Vol 3: 26 The Missional Practice of Nonviolence: Giving Witness to a Different Reality

Does nonviolence work? 

I had someone drop in our office today to ask about the Mennonites – who are they and what do they believe in?  We had a good conversation and we talked quite a bit about the Mennonites practice of nonviolence and peacemaking.  A question that was raised, more implicitly than explicitly was “does nonviolence work?”

My immediate response was:  “Not always, perhaps not even in many situations, afterall, it did not really work for Jesus either – his way of nonviolence led him to the cross and death.”

Why then practice nonviolence in our violent world, if it does not bear sufficient results?

There are a few reasons that I give, but there is one that is foundational to why we are called to live missionally in nonviolent ways.

In following Jesus, we are called to live our lives as his disciples – living out the life of Jesus in the world.  In that Jesus lived and ministered in ways which advocated and promoted nonviolence, we are only disciples of Jesus as we practice a way of life similar to that of Jesus.

Our discipleship is also expressed through giving witness.  Jesus did not merely say in Matthew 28 that we are to teach Jesus’ teaching in making disciples, but to “teach them to obey all that I have taught you.”  Discipleship and witness have to do with obeying Jesus and his teachings – not just acknowledging them.  In giving witness to Jesus and living out Jesus’ way of being human in the world, the practice of nonviolence has less to do with how well it works to how well it demonstrates a different reality, a different way of being human in the world – even when the practice of nonviolence is seemingly unsuccessful as it results in the death of those practicing nonviolence. 

Giving witness to nonviolence is to give witness to the different reality of God’s reign – it is about seeing all humanity reconciled to God, be they those whom we befriend or those who are our enemies.  We are called to practice nonviolence and peacemaking, to be involved in reconciliation and forgiveness, because in partnering with Jesus in God’s mission we are about making visible a very different way of being human in a violent world.

We practice nonviolence because we are giving witness to a different reality – but more than that – we practice nonviolence and peacemaking because we are living out a different reality.  By the power of the Spirit of God, we are enabled and empowered to demonstrate a radically new way of being human in the world – and rather than warring against other human beings, we are seeking to bring about healing, forgiveness and reconciliation – which at times requires us to get in the way of violence – which is what Jesus did on the cross (taking the oppressive and repressive violence of the principalities and powers of the world set against humanity upon himself).

This demonstration effectively shapes us to be a community of Christ in the world, a community which is a sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s present and coming reign (see Missional Matters Vol 1: 3,4,5 for more on this).  And though giving witness to nonviolence seems powerless in a violent world, when it does “work” it brings about radical transformation bringing peace in the midst of war, healing in the midst of destruction, wholeness in the midst of brokenness.  We give witness to nonviolence because the practice of nonviolence is to give witness to the presence of God in the world who is at work re-creating humanity and creation into a new humanity and a new world through the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

Day after day we hear of the violence in the world, violence that never ceases – all violence does is breed more violence.  What will peacemaking through nonviolence breed in the world?  Let’s try and see! 

May the peace of God be with you!

An Invitation: For those of you who live near Lake County, IL, I invite you to an initial presentation I am giving relating to my sabbatical work – Undoing the Violence of Leadership in the Church.  What I hope will be more of a dialogue than a presentation is scheduled for Thursday, September 20^th at 7 pm at the Mennonite Ministries office of North Suburban Mennonite Church – 324 Peterson Road, Libertyville, IL.  You can contact me for more information.

Vol 3: 25 The Missional Practice of Nonviolence: Contrast Witness in a Culture of Violence

In arguing that the roots of how we lead in the North American church is rooted in culture, I find J. Denny Weaver in his book, The Nonviolent Atonement to be an interesting conversation partner.  In it he makes the following statement regarding the post-Constantinian church and its accommodation to the social order:

“When the church comes to accept the social order and to see the structures of the social order (such as political authority) as a means of furthering the church and expressing church concerns, then ethics are derived more from the social order than the specific narrative of Jesus.  Returning to the sword as the primary example, rather than opposing the sword, the church came to rationalize it as a means to defend or extend Christ’s church or the now Christianized social order in which the church was at home” (Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement, 117).

What was also true of the church within Christendom – and is still true of a significant part of the North American church, as demonstrated in the support given by churches to both the Republican and Democratic parties in the present electoral process, is that the church within the social order seeks to be a witness of the Gospel of Christ within the social order, yet, without realizing how the Gospel has been reinterpreted in light of the values of the social order and accommodated to the social order, rather than the ethics of God’s reign.   

In this sense, believing in America is tantamount to believing in the Gospel (at least the accommodated gospel of present North American Christendom) without challenging the social order or present culture with the contrasting radical demands of the Gospel of God’s Reign, which always calls every social order to repentance – to give allegiance to Christ and his reign alone.

What can be said of the North American (and even the Western) church is also applicable to our approach to the way we lead as church leaders within North American Christendom.  In exercising leadership in light of the values of culture – which is all too evident in all the Christian leadership books of the past twenty-five years, “as a means of furthering the church” we need to ask why we fear the narrative of Jesus and the narrative of the Gospel of God’s reign in shaping the way we lead.  It is evident that Jesus’ way of leading was regarded as a threat to the empire; a threat that was deemed to have been overcome by his arrest and crucifixion – if it were not for the resurrection.  Why is not the way we lead a threat to the North American social order, to the structures of society?  In fact, the opposite has been true – our way of leading has found its way onto the leadership best seller lists (for example, Bill Maxwell’s numerous books on leadership).  

The early disciples of Jesus were also deemed a threat to the empire.  After the 4^th and 5^th centuries, the church no longer was a threat, nor is our way of leading a threat, when we have found ways to accommodate the ways of Jesus to culture.  We have to ask ourselves the same set of questions – in what ways have we accommodated the way we live out our callings as pastors in order to find a place within the North American culture.  Though Paul stated he became all things to all people in order to win some for Christ, he still led and practiced a way of following Jesus in which he was a threat to the social order. 

We have become too soft, too accommodating – and by we I also mean me.  We live in a culture of violence that advocates a way of leading that does not disturb the foundations of the culture – faith has become a mere veneer over the social order.  Yet, in aligning myself with Christ and his Lordship; in giving allegiance to Christ and his reign, I commit to live, in the power and presence of God’s Spirit, within an ethic or culture that is shaped by the radical demands of the Gospel of God’s reign.  My way of leading then also needs to be rooted in an ethic of God’s reign.  In God’s reign being rooted in an ethic of nonviolence, then a repentance and rediscovery is necessary – if not a culture of violence, but a culture of peace is to shape the way we live, the way we lead – then how are we to live, how are we to lead?

According to Jesus in Mark 10 it has little to do with lording it over others, and more to do, as exampled by Jesus in John 13, by being servants of all.  I believe we eschew the image of servantship because we see it through the lens of the culture of violence, the culture of power, rather than seeing it through the lens of an ethic of God’s reign. 

What then, does leading, what does servantship look like in an ethic of God’s reign?  That is something I would like to explore and engage in with you in dialogue – call me, let’s grab a cup of coffee and talk.

An Invitation: For those of you who live near Lake County, IL, I invite you to an initial presentation I am giving relating to my sabbatical work – Undoing the Violence of Leadership in the Church.  What I hope will be more of a dialogue than a presentation is scheduled for Thursday, September 20^th at 7 pm at the Mennonite Ministries office of North Suburban Mennonite Church – 324 Peterson Road, Libertyville, IL.  You can contact me for more information and/or let me know you're coming.

Vol 3:24 The Missional Practice of Nonviolence - Challenging Our Fear of Doing Nothing

If nonviolence were only a matter of faith, of what we profess, then I believe many more Christians would give assent to being nonviolent; it’s the realities of life that make nonviolence untenable – What about someone harming my family? What about Hitler? What about rampant violence overpowering and destroying the innocent in the world?  It might be argued that “violence can only be overcome with just violence – nonviolence is powerless to make any real changes.”  Nonviolence seems like we are doing nothing in the face of the atrocities of violence in the world and are we not complicit if we do nothing?

Who said that being nonviolent is doing nothing?  In fact being nonviolent in a violent world is a courageous act, revealing the presence of God’s reign in contrast to the violent non-reign of God principalities and powers in the world.  It is indeed a fearful act to confront violence with more violence – no matter how just we try to make it sound to be.

I am not sure what kind of Jesus that people see when they advocate violence as a Christian response to violence – but I am sure it is not the Jesus we find in the Gospels.  The questions we face today are the same ones that were raised in Jesus’ day: what about someone harming my family?  What about Caesar? What about rampant violence overpowering and destroying the innocent in the world?  Those issues were as real in Jesus’ day as they are in our day – however, Jesus confronted the non-reign of God with a visible manifestation of God’s presence and reign, yet without resorting to violence.  Jesus’ nonviolence demonstrated the presence of God’s reign in essential ways, which makes nonviolence not merely an option for the Christian community, but something that is essential to living out the Gospel of God’s reign in the world.

Glen Stassen and Michael Westmoreland-White in defining nonviolence state that is more than the absence of violence – it is also “the presence of justice, of peaceful and perhaps covenantal community relationships and well-being” (“Defining Violence and Nonviolence,” Teaching Peace: Nonviolence and the Liberal Arts, 21).  Rather, than nonviolence being the doing of nothing in the face of violence – it is the doing of justice, the bringing of peace, the restoration of humanity in relationship with God and one another in communities of love and grace; nonviolence is about the work of bringing healing and shalom into a broken world.  To continue acting with violence, even in the face of overwhelming violence, is to work against the purposes of God’s reign and God’s mission of making all things whole.  Nonviolence is an intentional courageous act in the face of violence to make visible a very different reality of being human and being humane in the world. 

We may well say that nonviolence did not work for Jesus because it took him to his death on the cross, in fact, the violence of the powers seemed to declare that violence is more powerful than nonviolence.  But the resurrection victory, which left death and violence in the grave, revealed that the power of nonviolence cannot be overcome by the powerlessness of violence (Resurrection is not a violent act) – Jesus on the cross made a spectacle of or exposed the principalities and powers with their use of violence, and made them powerless through the resurrection. 

So what does that say for us who are followers of Jesus?  It may say that the practice of nonviolence may lead us into situations where violence seems to have the overpowering hand.  But also it may say that we who practice nonviolence in the face of violence make the way of Jesus visible in the world as no other way really can. The peaceableness of God’s reign requires more than words of peace, it requires those who bring good news, proclaiming peace by living in ways which demonstrate peace – nonviolence.  When we participate in violence we do not make Jesus or the way of Jesus visible in the world, but rather we consort with the principalities and powers in their ongoing pogrom of oppression.  In advocating and practicing nonviolence, we act with a different kind of power in the world, a power that cannot be controlled by evil, by violence, a power that makes visible God’s peace creating reign in the world. 

In all ways violence is the easy way out, the non-thinking person’s way out of difficult situations.  The way of peace and nonviolence requires creativity, requires a willingness to embrace life and the giving of all to all who are destroyed by violence.  To rephrase Jesus’ words in John 10 – Violence can only steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus’ nonviolence and Jesus’ way of justice and peace is the only power in the world that creates life that is abundant.

Building always requires more creativity and ingenuity than it does to destroy.  Nonviolence builds peace in the world, violence destroys peace and lives.  May we as the people of God, as Jesus’ disciples engage in participating with God in creating that which is filled with the newness of peace.  Shalom.

Vol 3: 23 The Missional Practice of Nonviolence – Part 2

To make the claim, as I did last week, that leadership in the West is shaped by a culture of violence and that a necessary project for the North American church is to undo the violence of leadership in the church, gives rise to a significant question regarding nonviolence – is nonviolence intrinsic to what it means to be Christian, to be a follower of Jesus? 

J. Denny Weaver, who as a theologian is focused upon exploring the implications of nonviolence for life and theology asks, “[i]s nonviolence an assumption that belongs intrinsically to Christian theology with the potential to shape and/or be reflected in all theological doctrines[?]”  His response is yes, “I believe that nonviolence is intrinsic to Christian theology” (J. Denny Weaver, Christian Faith as Embodied Nonviolence. Paper presented at Historic Peace Church Conference, June 2001).

Weaver in describing the shift of allegiance that took place in the life of the church from the first century to the fourth and fifth centuries, expresses that the early church, rather than serving the empire, served Jesus as Lord – “to be Christian was to oppose the Roman empire and to live in a social order structured around Jesus as the manifestation of the reign of God” (Weaver, June 2001). 

By the fourth century, the church became identified with the social order of the state and became reliant upon the power of the state to effect its purposes – “[t]he end result of these changes was that the Christian church ceased being perceived as a dissident minority group and came to identify with the social order and to make use of and express itself through the institutions of the social order. It changed status from harassed minority to dominant, required majority” (Weaver, June 2001).  The support of the state with its use of the sword became an integral part of the church being church.

Though now at the beginning of the 21^st century we are questioning the church’s comfortableness with power within Christendom, we still by and large lead the church in ways intrinsic to the paradigm of hierarchical leading in a context of power and control established within Christendom – and in some ways have become more comfortable with it as we experienced loss of control as we try to navigate the modernity to postmodernity cultural shift – seeking to exert “more control” to hang onto what we sense we are losing.   

Therefore, as Weaver asks within the context of theology, I ask within the context of practical theology (and leadership) – is nonviolence an assumption that belongs intrinsically to the practice of leading and the shaping of how we lead within the life of the church?

I believe it is.  Nonviolence is not merely an option, I believe it to be essential confession for being a follower of Jesus and in pastoring and leading the communities to which we have been sent to shepherd.

In believing that nonviolence is intrinsic to leading in ways which exemplify the way of Jesus, we need to uncover how violence has influenced the way in which we have been leading – asking how we have embraced ways that are more aligned with the agenda of the cultural social order, rather than the social order structured around the reign of God. 

As stated last week, this has strong missional implications.  If we are to be a community participating with God in God’s mission, then not only our worship, discipleship, but also the way we lead needs to embrace practices that foster the redemptive purposes of God in reconciling humanity to God and to one another and in making all things new.

I confess that I have been complicit in leading in ways which were comfortable with power and control (violence).  I have not only hurt and burned out others in leading within a paradigm opposed to nonviolence, I and my family were also hurt.  I came to dislike who I had become as a pastor in leading the way I had been led to lead.  In leaving the pastorate in 1993, I found myself on a wilderness journey that lasted about 15 years – never dreaming that I would ever re-enter the pastorate in order to walk alongside and with a community of people seeking to attend to God and participate with God in God’s redemptive mission in the world.  I commit myself to leading in which nonviolence is intrinsic to my practice of pastoring and leading. 

It’s now been about three years or so in which I have had the opportunity to pastor in a radically different way.  I am still discovering what all that entails as I keep surrendering my penchant for taking charge, exerting control, dominating the vision, strongly expressing my perspective or opinion over those of others, and, being the sole voice or interpreter for hearing what God has to say to us as a church community.  It is my prayer that the way I practice leading exemplifies the way of Jesus.

  

Next week, I will move away from this leadership focus and explore the missional practice of nonviolence from another perspective – one that embraces the church’s way in the world as a community of character.