The most common misconception about pacifism is that it means inaction. I'd like to show how pacifism has a basis not only for action, and not only meaningful action, but how it also resists being manipulated and misused.
If I were a Jew living in Nazi Germany, I may actually wish to be surrounded by pacifists than those who are militant, as I'd have a better chance of being assisted in a meaningful way.
1). Those who accept violence tend towards pragmatism.
I remember a story a few years back from Panama City, Florida, where a girl was raped on the beach by a group of guys while a number of others did nothing. In my experience, non-pacifists tend to be pragmatic in their approach. If a non-pacifist has a gun, has the numbers, or is a confident fighter, they may go take on a group of aggressors. If they don't have the upper hand, they are less likely to confront. That's because force is acceptable to the non-pacifist because it's effective. If someone has a knife but I have fists, I'm out. If someone has a gun and I only have a knife, I'm out of the fight. Violence as a solution requires that it be of equal or greater violence than the potential violence it wishes to meet. If you can't meet the level of violence, you likely won't engage. This is also a core component of "Just War Theory." If you don't have a reasonable chance of winning, the war is not justified. Why engage if you can't win?
Christian pacifists, however, have already counted their life as nothing, and the lives of victims and enemies as everything. If they see a group of individuals raping a woman, they are much more likely to intervene. Maybe their action - bringing evil into the light - causes the men to flee. Maybe it stalls the act until help can arrive. Or maybe the intervention doesn't cause the act to stop. Maybe it only calls out evil, shows solidarity to the victim, and brings injury to the pacifist. But I can tell you that this bears the message of the gospel. The gospel isn't about pragmatism.
If I were a Jew under Nazi occupation, I would hope those around me were pacifists, as they'd likely help me even though there was a great risk to their own safety.
2). Those who accept violence are more apt to be coerced.
There is a fascinating book about the death squads of WWII called "Ordinary Men." It researches how the majority of death squads who killed Jews in Eastern Europe weren't hardened members of the Nazi party. They were the background, conscripted police forces composed of bankers, lawyers, bakers, etc. They were ordinary men. The Milgram Experiment backs up this very notion, that authority so easily directs our actions.
How is it the case that a Europe still saturated with Christian values could have its average citizen willing to carry out executions of innocent victims? Because if you're willing to make exceptions for doing violence to another human being, one only needs to expand or redefine your exceptions to direct your violence on innocent lives. If you can ever make the exception that some human is not worthy of life, it's just a very steep and slippery slope (as "Ordinary Men," the Milgram Experiment, and the Stanford Prison Experiment show) to get you to harming others. Pro-life advocates use this argument all the time. They say we can't redefine another group as unworthy of the human right to life. But even pro-life advocates will often do that with their enemies. Especially when you couple this directable violence with a sense of nationalism and fighting for your country, it becomes easy to see how a generally non-pacifistic culture (like Germany and the surrounding "Christian" countries that implemented death squads) can easily direct their violence to innocent groups.
Sadly, coercion can even extend to those who you may think couldn't be coerced. In his book "The Destruction of the European Jews," Raul Hilberg discusses how Jews themselves were implemented as a police force to round up fellow Jews. Hilberg says, "Each Jewish policeman was told to bring seven people for deportation each day or face 'resettlement' himself. Now every policeman brought whoever he could catch--friends, relatives, even members of his immediate family.... Bribes were offered to Jewish policemen to ward off arrest.... A middle aged woman held on to a lamppost and a line of Jews crawled on a catwalk on roofs, trying not to slip. Furniture, crockery, and shoes littered the streets."
As a Jew, I would hope that the community around me were pacifistic, as they value the lives of all - even enemies - and have already counted their lives as nothing. They would be much less susceptible to expanding their definition of human value and they would be much more likely to help me escape. There is a great quote by MLK which highlights this very notion, as he describes his attitude before he embraced non-violence and compares it with his attitude after accepting non-violence. King says, "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."
Pacifism is a dying to self. It is putting oneself last. Christian pacifism views the ultimate authority as God and recognizes that he is the judge and he has issued the means and standards he sees fit. One who has disarmed themselves and relinquished their life has less with which they can be coerced.
3). Those who accept pacifism tend to love all life.
At the core of Christian non-violence is that all human life is sacred. Human life, even the life of an enemy, is worth preserving, even at the cost of one's own life. With that in mind, were I to be a Jew in Nazi Germany, I would rather be in a community that was of a pacifistic mindset than a community that wasn't, as I would be more likely to encounter those individuals who would be willing to safeguard me at the risk of their own lives.
Many seem to have in their mind that an abstention from violence means an abstention from action. That is not at all the case. To smuggle and hide Jews, to help Jewish store owners clean up after their stores were destroyed, to not remain silent when indoctrination was occurring, etc - these are all non-violent ways to do something positive. By killing a German soldier (who may or may not align with the genocidal notions of the Third Reich) I reduce the country's manpower by one. I remove the possibility of that soldier ever changing his life, repenting, hearing the gospel, etc. I create hatred within that soldier's friends and create a cycle of perpetuated violence.
But when I house Jews, like the ten Booms, how many lives do I positively save? How much solidarity do I show and how much do I encourage my fellow brother and sister in love? When I get arrested for helping, how does that influence my neighbors and my community, knowing that I risked my life to save others, and without fault or any possible accusations of my harming another through resistance? What impact can I have on the guards during my detention? They may not see Jews as human, but what of one of their own countrymen who saw the Jews as human and helped them? What does that do to their system? What might that do to their heart? If the country would have been filled with Christian pacifists, there would have been less people whose violence could have been manipulated and coerced, less people who would have done nothing due to their god of pragmatism, and there would have been a love for all mankind. There would have been less blood shed by the soldiers of the nation and there would have been less Jews found by the state as more would have been hidden. World War Two was far more atrocious than it had to be because countries with a Christian foundation were willing to do violence.
[Edit]: As a fantastic example of non-violent resistance which actually worked, check out this article about the Bulgarian salvation of the Jews. Bulgaria may have been the only European country who saw their Jewish population rise during WWII - and they were allied with Hitler!
If I were a Jew living in Nazi Germany, I may actually wish to be surrounded by pacifists than those who are militant, as I'd have a better chance of being assisted in a meaningful way.
1). Those who accept violence tend towards pragmatism.
I remember a story a few years back from Panama City, Florida, where a girl was raped on the beach by a group of guys while a number of others did nothing. In my experience, non-pacifists tend to be pragmatic in their approach. If a non-pacifist has a gun, has the numbers, or is a confident fighter, they may go take on a group of aggressors. If they don't have the upper hand, they are less likely to confront. That's because force is acceptable to the non-pacifist because it's effective. If someone has a knife but I have fists, I'm out. If someone has a gun and I only have a knife, I'm out of the fight. Violence as a solution requires that it be of equal or greater violence than the potential violence it wishes to meet. If you can't meet the level of violence, you likely won't engage. This is also a core component of "Just War Theory." If you don't have a reasonable chance of winning, the war is not justified. Why engage if you can't win?
Christian pacifists, however, have already counted their life as nothing, and the lives of victims and enemies as everything. If they see a group of individuals raping a woman, they are much more likely to intervene. Maybe their action - bringing evil into the light - causes the men to flee. Maybe it stalls the act until help can arrive. Or maybe the intervention doesn't cause the act to stop. Maybe it only calls out evil, shows solidarity to the victim, and brings injury to the pacifist. But I can tell you that this bears the message of the gospel. The gospel isn't about pragmatism.
If I were a Jew under Nazi occupation, I would hope those around me were pacifists, as they'd likely help me even though there was a great risk to their own safety.
2). Those who accept violence are more apt to be coerced.
There is a fascinating book about the death squads of WWII called "Ordinary Men." It researches how the majority of death squads who killed Jews in Eastern Europe weren't hardened members of the Nazi party. They were the background, conscripted police forces composed of bankers, lawyers, bakers, etc. They were ordinary men. The Milgram Experiment backs up this very notion, that authority so easily directs our actions.
How is it the case that a Europe still saturated with Christian values could have its average citizen willing to carry out executions of innocent victims? Because if you're willing to make exceptions for doing violence to another human being, one only needs to expand or redefine your exceptions to direct your violence on innocent lives. If you can ever make the exception that some human is not worthy of life, it's just a very steep and slippery slope (as "Ordinary Men," the Milgram Experiment, and the Stanford Prison Experiment show) to get you to harming others. Pro-life advocates use this argument all the time. They say we can't redefine another group as unworthy of the human right to life. But even pro-life advocates will often do that with their enemies. Especially when you couple this directable violence with a sense of nationalism and fighting for your country, it becomes easy to see how a generally non-pacifistic culture (like Germany and the surrounding "Christian" countries that implemented death squads) can easily direct their violence to innocent groups.
Sadly, coercion can even extend to those who you may think couldn't be coerced. In his book "The Destruction of the European Jews," Raul Hilberg discusses how Jews themselves were implemented as a police force to round up fellow Jews. Hilberg says, "Each Jewish policeman was told to bring seven people for deportation each day or face 'resettlement' himself. Now every policeman brought whoever he could catch--friends, relatives, even members of his immediate family.... Bribes were offered to Jewish policemen to ward off arrest.... A middle aged woman held on to a lamppost and a line of Jews crawled on a catwalk on roofs, trying not to slip. Furniture, crockery, and shoes littered the streets."
As a Jew, I would hope that the community around me were pacifistic, as they value the lives of all - even enemies - and have already counted their lives as nothing. They would be much less susceptible to expanding their definition of human value and they would be much more likely to help me escape. There is a great quote by MLK which highlights this very notion, as he describes his attitude before he embraced non-violence and compares it with his attitude after accepting non-violence. King says, "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."
Pacifism is a dying to self. It is putting oneself last. Christian pacifism views the ultimate authority as God and recognizes that he is the judge and he has issued the means and standards he sees fit. One who has disarmed themselves and relinquished their life has less with which they can be coerced.
3). Those who accept pacifism tend to love all life.
At the core of Christian non-violence is that all human life is sacred. Human life, even the life of an enemy, is worth preserving, even at the cost of one's own life. With that in mind, were I to be a Jew in Nazi Germany, I would rather be in a community that was of a pacifistic mindset than a community that wasn't, as I would be more likely to encounter those individuals who would be willing to safeguard me at the risk of their own lives.
Many seem to have in their mind that an abstention from violence means an abstention from action. That is not at all the case. To smuggle and hide Jews, to help Jewish store owners clean up after their stores were destroyed, to not remain silent when indoctrination was occurring, etc - these are all non-violent ways to do something positive. By killing a German soldier (who may or may not align with the genocidal notions of the Third Reich) I reduce the country's manpower by one. I remove the possibility of that soldier ever changing his life, repenting, hearing the gospel, etc. I create hatred within that soldier's friends and create a cycle of perpetuated violence.
But when I house Jews, like the ten Booms, how many lives do I positively save? How much solidarity do I show and how much do I encourage my fellow brother and sister in love? When I get arrested for helping, how does that influence my neighbors and my community, knowing that I risked my life to save others, and without fault or any possible accusations of my harming another through resistance? What impact can I have on the guards during my detention? They may not see Jews as human, but what of one of their own countrymen who saw the Jews as human and helped them? What does that do to their system? What might that do to their heart? If the country would have been filled with Christian pacifists, there would have been less people whose violence could have been manipulated and coerced, less people who would have done nothing due to their god of pragmatism, and there would have been a love for all mankind. There would have been less blood shed by the soldiers of the nation and there would have been less Jews found by the state as more would have been hidden. World War Two was far more atrocious than it had to be because countries with a Christian foundation were willing to do violence.
[Edit]: As a fantastic example of non-violent resistance which actually worked, check out this article about the Bulgarian salvation of the Jews. Bulgaria may have been the only European country who saw their Jewish population rise during WWII - and they were allied with Hitler!
Nonviolent action, in fact, had a good measure of success against the Nazis. We know of at least three different successful nonviolent campaigns against the Nazi persecution of Jews in Denmark, Bulgaria, and even Berlin. Remarkably, nearly every one of Bulgaria’s forty-eight thousand Jews was saved from Hitler’s regime—saved through nonviolence. And then there was the underground movement led by pacifists André and Magda Trocmé in the small town of Le Chambon, France. The valiant couple rallied together several people to provide safe houses for Jews. Between 1941 and 1944, more than 3,500 Jews were saved from the Nazis. Saved without violence. - From "Fight"
[Edit 2] Sophie Scholl was a young girl executed in 1943 for treason, as she encouraged non-violence and an end to the war. Now I don't know if Sophie knew about the concentration camps and was acting on this basis, but the point is that she saw what she believed to be the atrocity of war perpetuated by her own people, and she encouraged others to nonviolently resist. What is fascinating about Sophie is that in 2003, a nationwide contest was held in Germany to vote for the most influential Germans of all time. Sophie Scholl placed 4th, beating out great, famous individuals like Bach, Goethe, Gutenberg, Bismarck, and Einstein. While Scholl may not have have killed Nazis or blown up bridges, she worked for what she thought would produce a more genuine, lasting peace, advocating the laying down of violence. While the fruit of her labor took decades to realize, she won the hearts of her country through her courageous and selfless pacifistic action. Her final words before being beheaded are inspiring and insightful.
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?
RSS Feed