The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

For the first three hundred years of Christianity, there were no hierarchies, no church buildings, and no formal organizations. Followers of Jesus lived in community, sharing all their goods with one another. Their most effective witness was caring for people no one else would care for – abandoned babies, victims of various plagues, lepers, the poor, prisoners, outcasts. For three centuries, they refused to use violence. They refused to join the military. Many of them refused to work for the Roman government because the empire was founded on and maintained through violence. 

Why did they live in such a countercultural and counterintuitive way? Because it was, and is, the way of Jesus. By example, Jesus taught them that the way to defeat the forces of evil was through love, forgiveness, and nonviolence. All evil can do, said Jesus, is kill your temporary bodies, which are going to die anyway. Beyond that, evil is impotent. It wasn’t just that these believers knew they’d be with God when they died, although they did know that and rejoiced in it. They also believed that by being willing to die, they were defeating the powers of evil, just as Jesus defeated them by willingly dying on the cross. Christianity thrived and spread rapidly even as believers suffered rejection, hatred, and martyrdom.

In 313 A.D., Constantine issued an edict of toleration ending the persecution. His successor, Theodosius, made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire in 380. People claiming to be Christians were now in charge of the world’s most powerful empire. Augustine was instrumental in theologically justifying violence, war, and participation in the affairs of the empire. He invented just war theory, declared that one could simultaneously love and kill one’s enemy, and encouraged military service. Ever since, “Christians” and “Christian nations” have been using violence to achieve their goals. War after war has been fought in the name of the Prince of Peace. The way of Jesus was lost to all but a handful of monks, nuns, and pious individuals until the Reformation.

But the Reformation did not reform enough. It recaptured the truth of salvation by faith and the priesthood of all believers, but state churches and violence in the name of Christ continued unabated. The exceptions were the Anabaptists, the radical reformers, who insisted on living by the sermon on the mount. They baptized adult believers, insisted on the separation of church and state, lived in community, shared all their means, and refused to use violence for any purpose. Their legacy continues among the Amish, Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers.

I am writing this on Thanksgiving Day in the United States. We were taught in school that friendly “Indians” welcomed freedom loving Christian pilgrims and helped them survive a harsh New England winter. The truth of the original Thanksgiving is much different.

In the Smithsonian Magazine, correspondent Claire Bugos writes:

“When the pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620, the sachem (chief) Ousamequin offered the new arrivals an entente, primarily as a way to protect the Wampanoags against their rivals, the Narragansetts. For 50 years, the alliance was tested by colonial land expansion, the spread of disease, and the exploitation of resources on Wampanoag land. Then, tensions ignited into war. Known as King Philip’s War (or the Great Narragansett War), the conflict devastated the Wampanoags and forever shifted the balance of power in favor of European arrivals. Wampanoags today remember the Pilgrims’ entry to their homeland as a day of deep mourning, rather than a moment of giving thanks.”^[1]

The Christian pilgrims justified their violence using scripture. Their descendants justified violent rebellion against Great Britain. The grandchildren of Revolutionary War soldiers justified violence to end slavery. Their descendants justified using violence to stop fascism, communism, disenfranchise African Americans, decimate and displace native peoples, and maintain law and order. Trump followers justify violence to put and keep an amoral despot in power.

We normally argue that some violence is justifiable and some is not. What we justify depends on our political leanings. It is assumed to be common sense that people must use violence in self-defense or in defense of their loved ones. Ending slavery and stopping Hitler were noble  endeavors.  If, however, the citizens of the United States were really followers of Jesus, there would have been no slavery or racism, and therefore no need for the Civil War. And if the nations of Europe had really been Christian, there would have been no Great War or WW2. There would have been no Nazis, no fascists, no oppression, no concentration camps. 

But the reality is that there are no Christian nations. This nation does not follow Jesus; it follows Mammon, Mars, and Caesar. Like virtually all nations and empires, the United States has bought the lie of redemptive violence. The oldest creation myths in the world are centered around violence. The Myth of Redemptive Violence embraces the idea that violence redeems. The gods favor the conqueror. Violence is human nature. We can achieve peace through war, and security through strength. Might makes right. 

Redemptive violence is the belief that violence is useful to establish and maintain order. Without it, there is chaos. Thin blue line. The only thing between us and anarchy are people with guns. Redemptive violence is the belief that we can rid the world of evil through violence. The Myth of Redemptive Violence has so saturated culture that most people take it as self-evident. But killing is the way of evil. You cannot defeat evil with evil. You can’t overcome the satan by using satan’s means. When you use the means of evil, you become evil. 

The way of Jesus overcomes evil with good, hatred with love. It turns the other cheek, forgives, loves enemies, and seeks the good of others. It is willing to be killed, but not willing to kill. It puts away the sword, picks up the cross, and follows Jesus.

^[1] Accessed November 23, 2023 @ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thanksgiving-myth-and-what-we-should-be-teaching-kids-180973655/