Welcome back to the 4th Go podcast. This is the 5th and final episode in the positive case for Christian Nonviolence. In the first episode we discussed our biases and presuppositions and how important it was that we identify what those are so that we can be as objective as possible when approaching the evidence for nonviolence. In the second episode we discussed the Biblical case for nonviolence. We took a look at the Old Testament and saw how we could find glimpses of nonviolence in the Old Testament.

And we also looked at the New Testament, the teachings of Christ and the apostles. In the 3rd episode, we took a look at the, case from church history, and we looked at what was the early church doing, and what torch were they carrying on. Was it for non violence, or was it violence? And, finally, in the 4th episode, we talked a little bit about the the logical case. We talked about empiricism, and what, the empirical evidence shows.

And we also talked about intuitions. And And we talked about coherence, and we focused mostly on the incoherence of the just war theory. And, today, we're gonna kind of continue by making a little bit more of a case for the coherence of nonviolence. So in this episode, I am going to flesh out the coherence of pacifism. And I wanna begin by doing that with a case study.

And this case study is gonna be important. We're gonna see a lot of other real life examples of nonviolence in action. But this case study is, I think, going to be be a good start. So back when I was in college, probably around 2,001, 2,002, there was a school shooting. But this school shooting was was a bit different than a lot of the other ones because this school shooting didn't happen by a student, and it was done to the most harmless group of people imaginable.

A lone gunman went into an Amish schoolhouse, and he took a classroom full of individuals hostage. He asked the, I think it was just the men, maybe it was all the teachers, to leave, and then he ended up, shooting, I believe, 10 girls and ended up killing, I think, 5 and, permanently permanently damaging some of the other other girls who were there, irreparably. And, this was an interesting case, not only because it happened to the Amish, but because it was one of the few glimpses that we get at how the Amish respond to such things. The Amish did not put up any resistance, and, that is a very strange thing to see for, for something so violent to such an innocent group of people that that there wasn't resistance, that nobody fought back. And in the minds of many people, this was just it was a tragedy, and we felt terrible for the Amish, but it was also just so sad that that, violence senseless violence was allowed to happen without without any pushback.

You know, had the Amish resisted, the headlines the next next day may have read something like, you know, the heroic Amish save kids or, you know, the the peaceful doves become, vicious lions. I don't know. I that's why I'm not a journalist because I could never even come up with a headline, let alone an article. But the headlines would have been pretty cool for a day, and we would have been like, yeah. Those Amish, they they got that shooter, and they saved those kids.

Right? But that's not what happened. Instead, we got headlines of tragedy. We had people making kind of under the table accusations of the Amish allowing senseless loss. Nobody would say that to their faces because what happened to them was terrible and it wasn't their fault.

But, in a sense, it was their fault because they refused to fight back. They could have mitigated some of the damage. And a lot of people at least thought that what they did was passive. It was pointless. It was passive.

However, now that I I have begun to see, the value in nonviolence, I recognize that there's something that so many people are missing that I myself missed. And so I wanna point that out to you today and and want to break this case open and maybe give you a little bit different perspective. So, most people think that the Amish's response was passive and senseless. However, their response was absolutely anything but passive. Within hours of the shooting, hours, they visited and forgave the family of the shooter.

The shooter killed himself, so they couldn't forgive him, in person, but they forgave the family of the shooter. They attended the shooter's funeral, people from the Amish community, and they purposefully blocked the news cameras to give the family of the shooter privacy. The family of the person who killed and maimed their daughters. They helped to clean the the mother of the shooter's home while she had cancer. They built a sunroom as a gift only months after the shooting for the family of the shooter.

And and I know they've done a number of other things. I think they had, like, a a college fund set up, or something, like that. But, anyway, you can you can go ahead and check out the one of the links in the article or or look that up for yourself. The point is, the Amish's response was was not passive. It was anything but passive.

And, that's what a lot of people miss about Christian nonviolence. They think that they can judge Christian nonviolence based on the ends they think we should desire. And, those ends should be self preservation and preservation of good people, not preservation of enemies. So, those should be our ends. And, if those are our ends, what we do doesn't tend to obtain those ends.

And, that's why we're we're viewed as being passive. But, you know, Christian nonviolence is so powerful because, unlike violent action, which I would actually maybe argue that that violence is actually more reaction to a situation, nonviolence instead is a continuous disposition which requires constant action. Somebody hits you, you instinctively hit them back. Somebody has a gun if you are are, maybe not scared senseless. Right?

Your reaction is going to be to mitigate the threat, to neutralize the threat. So, but and and that's really just reaction. That's a reaction of self preservation. That's not a lot of forethought. That's not ethical thinking, moral thinking.

That's not that's really there's there's not much depth to that at all. It's just self preservation and reaction. Nonviolence, on the other hand, is continued reaction, or continued action. So nonviolence think about the Amish here. Nonviolence required preparation.

It required that they were prepared to do what they did in a situation like this, that they were trained to, when they saw a shooter, or or an enemy, a threat come, it was so much in their blood and in their minds not to do harm that they were able to restrain themselves. And, you know, maybe a silly example here of, maybe something that you might be able to relate to a little bit more, but I remember taking driver's driver safety course. And one of the things that stuck out to me was how to hit a deer. Because up in Pennsylvania, we had deer like crazy and everybody was hitting them. And I remembered, they said, what you're gonna do is when you see the deer, you put on your brakes, you try to slow down as much as possible.

But right before the moment of impact, you you step on the gas so that the front of your car comes up, and instead of the deer coming up over and into your windshield and possibly killing you, which is how a lot of people die from from hitting deer, it will hopefully go under the car because the nose of your car will have lifted up. And I remember telling my wife about that, and she had never heard that. And she was like, I would never think to do that. And I said, well, I would. And it wasn't because I took a driver safety course.

It was because I knew that this was a real threat in my world in Pennsylvania. This was a real threat to me. And so, constantly, while I'm driving, I am running through that situation in my head and mentally practicing and preparing and talking about it and thinking and, role playing of sorts. And, I don't know if I would have done the right thing, but it's so ingrained in me after thinking about it so much that I I really hope I would. There's a good example of this.

I'll I'll talk about a guy really briefly at the end of this this, podcast. But his name is Pablo Yoder, and he's a missionary in South America. And I'll link his YouTube video here where he he talks about this. But he he talks about nonviolence, and and he has had so many encounters with people who have harmed him and his wife, who've who've robbed them and threatened them. And, he talks about how in one of the situations, they had asked him to go get some money.

And, he walked into his back room, and he saw a baseball bat. And he is a nonviolent person, and that baseball bat was not there for protection. He just liked baseball, I guess. And he said for a split second, it crossed my mind to use that. And, he didn't.

And he said, but after that incident, I realized I have to get that bat out of the house. And this is this is part of preparation. Be nonviolent means that you set yourself up, not only with a mindset, but also your your surroundings, to set yourself up for the best possible chance of doing what you believe is the right thing. It's not something even for a guy like Pablo Yoder, who had experienced many threats to his life and and his well-being and the well-being of his family. Even him, when he walks into a a room and sees a baseball bat, that one little time, that one little thing could have tripped him up in his actions.

Being a pacifist, being nonviolent, is not something that is easy or passive. It's something that that takes maintained willpower to do. And that kind of leads into the the second part. It doesn't only require preparation beforehand, It requires persistent resolve and endurance during a situation to prepare and then to actually execute something. And while you're seeing injustice happen, to say that I myself will not also participate in just in injustice to stop this.

That requires some resolve, especially, I think, in the the case of the Amish, especially when you're seeing this injustice happen to people that you love or to particularly innocent, people, to kids. I mean, that's just yeah. That that's horrible, and and very hard to maintain. And the last one, what about, intentionality afterwards? The majority so I don't know how much preparation the Amish do, but a a huge component of nonviolence is the action afterwards.

Because nonviolence the reason that one is nonviolence is is because we believe that image bearers, enemies are image bearers of God. And as image bearers, we seek their well-being, and we seek reconciliation with them because we don't want to be their enemies. And the intentionality that comes afterwards with the Amish is just beautiful. Because after you've been wronged so badly, how in the world do you forgive and do you look into the faces of people who have done you wrong or who are associated with with the wrong done to you. How do you do that?

How do you sacrifice for those people? It requires great intentionality afterwards as it seeks reconciliation. So the goal of nonviolence is enemy love and reconciliation, or as some might call it, the gospel. That's what Jesus Christ did for us, isn't it? While we were still His enemies, while we were still sinners, He died for us.

Violence is willing to put love and forgiveness to the side for a moment for a moment. We can hate our enemy and kill them so that we can seek our preservation, the preservation of others. And that's why most violent encounters that you see don't end like the encounter with the Amish. My Christian community was all about protection, guns rights, gun rights. And, I know that there are plenty of Christians who have defended themselves.

And you you have to ask yourself, why don't you hear stories? And I'm sure there's 1 or 2 out there that exist. But why in general don't you hear stories of people who have used violence as a means to stop intruders? Why don't you hear stories of them doing this reconciliation kind of thing? Why don't you hear stories of them exhibiting the gospel?

And I'm not gonna say it's because those people aren't Christians. I I don't believe that at all. But it's because they don't have a gospel mindset, Because violence and the willingness to objectify enemies is not a gospel mindset. And that's why people are all about, Christians in my community. We're and are all about shooting intruders and not doing anything to reconcile.

That's not gospel. Violence is an easy means. It's a reaction, and it's used to take care of your own interests. It's without consideration of your image bearing enemy. Violence exhibits the world's power.

The way the world seeks power is through force. But non violence exhibits the gospel, and it's compelling. The family of an assailant, of a murderer, is not compelled by the fact that you shot their loved one who was attacking you. They're compelled by enemy love. That's what the gospel is.

It is compelling. And the use of violence just isn't. Use of nonviolence, as you see with the Amish, is. The headlines of of the Amish schoolhouse shooting went around the world. It wasn't just some local news story of of, you know, a a shooting that was stopped by some heroic person.

Now that story went around the world, and it touched a lot of lives, and it brought a lot of attention to the gospel. And you just don't see that with violence. Violence tends to propel people away from God. Nonviolence compels people towards the gospel. So with with that kind of explanation in mind and thinking about what it means to be nonviolent and how nonviolence really isn't passive, and a lot of times violence is really passive other than a momentary action.

It's passive, and it's seeking of restoration. I wanna go ahead and take a look at some other real life examples. And, the this first one is a is a good segue, because I think you can see both how violence propelled this individual away from God as well as how the nonviolence that he came to embrace compelled him towards the gospel. Or perhaps with him, when he was propelled towards the gospel, he recognized the need for nonviolence and, just how violence did not did not fit. It wasn't coherent with the gospel.

And the guy's name is Ronald Skirth. He was in World War 1, and he wrote a book called reluctant The Reluctant Tommy. And I heard his story from Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, episode on, on World War 1, which was amazing. But this this quote in particular stuck out to me, and I wanna share that with you. Alright.

So Ronald Skirth. At 19, I found my standards of conduct obsolete, my ideals shattered. I had lost all faith in institutional religion. My church had authorized me to break the 6th commandment in the name of patriotism. Blessed are the peacemakers?

No. Not 1917. Blessed are the war winners. Blessed are the munition makers. Twice blessed, for they lined their pockets and kept their skins intact at the same time.

These were the thoughts that I couldn't dismiss from my mind during those dreadful months. I wouldn't have stuck a label on myself then, but I know now what I had to become what I had become. It's a word that is distasteful to many, pacifist. I still believed in God, though I was being assailed by doubts. I prayed daily, prayed that he would stop the war going on and end the misery it caused.

Soon, it became obvious that he wasn't going to. For the longer it went on, the worse the horrors of it became. I'd been taught, God is love. Rubbish. I couldn't help thinking.

If he loved us, if he were omnipotent, he could put a stop to it today. But then I thought, perhaps he isn't omnipotent. Eventually, I worked it out, at least for myself. God was alright. It was we who were wrong.

Why the hell should he care what happened to us a lot? We had brought this war evil into existence, not God. The reason evil and ugliness were triumphing over goodness and beauty, why pity and compassion were considered weakness and ruthlessness and cruelty regarded as noble. The reason for all this was the wickedness in ourselves and not the indifference of God. That was why the more murders you committed, the bigger the hero you became.

That was what major superior officers slap you on the back and say, splendid old chap. Jolly good shooting. When your shells had destroyed in minutes the beauty which craftsmen had toiled lifetime lifetimes to create. So Ronald Skirth, kind of goes to show, he didn't become an atheist, but I I think he makes it kinda clear that there are foxhole atheists. And that's because, more than anything else, war brings out, violence brings out this idea of the problem of evil.

And if there is one issue that people have with god, especially today, it is the problem of evil. Why why is there so much evil, and why is it just so seemingly gratuitous? And that's that's really the biggest objection that I hear from from most people who are agnostic or atheists. And what makes it worse for Christians isn't the fact that violence exists at all. What makes it a 1000000 times worse is that it especially exists within Christianity.

It exists within Christianity today, as the as a, quote, Christian nation. We we create more wars than just about anybody else. We do so much violence across the world. We we spend so much money on the military. We are just a violent culture, and we're a self proclaimed Christian nation.

We've got the crusades, the inquisitions. You look at all the European wars that that happened in between all these countries that are supposedly Christian. I mean, you look at, even more modern, like, after the inquisitions, you look at what protestants were doing to each other, to Anabaptists, as well as to other people that they considered heretics, burning people, drowning people, torturing people. It's just horrendous. And Ronald Skirth had this realization that, he thought that violence perhaps disproved God or at least some of God's attributes.

He recognized that, no. No. No. God's alright. We're we're the problem.

You know? If I've gotta pick between violence being logical, rational, and God, like, no. God makes sense. Violence doesn't. And I think he's right.

And, continuing with the idea of warfare here. So starting in World War 1. Let's go to World War 2 because this has given, I think, one of the one of the best proven grounds for the different means that one can employ to accomplish things. And so I wanna take a look at at 3 particular cases. 2 very similar and then one a little bit different.

So first case, we've got Bulgaria. You didn't think you were gonna hear anything about Bulgaria, did you? No. Because Bulgaria is really small and unimportant in in our minds. Right?

You probably can't even locate it on a map. Bulgaria just is irrelevant. Sorry if you're from Bulgaria or if you like Bulgaria. And to our missionary friends in Bulgaria, I don't mean that personally. But Bulgaria is just just nothing.

But man, in world war 2, they were pretty awesome. Bulgaria started out with a population of 48,000 Jews. Bulgaria proper because there there was, I don't know. It's a long story. You'll have to check out the article.

But, the main portion of Bulgaria, had 48,000 Jews, Jews, not its territories, just Bulgaria proper. And at the end of the war, depending on the numbers that you look at, Bulgaria either had 48,000 Jews or 50,000 Jews. So Bulgaria, at worst, maintained its Jewish population while they were an axis controlled country and possibly even gained Jews during that time period, during World War 2. So how does that happen? Well, did they have a a really strong resistance who bombed the German trains and and assassinated German leadership and all that?

No. They're Bulgaria. What are they gonna do? They're they're small. They don't have any power.

But what they did is they the citizenship rallied around the the Jewish people, and they said, you're not going to do this to them. You had priests, volunteering to lie in front of trains that were about to haul off Jews to the concentration camps. You had farmers volunteering to do the same. You had priests who were making, fake baptist baptismal registries or whatever, sir certificates for Jews so that they could pass inspection, but from the, from the Germans. You had you had them doing all sorts of nonviolent things, and they saved their whole Jewish population.

Now, a better one or maybe a better one, depending on how you look at it, but is Denmark. Almost the same thing happened in Denmark. And, Hannah Arendt was, a a Jewish individual who escaped Germany, went to Sweden, escaped Sweden, and ended up eventually in the United States. And she she's written a bit about evil, and I don't think she's a Christian at all from from what I could tell. And but she she writes a little bit about evil and kind of how how normal people can be so evil, and she writes a bit about Denmark.

So let me read you her her little piece here. Hannah Arendt concludes that the cause of the case of Denmark is the only case we know of in which the Nazis met with open native resistance, and the result seems to have been that those exposed to it changed their minds. They themselves apparently no longer looked upon the extermination of a whole people as a matter of course. They had met with resistance based on principle, and their toughness had melted like butter in the sun. They had even been able to show a few timid beginnings of genuine courage.

So in Denmark, they had a 99% success rate. I think out of around 8,000 Jews, and I can't do the math really quickly. I'm just trying to remember numbers. But around 8,000 Jews and, like, 400 ended up making it out of the country on, on trains by the Germans to ex to concentration camps. But only, like, 48 of the elderly there died, even most of those lived.

So so in Denmark, they even more so than Bulgaria, there was just a an overall defiance of what the Germans wanted them to do. They refused to repair German boats. They they they just, like, defied them at every turn. And what Arndt notices is is that even more than the fact that they saved 99% of their Jewish population, even more than this, You see that, and she gives several examples, but you see that German officers who were stationed there actually began to not be trusted by the other Germans because the Jews, when the Germans were were coming to sneak in and and take some of the Jews, somehow, they were tipped off as to the German movements and plans. And the only people who had that information were German officers in in Denmark.

So Arndt notices that that this refusal to comply, this nonviolent refusal, it wasn't, you know, you couldn't say, hey. Look. They're shooting at us and trying to kill us. You just had people who were observing individuals putting their lives on the line, doing the right thing. And these Germans just said, look, you're you're more right than my country is, than my orders are.

And it created a change of heart in many of the Germans stationed in Denmark. So, 2 countries that were occupied, and one was actually, in I think controlled by the Axis, an ally. Two countries, small, no no significant armies, no significant resistances compared to other countries, but they saved collectively about a 100% of the Jewish population there. That is that is insane. Like, what other country can you say that of?

And I I just think that that speaks for itself, and I'll just shut up and and move on. But I I was amazed that I had never heard about those two countries before in those two instances because war and violence is more glorious. Right? Refusing to repair a boat, not so much. 3rd case, and this is instead of a collective, because I know that that sometimes it's easier to say, well, yeah.

If we had a collective population who would all band together and and do something, then that's one thing. Forgetting that that collectives start off with individuals making the right choices and that it shouldn't matter as a Christian what the group's doing if I have integrity. Nevertheless, here's an example of an individual. Sophie Scholl. She was a German student.

So she was she was a young lady, and she was participating in nonviolent meetings and handing out pamphlets and things like that. And she ended up being beheaded for she was beheaded for her nonviolent actions. And so there's a there's a quote from her which I I love because it's that integrity thing. How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine sunny day, and I have to go.

But what does my death matter if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action? So that was a German girl who defied Hitler, not by trying to kill him, but by trying to mobilize people to do the right thing. You might say, well, yeah. I've never heard of Sophie Scholl, so a lot of good she did. And, again, the ends don't justify the means, so it's very noble what Sophie did regardless of of what happened.

But you would be wrong about how much of an impact she has had. In Germany, in 2003, Sophie Scholl was voted one of the most influential Germans. She took 4th place. She was the 4th most influential German. And she beat out famous Germans like Bach, Goethe, Gutenberg, Bismarck, and Einstein.

So Sophie Scholl didn't do anything. Yeah, she did. It doesn't matter if she did or didn't, but she did. She took a stand, she mobilized people, and she stood up against evil while refusing to do evil herself. Alright.

Let's move on to, away from the wars here. And let's move on to, a more of a societal war. Go on to civil rights and you've got Martin Luther King Junior. And most people who are listening to this probably from the states or from the west, and you understand that that Martin Luther King Junior was very involved in the civil rights movement. And, he would he's just he's got several really profound statements.

But one that that stands out to me is King's recognition of how important non how important nonviolence was to his effectiveness, to his his, disposition. So there were there was a time in his life when he was not nonviolent, and he did try to get a a, a gun permit, and he had armed bodyguards, and and he was kind of taking the violent approach to protect himself. And a lot of people would point to that and say, no. King wasn't nonviolent. Look.

He had armed bodyguards. Yeah. But there was a a genuine shift in what King did. King talks about that here. King says, how could I serve as one of the leaders of a nonviolent movement, and at the same time use weapons of violence for my personal protection?

Coretta and I talked the matter over for several days and finally agreed that arms were no solution. We decided then to get rid of the one weapon we owned. We tried to satisfy our friends by having floodlights mounted around the house and hiring unarmed watchmen around the clock. I also promised that I would not travel around the city alone. I was much more afraid in Montgomery when I had a gun in my house.

When I decided that I couldn't keep a gun, I came face to face with the question of death, and I dealt with it. From that point on, I no longer needed a gun nor have I been afraid. Had we become distracted by the question of my safety, we would have lost the moral offensive and sunk to the level of our oppressors. I think King's statement here points out a number of things that we've talked about. First of all, like I mentioned with Yoder earlier, who, found that baseball bat in his home while he was being attacked, It takes preparation.

It takes a lot of forethought to make the right decision, if if you believe that nonviolence is the right decision. And King shows that here. But another thing that he shows is really this gospel idea of a willingness to lay down your life. If you you have to accept that to be able to be nonviolent, that Jesus Christ owns your life, and that you can lay that down even for your enemy. And King says that that at this point, that's what made him effective because before, when he had a gun, he was so focused on the preservation of his own life when he had armed bodyguards preserving my life.

When he gave that up and and he didn't give it up, irrationally. I mean, he still had had took precautions. But when he gave that up, he didn't seek to to lose his life, but he counted his life as nothing so that he could be consistent, and so that he could, be effective, in in his integrity, and showing people that the message that he preached was also the message that he lived. King has two other quotes which I I really, really like, So I'll, I'll get to those right here. King says, my study of Gandhi convinced me that the true pacifism is not non resistance to evil, but nonviolent resistance to evil.

Between the two positions, there is a world of difference. Gandhi resisted evil with as much vigor and power as the violent resistor, but true pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love. And I love that King highlights there this this false notion that pacifism is passive. King says, no.

It is not passive one bit. It takes, and this is what we've been saying, it it actually takes constant action, and it's continuing to face evil head on. But instead of the power of weapons against flesh and blood, it is instead, the the power of love. And another quote I I forgot to put here, King talks a bit about how it's not the the white people that they're fighting. You know, it's not their goal isn't to fight white people, but it's to fight injustice, and how that injustice actually is the the true evil, this non flesh and blood thing, this immaterial thing, or or these demons or whatever you wanna call them.

And that is the real enemy because the white people that some of King's black counterparts wanted, like Malcolm x, wanted to physically fight, King recognized that those individuals were not the enemy because while King was oppressed by the injustice that they perpetuated, at the same time, those individuals were being oppressed by the evil that, that was reigning over them and in their lives. And so King viewed his oppressors as victims of of the same sort of thing. And what a beautiful way to look at things, to to recognize that, you know, you put these quotes together, these ideas together, and King recognized that he could count his own life lost because it was secure in Christ. And, at the same time, he could recognize that his his enemies were being oppressed and in need of of salvation, even though King's physical life was the one that was in danger. What a I mean, that's just a that's extremely profound and and beautiful.

So last quote by King, short but awesome. King says, darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.

And I think that is that is very biblically minded as well, light and darkness themes, and, just beautifully put by King. How are you going to use a means that is darkness, that is, violent to solve the problem of violence and darkness? It it doesn't work. Moving on. Go get to another Christian, and we'll talk about Jim Elliott.

Now, before we get into this, I do wanna say I do not know if Elliott was a pacifist. And, in fact, I would probably assume that he wasn't. Elliott was and and I feel bad for the other guys because Elliott's always the one who gets recognized, but he's with 2 other people. I think Nate Saint was another one and a third guy that nobody ever remembers his name. But they were missionaries to some tribe in South America who had been unreached, and they were trying to make contact.

And they had a gun in the plane, and when when they went to make contact and were speared, they chose not to not to shoot. They, they chose not to shoot their people who, I guess, were their enemies because they were killing them. Now while Elliott may and his group might not have been pacifists, their action represents the power of nonviolent action. Because whether they have the disposition of nonviolence all the time or not is irrelevant. In this instance, they display nonviolence.

And if you ever watch the movie The End of the Spear, it kind of goes into it it tells the story. But you realize that their refusal to kill changed the course of history for that tribe who was unreached, and it paved the way for their acceptance of the gospel. Charles Spurgeon, another guy who you wouldn't expect to be pacifistic. He's reformed, and especially in his time and in his denomination, pacifism not a super popular thing. But Spurgeon has a number of things to say about violence.

And I like using Spurgeon because I am reformed and Presbyterian, and so using Spurgeon is kind of, you know, you use Martin Luther King Junior or you use Gandhi, some of these other people, and individuals find excuses to to say, well, those guys are crazy. But Spurgeon is very revered in my community. So what does Spurgeon have to say? Well, I've got 3 quotes from him. First one.

I wish that Christian men would insist more and more on the unrighteousness of war, believing that Christianity means no sword, no cannon, no bloodshed, and that if a nation is driven to fight in its own defense, Christianity stands by to weep and to intervene as soon as possible and not to join in the cruel shouts which celebrate an enemy's slaughter. Pretty straightforward. 2nd quote, the church of Christ is continually represented under the figure of an army, yet its captain is the prince of peace. Its object is the establishment of peace, and its soldiers are men of a peaceful disposition. The spirit of war is at the extremely opposite point to the spirit of the gospel.

3rd quote, what pride flushes the patriot's cheek when he remembers that his nation can murder faster than any other people. Ah, foolish generation. Ye are groping in the flames of hell to find your heaven, breaking amid blood and bones for the foul thing which he call glory. Killing is not the path to prosperity. Huge armaments are accursed to the nation itself as well as to its neighbors.

Again, very straightforward. We also got, a guy, Desmond Doss. And, there's a movie that just came out a few years ago called Hacksaw Ridge. And Doss, Desmond Doss wanted to do something for his country, but he refused to kill. And so he was a medic, and he would not shoot or even carry a weapon.

And there goes back to that preparation thing. He wouldn't even carry a weapon. And he his counting of his own life lost, and his desire to love everyone, even his enemy, made him a an absolutely amazing person. I'm surprised that a story was ever made about him, because that that kind of thing doesn't usually happen. Usually, we glorify the violence.

But the movie is very good. Very violent, but good. Next guy, Pablo Yoder. And I'm sorry that these are these are all guys except for Sophie Scholl, but these are just, the individuals that kind of stood out and I was able to find. Pablo Yoder.

And nobody's ever heard of him. He but he is a a, modern missionary, South America. There's not really that much to say about him other than his testimony is is really interesting because he talks about all of the the instances he's experienced gang violence and how he's worked through that as a pacifist. I'll link the video here, but, it's just a a good real life modern example of what nonviolence can look like. Gandhi, I'll throw him in just because he's such a big name.

I know he's not a Christian, and I don't think you have to be to to have good thoughts on nonviolence. But, so I'll I'll just throw him in here. Gandhi, quote, object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent. I so agree with that, and I've got a great example for you when we get to the the the counter rebuttal stage, and we go through the effectiveness and ineffectiveness, and and talking about how, while violence appears to do good, many times it perpetuates and exacerbates evil.

Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Saved this guy for last, because a lot of people point to Bonhoeffer as the, like, gotcha guy. Because Bonhoeffer was a pacifist, but then he wasn't because he was in Germany and he came up against Adolf Hitler, and he recognized how evil Hitler was. And that just kinda pushed him over the edge and said, I I gotta do something.

Something. Now, a couple caveats here. I really haven't researched Bonhoeffer all that much, but there is a group out there who, has some evidence that they put forward that shows that the the thing Bonhoeffer was actually taking part in was was not really the an assassination attempt on Hitler. And there are they kinda get to that in a roundabout way because there were several assassination attempts going on or several kinda coup sorts of things. Some of them were nonviolent.

And, anyway, they they say that Bonhoeffer was executed for some other reason. I really don't know if that's true or not, and I couldn't really care less because, like I said, you know, Paulo Yoder could've grabbed that baseball bat. Desmond Doss, he he could've carried a gun, or or picked up a gun off of a dead soldier and shot somebody. Reactions to situations, being pushed over the edge is possible for everybody. And the fact that you have so many people, early Christian martyrs included, who are willing to lay down their lives without doing violence.

You throw in a guy like Bonhoeffer, whom maybe did fall here, and so what? Right? He he had some thoughts about nonviolence earlier in his life, and we can still take a look at those and and see what he had to say when he was compelled. So here's here's the quote from Bonhoeffer. To believe the promise of Jesus that his followers shall possess the earth, and at the same time, to face our enemies unarmed and defenseless, preferring to incur injustice rather than to do wrong ourselves, is indeed a narrow way.

Now I don't know, also, if Bonhoeffer did try to assassinate Hitler. I don't know what his disposition was. Because maybe Bonhoeffer said, look, I I have to do something, and I'm probably wrong about this. I might be wrong for trying to kill somebody, but I'm gonna do it. And I will pray that god forgives me.

So I don't know, even if Bonhoeffer did end up not being, not sticking to his nonviolence, that doesn't mean that he thought it was right. So somebody who knows more about that than I do can comment or add to that. Okay. So what have we seen? Well, throughout the series, we have we have seen a very large case for nonviolence.

We have seen the biblical case, which in the New Testament, at least, at worst, seems to, say that the government alone can bear the sword. And at best says, basically, Christians don't don't do any violence. Love your enemies. So that's that's, looking pretty good for nonviolence. The early church, when we look at how they interpreted what the Bible was saying, they decided to avoid government, and they decided to avoid armies.

They decided to avoid capital punishment. They voided violence. They wouldn't even, take a robber blow for blow. And so the way that they read the New Testament, being so close to the apostles, is hands down for the nonviolence case. When we looked at intuitions and empirical evidence, well, that points very heavily towards nonviolence.

When we looked at logical coherence, the just war theory can't maintain its own internal coherence with it with what it says the morals of a just war should be. And the the violence, the violent position is is, incoherent. It it, is self defeating in a number of different ways. And then when we look at how pacifism plays out in the real world, how it is a taking up of your cross, it is a laying down of your life, it is accounting your your life as lost and putting your faith in Christ. And we look at real world examples of where this has sometimes succeeded, where it's been the only thing that's that's succeeded, for example, in Bulgaria and Denmark, the the places that saved the Jews, and in other places, where it hasn't succeeded, like with Sophie Scholl or Martin Luther King Junior in terms of their lives being lost.

Though, when you look 40 years out, Sophie Scholl is the 4th most influential, person, German, in Germany. Martin Luther King Junior, his movement was successful, and he is remembered as a hero. So the the cumulative case for non violence is just, I mean, astounding. I think you have at least 51%, rationality to believe, to believe that non violence is the route that you should take. And remember, since this is a cumulative case, all I need is 50.01% for you to be more rational to adhere to non violence.

And, hopefully, you can kind of see that the same way. I do have counter rebuttals that I need to give, and I'm planning on starting that as soon as this podcast is over, as soon as this series is over. And we'll hopefully be able to allay some of your your, disagreement or maybe areas that you think are problems. But as far as the positive case goes, I think, hands down, nonviolence wins. So let me leave you with just something that I think, a quote from a man named Shane Claiborne, who has an awesome book called The Irresistible Revolution.

And this book was was absolutely amazing, but this one section in particular helped me to to put nonviolence in perspective, globally, as well as to kinda synthesize a lot of the the things that we've discussed so far. And it I wanna leave this kind of as an exhortation to all of us as we try to make the church the church. So I'll end with this quote. Claiborne says, I explained to him that I was shocked to find so many Christians in Iraq. He looked at me puzzled and then gently said, yes, my friend.

This is where it all began. This is the land of your ancestors. That is the Tigris and the Euphrates. Have you read about them? I was floored by my ignorance and the ancient roots of my faith.

It is the land of my ancestors. Christianity was not invented in America. How about that? Bishop went on to tell me that the church in the Middle East was deeply concerned about the church in the United States. He said, many Americans are for the war, nodded, and he asked, but what are the Christians saying?

My heart sank. Tried to explain to him that many of the Christians in the US are confused and hope that this is a way God could liberate the Iraqi people. He shook his head and said, very humbly, but we Christians do not believe that. We believe blessed are the peacemakers. We believe if you pick up the sword, you die by the sword.

We believe in the cross. Tears welled up in my eyes as he said, we will be praying for you. We will be praying for the church in the US. Be the church. Let that be our prayer right now.