Looking for Jesus: Refuges in Faith
An interesting article in the age today with some familiar names quoted and mentioned: Credo Cafe, Cheryl Lawrie, Mark Sayers, Ruth Powell, Alan Hirsch, Don Carson and others.
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Recent entries
April 16th, 2007 at 9:46 am
No Rev you fight it as much as possible like Paul because the charges are baseless.
However in the end you can’t fight the sentence if it goes against you can you?
If someone threatens me with a gun and tells me to renounce Christ otherwise he will me me I will not renounce and try to save my life.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Do not fight evil with evil, if someone strikes you on one cheek turn to him the other.
No I guess you’re right homer and Jesus was wrong.
I’m glad I’ve accepted you inton my heart as my personal saviour Homer - Jesus was all sooky and stuff, I like your manliness and intelligence…and stuff
April 16th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Homer, are you saying that the only reason Christ didn’t fight against his arrest and crucifixion was because that’s what he was sent here for?
April 16th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Sort of kept an eye on this one.
I agree if you’re being threatened for Christ’s sake, and/or because you’re a Christian Jesus teaches a particular response.
Basis: enemy thinks death is the ultimate weapon; Jesus defeated death an its no longer a relationship breaker for those that love Him, and for who He has saved.
The purpose of this response I suppose is show the “enemy” one last, that even if they kill us they ain’t gonna win.
Now I accept this on the basis of what someone will do to me, because I am a Christian.
Question: a man breaks into your house, and rapes your wife or your daughter - because you are a Christian, and you are there - what do you do?
Gojng to work now
Cheers
MN
April 16th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Two quick variations on a theme…then I’m gone.
You’re walking down the street, and see some one having the crap being beaten out them. What do you do?
Var 1. Assuming you intervene, the victim runs away, and the assailant has a go at you.
Var 2. You pull the assailant off, he turns on you, but victim 1 is badly injured and can’t run away. The assailant beats the crap out of you, then starts back on victim 1.
What do you do? What are the various implications of those actions or inactions?
Cheers
MN
April 16th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
MN, I’m not sure they have to be such small scale/local scenarios - in fact, I think those scenarious are easier than the ‘large scale’ ones…and I’d add that in the case of the scenarios you provide, all the Rev would have to do would be reach out one arm and pick a bloke up.
:D 
What are the implications in the case of widespread, mass genocide, ie Rwanda? Or even smaller scale but escalating violence, ie Solomon Islands? This is where Bonhoeffer’s predicament makes complete sense to me.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Yes, Bonhoeffer’s predicament (and that of Barth who was an early influence) was far more complex. And he struggled with it as we all do.
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3079
http://www.crosscurrents.org/hollandf20.htm
Contrast with Ghandi who basically said, oh the Jews should have just gone quietly to their slaughter as with the rest of Europe.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
It is a bit hard for me to deal with these issues as I am a 105 kilo man, with 15 years of wrestling training, I have the ability to stop a beating without hurting anyone. I know this is not the same scenario for Bec, or maybe even you mn
I will say that I believe that this isn’t supposed to make sense and is one of those trust in the Lord things. And I make plenty of room for those that will say in these extreme cases we must act in our own defense. So I understand that my pacifist stance is not the only way to look at things, but if you read the writings of John Dear, or John Howard Yoder, you will see that violence is actually always a downwards spiral.
King said it very well, darkness cannot cast out darkness, only light can do that.
rev
April 16th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Gandhi most certainly said nothing about going quietly to their slaughter, Gandhi did not go quitely. There is a big difference between non violent civil disobedience and going quitly. Now if the Jews fight back they get slaughtered, if they practice non violent civil disobedience they may get slaughter as well, but it forces the wielders of violence to come face to face with their evil, and the rest of the world as well. Do nothing is not the answer, but I do not believe war or killing is either.
rev
April 16th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Greg, I think you need to understand the difference between someone hitting you on the cheek and putting a sword through your guts.
Perhaps look at the three examples Jesus gives you when he is explaining and you will see you are up the wrong trail.
Bec, don’t you think that is what he was doing. What sort of defence did he put up for the obvious bogus charges?
April 16th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
So how much Violence do you accept before you retaliate Homer? Obviously not for a slap, how about a punch? Or does it take maybe a mean look, two punches and a shove? You still haven’t explained to me why the disciples didn’t fight back against their killers? And the rest of the early church?
rev
April 16th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I retaliate if someone is going to be violent.
err rev the disciples who were killed by the State were arrested. We really only know of Paul and his initial arrest and he was saved from death because of that.
Paul argued his case and eventually lost.
I am afraid you do not discern the difference between being unjustly arrested tried and convicted (or even justly like Daniel) and some hoon attempting to kill you.
I would have thought the Samaritan would have been justified in retaliation if he was able to.
April 16th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
MN… I think most rapists pick on lone women, unless they’re with an intimidating gang and can tie you up / hold you at gunpoint first.
Scenario 2… you could make a lot of noise to distract said person, yell for help, and ring the police… all of these actions might act as a circuit breaker without you having to lay a punch.
If you’re as big as the Rev you can probably just tell them to stop.
Which brings up another issue to throw into the mix…
I went to a Christian peace and disarmament conference (well, as I remember it back in the mists of time when the Berlin Wall was up and there was still a cold war on) and I remember one of the speakers talking about disarmament STEPS… arguing that total unilateral disarmament was naive because power moves into a vacuum… but that disarmament steps can halt a crazy cycle, thaw hostilities and allow a climate of negotiation and greater trust.
The argument to me suggested that a country with no army and no allies is likely to be invaded… power will move into the vacuum, countries do not always behave decently. A society with no functional police force can descend into chaos.
It seems to me the best governance structure for countries we have yet conceived of in a fallen world is a democratic government, with regular free and fair elections, with an independent judiciary, a free and independent press, with basic human rights enshrined and protected by law, a reasonably free economy (ie some private enterprise) with strong social safety nets, including access to health care, education and income support… this keeps all of the powers in some kind of balance and protects the welfare of the vulnerable.
I know this is a very free ranging conversation… but… there’s the issue of what individual Christians should do… and the issue of what kind of society functions best given that we’re not all Christians and sin is alive and well… and then whether Christians can participate in society’s power structures at all (Can Christians be teachers? Can Christians be judges? Can Christians serve in a police force? Sometimes… never?)
And lastly.. what should the church look like?
Power is a very complicated thing.
April 16th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
And then there’s international relations… should one intervene in a Rwanda-style situation?
But on another matter…
How are you and your family, Homer? You’ve been very quiet on Signposts for a while. Are you OK?
April 16th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
That’s assuming they have a moral stance that recognizes evil much less requires one to stand up to it.
In the end the only thing that stopped Hitler were the Allies.
It is one thing for Christians to be persecuted for their faith. Quite another for Christians to stand by while someone is killing others.
April 16th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Homer, in Ephesus a Christian man was taken and beaten by a crowd, and the Christians didn’t use violence to stop it. Many of the early church martyrs were killed by tribal violence not governmental executions, but again they did not fight to defend themselves.
Janet, I feel like I have addressed many of these issues already, and you are right, the power issue is at the bottom of everything.
Saint,
so are you saying that the echo of Gods creation, and the knowledge of right and wrong is not possesed by others? You may turn your back on those feelings, but only a sociopath does not know when they are doing wrong, and they are very few and far between. Also, your last sentence makes no rational sense to me. So if someone is killing me for my faith I accept the persecution as Jesus said, but if they are killing me for my house, my car, or my nationality then I can fight?
Would Jesus kill someone? I don’t care about just war theory, just answer that question. The Jesus I read about in the gospels says put your swords away, that we are to rejoice when we are persecuted, that we are to love our enemies and pray for them. Homer still hasn’t explained how we show love to our enemies by killing them.
rev
April 16th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Alright I’m slow… just trying to clarify the nuances of your position…
In particular, what about being a Christian teacher in a school… that does involve exercising institutional authority sometimes, as well as relational authority whenever possible. Is that kind of exercise of power OK in your view (eg giving a detention)
April 16th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
sorry Janet, I didn’t mean that you were slow or not paying attention. I do believe there is some power that needs to be exercised in regards to children, however, I do believe that our current school structures are based on unhealthy models as well, and encourages the us them mentalities that will dominate the culture in the future. We home schooled our children, and I believe that was a much more natural environment for them.
Whenever there is institution it means there are some dehumanizing forces necessarily part of this. I personally believe that good people can serve admirably in these positions, but ultimately I think these structures that create these types of positions are not in the best interest of society or individuals.
rev
April 16th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Janet
re your response to me at 163 - it has actually happened here in WA where someone broke into a house, subdued the man of the house and raped the partner in front of him. Not because he/they were Christians - but it happened. This is an old plot line about humiliating not only the woman , but their men as well.
Agree this is not a large scale issue, but from small things big things grow.
I’m inclined to agree with Saint at 165:
“It is one thing for Christians to be persecuted for their faith. Quite another for Christians to stand by while someone is killing others.”
Dare I raise Jesus driving out the moneychangers with a whip of cords - don’t tell me He didn’t know how to use it to great effect.
The point about this incident is that Jesus was not passive when confronted with evil - he was very active in fact - and yes I acknowledge He didn’t kill anyone.
With respect Saint’s point, and I think the greater is do Christians stand by and allow evil to happen?
I understand the Rev when he says he allows a lot of leeway.
A tangent - isn’t it interesting though in the OT where when God has had enough, the Israelites suffer big time and it usually means lots of death and hardship - but this position is usually after much warning and because they didn’t honour God, worshipped idols, and didn’t look after the widows, orphans etc.
To return to the main point - I think if Christians can prevent evil particularly where being carried out against others they have an obligation to do so. Sometimes that might mean that the perpetrators die as well the defenders - we all die sometime.
I think WW2 was the right thing to do in the sense that the Allies in effect stopped, but in thinking about most other wars I can’t see that that is the norm. Most of the time either wrong things are done, or right things are not (Rwanda, Darfur).
I also point out the Preacher said there is a time to kill. Not an easy topic.
Cheers
MN
April 16th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Hi, thanks dogbreath for your comments and smithus? i think I was under the impression that bonhoeffer was involved /knew about several attempts to kill hitler but will defer to your greater knowledge.
This stuff is so hard because whenever you use violence and justify its use I think you’re on shaky ground…eg the US trying to justify it invasion of Iraq because of it’s “evil dictatorship”. It’s nice rhetoric, but using humanitarian language to cover up the truth - that the US made a big mistake in claiming Iraq was WMD et etc - to then justify violence in a war that seems to have no ned…just seems to highlight the rev’s point that violence is always a neverending cycle.
The rwanda thing etc is hard for me because I am a big fan of the UN (mostly) and to me an African life should be worth exactly the same as my neighbour’s life. If I saw someone going into their home to kill the all, what would I do? Call the police I guess and I wuld want to see intervention in a casw where there’s mass slaughter going on.
But I was thinkning way out of the box and thought - what should our response as Christians really be? In Germany for instance, if every single Christian had decided to passively resist the Nazis, what would have happened? If Christians had decided to all wear yellow stars so no one would know if you were a Jew or a not…instead of priests putting the sign of the swaztika on their robes. What of Christians had lined up for the gas chambers and said, I’ll take a Jew’s place? What if the worls had refused to engage Germany in any economic transactions until the Nazis were out of power? What if we saw mass slaughter in an other country, sold our houses, went to that country and stood in front of those people who were going to be killed? I guess we’d be killed too, and who knows of it would make much of a differemce. But I think our first answer is often violence, when Jesus calls us to radical solutions for peace.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I’m going to come out and say it,
I’m a big fan of Christians with Guns.
Now before anyone gets the wrong idea, Charlton Heston and the NRA are a bunch of mindless trigger happy tools.
No I am talking about liberation theology.
Now my introduction to liberation theology came as a young man, I was dividing my time between studying theology and playing soldiers in the Army reserve, so it is possible I was seduced by the romanticism. But I loved the stories of parish priests taking up arms alongside their oppressed parishioners in an attempt to stop the military strongmen and corrupt dictators of Latin America. I love the idea of guerrilla fighters like Torres. Now I know not all of the fathers of liberation theology were taking up arms. Archbishop Romero was shot after denouncing his government from the pulpit and calling for soldiers not to fire on the peasants “no soldier is obliged to obey an order that is against God’s law. No one has to obey an immoral law”
No matter which choice these men made, to die preaching peace or to take up arms against a sea of iniquity, you can bet that the people around them did not doubt their commitment.
Can you imagine them trying to convince people of God’s love by demanding belief in a literal seven day creation? Or to claim that they are relevant to the lives of those around them, while retiring to a gated community in the rich part of town once the curfew sounded?
These were not people who admired Jesus, these were people who stood shoulder to shoulder with his example and while Jesus did not take up arms himself, I can’t deny the commitment of these men to their belief that making life better for the oppressed was following his example.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
You better get off the soap box now….you’ll get nose bleed deary
April 16th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
You’d better not be calling me deary, cos them there’s fightin wurds.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Alright deary…you’re in the Alice aren’t you…it’s a dool to the death at I dunno…how many paces is it from Perth??
April 16th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Sadly ADHD must have gone to bed because he is in a different time zone!
April 16th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
I have no problems with Christians as soldiers, policemen, politicians etc who may be called on to either authorize the use of force or to use force as agents of the state. And I would say the in our contemporary world, the state alone has the authority to declare war and only delegated authorities have the right to use force. In fact, I would prefer that our civil and armed forces have a healthy smattering of Christians. But of course that also presupposes an ordered and civil society with those sorts of institutions in place. Gets tricky when you have the sort of failed state as we have seen with Somalia. Or when someone is holding a gun to your kid’s head.
Personally I neither have the Rev’s physique or training and mercifully I have not had to deal with many dangerous or threatening situations but I have intervened physically on some occasions (e.g. to prevent a robbery of a stranger) and mostly overseas in more obscure parts of the globe.
I note that God called the ancient Israelites to war for very interesting reasons (see beginning of Judges for example). Now that was a particular time and phase in salvation history but you know, I am not the sort who thinks the God of the OT is different from the God of the NT.
I don’t think that the church should ever call for war but I think the church has a right to speak to the reasons for the state declaring war and/or matters of crime and justice and to provide support to soldiers who are called to participate as well as to victims etc.
I note that Jesus never called anyone to leave the army or stop tax collecting or even to stop paying taxes, even though he called adulterers to go away and sin no more and told tax collectors to stop extortion and Paul gently twisted Philemon’s arm to free Onesimus - who as a runaway slave.
I note too that he never repudiated “violence” - he himself could have called down a legion of angels as he said during his trial (and I don’t think it would have been for a harp party), but he also did not let the threat of violence stop Him from doing God’s will. And well Ananias and Sapphira got a first hand taste of God’s judgment. So the question of “did Jesus kill anyone?” I think is the wrong one.
My understanding too - and the historians can correct me here - is that the early Christians in the Roman Empire refused to be soldiers not because of soldiering but because in many cases joining the Roman army also required adherence to the emperor cult.
What I am saying here is that life is a lot more complicated, and that I too am loathe to lay down absolutes. I am not a fan of just war theory nor am I a fan of absolute non-violence - although I tend to use the term “force”.
Personally I think the best peacemakers are Christian missionaries (not silly peaceniks acting like human shields for dictators like Arafat or Saddam or the Taliban or even Christians with guns) but in this day and age where we have a bigger threat from “non-conventional war” or “asymmetric warfare” (e.g. terrorism, state sponsored violence such as in Dafur, tribalism etc) we as Christians should think about what it really means to be peacemakers. Sometimes the threat of force or even force may be necessary…
April 16th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
And Rev, in answer to your question about the echoes of right and wrong - yes that is in most of us. But when you get to ideologues be they the Hitlers and the Pol Pots and the Stalins and the Osama bin Ladens, sometimes their minds are so darkened they have lost most sense of it. Good grief we just had a stupid woman visiting us over Easter (Yvonne Ridley) who thinks the Beslan terrorists are martyrs. Martyrs to what I wonder - certainly not martyrs (witnesses) of a God who is merciful, just and GOOD.
April 16th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Well I think it is always wrong to do violence, always. Sometimes I might be persuaded to think it may be the lesser of two wrongs, but I think that is weakness on my part. I believe Emma is correct that if all Christians actually took the part as suffering servants willing to die to protect others, but not willing to kill to do it, we could not only end war, but hunger in the process. But it is much easier to kill people.
Pol Pots and Hitlers are just single men, only empowered by men under them that have been taught to obey orders.
rev
April 16th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
One must put the ones taught to obey orders in the context of a Germany where the faith was anaemic amongst both Protestants and Catholics. This is not to say that there weren’t Christians who spoke up, deserted, or otherwise engaged in underground activities. My own grandmother was imprisoned by the Germans and was facing execution but for one soldier who “let her escape”.
This is why I would rather see a small church of true disciples than large lollipop congregations of Hillsongs. This is why I would rather committed Christians (and given our common heritage, also Jews) in armed forces then just any Tom Dick or Harriet. And I am thankful for the many Christians in our services.
On Rwanda that someone mentioned above (I am about to hit the hay so too lazy to check again who) - we should remember that predominantly “Christians” - Catholic but also Protestants - were involved in those massacres. JPII pointed out that the church never sanctioned those actions, but it does show to a very aweful extent the problem of tribalism still faced by many churches in the two third’s word and that conversion is a life long process. It also showed the one third world the fruits of *their* complacency and lack of faith - that would be us too.
April 17th, 2007 at 12:13 am
Rev re “…if all Christians actually took the part as suffering servants willing to die to protect others, but not willing to kill to do it, we could not only end war, but hunger in the process. But it is much easier to kill people.
Pol Pots and Hitlers are just single men, only empowered by men under them that have been taught to obey orders.”
Three points - th Bible patently makes clear that we will not end war, and that the nearer to the end we get the more of them there will be. I don’t think we should be acting on the basis that we will end - cause that ain’t gonna happen, until Jesus comes back (don’t care whether you’re pre, post or a).
You’re quite correct in that dictators are just single men who derive their power from other men ceding or joining theirs to the dictator. And yes…they can make an existential choice not to do so, bu the point is that they do, and they will continue to do so, if for no other reason than that they do not know God, and if they did (remember the demons) would refuse to acknowledge him anyway.
The third point follows - we’re in a war anyway - whether the symptoms are violence or materialism - the result is just the same.
Perhaps then the question is how do we wage the war that we’re already in. The wars you have been speaking of are just one aspect of that.
The impact of nation states keeps mentioned. That would be an interesting topic of study in its own right, but states aren’t Christian - people are. The question there is what are the various ways to influence nations - our own and others - to do good or desist from evil? At that point I’m with Janet, because unless there is a massive revival, the best way to do that is to influence the system from within - that’s what Gorbachev did (I know he’s not a Christian - I think).
Anyway you’re best answer is probably in that para anyway - that old fashioned word - revival.
One last thing Rev - there might be differences between a number of us S’Posters and the body in general - but like Elijah we need to remember that we’re not on our own - despite those differences. That is supposed to be encouragement.
Cheers
MN
Cheers
MN