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