Christian Pacifists: No Laughing Matter   

Back in 1974, a fella called Nick Lowe wrote a song called “What’s so funny ‘bout’ peace love and understanding.” When it comes to Christian Pacifism, it is quite frankly no laughing matter.

Perhaps the mention of Martin Luther King Jr, one of Christian pacifists most famous sons, immediately brings this into focus. To adopt the ethical demands of active pacifism has never been an easy option, or indeed a mainstream one, for most Christians. This is especially true, since Christianity linked arms so thoroughly with the war machine of Pax Romana in 380 CE.¹ 

An endless river of innocent blood taken in the name of ‘God and State.’

Without doubt, there has been an endless river of innocent blood taken in the name of ‘God and State’ ever since. During all this devastating bloodletting, there has been no shortage of theoretical handwringing by philosophers and theologians, particularly on the subject of just war theory.²

This unenviable and blooded Christian legacy stands in stark contrast to the credo of the Jewish pacifist par excellence man, who Christians call the Christ. His teaching on peace through other-centered love is unequivocal. As Stanley Hauerwas shows, Jesus lived and died as a pacifist in pursuit of a Peaceable Kingdom, of God on earth in the now.³

Any interpretation of the gospels that is credible should demonstrably confirm this central point. Of particularly interest to Hauerwas is the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), part of which he quotes in order to prosecute his argument.⁴ He is not wrong, it’s damn hard to argue with the following:

“You have heard it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. You have heard it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,’ so that you may be children of your father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust,” (Matt 5: 38-46).

Make no mistake, there is plenty more pacifist affirmations where that came from. It is not incidental that Mennonite Christians have been following the code of peace for centuries. It is rather, precisely because it is so overt in the gospels. 

Out on the margins where the Christian pacifists have always dwelt.

Neither is Hauerwas a lone voice in emphasizing Jesus’ pacifist credentials. None other than Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu, and arguably the father of modern non-violent activism, extols Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount as a contributing factor to his own pacifist ideals, especially in the spiritual practice of renunciation.⁵

That men not God are the instigators of war should come as no surprise to even a casual observer of history. Nonetheless, there has always been countless, mostly men, mainstream advocates of war in the name of God.⁶

Alternatively, it is out on the margins where the Christian pacifists have always dwelt, including the Mennonite and Quaker movement. And unsurprisingly many of these marginalized courageous peace advocates have been women, more about them, in my next post. 

1. John Howard. Yoder, The War of the Lamb: The Ethics of  Nonviolence and Peacemaking, ed. Glen Stassen, Mark Thiessen Nation, and Matt Hamsher (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009), 45. [↩]
2. Lisa Sowle.Cahill, Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Pacifism, Just War, and Peacebuilding (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2019), 91-137.  [↩]
3. Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 72-95. [↩]
4. Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom, 75. [↩]
5. Mohandus K. Gandhi, An  Autobiography Or: The Story of my Experiments with Truth, trans. Mahedev Desai (Washinton, DC: Public Affairs Press, 1960), 92-93. [↩]
6. Cahill, Blessed Are the Peacemakers, 213- 245. [↩]