(20) S1E20 Rebuttal: Would You Really Allow an Intruder to Harm Your Family? (Part 2- the Practical)
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. This is the second episode in our discussion of how pacifism deals with violence done towards them or their family. Since this is such an important topic, we are going to begin with a lengthy recap of the last part because some people might just jump into this section right here, and, because it's the the practical section. So we wanna make sure that you first understand what last episode was about, which is, undercutting this this idea of the moral legitimacy of even asking this question. And in in the last part, we started by discussing how this really is an emotional argument to ask, well, what would pacifism do if somebody comes in to harm your family?
Derek:Because pacifism would let your family get killed, therefore, it must be wrong because I don't like that. That's a hard thing to handle. And that emotional argument just does not, does not have moral validity. We can empathize with people who are put in difficult situations, but emotional arguments are not good arguments. And that's amplified by the fact that there's really nothing, or or what I what I think is very little, to back this emotional argument.
Derek:And that's proven by the first five episodes that we did, which makes the positive case for Christian nonviolence. So even if you wanted to start with this emotional argument about how difficult it would be to handle an intruder as a pacifist, that might be a good starting point to say this intuitively seems wrong. But then you have to go through the biblical case, the philosophical, the empirical, all of those things. And when we take a look at all of those things, the weight is significantly for nonviolence. So this emotional argument just doesn't really have much of a leg to stand on logically.
Derek:And we discussed a few specific circumstances that might help to highlight how we know that this type of thing doesn't undermine a position. We talked about how the difficulty of circumstances doesn't justify something, that would be sinful even if we can empathize with it. And the one that we've talked to, talked about several times through a lot of these episodes is this idea of prostitution and looked specifically at the story of Les Mis, in one of our earlier episodes talking about how even if somebody's in the most dire of circumstances, we don't think that prostitution is legitimate, even to feed one's family. While we can empathize with the prostitute and while we can see them as not only, not only somebody who's in sin, but maybe even primarily somebody who's a victim, it doesn't mean that we condone the sin. Conservative Christians also would not make any leeway for abortion.
Derek:And we would say, you know, that that poor mother in some faraway land who is starving to death, and her other 8 children are starving to death, and she's pregnant, and she knows that one more mouth to feed is going to kill some of them, we would say that she's not legitimate in carrying out an abortion. Or if if she doesn't have the medical, facilities to to handle things well, and her life might be in danger. We would say that, well, no. Abortion is the taking of life, of innocent human life, and that's not justified in any circumstance while we might be able to empathize with her. We also looked at one that I think, you know, in those first two examples, you might be able to find some individuals, even in the conservative realm, who would say, well, I I could legitimize those things in certain circumstances.
Derek:So we also threw in in one of the more, the easier ones to make that nobody would agree with. We kinda looked at the donner party event in, in the Old Testament, where you've got Jerusalem besieged and 2 neighbors who agree to trade their kids. One day, they'd kill and eat one of their kids, and on the next day, they'd kill and eat another of their kids. And we said that it doesn't matter how bad the situation is. Starving to death is more moral or is the moral thing to do, because choosing to murder and eat your kid or anybody else's kid is just not moral.
Derek:And there are more important things in life as a Christian than life itself. And that is that is holiness, and that is that is love. And to kill and eat your kid or somebody else's kid is not holy, and it is not love. So regardless of of how much we can empathize with somebody's particular plight, morality is not determined by the emotions of circumstance, and we can't use that to justify sin. I I also tried to show in the last part how it seems to me that that a lot of people who ask this question about an intruder really aren't aren't trying to uphold life all that much.
Derek:I don't know anybody who takes all of the possible preventative, nonlethal measures before they advocate violence. They might have locks on their doors. Maybe they have an alarm system, but they don't have a lot of other things. They don't have gates. They don't have barking dogs.
Derek:They don't have floodlights or motion sensor lights. They don't have video cameras. They don't have tasers, and the list could go on. The creativity of non lethal means is, is endless, and, most people pretty quickly resort to violent means as an option. And we we see this very clearly, at least in the United States, where people tip their hands to their willingness to spend lots and lots of money on increasing the lethal means for response to violence rather than spending money on people's health, including mental health, and positive justice sorts of care that are more preventative.
Derek:We like armed guards and armed teachers harsher sentences with people in prison for longer terms than we like that more than we like universal health care, more money towards mental health care, better screenings and licensing procedures for guns, non lethal defense mechanisms in schools, etcetera. We really show that we don't value life all that much, particularly when it's the life of somebody who who we deem not worthy of it. So that's that's a a recap of the last part, which brings us to today, and probably the part that most people are gonna be interested in, which is where we put the moral reasoning and and enemy love, to the side a bit. And maybe not the enemy love so much. We'll definitely be touching on that.
Derek:But we're gonna address the practical handling of, well, how does enemy love actually look? How does it play out in a scenario, where somebody's coming in to harm you or your family? For the most part, I am going to be just going through John Howard Yoder Yoder's book called What Would You Do? It's a really good book, and it's it's one of the shortest books, you know, on on the pacifist reading list that I would recommend. And it's it's fantastic, and it's also really interesting because other than the first section where Yoder kind of goes through some assumptions, most of the book is, is really anecdotal essays from individuals or about individuals who faced violent situations with nonviolence and how that turned out.
Derek:So let's jump right in. Yoder argues that there are 5 major assumptions. I think Yoder Yoder mentioned 6, but I'm gonna highlight the 5 that I think are particularly applicable. He highlights 5 big ideas and and assumptions and such that individuals who ask this question, what would you do, 5 things that, we need to pull out of that. Yoder mentions that the first main assumption that people have when they say, what would you do, is that the outcome is really fixed without my use of violence.
Derek:If I don't use violence, my family will die. That's the assumption. Because when when they pose it to pacifists, they say, well, what would you do? And the assumption is the pacifist either has to say, I would just stand there, or they have to use violence. I mean, what else is on on the table?
Derek:Because we know that if you don't use violence, something bad is going to happen. But what Yoder points out is that this fails to allow for agency. It fails to allow for agency of the aggressor, and this idea that they can change their mind and be impacted by by things. It fails to allow for the agency of the victim, as if they don't have a say in how things go or, any any things that they might do to deter the attacker. And it also, limits your agency and all of the choices that you have on the table in terms of of how things might play out.
Derek:And one of the main issues that Yoder has with this is that it's self fulfilling. If I tell myself that there are no choices, then there are less, it's less likely that, there will be other choices that present themselves to you in your mind. You're not gonna be very creative about trying to solve a situation if you limit yourself to 2 choices. You're not gonna look for other ways. Easy solutions quell creativity.
Derek:The the second thing, and it kind of goes a little bit along with determinism, but it's this idea that, I can assume that I have omniscience, that I know what the attacker is gonna do, but also that I know what my violence is going to do, that I know that my violence is going to be successful, or that I know that my violence isn't going to make the situation worse. I am presuming omniscience over the victim's wishes. If the victim is my family, I might have a a good idea of what their wishes are. But if there's another another victim, how do I know that they're not nonviolent and that they wouldn't want the enemy to be loved? So I I presume to know the victim's wishes.
Derek:I also presume omniscience in knowing God's will in this situation. Now you take a look at at, somebody like Jesus who did not want to suffer, recognize that this was the greatest injustice happening to him as he went to the cross, but also recognize that in this, God wanted him to love his enemies and lay down his life, and out of that came the greatest good possible. We have other examples. Now I don't I don't think, the example of Joseph I don't think Joseph had too much ability to fight 11 of his brothers off. But, you know, in in Joseph's situation, had he been able to fight, should should he have, or had he known God's perfect will that him going to Egypt would be the salvation of his his family and the lineage.
Derek:You know, maybe Joseph's willingness to, to allow violence to come to him would have been something that Joseph should have submitted to had he had 2 options, violence or nonviolence, on the table. Point is, there are very clear lines of reasoning in the Bible that, say, hey. Look, Christians. You're gonna suffer like Christ suffered. And there are also lines of reasoning that say, God will bring good even out of evil, and we can trust him in that.
Derek:And so when we say, I'm gonna kill the attacker because that is the greatest good, that really presumes some level of omniscience that I know that God can bring, or that God wants me to kill the attacker and because that's the that's the best thing that God could bring out of it. I mean, one of the examples that we talked about in one of the earliest episodes was the Amish and how their sacrifice and their nonviolence, while it was terrible and horrible, it it touched millions of people's lives. Now there is, of course, a big difference between me going out and choosing to sacrifice somebody's life for for good, versus when bad things happen, being willing not to sacrifice holiness and righteousness and, enemy love for for people, and and those are 2 very different things. So if somebody comes in to to harm my family, I'm not going to I'm not going to say, hey. Here you go.
Derek:Kill my family because that would be a sacrifice for god. That's not at all what I'm saying, but what I'm saying is that, God calls us not to not to sacrifice our holiness for the preservation of of life, and we can trust God and His omniscience to bring good out of that. And, we see over and over again in the Bible that that is true. Following in in the line of reasoning, we come to point number 3, which is this idea that we perceive in this question that we are in control. So somewhat along with omniscience, we assume that the outcome is in my control.
Derek:If I choose violence, I will succeed. If I choose violence, I'm not going to make the situation worse. But, we know that violent responses can often fail and can actually increase the violence done as it instigates more violence from from an aggressor. We'll see one example, in in one of the stories from Yoder's book, but one very clear example that's not in the book is is Bonhoeffer. And Bonhoeffer, if you know his story, is he was a nonviolent individual who, supposedly then got into some sort of scheme to assassinate Hitler.
Derek:Well, that scheme failed, and it actually ended up, doing some some damaging things, not only to the individuals who are part of the conspiracy, but in terms of how Hitler reacted and moved forward, from there on out and how he protected himself and was determined. And and beyond feeling like, this question, assuming that we have control, it's also assuming that to have control is what is a good thing. And we've we've highlighted Philippians 2 over and over and over again, but when it comes to having control or submitting to what is right, we understand that the model for us is Christ, which is giving up our rights and submitting even to something that seems foolish, like enemy love, and foregoing our control for god's omniscience and omnipotence. 4th point is that a a lot of times this question ends up highlighting really something that is that that shows hypocrisy and self interest. Most of the times in the scenario, the focus is on protecting my family or my neighbor, somebody who is is in my group or like me.
Derek:And then in Yoder's book, he, you know, he says that, you know, nobody ever says, man, I really have to, make sure that I I take some action to protect, that Vietnamese family over there who's being attacked by my country. Because, of course, when when Yoder wrote this, it was, you know, around or or after the time of the Vietnam War. And his point is just that, you know, you can insert any group of people you want today. The immigrants, from Mexico, South America, whatever, any of the countries that we're fighting, or bombing, using drones on, we're all up in arms, and and we think it's terrible, and we need to protect our family. But when it comes to even doing something minimal, like pressing on our government in order to protect the families of people from other countries who need it, especially countries that we perceive as drains on our society or as enemies, yeah, we'll let that go.
Derek:And Yoder shows that this question often really is just showing this in group mentality that we see, you know, when Jesus addresses the Pharisees who say, who's my neighbor? And he responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan showing that even the person that you hate the most is your enemy. Well, this question of what would you do, which always focuses on, who we think is our neighbor. Right? Our fellow countrymen who lives in the same community as me or in the same household as me, it really shows that, the intuition comes less from the protection of life in general and more from the protection of what we perceive as ours or our group.
Derek:And I in in one of the, previous episodes, I think I think it was episode 7, about Cyril and his question of of protecting friends, you know, I I kind of pointed out that we have this big hypocritical, blot on the the conservative position, and that the conservative position says that abortion is the modern day holocaust, and it's worse than the modern day, worse than the holocaust because we're talking about tens of millions of innocent lives killed. And that's what we think. Right now, there are abortions going on. There are innocent babies being killed. Yet for some reason, we don't feel this imminent weight to use violence in order to protect the unborn.
Derek:And while I agree we should not use violence to protect the unborn, that's because I'm a pacifist. What excuse do people have who are willing to kill for their family against against aggressors? What excuse do they have for not using violence to protect innocent human life? I I don't know. I think that's a a glaring problem, and I think part of that answer is that there is this hypocritical self interest inherent in the question of what would you do, which always centers around what would you do if somebody in your family or somebody that you can relate to is is being harmed.
Derek:And that, of course, will lead into our final point, which is this assumption of righteousness or rightness that I have the right to be the judge, jury, and executioner of the person who's coming into my home. And, interestingly, Augustine would have disagreed. Augustine, the guy who's, famous for really popularizing just war and kind of formulating it, into something that was accepted by Christianity, Augustine would have said, no. You don't. You lay down your life.
Derek:The only time you can kill your enemy is in a position granted by the state, like the army or some sort of police force, if if they would have had that, but that was probably the army back then. So some sort of position from the state. And even then, if you're gonna go kill somebody in a position of the state, you need to make sure that as you kill people, you're killing them in love, whatever that means. Luther also disagreed with personal defense. Now he was he was okay with it for, you know, protecting other citizens, but not for protecting oneself.
Derek:And I'm really only highlighting that because, it it doesn't matter what what some people say. But when you look at the early church who's against all non or all violence, and you take somebody like Augustine who's big on violence, and popularizes it, but he's still, like, no. It's just terrible, if we're gonna gonna use that for individual, for individual position. And we see all the way up to the 12th century that even soldiers would have to pay penance for killing in battle. And we even look at the reformation when some people would say that the church currently gets, finally gets purified again, and even somebody like Luther really questions self defense.
Derek:This idea that we can be judged, jury, and executioner, and that's perfectly fine, that's a relatively new, concept. It it's especially, an American concept. I I'm not sure how prevalent it is in other parts of the world, but, yeah, that's that's new in Christianity. And part of that is is because of what Augustine highlighted with, you know, how can you love somebody when you've got all these passions going on as they're coming in, and you're angry, you're fearful, all of these things. It's it's nearly impossible to kill an intruder or an aggressor with love.
Derek:And if you can't kill them with love, then, certainly, you're not killing them rightly. And it's also because it going back to point number 4, we recognize that if somebody's coming to get my family, then when I kill, I I have no hope in being objective in the situation. I'm gonna kill out of, often, preventatively. I don't know what the intent of the aggressor is, but he's in my home and my family's in close proximity, and I'm not gonna take the chance. And I prejudge the intruder.
Derek:I prejudge the aggressor, and I end up killing and judging, not knowing what their true intent was and not knowing if I could use some other means, but doing this out of a passion to protect my own. It's just impossible to be an objective judge, jury, and executioner when the nature of the event is is so infused with self interest. I think Yoder does a pretty good job of of highlighting a lot of assumptions that most of us wouldn't even think about, and I think those are are very good things to to dwell on as we listen to some of the essays and stories of individuals who have pondered nonviolence or experienced nonviolence and discussing how to act and why to act. So I am going to begin with just some quotes from the essay section that Yoder goes through. And I probably most of the names, nobody will recognize, but he does have an essay by by, Tolstoy, which you may know.
Derek:And so we'll we'll begin with Tolstoy, which is the first essay that Yoder puts in there. And rather than grouping by idea, I'm actually going to just move through in the order that you can find these quotes in the book, so that if you do get the book, you can kind of follow along and and know where to find these. Quote 1 by Tolstoy. Tolstoy says, there are actions which are morally impossible, just as others are physically impossible. As a man cannot lift a mountain and as a kindly man cannot kill an infant, so a man living the Christian life cannot take part in deeds of violence.
Derek:Of what value then to him are arguments about the imaginary advantages of doing what is morally impossible for him to do? Tolstoy, right there, is is simply saying, there's really no point in discussing this question because it's so unchristian. Like, the the option isn't even on the table for Christians, what's the point of talking about the advantages of doing this thing? It would be like us talking about the advantages of killing and eating our kids if we were besieged, like, like we see people do in Kings. It it's just, like, discussing that, what's the point?
Derek:Because that option shouldn't even be on the table for us as Christians. And Tolstoy argues that it's it's the same way for Christians here. What's the point in discussing what we do if somebody comes into to our home to hurt us or our family? What's the point in discussing an option that shouldn't even be viable for us? Another, essay, one by Henry Hodgkin, Hodgkin makes a a point that I think, will will complement Tolstoy's quote here.
Derek:And Hodgkin says, the last resort in the mind of Jesus seems to have been the supreme appeal of forgiving love. If that failed, nothing else would succeed for the end he hadn't view. With the revolver in our pocket, so to speak, we miss the power to make the opine the final appeal of goodwill. And what Hodgkin is saying is that, for for most of us, when we ask the question, what would you do? The last resort, the the the very last hope we have is using violence.
Derek:And Hodgkin's just saying, for Jesus, the last hope he had was showing love. And if that failed, that's the most he could do, because to do more would not be, like God. And, so that option should not even be on the table for us, because it was Jesus' last resort. It should be our last resort. The next quote we'll look at is, is actually, I believe, 2 quotes from a guy named Dale Brown.
Derek:Now, I'll preface this quote instead of explaining it afterwards, because I think, Brown, instead of kind of pointing to a small scale, is going to be talking about a large scale of of war. And this goes back to our episode where we talked about the necessity of doing evil, and what would you do if if ISIS was going to slaughter a village. And this notion that a lot of times we think that when we do good, or that when we do violence to stop somebody, that we're doing good, and that that is the the greatest good that we can possibly do. And Brown is just gonna point out that that that's not necessarily the case. That's a pretty big assumption.
Derek:And then we can extrapolate that down to, what what that might look like on an individual level to say that, hey. Look. Taking violence and not killing somebody might actually not only be the Christ like thing to do, but it might actually, in the end, be the best, the greatest good thing to do. Just like God brought good out of Joseph's imprisonment and slavery and Jesus' death, so I know he can and will bring good out of whatever happens to me. So here's the quote from from Brown.
Derek:A pacifist may be tempted to counter with a different case likewise anchored in history. For example, if America had been pacifist and had kept out of World War 1, the world might never have known an unjust peace treaty and severe reparations which helped to create the conditions for Hitler to come to power. Another bit of speculation will indicate the way to plead a position by the type of if question selected. If America had not entered World War 2, Germany and Russia might have destroyed each other to the extent that communism would have been crushed and Germany so weakened as to ease her stranglehold on Europe. So, again, Brown is really just pointing out that, like, if we wanna play hypotheticals with what, what a nonviolent position may hold, then the pacifist is just as free to to argue hypotheticals.
Derek:And you can say, well, if we don't use violence, this terrible, horrible, like, the worst thing possible will happen. But Brown just points out that, well, I can make up hypotheticals too that are very reasonable of what might happen if we don't use violence. And he uses World War 2 as an example and shows how if we wouldn't have joined World War 1 and that horrible peace treaty wouldn't have come about, Hitler may not have come to power, and there may never have been a holocaust. Or if, if the holocaust did occur and the United States never joined World War 2, Russia and Germany might have pummeled each other. Germany may have been subdued.
Derek:Europe, might have had power over Germany eventually. And there may not have been communism, which has wreaked havoc and killed how many people in Russia and China? So when we play the hypothetical game, we can't forget that hypotheticals can go both ways. Brown's next quote, I think, is one of my favorites because, he kind of tongue in cheek sarcastically, I imagine, shows us a hypothetical that's not really a hypothetical. Well, it's a hypothetical for today, but it's pretty clear that, he's pointing to a a real life event.
Derek:So here's what here's what Brown says, and it's awesome. Quote, though we have pointed to the pitfalls of playing the hypothetical game, we now yield to the temptation. In raising the hypothetical if, the pacifist might talk like this, what if a man would come and choose among others for his disciples, a member of the Students for a Democratic Society, a militant black power advocate, and an official of the Internal Revenue Service? What if he would teach them that the way to overcome evil is with good? What if the same one would say he was going to set at liberty those who are oppressed?
Derek:What if he would advocate in his own home church the dividing up of all the farmland and property anew? What if this man would go into the churches of the land and turn over the offering plates which are filled with the prophets from the military industrial complex? What if there are more than one set of hypothetical questions? Obviously, Brown's quote there is a direct reference to Jesus who, you know, didn't didn't pick this an IRS agent and those other individuals, but he picked the equivalent of those for his disciples. And, he overturned borders and definitions and groups, and he created this diverse group of people who should have hated each other.
Derek:And he taught them to love even their enemies, even unto death by submitting their their power and control. So if we wanna play the hypothetical game, I think Brown's kinda just saying, why don't we, instead of playing the hypothetical game, why don't we look at the actual game? You know, we're Christians. Why don't we look at the actual example and apply that instead of playing these hypotheticals? Next few quotes are gonna be from a guy named Dale Ackerman.
Derek:And this first quote by Ackerman is is a very stinging quote because, he points out that the self interest and, failure to follow Christ in in modern day, this modern day question of what would you do when assuming that we need to take control and not suffer to avoid suffering. So here's Ackerman. The stumbling block for the church through most of its history has not been the defenselessness of Jesus, which has been regarded as necessary for the salvation drama, but rather the corollary, that his people should be defenseless in the same way. The prevailing protests within the church against acceptance of that defenselessness have come as a sort of echo of Peter's outburst. God forbid, lord.
Derek:This mustn't happen to us. Peter, with his plea, was for Jesus a stumbling block, a lure tempting him to turn from God. In wrong headedness too, he was a representative first start for the church. And for followers of Jesus, that modification of Peter's plea against suffering at the hands of adversaries has continued to be the primary lure away from God. Archimedes just saying, like, when when Peter tried to tempt Jesus, he said, oh, no.
Derek:That must never happen to you. But, as a church, we haven't really had a problem with Jesus' death and suffering. It's kinda like, yeah. Well, he needed to do that. I'm glad he did.
Derek:I'm glad he he submitted to that and, gave up control to God and God's plan for his life. And we changed Peter's plea instead of, no. God forbid that suffering should happen to us. God forbid that we should have to lose control. And Aquaman's saying that, while that was one of the biggest stumbling blocks for Jesus, and we talked about that in our episode on, his messianic role, this idea of control and avoiding suffering was the biggest stumbling block in temptation for Jesus.
Derek:It currently is the biggest stumbling block in temptation for the church, except instead of protecting our savior, it's this stumbling block as we seek to to protect ourselves. And we see that in the way that the the church tries to gain power through force, as well as through politics. And, we can just look at it through through all the history of of the church. Alright. We'll end with one last quote from Ackerman, which, out of all of them, does point the most to kind of this this practical nature and pointing out how the what if question as answered by pacifists really isn't as impractical, as as people might say.
Derek:Ackerman says, The question about the family being attacked typically assumes that if a man is enough of a man and is ready to use a weapon, he can save those under attack. But, that is a typical Hollywood picture of the good guy out shooting the bad guy. In real life, however, the attacker would ordinarily have the upper hand and an impulsive resort to violence would be most problematic. One study showed that when a gun is used for home defense, those being defended are more likely to be killed than when a gun is not used. The person who uses a gun to stop an attacker may succeed, but in many cases does not succeed.
Derek:The person who tries to stop a violent attack by initiatives of love may succeed or quite often may fail, But the nonviolent defender, even in failure, stands with the Lord of the Universe whose climactic defeat by His adversaries was drawn up into the supreme victory of the resurrection. We take a big risk if we resort to lethal defense. We also take a big risk if we reject such violence and seek to live the love of Christ, but rejecting the way of Christ constitutes the biggest risk of all. And I'll come in right there specific to the what if question when an attacker comes into your home, to your family, he just addresses that, look, you can say that non violence has its risks, and, admittedly, it does. It is a very big risk.
Derek:But violence also has its risks, and the risks to violence go beyond, beyond not being successful. They can also aggravate the situation, and you might also, shoot your own family members. Your own family might get there might be more harm that's done than if you didn't use violence. But even more than that, you take the risk of not being identified with your Savior and parting ways from Him. There's a spiritual risk that goes on there too, and we looked a little bit at that when we discussed moral injury, especially with soldiers.
Derek:Okay. So moving on from from the quotes of people who have contemplated the practical nature of non violence against an aggressor aggressor, we're gonna now look at some anecdotal stories of people who have actually faced violent situations with nonviolence. And I really wanted to, like, read, like, 5 of these. We're just amazing. And they are pretty short stories, but we just don't have the ability to to read all of that.
Derek:So there might be 1 or 2 stories that I read extended portions from, but, nevertheless, I I want to highlight what I think are some of the best. Before we get into the stories proper, I do want to just highlight a few things that you need to keep in the back of your mind, or at the front of your mind, actually, would be better. First of all, we're not arguing that nonviolence always or even mostly works. We're just gonna show how violence is overrated and how nonviolence can actually work. Doesn't mean it will work.
Derek:Doesn't mean it always works. It might not even work better in terms of, preserving your family in the immediate term. But nonviolence is often viewed as being passive and being no good and being impractical, and we wanna try to erase that idea. There, there are a few things that are highlighted throughout all of the stories in Yoder's book. First of all, is that violence as an option often hurts our own families and communities more.
Derek:We know that having guns in the home can lead to family members being shot, injured, and killed, not only in terms of mistaking somebody for an intruder and killing your own family, but also increasing the violence in the situation when there is aggressor, is an aggressor, as well as just having the availability of a weapon in the home makes suicide much more likely and easy because of the accessibility of of an easy solution for suicide, which is a gun. The other danger of having violence as an option, is that, we looked at this when we talked about the Holocaust and the Stanley Milgram experiment and how people who are open to violence are much easier to be convinced of, doing violence inappropriately. If I believe that violence is a legitimate option, then all that needs to happen for me to to do violence to somebody is to be convinced that that person is less than human or that that person is an enemy who threatens. We see that in just about every atrocity that ever occurs, is that there's a dehumanization. And when you're open to violence, you're more open to dehumanizing groups of people.
Derek:As a society, that's true. We've talked about how violence can increase violence in a situation. We've talked about how violence can perpetuate and even even birth violence. We talked about the Kingdom movie a while back where, we it shows the cyclical nature of violence, talking about World War 1 and World War 2, the how doing World War 1 and that peace treaty probably caused World War 2 and and etcetera. And out of that, we have the the birthing of Israel and and a lot of different, different issues are created with the Middle East during World War 1 and World War 2 that extend even into today.
Derek:We can see that through some of our proxy wars and cold wars. We just know that violence often perpetuates and births violence, and we know that that violence hurts us in terms of moral injury. And, finally, I want you to keep in mind that non violence is important because it's going to always maintain enemy love. And because of that, and because violence is not an option on the table, it is going to allow for creative solutions. Instead of, an either or, either you let the enemy do something terrible to your family or you try to kill them, instead of the either or situation, the options on the table are maybe not endless, and and especially, you know, when you're in the heat of the moment, it's probably, you know, but by the Holy Spirit's guidance, it might be difficult to think of what in the world you can do.
Derek:But, nevertheless, there are lots of different options that are available when you're willing to think creatively. So let's take a look at at some of those creative solutions. First story is a a pretty awesome story by a missionary named Gladys Aylward, and she was a missionary to China. And the story goes that that she was, at her missionary house and all of a sudden this this Chinese guard from the prison down the street, came to her and said, hey. You gotta come right now.
Derek:So she ended up going with him a little begrudgingly. And when she got there, realized that there is a murderous riot going on in the prison. And the the prison warden said to her, we need you to go in there and stop this. And she looked around at, like, the the armed guards who were standing around and soldiers and things. And she's like, well, why don't they go in there?
Derek:And, essentially, they were all too scared to go, because there were tons of prisoners, big prisoners, just going nuts. And, well, she's like, well, why do you want me to go? I'm just a a little lady. And they said, well, you've been preaching that you have the living god inside of you, so surely you can go in there and stop this. And, of course, she talks about her feelings at that moment, and, she was just, like, well, what do I do?
Derek:Because, I mean, I I say that and I I mean, I do believe it, but I don't know how much I believe that in a in a murderous prison riot. And so she goes in there and she she feels like that's the best way to kind of go about things. She can't really turn back. She knows she'll lose her ministry, and she needs to put her money where her mouth is. So she goes in and she starts commanding the prisoners around, and they listen to her.
Derek:And she takes a bloody ax from one of them and says, you give that right here. And she takes it, and, she talks about this the scene that she sees. And in doing that, not only does she stop the murderous riot, but she ends up being able to be an advocate for the prisoners who, they're literally imprisoned. They never got any work to do. They didn't see some, like, like, nothing.
Derek:And so they were, I mean, practically insane. And so she was able to be an advocate for them while at the same time stopping the riot because she did have the living God inside of her. Something that we can't forget that no matter what situation we face, it is not up to us to control the situation. It's up to us to do the right thing and allow room for God to work if we believe that we have a living God inside of us. 2nd story I really liked, and it's a really short one.
Derek:I wanted to read it. But, honestly, like, if I read that one for whatever reason, that one, the way that it was written, the beauty of it, it just, you know, it makes me cry. And, it's it's called The Art of Reconciliation by Terry Dobson. And he talks about aikido and how he trained in aikido. So even though he was nonviolent, aikido is a a form of nonviolence which deals with throws and holds and stuff.
Derek:There are different forms of nonviolence. Some people would say you can't do lethal violence. Some people would say, you can't do any violence. And then there are people in between who would would be with okay with some sort of force and restraint, like aikido, but, but would not want to actually harm somebody. And so he talks about how he's been training in aikido, but in aikido, they didn't get to practice on each other because aikido isn't about they don't want you to ever do violence.
Derek:It is the absolute last resort to actually grapple with somebody, and it's all about prevention. And so he's on this train, and this drunk guy comes on, and he starts he hits this woman with a baby and starts kicking at this old couple. And the guy's like, alright. I want I wanna take this guy down. I need to protect people.
Derek:And, as he as he motions to the guy to come fight him, this old guy on the train just says, hey, to, to the attacker. Not like a, hey, you, but like a, hey. Like, you're my friend. Come over here. And the guy goes over and and asks what what the guy wants, what the old man wants.
Derek:And he just starts starts talking. And he just says, hey, what you been drinking? And the guy says, well, I've been drinking sake. And the old man says, oh, me too. My wife and I, we always drink sake.
Derek:Every night we go out into our garden, and we and he just goes on and and talks about his story and starts asking the guy questions about his wife and finds out that his wife is dead and, you know, he doesn't have a job, and the guy breaks down and just talks about how ashamed he is. And, the old man, he puts his head in the old man's lap, and the old man strokes his hair and just says, oh my, tell me tell me about it. And the the guy telling the story who observes this, the the guy who's practicing aikido, and he says, man, I was put in my place that day because even though I I know this nonviolent, martial arts, the the point of it is to not have to fight. And this old man, by showing interest and by loving, was able to really resolve the situation. Now, had the the guy performed aikido on on the attacker, he probably would have succeeded and subdued him.
Derek:And, you know, the immediate the immediate threat of that man to the people on the train would have been resolved. However, the problem with that is that, the problem really wouldn't be resolved because that man would not be any better. And in fact, he might even be worse because he's frustrated that he was beat up by somebody, that he, you know, it would not be getting to to the heart of the issue. But that old man, through his nonviolent love towards the aggressor, not only stopped the situation, but may have stopped future situations because of of his love. And love is the only thing that can do that.
Derek:Physical force and violence doesn't solve any situation except perhaps the most immediate situation. But after that immediate situation, there is no resolution. It doesn't resolve problems, and that's because problems can't be addressed through physical violence. Physical violence from aggressors are really just, actions that are outworkings of something much, much deeper. And love touches those deeper parts, Violence does not.
Derek:3rd story by Sarah Courson. She's a a missionary in South America and talks about how there was some uprising, and they were dealing not so well with with foreigners, harming men and and raping women and and taking them. And they just didn't really know what what the situation was for them. But one night, they saw the army coming into their their village. And the army came up to them, and they were threatening them and talking about them, taking them away.
Derek:And, you know, she goes into the things that she she told them about how, you know, can we get you some tea? Can we can we feed you? How can we we love you. And they said, this is ridiculous. We don't we don't believe that.
Derek:They're like, you're here. You're spies. You're you're the enemy. I said, no. No.
Derek:Our our god teaches us that we are to love even our enemies. And they just they just can't believe that that is true. And, one of the guys kind of goes against his commander, and he's like, alright, you women, you can go back go back to the house. Like, don't tell anybody that I let you do that. Just go back.
Derek:And so they do. They're saved. But, then they receive a message, a day or 2 later that said, hey, on Sunday, we're, our commander's coming to your church for for service. Now, all the men are out as just women and some of the villagers, And so, the lady is like, okay. Well, we we'll have service, but anybody who doesn't wanna come, please don't come.
Derek:But all of the the church shows up. They come there, and they do what they normally do, and they have a a greeting time for for visitors, which they always do. And they greet and welcome the, the army who has taken basically all of the men out of the village and the foreigners. And, at the end, this guy, the commander gets up there and he says, you know what? I I could have fought any amount of guns you might have had, but there's something here I cannot understand, and I cannot fight it.
Derek:Had there been resistance, had there been animosity, anything else, the the soldiers would have fed off of that. That's what soldiers do. They're supposed to be confrontational. They're supposed to, fight conflicts. But when they experienced love of people who should have hated them, it was it was something that they couldn't fight.
Derek:This next story is about a woman who had somebody come into her home, broke through her window, and she woke up to see a man coming towards her in her bed, which is probably the the most fearful thing that anyone can think of, especially especially a woman. And this is this is the one that my wife was most interested in, like, yeah. Like, what do you even do in that situation? So I'll I'll be reading a few quotes out of here and kind of talking through it as well. So here's what, the author says when when she she talks about what was going on in her head in in the moment, the split second she saw this guy coming towards her.
Derek:She talked about her thought process, and then she she ends here where she says, I realized with some clarity that either he and I made it through the situation safely together, or we would both be damaged. Our safety was connected. If he raped me, I would be hurt both physically and emotionally, and he would be hurt as well. If he went to prison, the damage would be greater. The thought disarmed me.
Derek:It also released me from paralysis and a desire to lash out. It freed me from fear's control over my ability to respond even though I still had feelings of fear. I found myself acting out of concern for the safety of us both, reacting with firmness, but with little hostility in my voice. Now she she talks a little bit later about how this is extremely important. She says that nonviolence as a strategy really isn't a good strategy.
Derek:She said it has to be something that's genuine. She had a genuine concern for her attacker. She said, had she not, had she expressed fear? Had she expressed, hostility? Those are the types of things that we know aggressors feed off of, and that they're they come prepared for those two things.
Derek:They come prepared to feed on fear and, and just this the terror in their victims. And they also come expecting hostility, and they're ready for those things. But when they don't experience that, it it has the potential to throw them off and and diffuse the situation. And so what she did is, as he was approaching her, she she saw that he had a watch on, and she said, what time is it? And the guy stopped.
Derek:He it's, like, the last thing that he was expecting, and he looked at his watch, and she said, oh, well, that time is different than the time I have on my clock. When did when did you set your watch? And she just starts talking to him like a human being. And they get into too much more conversation, and she goes down and makes tea for him and, and all of that. But she has a genuine interest in the person, and in his well-being, And it shows in the way that she talks to him and the wonder of the situation, experiencing something that he was not expecting at all to experience, kind of threw him off in in his approach.
Derek:And, again, I I do wanna emphasize, had she done that with a 100 different attackers, this may have been the only individual that that ever worked on. Or maybe it would work on a 100 because maybe the Holy Spirit would have been there to protect her for each and every attacker. This this says absolutely nothing about what percentage of these nonviolent instances will work. But what it does highlight is an attitude that this lady was was fostering in herself, and through the spirit, was able to manifest and how the manifestation of that was probably the only thing that really could have affected her situation positively, especially, being a smaller woman than than the attacker was, a a larger male. Screaming, and trying to fight, all of those things, probably would have really just ended in in a pretty bad situation.
Derek:There's one more quote that I found especially, important out of, out of this story, and I wanna highlight that right now. She says, but Jesus required more of people than a moment's choice. He showed himself willing to accompany the choice making person by attempting to create a context for comp conversion. To create more inner availability to the truth, He fostered situations which evoked wonder and could reflect the consequences of people's actions back to them. He worked to create a context for conversion.
Derek:His parables are models of this dynamic. Jesus says, if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well. If someone takes one garment, the owner is advised to hand over the other. Why? In that climate, without both garments, one will suffer from exposure to the elements.
Derek:So Jesus counsels, give away the cloak also. Let your adversary see in your nakedness the truth of what he is doing. Do something wonderful and open his eyes. Jesus also says, if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the 2nd mile. This means walking the extra mile for an enemy, the Roman soldiers, who have the right to impress any Jew to carry their gear for 1 mile.
Derek:For the 1st mile, the soldier has the power. But imagine the Jew refusing to lay down the burden after the 1st mile and walking on, freely, for the 2nd mile. Who has the power after the 1st mile? Power relationships change. During the second mile, the Jew has the chance to work on the soldier to help him come to insight about his actions, to help him see the Israelite as a person and no longer as an object.
Derek:I thought that was that was brilliant because I I didn't really understand Jesus' commands in that way before. I mean, you you kinda see the, oh, well, that's cool that somebody would do that. Like, that that's so sacrificial to go the 2nd mile. But this was the first time that I've ever had anybody expound on where the power really lies in that. And then in the 1st mile, in the first, the outer garment that you give somebody, who's demanding it from you, really what you're doing is you're an object for them.
Derek:You are an object of something, an object to ease their burden, an object of material goods. You're just an object. But when you give freely beyond what they ask you, no longer are you an object, because you're giving freely. And that changes the power dynamic, because no longer do they have the power over you, but you are acting freely. And it's in that in that moment when you are no longer an object because you are acting freely that you are able to be seen not as an object, but as a as a human being.
Derek:And, they're able to see that what they're doing is something that's being done to another living human being, and one who is kind and generous at that. Now, of course, again, this isn't about effectiveness. I don't know at what rate that kind of thing works. But I do know that if somebody's heart is going to be changed, it's going to be changed through the Holy Spirit's work, through that kind of thing, and not through resistance. Yoder includes a number of other stories in here.
Derek:One story that was really interesting was, this guy in New York City. He's in a gang. He became a Christian and he decided to leave, and he knew that they were gonna try to kill him. But as he as he declared that he was leaving and he walked away, nobody attacked him. Well, a little bit later, the one of the the higher ups in the gang talked to him and said, man, I I had my hand on my knife and I was ready.
Derek:I was gonna kill you. And he said, but I couldn't. I I was glued to the floor. I couldn't move. And he said, what happened?
Derek:What made that happen? And the gang met former gang member was able to explain to him about God, and that gang member ended up coming to Christ. So, this kind of going back to the first story we talked about, you know, discussing how we need to leave room for God because God is in control. And remembering that God is able to do those kinds of crazy things that that we just can't imagine Him doing is important, and that allows us to be nonviolent. It's sort of like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego where it's like, look, I know God's able to save us, and if he does, that's awesome.
Derek:But if he doesn't, he's still god. And that's, I I think, the, the nonviolent motto right there. There are also stories of, individuals who who do different sorts of creative things. One woman notices 2 guys approaching her and coming up on her, and she she can just tell what's going on. And she has some, like, takeout food in her purse, some, like, leftovers.
Derek:And so she reaches down into her purse and and pretends to vomit and, like, has all these these food, food items there to make it look like vomit. And so the the guys are repulsed and and just veer the other way. All sorts of creative things that people do. Some of them, like the vomiting, aren't really directly loving in the sense of, oh, I'm gonna try to talk you through not raping me. Right?
Derek:That's that's a a last resort. But it is creative in the sense of she prevented those people from harming her, and she was able to, prevent them from doing something that could have morally screwed them up forever. So let's summarize and and close-up shop here. Nonviolence is about maintaining enemy love with an eye towards their conversion to doing good. So we seek to help prevent individuals from doing evil and marring their souls, but, also, we desire their good.
Derek:And we can see that in most of these stories, and we can see it if we go back and think about some of the other things we've talked about. One of the ones that sticks out to me is is Denmark and how even under Nazi control, their nonviolent movement actually started to convert the hearts of the German officers that were there. Whereas, you just don't see that kind of thing happen to the same extent in places where, where individuals are trying to kill the Germans. While maintaining enemy love, the position of non violence also takes a Philippians 2 approach to power and control. It submits to God and leaves room for God to do amazing things.
Derek:It recognizes that the the question isn't really, what what could I do? The question is, what should I do? And following Christ and submitting to God is what I should do, and at that point, it it's not really about what what could I do, it's about what will God do? Will God save me like he saved Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of the the flames? Or will he not and still be God?
Derek:And maybe bring something great out of it, like he did out of Joseph's slavery or Jesus's death. But it might include my suffering. And we recognize the importance of, if if God will not amaze us and miraculously save us, then he will have to amaze us and miraculously sustain us through through difficulty, like he did with with Jesus, in the garden and to the cross and eventually through resurrection and restoration. We really have a great cloud of witnesses here who can testify to the miraculous power of God, to the importance of of enemy love. And, it it's it's great to look at to look at those examples, and there are many, many, many, many more.
Derek:This is just a handful of the ones from this one book, and I know that there are other books out there as well. It would also be worthwhile to look into the early Christian martyrs. I know one one example that stands out to me is Polycarp, disciple of John. Polycarp, when he was an old man, the Romans came for him to, to take him, to be executed. And Polycarp's like, come on in, guys.
Derek:Can I give you something to eat? And he made sure that that they were fed before they they headed out to where he was burnt at the stake. And, so we've got a a great cloud of witnesses that extends way beyond this, this more modern cloud of individuals choosing nonviolence. I hope you are able to see this question more clearly. I hope you're able to see, how there's really no moral foundation to the emotional question, how you can see a lot of the assumptions that are really built into it that are are problematic for it, and how you can see, how really it doesn't have all that much to offer that it's it's presented to.
Derek:And it really only gives you one option, whereas, nonviolence gives you many, many other options while allowing you to maintain enemy love. So, that's all for now. So peace, because I'm a pacifist, and I say it, I really do mean it.
