On the Topic of Nonresistance: Part 2

And so another blog post is written.  Welcome back!

I'm still not sure how to organize this, so I'm just going to start typing and see what happens.  I suppose I can always just write some massive summarized blog later that puts all the pieces in order.  I do encourage discussion on this topic here, I feel that it is a topic that works better when people are tossing different ideas around.

To start, I've been asked to clarify what I mean by absolute nonresistance.  Also I've been asked when in church history Christianity took on nonresistance as a tenet or belief.

I'm not entirely sure how to define absolute nonresistance, so I'll give a few examples of what I mean and then expound on them a bit, and see if that helps demonstrate the idea of absolute nonresistance.

• I do not believe that corporal punishment is a problem as far as child raising, etc.  The Bible gives instruction that using a rod to punish a child is appropriate.  (Proverbs 23:13,14 and Proverbs 29:15 are two examples).  Certainly, caution should be taken that the child is being punished out of love  and not anger, but this is a different topic.
• I do believe that all military violence is wrong.  The sole purpose of the military is to be prepared to act in a violent manner should such action be deemed necessary.  Even Cold War actions such as nuclear stockpiling, which are not violent in themselves, are supposed to be a threat because they can and are intended to be used in a violent manner.
• I believe that violent action taken against any person for reasons such as self-defense, defense of family or friends, defense of a larger group of people (utilitarianism), etc. are all wrong.  I believe this because I do not feel that it is necessary for someone to protect themselves or others using violent means- I will discuss this later.
• I do not believe that violent means taken by any party to punish another person or party is right.  By this I do include the Judicial system and any other systems that may use this.  This point also delves into the idea of Christian interaction with their governments which I may write about some time.  I will probably mention it to some degree however in order to cover some of what I discuss in nonresistance.
• When I say "any person" or "any party," I am referring to Christians.  I don't believe it is right for non-Christians either, but I'm directing these posts at Christians, because I believe that our knowledge of Scripture, etc. makes us accountable for our actions.  I can't hold non-Christians to scriptures that they do not know.

 I think that should clarify what I meant hopefully.

As far as when I believe nonresistance became a Christian tenet, when I read the New Testament, I see that throughout Jesus' entire life, He lived a life of peace.  There is the account in which he took a scourge and drove out the moneychangers in the temple (John 2:14-16, Luke 19:45, 46, Matthew 21:13, 14, Mark 11:15-17).  I believe this to be a case of "righteous anger."  Now, if we are to follow Jesus example, is it not possible that we might also have these cases of righteous anger as well and be obligated to act upon them?  Well, there are a few things that I believe should be noticed here.

1. First off, nobody was killed.  (I don't believe in physically beating people either, I'll come back to this.)
2. Secondly, (I have not researched this and so I cannot state this with absolute certainty), it is possible that the culture of the time made such action appropriate to an extent.  I believe it's possible that in those days, such acts were supposed to be an exclamation in themselves, that the action of flipping over the tables and driving away the moneychangers with a scourge was intended to relay a very clear message of the wrong that was being done.  There are probably some cultures that still tolerate such "messages."  "Actions speak louder than words" is certainly one way to teach.  You'll notice that although the priests, scribes, etc. did seek to destroy Jesus, no legal action seems to be implied as being taken.  Jesus does not seem to have broken any laws.  I do not see any of the current law of the time, the Ten Commandments, being broken.  If you went into some establishment today and started to flip tables, etc. for any reason, regardless of the message, the police would be contacted and you would probably find yourself in jail and with a fine.  There is no mention here of Jesus being brought before a council or anything like this. Thus, it would seem that Jesus had sent a message via His actions and the culture of the time found this type of thing to be acceptable.  (Not that the moneychangers liked it, but they understood the message and nothing could legally be done against Jesus.)  Like I said before, I have not researched the customs of the time, but this is what I see implied.  Would I see actions that imply mild violence such as this to be acceptable based on whether or not the culture accepts this?  Yes, I would.  However, I believe that it would need to be the same type of message.  Jesus' basic message was basically "You should know better than this, and this needs to stop!"  It was also relayed to people who were informed as to the law and should indeed have known better.  Even if the moneychangers themselves were not Jews, the message then was relayed as a rebuke to those who ultimately even allowed this to take place in the temple, those who had a responsibility to take care of the temple, etc.  Concluding this sub-topic, I don't think that it is appropriate to use any kind of violent means, even mild violence in an accepting culture, in order to declare a message to people who have no knowledge of God.  They don't know any better.  This is where mission work comes in instead.  (If anybody has any knowledge on whether the culture of Jesus' time was accepting of such "action messages" you're input is appreciated.  It's definitely something I should look into as well.)

So for the most part, I believe that nonresistance has always been what Jesus taught us to do.  I don't believe  that the church at some point started to accept nonresistance, it just always has been that it should be that way.  Even looking at the early church in the Bible, there are no accounts of the church fighting back against persecution.  There are accounts of them fleeing from it, but not countering it with force.  In fact, when Saul was persecuting the church, it actually was a benefit to the spreading the Gospel, because the people who fled, took the Gospel with them and shared it with others that they met in those places they went to.  "Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word" (Acts 8:4).  Persecution is not something to fight against.  God uses it to His benefit.

With that, I'll close today's post.  Please, by all means, chime in with your own ideas, concepts, comments, and thoughts.  I'm certainly not perfect, and I appreciate any contrasting ideas.  I am biased on the topic, and so if there are contrasting ideas or different interpretations to scriptures that I talk about, I don't want to be misinterpreting scripture or stating something as definite when it may not be.  Checks and balances are helpful.

Have a blessed week!

On the Topic of Nonresistance: Part 1 -Introduction

So hey, I'm finally writing my first "official" blog post.  Looks like the once a week thing isn't going to be happening, but at least I'm writing something once in a while huh?


Well today I'm going to introduce something that I believe.  Specifically on the topic of nonresistance.  This is kind of an interesting topic to write about, because it has so many different little branches that must be covered in order to fully explain it.  That is, if fully explaining it is possible.  There's always more to learn.  Because of the many tangents that the concept of nonresistance has, I actually think it works better to explain it to someone via discussion.  Then, you can cover the tangents as they turn up.  By writing this out, I have to figure out the tangents as I remember them and then place them in some kind of logical order for your reading convenience.


Here's my stand on the matter.  I believe in absolute nonresistance.  That is, I do not believe that there is any reason for which one human being should purposefully harm another.  ANY reason.  I am set in my mind that this is how it is to be.  Now as a Christian, I need to be able to back up these beliefs with the Bible.  That is the only fully accurate guide that we have been given.  I believe that there are some "postulates of the Bible" if you will call them that, that I may refer to periodically.  They are the following.

• As Christians, we must believe that the entire Bible is true and accurate.  If we do not believe this, then Christianity is just another religion.  The Bible is what we base our entire belief system on, and so if we suspect that any part of it is untrue, then the rest of it falls suspect as well.
• No part of the Bible will contradict another part of the Bible.  If part of the Bible contradicts another part of itself, then one of the two parts is false, thus making the first postulate that I stated void.

With that, here are a few of the concepts that I will be covering.  There will be more I'm sure as I think of them.  There is so much to cover that I will probably have to split this into several posts.  Thus, the "Part 1" in the title.  I will try to keep this list updated with the topics as I write the other posts.

• Is utilitarianism Biblical?  (Utilitarianism is  "the doctrine that the morally correct course of action consists in the greatest good for the greatest number..."  -World English Dictionary)
• Did Jesus suggest that violence was acceptable at times in the Garden of Gethsemane?  (Luke 22:36)
• God used violent means to accomplish His will in the Old Testament.  Since He doesn't change, why should we expect that peaceful means are required today if they weren't in the Old Testament?  Wouldn't that contradict the concept of God being unchanging?
• ...

So why am I writing about this?  Well, there are a couple of reasons.  

First off, because I take a very firm stand on this.  I have taken this stand for some time, but there have been a few occasions during which my stand was challenged and I found that I could not defend my beliefs.  I believed them, I just had no scripture backup for what I believed.  Now I have some scriptures and can back them up, but I just don't have the idea very organized and I'd like to have an organized thought process and be able to actually have the scriptures memorized at least somewhat well instead of having to say to myself "oh isn't there a verse that says... and have to google the first few words to get the reference and remaining words.  This isn't very handy for in-person discussions, it only works well for online chats and such where you can take a minute or two to respond.

Secondly, because in my mind, the concept of being nonresistant is crystal clear.  I have a hard time understanding how some people believe that violence is acceptable at any time.  It would be arrogant of me to simply expect everyone to believe something simply because the idea was clear to me.  Thus, I am encouraging you to comment/criticize/debate this topic with me.  I certainly do not know all the tangents that the topic offers, so I am interested in hearing any concepts that anyone else has to offer on the subject.

Third, I have friends and family who may differ in how we interpret nonresistance.  I believe that it is important for Christians to discuss their interpretations of scripture with one another and come to agreement (I'm pretty sure there's a verse about this somewhere, I just can't think of what it is, feel free to chime in if you can think of any.).  Unity is important.  That's not to say that that will always happen.  Sometimes there are scriptures that are not clear in how they are to be interpreted, or there's just a hard to comprehend concept that we can't agree on.  However, it's a good idea to try to come to some sort of consensus on a topic.

One last thing to remember in any discussion we have.  Often, it is tempting to throw in a hypothetical situation.  This is fine, that can be helpful in thinking through a concept.  however, if this happens, remember that the goal is to determine what the correct course of action is.  Not what you would actually do in the situation.  In other words, we aren't trying to figure out what we would ultimately do in any given situation, but we want to know what we  should do in the situation.  We often act in ways that are contradictory to what we know to be right.  Thus, that kind of thinking does not help much.

So I'll end with that for now.  This is the intro.  Hopefully, I have time and motivation to write the following posts at a fairly decent pace.  It's a good topic to study I think, so I think it should work out pretty well.  Just has to do with how much I feel like typing at any given moment.

See you all later!  :-D