I fail at being non-violent. I often still want to respond with violence. It takes all of my energy not to want to beat the living tar out of someone who I witness being a bully or involve themselves in any sort of injustice. Oppression makes me sick.
I fail at this. You see, I often want to use violence as a defense. I want to defend people who are being attacked. We almost hollywoodize violence. Some of us think "If I just kick the crap out of this person, I can show this person how much they suck." We believe that getting even in a violent way is capable of justification. No.
This is a huge lie. In fact it was a lie Jesus even confronted in the Garden when Peter cut the ear off of the Roman Soldier. I mean, when Jesus says "No more of this" in response to the ear chopping, one can clearly conclude Jesus is not about violence. This leaves us with the question of why. Why is Jesus not pro-violence. I mean, it would be super easy for me to walk into a brothel, kill everyone of those persons involved, and walk out with those girls. In fact, it is something I often think about. And I know exactly where this comes from.
This comes from the Jesus I have created in my mind. I know Jesus cares about the bullied, the oppressed, the trafficked, the sick injustice that is hidden in the dark. I know Jesus wants me to take on the case of the widow and the orphans; for some reason though I believe the best way to do this is to create this war path that shows how right I am and how wrong the oppressors are. I seem to have a very shallow view of scripture.
If you believe today that the Bible is inerrant, that this Holy Text is from God, then you can not, under any circumstances believe that parts of it are applicable and parts of it are not. You can't take the parts you enjoy, because this turns Jesus into our image rather than us into God's. When we do that, everything becomes permissible. This is how christian's justified the crusades, justified the intense corruption of the early church, and currently we justify our inaction. We justify our inaction against oppression in our world. We justify this by saying, it is not our calling. We allow for violence to continue because we don't want those difficult parts of the Bible to mean what they actually mean.
We become sadly a culture focused on managing our sin rather than a culture focused on recognizing that we are free (Galatians 5:1) and a person who is capable of changing the world! It is like a Pastor once told me "if you want to encounter Jesus, you can't do so through studying Christ, you have to believe what was taught and go where Jesus would be, with the hungry, the naked, the sick, the thirsty, the imprisoned." It is remarkable to me, that non of the way Jesus calls us to minister to the world involves a weapon or a fist. In fact, nearly every story of Jesus working with the poor and sick involved compassion, not Jesus attacking someone to make it right.
Oddly enough, as if I don't respond in an unhealthy way as it is, God calls us to love our enemies. How am I suppose to tell the oppressors of this world that God loves them? That God still finds worth and value in them even though I think they are slobs.... I find it beyond reprehensible that a man could rape a child, even worse that we allow this to happen, but that a man could do that is beyond repugnant. In my mind that man deserves to be put to death. Some how, God thinks different. God is not justifying their actions, but God still sees redeemable qualities in those persons. Even as I write this, I am screaming inside.
I realize why this is true. Those people all have stories. God is not asking us to not to provide consequences for the actions, but God is asking us to learn to forgive, come along side the victims and the oppressors to create an order of peace, one that points to forgiveness and hope. God does not find these actions right, but as it says in Romans "Everything is permissible but not beneficial."
So, about those stories. We don't often hear the oppressors stories, what drove them to this point. The reason why, because no one wants to see why a person got to this point. I mean, have you heard some of these people talk about why they are the way they are? Life is this vicious cycle of oppression and violence. I mean, I was listening as a prostitute was explaining why she was in the business because her uncle use to rape her and threaten to kill her if she told anyone. She later finds out that he was beaten as a child and raped by his uncle. Violence creates this vicious cycle and sadly has lasting affects; but our oppressors are often victims. They are victims of a tragic fallen and broken world that is in constant need of Hope, sadly we just place it in everything else but that which is enduring and never ending; Christ.
Our oppressors have stories, tragic stories in many cases that cause them to live like this. God sees that, and God did not just die on the cross for the BMW driving christian who tries hard to manage their own sin. Christ died for our oppressors, and knows their stories aren't over even though their actions are deplorable in the eyes of God.
To bring it back full circle, I don't condone violence, and I can't imagine it will be easy to practice this. I however don't believe I am fully following Christ unless I begin to realize that God is calling me to a life of being a peacemaker. There is no way peace involves violence. Or I at least find it implausible.
I have a lot of work to do. I am SO far from applying this view. It is difficult, but I can't seem to interpret the Bible differently.
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