this commandment of God, there should be no exception at all. Rather, it is always unlawful to put a man to death, whom God willed to be a sacred creature.” Ante-Nicene Fathers 7.187
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.iii.ii.vi.xx.html
Origen (185-255AD)
“For Christians could not slay their enemies, or condemn to be burned or stoned, as Moses commands”.
He also states that Christ had,
“altogether forbidden the putting of men to death”
and again,
“Christ nowhere teaches that it is right for His own disciples to offer violence to anyone, no matter how wicked. For He did not consider it to be in accord with His laws to allow the killing of any individual whomever.”
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-04/anf04-62.htm#P10973_2949955
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-04/anf04-57.htm#P8511_2145306
Athenagoras (written 175 A.D)
“For when they know that we cannot endure even to see a man put to death, though justly; who of them can accuse us of murder or cannibalism?…But we, deeming that to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him, have abjured such spectacles…How, then, when we do not even look on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put people to death?
Ante-Nicene Fathers 2:147
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.v.ii.xxxv.html
Cyprian (written 250 AD)
“Christians do not attack their assailants in return, for it is not lawful for the innocent to kill even the guilty.”
Ante-Nicene Fathers 5:351
January 16th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
halieus - well researched and well found! Top post and I think probably the nail in the justifiable lethal force and death penalty arguments. If the early Church fathers were of this opinion I think it harder for you to justify yours young hoerpaline my fine feathered friend and companion on lifes journey!