We have all heard the news in some form, of the murder of Osama Bin Laden. Most people, it seems are celebrating and happy at the news of the death of another human being. In light of the events on September 11 in NYC, I can partly understand the compulsion. However, we cannot lose sight of what is going on here. Right now, people are rallying around the FLAG of America, not the community of Jesus; perhaps some are, but not the ones we see on TV.
Do you remember? What was the response of the President immediately following the tragedy at the towers in NY? It was not one of mourning the losses and identifying with the families. It was not one of spending time in contemplation of what has led to this. It was immediately followed by promise of "redemptive" violent retaliation. You remember the rhetoric surrounding the build up toward the "War on Terror", don't you? It was not a good way to seek the peace, was it?
How ought the Christian community everywhere respond to this type of behaviour? How ought we to respond when we hear news that Bin Laden has been murdered? How do you think Jesus would have responded and how he would have us respond to our world?
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ReplyDeleteEveryone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. 2 So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. 3 For the authorities do not strike fear in people who are doing right, but in those who are doing wrong. Would you like to live without fear of the authorities? Do what is right, and they will honor you. 4 The authorities are God’s servants, sent for your good. But if you are doing wrong, of course you should be afraid, for they have the power to punish you. They are God’s servants, sent for the very purpose of punishing those who do what is wrong."
Romans 13:1-4 NLT.
Seems pretty straight forward to me.
Ken Penner
Winnipeg, MB
"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that" -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
ReplyDeleteAll I need to add is Lord forgive us.
Jesus resisted authority, but he transformed how that happens. He did not use violence, but through righteous indignation. He let them know that if he wanted to, all he needed to do was call on the angels of Heaven and they would fight for him...but His Kingdom is not of this world. He does not play by the rules of "Caesar". His Kingdom looks much different that Caesar's...it embodies equality, forgiveness of debt and sin, healing and not injuring, material and spiritual sharing within community for the wellbeing of ALL. We must submit to authorities precisely because God has created them to serve people, not the other way around, which is the way it usually goes. The are good, because in them, there is a sense of order...but everything is systematized and ordered ultimately in Christ. That includes the powers and principalities. This means that we need to pray for them, but also to resist them and their power politics, as Jesus resisted them.
ReplyDeleteJesus ONLY resisted religious authority and their mistaken interpretations of scripture. Never once did he resist military or governmental authority. (and by the way he DID use violence quite effectively in the temple against the religious authorities he resisted) Jesus made it quite clear that you were to support "Caesar" through taxes. He never told the military man whose daughter he healed to get a different job or to change his life (like he did to some others...'go and sin no more, etc.) This supports what Pauls says. Now if you believe that Paul wasn't inspired when he wrote (in Romans 13) that governments are not only appointed by God, but are also appointed to exact fear and justice then that is your perogative, I guess. Perhaps Menno Simons supercedes him?
ReplyDeleteKen Penner
Romans 13 is not the centre of teaching when it comes to the Christian’s relation to the state. There is a very strong strand of Gospel teaching that sees secular government as the province of the sovereignty of Satan. When we are told to subject ourselves or submit to the powers, it is an acquiescence to that government’s dominion, not an accrediting of a given state by God or the installation of a particular sovereign by providential disposition. The Romans text is not some kind of charter or constitution for the political realm. The passage in Romans dealing with the powers, does not stand alone when New Testament exegetical work gets done on the topic. Revelation, for example, speaks of the powers as persecuting the true believers; this is true also in the background of Peter and James.
ReplyDeleteRomans 12 & 13 in their entirety form one literary unit. 13:1-7 cannot be understood properly alone. Ch.12 begins with the call to non-conformity, which finds its expression in quality of relationships within the Christian community and, with regard to enemies, in suffering. The concept of love recurs in 13:8-10…interesting. Any interpretation of Romans 13:1-7 which is not also an expression of suffering and serving love must be a misunderstanding of the text in its context. There are no grounds of literary analysis, textual variation, or style to support the claim that we here have to do with a separate chunk of teaching which constitutes foreign matter in the flow of the text.
The subordination that is called for recognizes whatever power exists, accepts whatever structure of sovereignty happens to prevail. The text in Romans does not affirm, as the tradition has it, a divine act of institution or ordination of a particular government. Just as librarians order or catalogue books without moral approval as being requisite, so too does God order governing powers. He uses them and has in the past. A given government is not mandated or saved or made a channel of the will of God; it is simply line up, used by God in the ordering of the cosmos. This does not mean God approves morally of what they do. Just as He used Assyria to chastise Israel in the Hebrew scriptures, He did not approve morally of the brutality by which they did it. (cont'd)
(cont'd)Ken, you are right about Jesus not telling the Centurion to quit his job. We are called to be subject to the judicial and police function of the sword, not the spear of the death penalty or the one of war. You will notice that that same Centurion subordinates himself to Jesus; "I'm unworthy to have you under my roof" is what he tells Jesus. No Roman would be caught dead saying such a thing. "Subordination" is based upon the same root as the "ordering" of the powers undertaken by God. Subordination is significantly different from "obedience". The Conscientous Objector who refuses to do what the government demands but still remains under sovereignty of that government and accepts the penalties it imposes, or the Christian who refuses to worship "Caesar" but still permits Caesar to put him/her to death, is being subordinate, though not obedient.
ReplyDeleteTaxes:
"Render to each his due" in one verse and "nothing is due to anyone except love" in the next verse. Interesting, isn't it? The claims of "Caesar" are to be measured by whether what he claims is due to him is part of the obligation of love, and love is defined by the fact that it does no harm.
Jesus using violence:
Only in John's gospel does Jesus make a whip. Every other Gospel says he drove out everyone from the Temple. John says that Jesus, "making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the Temple, both the sheep and the cattle". Jesus never condoned violence and in fact, committed NO violence toward anyone.
If I could encourage you, Ken, I would encourage you to read some very important authors on the subject matter. The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder is one of the most important works on this, but there are many others. Please take this as an encouraging word, not a blasting one.
Peace
Andy
I would say that with regards to 'the Death of a Terrorist', Romans 13 is exactly the scripture that needs to be employed to have us understand what our reaction should be to this: i.e. a terrorist suffered the ultimate punishment at the hands of government (which has been put in place by God). God probably would rather have terrorists repent - but failing that, God also has put governments in place for just such applications of 'justice'. I may not be happy with that - but heh, I can understand what happened within a scriptural context.
ReplyDeleteAs a former teacher, had I ever made a cord of whips and gone around overturning tables in my classroom, there would have been no question about calling that 'violent'. Let's not make excuses of Jesus. I personally find it fine that he did that and don't have to reconcile it with any preconceived ideas that violence is never within God's will.
Ken...at least I am led to believe that you are he (seeing as you have been maintaining your anonymity for some reason), I fully understand why the US responded the way they did. They saw no other way to deal with evil, but to use force. Christians, however, do not believe that any person is beyond all hope of redemption. We believe in the transformitive power that Jesus has in saving the lost...even when we cannot comprehend such a thing. The Christian response should always be one of redemption and reconciliation. Love others because I first loved you is the simplest way of understanding this. Why is it that we still believe that Jesus can not inform our interactions with evil in our societies and beyond? Why is it that Christians feel the need to play power politics with those who do not understand the mission of the Jesus movement. It was an alternative society which lived out the love, grace and mercy of God. This meant that military and government involvement put them at odds with their allegiance to the Lord of Lords. We, instead, choose to compromise because what Jesus taught can't work in the "real" world. That is the rubbish fed to us by our unbelieving world.
ReplyDeleteFor you to turn over tables in the classroom cannot be compared with Jesus turning over tables in the Temple. That would be ludicrous for you to do that...not to mention completely insensitive. Jesus was driving out those people because their business in the Temple directly oppressed the poor and marginalized. It segregated those on the outside from those on the inside. They committed sacrilege in God's house...and that is why Jesus drove them out in righteous indignation and anger. Not because some kid in class farted or constantly disrupts the class at every turn.
ReplyDeletePs. Please identify yourself. If you want open, honest conversation, then we must be willing to be somewhat vulnerable. Thank you.
Andy
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'll just leave the post here that I had on facebook....
ReplyDelete"Evil was defeated on Easter, 2000 years go - not last weekend in Pakistan"... (nor yesterday in Ottawa)
Anonomous: "God probably would rather have terrorists repent"
ReplyDeleteuhh... I don't think that the word 'probably' should have any place in that sentence.
with the military technology at their disposal, the US could have found non-lethal methods of apprehending Osama bin Laden. Knock-out gas, surround the compound and wait for surrender, etc...
the planned butchering of Osama bin Laden was, in my view, a political move by Obama in order to consolidate the swing-voters for the upcoming elections... Obama: "hey swing voters... I've got courage and machismo... I can get the job done too!"
Amen, brother Marco.
ReplyDeleteFYI, I find it kind of funny that the Romans found it offensive that Christians addressed/regarded each other as "brothers and sisters". That you would dare treat a stranger like family! I mean...come ON!!! What kind of God are they following anyway?!
silly Christians and their weird language!... lol
ReplyDeleteAnother thing about using Romans 13 to defend Obama's actions in Pakistan - Obama does not have sovereignty in Pakistan. His actions there, without the agreement of Pakistani leadership, is equal to 'invasion'. He has no legal right to pull off that kind of mission. According to Romans 13 logic, Pakistani government is the governing authority ordained by God. The woman that was innocently killed during that mission could just as easily be avenged by Pakistani government, according to Anonymous' logic, by secretly attacking US soldiers in the US.
Rom 13 doesn't differentiate between governing authorities, and so it could be asked, in any given conflict: which authority in this case has been 'ordained by God'? Is it only a righteous one? Is it only one with righteous motives? The whole just war debate hangs on Rom 13 and requires a detailed analysis and discussion about the right of authorities in view of God.
Well, it looks as if I just would never agree with most statements here. When I accuse Jesus of using some violence - the comeback is "well, that was only one Gospel's version". Right. Let's just chop out the pieces we don't agree with.
ReplyDeleteWhen I say that He never suggested to a military man that his career wasn inappropriate the comeback is "yes but he subordinated himself to Jesus". But that's not the point. In his job he was still subordinating himself to a very repugnant and ruthless regime which, in Paul's time was much more cruel to Christians than the US (which you are so intent on villifying) has ever been. And yet, Christ did not think to say to him 'go and sin no more'. Or even, 'come and follow me'. No change in career was even hinted at.
Or when I say Christ suggested we pay taxes you suggest that he was 'really' saying to only pay taxes as long as the obligation to love was fulfilled. There was no obligation to love in those taxes. This was a tough, direct question put to Jesus. And his answer was a simple response. To try to absolve yourself of that duty by saying ... 'Well, Jesus REALLY meant to say, only pay your taxes if the government promises to use them only for good things' is a way putting words in his mouth which I can not abide. Of course, the same issue crops up again in the famous treed tax collector. Jesus never suggested that he change jobs. Strange.
In 1970 I was working for Youth for Christ in The Netherlands. I stayed at a Dutch family for two weeks. I was almost revered. Because I was Canadian and the Canadians had freed them and their town from Hitler. They knew I hadn't been fighting but they knew my father had been a Canadian. The evil they had known under Hitler was no myth. They told stories. Of sacrifice and horror. There had been Jews just down the street. It was awful. And so when they asked me to share what part my father had played in the salvation of their country, I could only say, my father was a CO. The total puzzlement, dissapointment and sadness in their eyes told me something that I've never forgotten...in my mind the just war is not a theory. It's a fact.
Ken Penner
145 Balfour Ave
Wpg, MB
Ken, I believe that you are not understanding my argument, and misrepresenting what I said about the Gospels. John is the only Gospel writer who even mentions the "whip of cords", and even then he says that "he drove them all from the Temple, both sheep and catter". I'm not making up my own version of what I would like the Gospels to say. You seem not at all interested in understanding or learning the context within which our Lord spoke and acted. It is like thinking you can understand Martin Luther King without learning about the key event of the "bus boycott". You CANNOT come to a very good and well informed understanding of what they stood for if you fail to learn the context. It will NOT suffice to read the biblical texts with purely 21 Centure eyes and minds. We cannot do justice to scripture with such a flawed approach. I do not pull ideas out of thin air. I have spent some time and energy in honest study of these things, so although I understand your impulse to lay the claim as you did, that I am chopping up scripture and picking what I want out of it, I do, at the same time, find it to be a cop out so you don't need to do honest work in study. I encourage you to study this with an open mind, heart and with integrity. That's at least my aim and when I miss the mark, my community and friends help to inform my return to the target.
ReplyDeleteAndy
On the other note: I guess my perspective differs from your Holland friends. I would view your father as a hero. He stands, in my mind, as a strong witness to the peace of Christ in his refusal to pick up a sword. Even though our world did not understand him and others like him, I hope that Christian people everywhere would look to their example; for it is a strong example of how to follow Jesus in faith in times of war and violence.
ReplyDeleteAndy
Ken Penner said...
ReplyDeleteYou say that I don't seem to be interested in learning about the context within which our Lord spoke. On the contrary. I'm very interested. And although you didn't bother to refute some of my other points, (which I thought were rather good) you did zero in on Jesus in the temple.
And so to convince you of the fact that I am very interested in context etc., I took the time and trouble to go through the original text in the Greek (with internet helps of course). Not that I'm a Greek scholar, but evidently the word "drove" in John 2:15 is the Greek word "ekballo". This means "to eject" much like a referee may eject a player from a sports competition. The Blue Letter Bible - (allows you to cross reference original texts with a variety of versions, commentaries, usages and references) also translates the word to mean "cast out, drive out, to send out...with a notion of violence. (I am not making this up...here is the web address: http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G1544&t=KJV) The word also has a root that is "ballo" which basically meant, in Christ's time, "to throw or let go of a thing without caring where it falls." And these are translations taken very much 'in the context' of Christ's life and times. Can't say that aligns very well with your view.
So, at this point you may say ... well, that's not really the original text, and/or the 'Blue Letter Bible' is full of errors, and/or that's not what "ekballo" really means. And then we just have to stop talking because as far as I could tell it's a pretty scholarly piece of work.
I have a hunch though, that even if it were to possible to present you with a videotape of Christ in the temple which supported my position, and showed him using his whip on both humans and animals (quite a few translations make no distinction in what it was he was driving out) you would not change your mind. I think that your pacifist position, (although it can be supported via a wide selection of Biblical references), is actually rooted more in tradition, Mennonite heroes and politics than it is in the Bible. i.e. If I were to prove definitively from the Bible that God's perfect will for everyone does not include pacifism, .... you would still be one.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteFirst: Forgive my accusation earlier. It is not right that I assume you have no desire to learn and I ought not make those assumptions of anyone. Thank you for pointed that out and for engaging the topic with another perspective. I do appreciate that. Now, to engage your last comment on the meanings of the Temple Cleansing.
It is false to argue that the use by Jesus of a piece of rope, to move as does any cattledriver the animals he had untied, could be taken as proof that violence is morally acceptable in Christian social relations. In fact, there is no reference to a whip, as already mentioned, in the synoptic gospels: Jesus IS described as moving people simply by the authority of his words, using physical force only on the tables of the money changers. Once again, John's Gospel has Jesus specifically using the whip on the sheep and cattle...some translations say rams and bulls. It is intellectually dishonesty to claim that this one event, unique in the ministry of Jesus, would be grounds to justify morally the use of violence, much less of violence against persons, still much less of lethal violence, still much less the institutional violence of war, on the part of ANY persons following Jesus. Because Jesus taught us to be peacemakers and because Jesus lived the life of nonviolent resistance...those are the reasons why I am a Pacifist. I'm sorry that you think my allegiances lay with Menno Simons and it appears that you cannot move beyond that notion. I have a Mennonite perspective; I will not be ashamed of that. However, Jesus clearly taught by word and action what we ought to do. Disarm with love, forgiveness and reconciliation. We DO NOT use violence against each other. I cannot serve two masters. One which would have me kill, and the other which would have me love that same person. You CANNOT reconcile the two.
Andy
Just a small correction: the original text does NOT say that Jesus used the whip only on the sheep and cattle. Translations also differ and I can pull out some that have added that nuance, and others which have not. So I think it's a draw on that point.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the whole thing turns on whether or not violence is EVER justified. To get back to the actual subject, Bin Laden, I think so. To say that we disarm with love is pretty platonic. (nice, but platonic nevertheless) It is interesting that when evil reached a certain level, even heaven itself went to war and threw out Lucifer. And so when we pray - as we have been taught - 'Thy will be done, in heaven as on earth', we may very well be asking that God use human agents on earth to do what he did in heaven. Use violence to get rid of a particularly bad scourge of humanity.
I checked the Greek - from my limited Greek studies (Intro and Advanced) I get a clear sense that the words "all the sheep and cattle" are qualifying words to the verb "drove out". But I think I'd rather hear from a Greek expert before I make up my mind.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, whipping a few people to get them to treat God's holy temple in Jerusalem (which no longer exists there physically) is a far far comparison to Christian Americans shooting Christian Germans on the fields of Europe. Most members of Nazi Germany's military were not brutal Jew killers - but Christians obeying Romans 13; submitting themselves to the supposedly God-given government.
If Jesus wanted his followers to pick up arms, would he not have encouraged them to help overthrow certain evil men in power? When Jesus tells his disciples to buy swords in the Gospel story, does it not tell us he did so in order for scripture to be fulfilled so as to count him among insurgents? Jesus would be found speaking out of three sides of his mouth if he had been teaching "redemptive violence" to his disciples, and trying at the same time to make the Sermon on the Mount stick somehow. It is clear to me that Jesus calls us to be Peacemakers, not Peackeepers. When Dietrich Bonhoeffer took part in the assassination of Hitler, he did not ask God to bless his actions. He asked God to forgive him; because he knew that it was wrong to kill. After the plot had failed, we realize what this act truly accomplished. It bolstered Hitler's resolve and it told him that surely God was on his side...that his mission must be ordained by God, because he had escaped death. This shows us that violence makes things worse, even though we can see some immediate "positive" changes at first, but in the long run, violence begets violence all the more.
ReplyDeleteAndy
Ken, "thy will" is said to be "on EARTH as it is in heaven". It might be knit picky, but you had them reversed. Not sure if that was intentional or not. If it IS what you meant, then whatever we deem to be morally right and just here on earth, is hence sanctioned by God in heaven. Using this model for Centuries, our world has wraught destruction and violence in the name of God and "just" wars and "holy" wars. The old flawed teaching which says that "everything that IS (exists) is of God".
ReplyDeleteMy mistake. I meant 'thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven'...and the gist of my thought was that if Almighty, Perfect God felt the best way to get rid of evil in heaven was war, then one could logically infer that to use war to get rid of evil on earth may not, in fact, be-out-of-line with God's perfect will.
ReplyDeleteAnd as far as 'modifiers' in the Greek is concerned, I have 24 Bible translations listed on my ipod, 12 of them translate John 2:15 so that Jesus used the whip to chase out the animals, the other 12 give the impression he used the whip on everyone.
But you are right, that is not a definitive argument that we should use violence...it's simply an example, (however unlikely in your mind,) of a possible 'exception', (which is what I thought we were discussing).
Speaking of exceptions, the book by James Urry, Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood: Europe--Russia--Canada, 1525 to 1980 is an interesting compendium of exceptional Mennonites involved in government and politics - which may have something to say on some of your other blog topics, namely voting.
For now, I will sign off and say that this is my last entry. Its been interesting. Thanks for your perspectives.
We are all allowed to make some mistakes, I think. I figured that was what you meant. I must still contend that God chose to "get rid of evil" by way of the cross. This is how Christ showed us how we must conquer evil. Emperor Constantine had a vision of a cross with words of "in this, you shall conquer". With his militant mindset, the only way he could interpret this vision was that it was an image of the sword. But, to us Christians, it is the way of the cross that conquers evil. Return evil with good. That is to be our response in ALL things. Our governments, granted, are not Christian and therefore will not respond in the way of the cross, but the way of the sword. If Jesus whipped people out of the Temple out of zeal for God's house, it is still not even close in parallel to the violence our killing machines inflict upon other nations. Our government's actions cannot, therefore be justified using this gospel story. Neither can a Christian's participation in that violent killing machine be justified in that way.
ReplyDeleteThank you Ken for all your participation. You have been pushing me to articulate better what it is I believe about these issues. Thanks for passing on the last bit of info as well.
Peace
Andy