There is a famous Orwellian movie I hear referenced every once in awhile - Minority Report. The movie is basically about a future world in which technology enables leaders to know who will commit which crimes before they actually happen. They are able to essentially rid the world of crime (except the crimes of the aristocrats, of course) by locking up "criminals" before they actually commit their crimes. 

The movie is similar to another common ethical dilemma in which you are a time traveler who has the opportunity to kill Hitler while he's a child. Would it be moral to kill him before he actually committed his crime, even if you were as certain as you could be of what his future held? Can the ends justify the means? Can one be guilty and justly judged before they've committed a crime?

Minority Report and time traveling assassins are all far-fetched sci-fi concepts, but the idea of preemptive justice is not far-fetched at all. As Americans, we've preemptively judged many nations through our military and many criminals through disproportionate sentencing. We drop bombs and we raise sentences based on what we know of our enemies. 

While we certainly preemptively judge on a national scale, we Americans often promote Minority Report justice on an individual scale. I mean, isn't that what self-defense usually is? If someone invades your home and you choose to confront them with a gun rather than lock your room and call the police, aren't you preparing to kill an aggressor based on the assumption that they're seeking your harm rather than your material goods? Even if one thinks the death penalty is a legitimate punishment for murder, how many cases of "self-defense" are cases in which one's life would have been taken? How many times is self-defense taking the life of someone who would have stolen or assaulted rather than killed?

I have to ask two questions, then. First, why are we so critical of Minority Report as being Orwellian when we do something similar in our promotion of self-defense on both a national and individual scale? Second, why do we hide our inhumanity behind self-defense? Many would be appalled at state execution for theft, assault, or rape, as many are even appalled at state execution for murder. Yet self-defense goes even further in that it is execution for a presumed crime. 

Self-Defense is passing the death sentence for a crime not yet committed.

I finally got my second tattoo a few months ago. As I did with the first one, I want to lay out the significance of its meaning here.

Broken Sword: The image of a sword is the most recognizable. However, you'll notice that the sword is broken and in the process of shattering. It is not a useful weapon, but one that has been, or is being demolished. 

ICXCNIKA: This is a popular depiction on crosses in the Eastern tradition. It stands for "Jesus Christ Conquers." You are probably familiar with the word Nike (or Nika here), which just means "to conquer." This phrase is meant to be ironic in that we have depicted a flawed weapon - a broken sword - but then declared that Jesus Christ conquers. This phrase, along with the ironic image, should lead to a final image made prominent through the placing of the letters.

The Cross: The letters help to illuminate that while we initially see a sword in the image, we are also seeing a cross. When we put the letters together along with the idea of a broken sword, we recognize that this irony here is an irony we see in the book of Revelation. In Revelation we initially see Jesus as a lion, but then he becomes the slain lamb. We see him going out to conquer, but he does this through his blood. We see him wield a sword, but this sword is the testimony of his mouth. Likewise, my tattoo depicts that it is not with a sword that Jesus conquers, but rather through the cross. He shatters swords. 

​The book of John is among one of four gospels in the New Testament, yet it is in a class of its own. While the other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are considered synoptic gospels, John is quite a bit different. John frames his gospel to accentuate various teachings not highlighted as much in the other gospels, particularly the teaching of the divinity of Jesus, the Christ. We get a glimpse of this elevation and framing from the very beginning of John's gospel as we see Jesus, the Word, residing with God and creating the universe. John's gospel is filled with this elevation and emphasis on the spiritual aspect of the good news of Jesus. Whereas Luke is more the historian with his focus on eyewitness accounts and social/political defense of Jesus and the early church (see "World Upside Down" and "Interweaving Innocence" for discussions of Acts and Luke), John is more the theologian.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful theological exhibitions in the book of John is found in chapter 3. Of course we are all familiar with verse 16, but what concerns us here is not verse 16's explanation of how our salvation obtains, but rather all that precedes the securing of salvation and instead answers the question, "what is obtained in our salvation?" Verses 3-7 are of particular interest here. They say,

 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[c] must be born again.’

I find myself returning to contemplate the problem of evil time and time again. Maybe millennials (of which I barely make the cut) have a bigger hang-up with the way evil's existence seems to encroach on the possibility of a good God's existence, but I think the problem is much broader than one generation. Whether it's the death of a daughter leading Darwin to embrace his religious doubts, or the holocaust of a whole race which is remembered and lamented in the works of Elie Wiesel - each generation seems to have its own works and workers who wrestle with the reality of evil's existence. Evil is hard to stomach, and especially so if one is a Christian who proclaims the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God who supposedly despises evil. 

In response to the problem of evil Christian history has produced a number of defenses for God. These defenses are known as "theodicies." A theodicy doesn't claim to prove that God exists or that its explanation for evil's existence is the correct one, but it merely offers what is a possible explanation for evil's existence alongside a good God. If the theodicy's explanation is logically possible, then evil's existence is not incompatible with the existence of God, even if this particular explanation doesn't end up being the correct one. The goal is simply to show that the existence of a good God and evil aren't logically incompatible. At the moment, the most broadly accepted theodicy on the market is the free will theodicy as refined and presented by Alvin Plantinga. Plantinga argues that for a God to create a world in which his creatures loved him in a meaningful sense, then those creatures would need to have the choice not to love him. God could have created robots that would have never disobeyed him or done any evil thing, but in creating such a world, he would have created a world where true love was impossible. So while it is true that evil exists, it's only in a world where evil is possible that love can exist, and God deems that the existence of love is worth the price of allowing evil. 

The Free Will Theodicy (FWT) is a beautiful defense because it makes a lot of sense. Everyone would love a world without evil, but we recognize that we'd all likely prefer a world where we make meaningful choices to love than a world where we were programmed robots - even if the price of love was the existence of evil. Love is such a beautiful and powerful thing that we recognize evil pales in comparison to it. The FWT is a fantastic defense of God, though as with all arguments, there are some problems. But it isn't in the scope of this article to expound on this theodicy or defend it. Suffice it to say that this is the going theodicy in Christianity, particularly Western Christianity. With the acknowledgement of this broad Christian adherence to the FWT, what I want to do, then, is actually draw out some implications this theodicy has for two other Christian positions: nonviolence and Christian anarchism. ​

Click here for an audio/podcast version of this article. 

I recently started a podcast with some acquaintances. The podcast focuses on the issue of Christian nonviolence, exploring the case for a nonviolent position as well as discussing rebuttals against the position. Check it out here!

For a much expanded version of the case for nonviolence in podcast form, check out the Fourth Way Podcast.

​1. Introduction: My journey to pacifism
2. Biblical Teaching: A foundation for pacifism using scripture
3. Biblical Examples: Examples of explicit non-violence in the face of aggression from the Bible and Apostles
4. Early Church Teaching: Quotes from the early church fathers about their beliefs on war, soldiering, vengeance, violence, punishment, etc
5. Real Life Examples: Examples of non-violence, its implementation, and effect
6. Pacifism Applied: Explores what the process and action of pacifism look like
7. Evaluating the Christian Alternative to Pacifism: A look at a Just War theory of morally using violence as a Christian and asking how it isn't even more idealistic than pacifism
8. Pacifism Quotes to Ponder: A reflection on non-violence and violence from those who journeyed through persecution 
9. Counter-Rebuttals: Rebutting the greatest criticisms leveled at a pacifistic position
10. Questions for Just-War Adherents : Returning difficult questions to Just War adherents about their ideology
11. Conclusion
12. Resources


*13. Addendums - Additional arguments and ideas I'm putting here until I reformat the site or figure out where I can include them. 
​*14. My Poetry - Poetry I've written in trying to work through various issues of the Kingdom, including nonviolence.
​*15. My Book - While the book isn't specifically about pacifism, it deals with the consequentialist (ends justify the means) morality which my culture taught me that prevented me from living as Christ desires, which includes a nonviolent life. I think this inculcated morality is what must be addressed before many can hear Christ's words. I'm happy to share this document for free as well, just contact me. 

The full, original article (not updated with more recent editions) can be downloaded in PDF format below: 

In Stanley Hauerwas's book, "War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity," he summarizes some very profound thoughts from Martin Luther King Jr. Hauerwas says, 

I want to pull out three basic ideas from this quote which I think are vital to understanding the position of nonviolence. While you can read the rest of the material I've provided and glean many of these concepts, I think it is succinctly stated here so well, I wanted to make sure it was grasped.

Those we tend to identify as our enemies are fellow image bearers of God: 
While no Christian will ever say it, we tend to group terribly evil individuals in a subhuman category. Murderers and despots are not worthy of life. They deserve to rot in hell. They are animals. Often, we loathe these depraved individuals, and rarely do we seek to love and weep for them. King rightly identifies that those who opposed him, while technically his enemy, were fellow human beings worthy of love. If Jesus Christ could and did love those who murdered and tortured him, and if Jesus loved me while I was at enmity with God, than surely I am called to love even those image bearers who are at enmity with me. If we are not better than Jesus, than our enemies are not below us. 

Our war is not with flesh and blood:
I think King identifies what so many of us forget - that our war is with evil. Yes, humans often ally with and embody evil, but our war is not with our fellow humans. Many of us wrongly believe that by defeating human embodiments of evil, we are defeating it. But such is not the case. Conquering and killing - even those who are evil - simply creates more evil, or extends the evil. We are very familiar with this in regard to our habits. We recognize that the "killing" of some of our bad habits is not the end of our inner warfare, as true change and reform requires a positive creation of good habits. As Hauerwas says at the end of his quote, the end we seek isn't simply the abolishment of evil, but rather the thriving of a loving community.

Means must be commensurate with the end:
The last sentence segues nicely into the third point Hauerwas makes. Christians who choose violence and those who choose nonviolence both claim that their end goal is the creation of a loving community. But one has to ask how the means of violence are commensurate and logical if the end being sought is a loving community? Such means and ends seem antithetical to one another. If my enemies are image bearers, and if my goal is reconciliation and loving community, how could I justify the use of violence as a consistent means to accomplish my goal?