A very thought provoking question circulated around spring crew at camp Mini-Yo-We this year: If a person had a gun and was going to kill your family, and you had a gun- would you kill him before he could kill them? The argument was huge, and it was heated, and I don’t think it had a specific outcome or answer.
My answer is, my family members will go to heaven when they die, where as the man with the gun probably won’t. So I would let my family get shot, and die, and go to heaven instead of sending this man to hell. This answer made me start to think that I was a pacifist, which was a major change in my lifestyle. I also was convinced to be a pacifist by Shane Claiborne’s altered point of view after returning from Iraq, Claiborne is a complete pacifist, and I know that he is very wise, so I was prepared to take his word for it.
Bruxy Cavey says that there are only two types of people in the world: those who are saved and those who aren’t. We cannot kill a Christian brother, and we cannot kill a non-Christian. So we should be pacifists. That’s all paraphrasing from one of his sermons in a recent series “inglorious pastors” at his Toronto church “The Meeting House”. I think that Bruxy may be thinking too black and white, the world is pretty grey in my opinion, and I think that single sentence answers are often not capable of answering huge questions.
What if the question at the beginning wasn’t “if a man was about to kill your family” what if the question was: “if a man was about kill your non-Christian friends”, would you kill him- and save their earthly lives and give them more time to save their spiritual lives?
When I wonder “what would Jesus do?”, I ask “what is the most loving thing to do”: in that situation it’s not loving the shooter to kill him, and it’s not loving the victims to let them die. Jesus says “love your neighbour” in Matt 19:19 but Jesus also says “sell your cloak and buy a sword” in Luke 22:36 so I really don’t know if Jesus calls us all to be pacifists.
Say these two words: “sod off”. It may mean nothing to you, but to someone in the UK they may have to sin in their heart to say that- because it’s a swear word in the UK. By “sin in their heart” I mean they may have to hurt their relationship with Jesus to say that, because they may feel convicted to not swear. If you feel convicted to be a pacifist I don’t think that you will have to kill someone.
When Ken Cooper (Ken Cooper Prison Ministries) was in prison he refused to accept a shank (prison knife) from a friend when he knew that he had been “bought” by a sex deprived creep in Florida’s sketchiest prison. He felt convicted to be a pacifist, and when confronted by the rapist, God spoke through Cooper saying: “your mother and grandmother are praying for you” that simple line sent the rapist running. God saved Ken Cooper from needing to use violence.
I don’t know what to think about pacifism so far, still searching. And if I’m ever in a situation where I need to choose to kill or not, I don’t know what I’ll do.
1 comment:
This is interesting J- I think any Christian would have a hard time choosing to kill and save, or not kill and save, no matter how strong their views are on pacifism and whether they are a pacifist or not. I do gotta say that I dislike the quote in the picture! I don't think pacifists rely on the killing and dying of others to practise pacifism.. If more were, evidentally the world would look soo incredibly different, many people would be killed and our way of practising living in a peaceful loving world may not seem effective because looking at the world today and the way it works, non-violence seems like it would fail.. But even if it doesn't seem like it would be the most effective doesn't mean we shouldnt be trying to live like this.. It's such a radical difference- who knows.. But sweet thoughts nonetheless.
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