The Sermon on the Mount is the primary prooftext for Christian pacifists. In my reading, a neglected consideration is the fact that hyperbole is a fixture of Christ's pedagogy. You find that throughout the Gospels as well as the Sermon on the Mount in particular. This doesn't mean we can impute hyperbole willy-nilly to whatever Jesus said. But it's something we must make allowance for. In some cases, hyperbolic is overt, but in other cases it's just understood. Take Christ's blanket statements about prayer promises. So we can't automatically take everything Jesus says at face value. There's no presumption in the abstract that the statements of Jesus on any particular occasions are or are not hyperbolic. But in some cases we may not be able to settle the question.
Showing posts with label pacifism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pacifism. Show all posts
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Friday, June 14, 2019
Pacifism and abolitionism
It's been a while since I've commented on AHA, but as I noted in a recent Facebook discussion, AHA has conflicting principles. The ultimate priority for abolitionists isn't to save babies but to preserve their imagined sense of moral purity. They regard incrementalism as ethically compromised.
This means that when push come to shove, if the abolitionist strategy resulted in a thousandfold increase in abortions (or infanticides), abolitionists would continue to support it because their imagined sense of moral purity trumps saving babies. It's not about saving babies at all, but keeping their hands clean (as they define it). If incrementalism saved more babies than abolitionism, they'd opt for saving fewer babies or none at all, rather than saving more babies but getting dirt under their fingernails in the process. They will only save babies if they can keep their white gloves pristine. They sacrifice the lives of babies to preserve their puritanical scruples rather than sacrificing their puritanical scruples to save the lives of babies.
There's a direct parallel between pacifism and abolitionism. A pacifist deems it intrinsically wrong to take life to save life. He makes no distinction between the life of a murderer and the life of the murder victim. If he had a chance to shoot the sniper in the clock tower who's gunning down little kids in the park, he will let all the kids be shot to death because his priority isn't saving innocent lives but keeping his hands clean (as he defines it). He will dismiss arguments for the right of self-defense as "pragmatism," "consequentialism," "situation ethics," "moral relativism". He will categorically dismiss the lesser-evil principle or the end-justifies-the-means.
That's directly parallel to abolitionists, only their target isn't the right of self-defense, but incrementalism. Like the pacifist, they'd rather keep their hands clean (as they define it) than save innocent lives.
Friday, August 03, 2018
Catholic pacifism
This is a sequel to my previous post:
1. Ross Douthat characterized the change in Catholic policy on the admission of divorced Catholics to communion as a elite crisis. I don't know whether the change regarding capital punishment will precipitate another crisis, but I'd say this is more of a rank-and-file issue. The doctrinal issues surrounding the readmission of divorced Catholics to communion are arcane and artificial. Only theological junkies care about that. By contrast, the reasoning behind the death penalty is much more accessible to the laity.
2. Gen 9:5-6 only directly authorizes capital punishment for murder. Yet the Mosaic law contains many capital offenses. In some cases, those may have a different rationale, such as the cultic holiness of Israel. In other cases, they may be an extension of the same principle: actions which desecrate divine image-bearers.
3. In relation to the new Catholic position, it isn't necessary to take a position on the degree of continuity or discontinuity between the Mosaic law and the new covenant. For the immediate question isn't whether any of those penalties remain mandatory, but whether they were ever morally permissible to begin with. If “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, then the Mosaic death penalties were always unwarranted.
Of course, many Catholic bishops, theologians, and academics are happy to grant that the Mosaic law was fallible and errant. Problem is, why should "the Church" be infallible if the Bible is fallible? Why should ecumenical councils or ex cathedra papal pronouncements be infallible if the Mosaic law is fallible and errant?
4. If “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, then that seems to rule out lethal force in self-defense as well as lethal force to protect other innocent lives, for taking human life, regardless of the situation, is an attack in the inviolability and dignity of the assailant.
Christian ethicists typically think that humans have a prima facie right to life which they can forfeit by certain actions. An armed intruder breaking into a private home forfeits his prima facie immunity to suffer harm.
However, the new official position of the Catholic church treats the dignity of the assailant as equal to the dignity of the victim. That's absolute. Nothing the assailant does can lower his inviolate dignity.
5. This approach erases the distinction between guilt and innocence, which is the essence of justice. The very concept of just punishment requires a distinction between a wrongdoer and a victim who was wronged. Justice is supposed to treat like cases alike and unlike cases unalike. It subverts the essence of justice to treat innocents and assailants equally.
Monday, May 28, 2018
Soft pacifism
Ray Ortlund@rayortlundWhy do we think we're Christians at all? "The group least likely to think the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees? Evangelicals."Ray Ortlund@rayortlundMoses renounced his social privilege, choosing to be mistreated with God's people (Hebrews 11:24-26). He didn't just decry his privilege; he crossed the line and left it behind, identifying with outsiders. And the Bible calls that saving faith.
Ray Ortlund is a big name in evangelicalism. I don't think I've ever read anything by him.
Ortlund's position is soft pacifism. He (and likeminded pundits) are using the same logic as the pacifist. Now there are situations in which I can relinquish my right to defend myself. Mind you, if I have dependents, then I may not be at liberty to relinquish that right inasmuch as I have prior obligations to protect and provide for my dependents. In that situation, protecting them is inseparable from protecting myself.
But even if I can sometimes relinquish my right to protect myself from harm, it doesn't follow that I can relinquish my duty to protect others (the innocent) from easily foreseeable and avoidable harm. I'm not entitled to renounce their right not to die or be harmed. I'm not entitled to endanger them.
But that's the problem with opening the door to "refugees", which is frequently a euphemism for 20-something Muslim males. That's importing jihad onto American soil. That's importing sharia onto American soil. That's importing a rape culture onto American soil. It's striking how gullible some people are. Just wave the label "refugee" in their face and that instantly deactivates their critical faculty.
Moses didn't renounce his social privilege. He didn't identify with the outsiders but with his own people-group. His in-group. He made a snap decision to protect a fellow Israelite. He looked both ways to make sure his intervention went undetected. He didn't expect to be ratted out. He didn't expect to become a fugitive. Moreover, he's the quintessential reluctant prophet.
Friday, December 08, 2017
"Cruciform accommodation"
“The Principle of Cruciform Accommodation” (chs. 13–14) states that, just as Jesus lowered himself to the point of appearing guilty and reflecting the ugliness of sin on the cross, God at times accommodated his self-revelation to Israel’s sinful, culturally conditioned capacities and expectations.
http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/review/the-crucifixion-of-the-warrior-god-interpreting-the-old-testaments-violent
An obvious problem with Boyd's comparison is that Jesus doesn't appear to be guilty in the NT. He doesn't appear to be guilty from the viewpoint of the Gospel narrators–or the other NT writers.
He doesn't appear to be guilty from the viewpoint of gentiles like Pilate and the Centurion.
He doesn't appear to be guilty from the viewpoint of Jews like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea.
There's even a sense in which he doesn't appear to be guilty from the viewpoint of his detractors, since they oppose him in spite of miraculous evidence that he's a divinely accredited messenger.
From just about every viewpoint in the NT, whether the writers or figures within the narratives, he appears to be innocent and righteous.
Moreover, he consistently presents himself as innocent and righteous.
Wednesday, December 06, 2017
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Friday, July 07, 2017
Crucifixion of the Warrior God
In the official trailer to Boyd's new book:
he does a nice job of summarizing the dilemma for his position. On the one hand, OT theism appears to be diametrically opposed to his "cruciform", Anabaptist Christology. On the other hand, the OT, which Jesus endorses as the word of God, attributes violent actions and commands to Yahweh.
In his review of Boyd's book, Olson says:
…and, in some other cases, God’s people’s committing the violence and attributing it to God due to their cultural captivity to ancient Near Eastern ideas about God. However, even though he does not believe God, the Father of Jesus Christ, the Trinity, ever commits violence, Boyd does believe God inspired the narratives that wrongly attribute such acts to his instigation. This, he argues, is an example of God’s accommodation to people’s inability to understand him rightly and of progressive revelation. For Boyd, the Bible must be read backwards, all of it in the light of Jesus Christ who is the crucified God and whose suffering love reveals finally and fully the true character of God.Boyd argues that the Old Testament portraits of God commanding and committing extreme violence against even children cannot be taken at face value even as they must be interpreted seriously as “masks” God allows his fallen people to put on him. Just as God allowed people to crucify him, so God allowed even his own people to blame him for their (or invisible, spiritual cosmic powers’) wicked deeds.
Assuming that's an accurate summary of Boyd's position, and Olson is a sympathetic reviewer, Boyd's solution fails to resolve the dilemma he posed at the outset. He conceded that Jesus endorses the OT as the word of God. Yet he says the OT sometimes grossly distorts God's true character. How is that misrepresentation consistent with Christ's endorsement of OT theism?
Boyd has an a priori theory of what God is really like, based on his interpretation of NT Christology. He labors to square that with OT theism, but his effort fails. That should cause him to scrap his "cruciform", Anabaptist Christology. Despite his Herculean efforts, his theory is falsified by the facts.
Boyd has two other hypothetical options: he can say the NT misrepresents Jesus. Jesus didn't endorse the OT as the word of God. Gospel writers project their own views of OT authority onto Jesus.
But on that hypothesis, we don't know what Jesus really believed. He disappears behind the Gospel writers. We can't go through them or around them to get to the real Jesus.
Or he can adopt a Kenotic Christology. Jesus said the things which Gospel writers attribute to him, yet he was a culturally-conditioned child of his times. But, of course, that destroys Boyd's standard of comparison. He can't then use Jesus as a point of contrast to correct the OT portraiture of Yahweh.
So there's no way out for Boyd except to ditch his "cruciform" hermeneutic.
Finally, it's equivocal to say Jesus "supersedes" OT revelation. Jesus surpassed OT revelation. Jesus represents the culmination of OT revelation. But Boyd means it in the sense that Jesus corrects and abrogates OT revelation. That, however, is a suicidal hermeneutic. The messianic claims of Jesus must be validated by OT messianic descriptors. It must complete OT messianic trajectories. If NT messianism is fundamentally at odds with OT messianism, then that falsifies NT messianism. They must converge, not diverge. If they split off in opposing directions, then Jews are right to reject the messianic claims of Jesus.
Saturday, July 01, 2017
Military service
i) On the face of it, military service seems to be morally problematic. Take volunteers. When you enlist, you sign a blank check. You don't know in advance what the foreign policy will be from one year to the next. You may disapprove of what you're ordered to do. Is it ethical to make an open-ended commitment like that? Especially given the moral stakes of warfare? The snap judgments. And so on.
ii) However, that must be counterbalanced by another consideration. The justification for national defense is that national defense is a logical and necessary extension of self-defense. Sometimes we lack the individual resources to protect ourselves or our dependents. Say, if we're outnumbered or outgunned. Therefore, self-defense may necessitate pooling our collective resources to mount a common defense. That confers a general benefit.
Assuming that we have a duty to protect our dependents, and in some cases our neighbors, or even strangers, military service is an unavoidable–although not a universal obligation.
iii) Hence, military service generates moral dilemmas. Conflicting duties or competing goods. Given the dilemma, I think men who find themselves in that predicament are in a situation of diminished moral responsibility. What would ordinarily be wrong is mitigated or exculpated by the moral dilemma.
That's not carte blanche to follow just any order. It doesn't excuse atrocities. Some actions are intrinsically wrong. But there's greater moral flexibility in that situation than situations where you have one unimpeded duty.
Thursday, March 09, 2017
Monday, December 05, 2016
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Save us from the pope
I'd like to make a general comment on this:
The attitude of Pope Francis is why many men hold Christianity in contempt. They think Christianity is for pansies and sissies. Statements like those of Francis, or the USCCB, reinforce the stereotype that Christian ethics is effeminate and limp-wristed. You're not allowed to protect your life or livelihood. You're not allowed to defend yourself or your dependents.
It's a very damaging stereotype. For many of the unchurched, who have no direct or detailed knowledge of Christianity, their impression of what Christianity stands for is fostered by the pope or Catholic bishops, because they get the most media buzz. For many of the unchurched, Catholicism symbolizes Christianity. You can see that in the news, as well as movies and TV dramas where Catholic clergy are the default representatives of Christianity.
In addition, take statements like:
“We see, for example, how quickly those among us with the status of a stranger, an immigrant or a refugee become a threat, take on the status of an enemy. An enemy because they come from a distant country or have different customs. An enemy because of the color of their skin, their language or their social class. An enemy because they think differently or even have a different faith.”
i) To begin with, that's just defamatory. It imputes the worst possible motives to any and all people who don't share the pope's outlook. The pope is blind to his own malicious animosity towards outsiders. The difference is that he has a different set of villains. For him, the outsiders are his critics.
ii) In addition, his statement is simpleminded. He makes no effort to draw the most elementary and necessary distinctions. He resorts to euphemisms like "stranger" or "refugee," as if there aren't real enemies who exploit asylum policies.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Rom 13 and pacifism
I'll comment on a few statements by pacifist Preston Sprinkle's post:
Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, and other “Christian” dictators have celebrated the passage as their divine ticket to execute justice on whomever they deemed enemies of the state.
i) What does Sprinkle mean when he uses the adjective "Christian" to modify Hitler and Idi Amin? Is he saying they viewed themselves as Christian? Is he saying Germans and Ugandans viewed them as Christian? Whose perspective does that adjective reflect?
Idi Amin persecuted Christians. Martyred Christians.
As for Hitler, certainly the signatories to the Barmen Declaration didn't view Nazism as Christian. Neither did Adolf Schlatter.
If Sprinkle doesn't think they were Christian, then what is the force of the adjective? How does that contribute to his argument? What is the function of the adjective in case they were not Christian? Does he mean they were misusing the passage in the name of Christianity? Yet his language indicates that their appropriation was sincere ("celebrated the passage as their divine ticket...").
ii) What evidence does he have that Hitler and Idi Amin thought Rom 13 justified their policies? Can he quote them on that? Where's the documentation?
Suppose Rom 13 didn't exist. In the absence of Rom 13, would Hitler and Idi Amin refrain from "executing justice" on whoever they deemed to be enemies of the state?
So, third, Paul says that God executes vengeance through Rome after he prohibits Christians from doing so.
Paul prohibits Christian private citizens from so doing. Of course, at the time of writing, few if any Christians held high office.
Romans 13 is all about vengeance. And vengeance is God’s business, not ours. We don’t need to avenge evil, because God will. And one way that God will is through governing authorities.
That's contradictory. On the one hand he says: "Romans 13 is all about vengeance. And vengeance is God’s business, not ours. We don’t need to avenge evil, because God will. "
On the other hand, he says, immediately thereafter, "one way that God will is through governing authorities."
But in that event, it's a false dichotomy to say "Rom 13 is all about vengeance, and that's God's business, not ours–we don't need to avenge evil, because God will." For he admits that in some measure, God delegates that task to humans. Is Sprinkle so carried away by the momentum of his pacifistic rhetoric that he doesn't bother to be logical or factual?
A pacifist response to the "Syrian refugee" crisis
There are several basic problems with his pacifist response to the "Syrian refugee" crisis:
i) "Refugee" is often a euphemism. We need to distinguish genuine refugees from looters or terrorists.
ii) Charity depends on private property rights. If you refuse to protect property, then you have nothing to share with refugees. The thugs will hoard it all for themselves.
iii) Likewise, you can't very well give asylum to refugees if you refuse to protect people from rape, robbery, slavery, murder, &c.
iv) It's not just a question of terrorism, but sharia. Look at what is unfolding before our very eyes in Europe.
v) You don't value life if you refuse to protect innocent lives. Sprinkle pens this bleeding-heart piece about "refugees," but in pacifism, life is cheap. The lives of "refugees" are forfeit, because pacifism refuses to protect innocent lives.
vi) He quotes Mt 25 out of context. In context, the "stranger" refers to persecuted Christians.
vii) His appeal to OT charity blurs distinct categories:
viii) His appeal to OT law is highly selective. A pacifist appealing to OT law is quite ironic. OT law is hardly nonviolent. It contains laws of warfare, as well as not a few capital offenses. It includes a provision to kill a house burglar (Exod 22:2).
Sprinkle needs to explain what principle or criterion he uses to differentiate the culturebound provisions of the OT law code from the transcultural provisions.
ix) Apropos (viii), the Mosaic penal code is often incompatible with the varieties of sharia. In consistency, Sprinkle must say Muslims "refugees" can only be covered by Mosaic provisions regarding the treatment of "strangers" on condition that they renounce sharia and submit to the Mosaic penal code. If OT law mandates how they should be treated in one respect (charity), then it mandates how they should be treated in other respects (e.g. death penalty for rape).
What if Christians refused to fight Hitler?
Inevitably, someone raises the question about World War II: What if Christians had refused to fight against Hitler? My answer is a counter-question: What if the Christians in Germany had emphatically refused to fight for Hitler, refused to carry out the murders in concentration camps? The long history of Christian “just wars” has wrought suffering past all telling, and there is no end in sight.
https://sivartwright.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/what-if-christians-refuse-to-fight/
i) Although his counter-question raises a legitimate issue that's worth addressing in its own right, a counter-question is not an answer to the question. Rather, it's an attempt to deflect the question, evade the question.
Sure, Travis is entitled to counter our question with a question of his own. That's fair game. But you can't just shift the onus onto nonpacifists, as though your own position has no moral or intellectual burden to discharge.
ii) What does he mean by saying German Christians carried out the murders in the concentrate camps? Is he suggesting that all or most prison guards were devout Christians?
Keep in mind that Christian prison guards would sometimes be in a position to mitigate evil. Be merciful to the inmates.
iii) There are degrees of complicity. For instance, if drafted, a German Christian might belong to the Wehrmacht, yet he might do the very least that's required of him. He can shoot, but intentionally miss. Indeed, that's parallel to pacifism, which says, "I didn't shoot him–you did!"
It's my impression that many if not most soldiers aren't fighting for the glory of the cause. Rather, they do what's necessary to stay alive.
In fact, towards the end, Hitler's own generals turned against him. It finally dawned on them that Hitler was prepared to destroy Germany to destroy the Jews. That was his priority, but it wasn't theirs. Of course, by then it was too little too late.
Likewise, where does a pacifist draw the line? Will you make bombs, but refuse to drop bombs? Will you make bombers, but refuse to fly bombers? Will you refuse to make spare parts for tanks? Will you refuse to be a mechanic? Will you refuse to work at a gas station or power plant that indirectly supplies the Wehrmacht? Will you refuse to work on a farm that provides food for German citizens–including soldiers and Nazi officials? Pacifism has its own ineluctable compromises. By your own actions, you still decide who will live and who will die.
How does a pacifist consistently say we can't simultaneously love our enemies and kill them, yet we can simultaneously love our neighbors but let them be killed (by someone else)?
iv) Travis erects a false dichotomy. What if, instead of not "fighting for Hitler," German Christians fought against Hitler? The war would have ended much sooner. Indeed, that might have checked his rise to power before the war got underway. Or consider the scenario of German Christians fighting against Hitler allied with non-Germans fighting against Hitler. The moral and logical alternative to fighting for Hitler isn't refusing to fight, but to fight against Hitler.
Pacifism and the early church
Here's an appeal I've run across from more than one pacifist author:
That claim suffers from multiple problems:
i) Unless you regard the church fathers are authority figures, that's an illicit argument from authority. And it's selective even on its own grounds: on the one hand, Origen and Tertullian aren't technically church fathers. On the other hand, it only selects for early (pre-Constantinian) church fathers.
ii) It also suffers from sample selection bias. It isn't polling early Christian opinion in general, but only Christian writers. There is, however, evidence, that early Christians did serve in the Roman army. For instance, Despina Iosif, in her monograph on Early Christian Attitudes to War, Violence, and Military Service (Gorgias Press 2013), cites epitaphs on the tombstones of Christian soldiers to show that military service was considered honorable among (at least some) early Christians.
So the appeal to early Christian writers preemptively discounts the views of Christians who were not writers, Christians who did, in fact, serve in the Roman army. But what makes the opinion of early Christian writers, rather than early Christians generally, the only evidence worthy of consideration?
Indeed, appeal to early Christian writers is self-defeating, for the reason they wrote about the subject in the first place was to discourage Christians from joining the Roman army. If, however, there was Christian consensus on the immorality of military service, their philippics would be superfluous.
iii) In addition, pacifists admit that early Christians might refuse military service, not because they thought killing was intrinsically wrong, but because military service was complicit with pagan rituals (e.g. the imperial cult). So that's another case of sample selection bias. You have to separate out those who oppose military service for pacifistic reasons from those who oppose it for other reasons. A person might support a defensive war, but not a war of conquest.
iv) Furthermore, it's fallacious to infer that refusal to volunteer for military service is equivalent to pacifism. Indeed, that's a category mistake.
a) That fails to distinguish between national defense and self-defense, or defensive wars and offensive wars.
When you join the military, you assume a risk. To some degree, you are putting yourself at greater risk than if you avoid military service.
It hardly follows that if someone puts you at risk (e.g. a mugger), you won't fight back. Indeed, the same reason some people avoid military service is why they will defend themselves if threatened: self-preservation. Just as they view a mugger as a threat to life and limb, they view military service as a threat to life and limb.
b) To approach this from another angle, in wartime, the state must often resort to military conscription. There aren't enough volunteers. And even then you have deserters and draft dodgers.
Again, though, that doesn't mean these people are pacifists. For instance, during the Civil War you had a significant percentage of Confederate deserters. But that's not because they were pacifists. If you invaded their farm, they'd shoot you dead. If you tried to harm their kin, they'd kill you. It's a question of where people draw the line.
c) During the Vietnam War, you had draftees who vowed never to kill anyone. It wasn't their cause. The containment policy was an abstraction. But when they got into theater, they did shoot the Viet Cong.
As long as they were at a safe distance, on American soil, the Viet Cong were not their enemies. The Viet Cong did not pose a direct mortal threat to their individual survival.
But when they were thrust into the field of battle, then the Viet Cong became their enemies. Suddenly, they had a personal stake in the outcome. If it's kill-or-be-killed, they will shoot you.
Monday, January 11, 2016
Christian gunslingers
As I searched and searched, I couldn’t find any credible, non-pacifist Bible scholar who argued that Luke 22 is talking about self-defense. (I’ve since found that Wayne Grudem also assumes the self-defense view, but again, with little to no biblical argument and he doesn’t wrestle with the other contextual features that go against this view.)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theologyintheraw/2015/12/go-buy-a-sword-luke-22-and-christian-gunslingers/
I'm struck by Sprinkle's deceptive statement. Most Christian laymen don't have direct access to a raft of major commentaries on the Bible. If they rely on him for their information, they will be misled. He's not a trustworthy informant.
Consider the statements by three credible, nonpacifist Bible scholars:
[Lk 22:36] sword: although the term is usually regarded as a metaphor, the context indicates a literal meaning. Cf. 6:29; see on 9:3; 12:51; 22:49.
[Lk 22:49] sword: according to Cullmann (State, 31-34), Jesus approved of defensive sword-bearing but, unlike the Zealots, reject such means to establish the kingdom of God. E. E. Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (Eerdmans 1996), 256, 258.
The sword is thought of as part of the equipment required for the self-sufficiency of any traveller in the Roman world. Nothing more than protection of one's person is in view. J. Nolland, Luke (Word 1993), 3:1076.
As Minear observes, the other prophecies in this discourse, those of betrayal, and denial, are of what is due for immediate fulfillment, and this could apply to "a sword," which makes an actual, and not symbolic, appearance in the narrative of the arrest…The "sword" here would not be symbolic of conflict, any more than the "purse" or "bag" are symbolic…
The reply of Jesus is equally terse - hikanon esti. Two renderings have been proposed for this. (i) "It is enough" in the sense of "enough of that", breaking off the conversation. No parallel can be produced for this, and it is unlikely that Luke would have brought the passage, and the whole discourse, to an end so inconclusively. (ii) "It is enough" in the sense that two words will be sufficient for the purpose at hand. This would correspond with the predominant use of hikanos in Luke-Acts (where it occurs twice as often as in the rest of the NT to denote sufficiency of numbers, and is the more likely meaning. C. F. Evans, St. Luke (Pillar 1990), 806, 807.
I'm not quoting these scholars to endorse the details of their overall interpretation (which I may or may not agree with), but to document Sprinkle's suppression of evidence that runs counter to his position. Did he just stop looking after he found what he wanted?
Live by the sword, die by the sword
51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. 53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Mt 26:51-54).
That's a stock pacifist prooftext. But is that what it means?
i) For staters, there's an insurmountable obstacle to the pacifist interpretation. If Jesus disapproved of his disciples bearing arms, then why did he permit them to bear arms? After all, for the course of three years, they'd been on the road together for weeks or months at a time. They did everything together.
Was Jesus so unobservant that he never noticed that some of his disciples had swords? Indeed, the very passage in question presumes that one or more of his disciples were in possession of a sword. And that wouldn't be unusual. Due to bandits, travelers were often armed.
If Jesus didn't approve, would we not expect him to forbid his disciples to bear arms? Why did he not command them to disarm?
Moreover, even assuming he was too inattentive to notice that some of his disciples were armed, on the night of his arrest, he knew that his disciples had swords. Why did he not order them to discard their swords?
The pacifist interpretation makes Jesus look like a bumbler or terribly ineffectual.
ii) V52 has a proverbial ring. Like proverbs generally, it isn't meant to be universally true. Not everyone who resorts to violence dies a violent death. In fact, that may not even be true in the majority of cases.
It is true that people who live by violence are at greater risk of suffering violence in return. However, that's not necessarily what the aphorism is meant to convey.
iii) Pacifists say this reflects the radical teaching of Jesus. However, the statement itself isn't especially novel. You have variations on that statement in prior Jewish literature. For instance, Jer 15:2 says "those who are for the sword, to the sword" (cf. 43:11). Likewise, a Targum of Is 50:11 says those grasp the sword will fall on the sword. And the OT uses different metaphors to make the same point:
He makes a pit, digging it out,
and falls into the hole that he has made.
and falls into the hole that he has made.
(Ps 7:15)
Whoever digs a pit will fall into it,
and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling.
and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling.
(Prov 26:27; cf. Eccl 10:8).
iv) However, the ultimate derivation of Jesus's aphorism may be Gen 9:6. His statement seems to be a paraphrase of that seminal verse:
For all who take the sword
will perish by the sword.
Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed.
by man shall his blood be shed.
Notice the formal and conceptual similarities: the balanced, contrasting parallelism; the theme of poetic justice.
Although Genesis uses the same "bloodshed" language in both clauses, these are not morally equivalent actions. In the first clause, bloodshed refers to forbidden killing (murder). In the second clause, bloodshed refers to obligatory killing (judicial execution).
It's quite possible Mt 26:52 has the same connotation. Peter's intervention to defend Christ is wrongful violence.
Parable of the Bad Samaritan
Once upon a time, a member of the NRA asked a pacifist, "Who is my neighbor?" And wishing to justify himself, the pacifist said: An unarmed traveler was walking from Jerusalem to Jericho when bandits ambushed him, mugged him, and robbed him.
Now by chance an unarmed Samaritan was going down that road, and when he saw the victim he went over to check on him, at which point the bandits jumped him, mugged him, and robbed him.
So likewise another unarmed Samaritan, when he came to the crossroad and saw them, went over to check on the victims, at which point the bandits jumped him, mugged him, and robbed him.
But a Christian gunslinger, as he journeyed, came to crossroad. When the bandits tried to mug him, he kneecapped the bandits. He then put the victims in the back of his wagon and brought them to the Hotel Jericho, where he paid the hotelier to nurse them back to health. Which of these men proved to be a good neighbor?
"The Christian gunslinger," said the member of the NRA.
Saturday, January 09, 2016
Buy a sword
35 And he said to them, “When I sent you out with no moneybag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “Nothing.” 36 He said to them, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. 37 For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.” 38 And they said, “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” And he said to them, “It is enough” (Lk 22:35-38).
Some Christians appeal to this passage is opposition to pacifism. Most commentators think it's figurative. My own opposition to pacifism doesn't require this passage, so in that respect I have no stake in the interpretation, one way or the other. Although most commentators support the figurative interpretation, their reasons are surprisingly poor.
1. To command them to buy a sword would contradict what Jesus taught elsewhere.
i) That objection is circular. It would only be contradictory if Jesus taught pacifism. So that begs the question.
ii) Moreover, the objection is puzzling. I doubt all Synoptic scholars who construe this passage metaphorically think Jesus was a pacifist.
2. The sword is a metaphor to be spiritually forearmed for the coming opposition.
i) But if the sword is symbolic, don't the money, cloak, knapsack, and sandals need to be symbolic as well? If so, what do they stand for?
Perhaps we could salvage that interpretation by saying these are parts of a complete word-picture.
ii) But another problem is that these items are literal in v35. It would be a jarring transition if the sword is figurative.
iii) Moreover, as all scholars grant, v36 stands in sharp contrast to the status quo ante. Without Jesus to protect them and provide for them, the disciples are on their own. They face a much tougher situation ahead.
Although accompanying Jesus for the past three years was not without its hardships, it had fringe benefits. Jesus was the world's best bodyguard. An omnipotence bodyguard. They were safe with him.
Likewise, so long as they were in his company, they never went hungry. He could miraculously produce food. If they took ill, he could heal them. If it was too frigid to sleep outside, he could miraculously produce a toasty campfire.
But after he leaves them, they will have to fend for themselves. So procuring a defensive weapon makes sense in that context. They must made dramatic adjustments to life without Jesus by their side.
3. This isn't a Zealot-style call to arms against the Jewish or Roman establishment.
i) That's true, but a straw man. The nonpacifist interpretation doesn't require it to be an armed insurrection.
ii) This objection fails to distinguish between the defensive and offensive potential of a sword. Even if Jesus never intended for Christians to use it offensively, that hardly precludes a defensive use. It was standard equipment for travelers in the Roman Empire.
iii) Keep in mind that a sword had defensive value against dangerous animals as well as dangerous men (cf. 1 Cor 15:32).
4. Jesus reproves their misunderstanding in v38.
i) That interpretation is less than straightforward. To begin with, if they misunderstood him on such a significant issue, wouldn't we expect him to correct them? And not just for their benefit, but for the Christian reader. It is not misleading to leave that unresolved?
ii) As a matter of Greek usage, it not clear that "it's enough" means "drop it!" From the lexicons I consulted, that's an idiosyncratic definition of hikanos.
5. Two swords are hardly enough to protect them.
i) True, but irrelevant. At this juncture, two swords are more than enough because they don't need any swords at the moment. They will only need to protect themselves after Jesus ascends to the Father. There's no urgency in having swords at the ready in the hours ahead.
ii) Moreover, what's "enough" is probably not the swords, but the fact that they got the point. Showing him their swords confirms their understanding.
6. The literal interpretation would contradict Christ's reproof of Peter.
That's confused. Naturally it's inappropriate for Peter to interfere with the plan of redemption. Resisting arrest would frustrate the very reason Jesus came in the first place. But you can hardly extrapolate from that unique situation to a universal principle.
7. According to Acts and the NT epistles, the church was nonviolent
i) That's an argument from silence.
ii) When you are vastly outnumbered by potential enemies, then violent self-defense is futile. That doesn't mean you wouldn't or shouldn't protect yourself or others where that's a viable option.
I conclude that the literal interpretation is the most likely. So opponents of pacifism can rightly cite this passage.
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