What makes the journey of a pacifist long and hard is because of course you are swimming upstream in America, and sometimes you are swimming against a torrential flood in the other direction… Some days I feel like moving to Switzerland, but then I remember, I am the loyal American opposition, and even if my voice is drowned out I still have a vote and a right to be heard…Some days I feel like John the Baptizer— a voice crying in a brutal wilderness.
I can barely express my
boundless admiration for BW3’s high-minded pacifism. Such is the depth of his
self-sacrificial conviction that, if push came to shove, he’d be prepared to
leave the comforts of home far behind and move to the outback of Switzerland.
Truly the cost of discipleship rarely exacts a higher price. Wasn’t Switzerland
where Brezhnev would banish dissidents, to send a blood-curdling message to
other would-be dissidents? Imagine BW3, in his hairshirt, having to tough it
out in a chalet overlooking Lake Lucerne, on a diet of chocolate-covered
locusts and wild honey-peach cake with sugared pistachios. What a cross to
bear! Would that more Christians had his humbling spirit of self-denial. His example reduces me to tears.
Pacifists and nonresistants alike are just this way. They talk about the burden they have to bear and how they're willing to die for their beliefs. They play up the HUGE difficulties they deal with in being pacifistic, but it's all just pathetic in comparison with people who aren't pacifists. I doubt Witherington (or Roger Olson for that matter) have any difficulties in life that even come close to a soldier worrying if he's going to get his legs blown off if he ventures into enemy territory. They complain about their being insulted or being considered pansies because of their views and they bawl about it like they're putting up with such burdensome trials. They have nothing to worry about. If they want something to be worried about, they can always move into a third-world country without the protection of the U.S. soldiers. THEN they can talk about their trials and tribulations.
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