Apart from the
Scriptural evidence that supports the nonviolent and pacifist position, there
is a significant testimony to be found in Church History.
The appeals to Jesus
or the Apostles in support of violent
self-defense, litigation or some notion of just war are quickly dispensed with
and easily exposed as erroneous.
But wait, someone
will ask... what of the Centurion in the Gospels and Cornelius in Acts 10?
First it must be
noted (with no little irony) that arguments from silence are usually discounted
except when someone thinks it will support their position. We don't know what
happened with either of the centurion converts. It is assumed by anti-pacifists they continued in their official
capacities, but do we know that? I too can argue from silence and yet the
record is not entirely without voice. At
least one tradition reports Cornelius left the Roman military and eventually became
bishop of Caesarea.
If true, that's
hardly in keeping with modern Protestant notions of Vocation. Remember, that popular
(but false) teaching asserts that someone like Cornelius is serving the Kingdom
of God as a soldier and that task is
just as important to the Kingdom as
someone serving within the Church.
As far as the
centurion in the gospels whose faith is praised by Jesus and whose servant is
healed... we know nothing, not even tradition gives us any clues. Even if he
became a Christian, his staying in the legions may not have been the right
thing to do. My guess is that he would have left and followed the Apostles, but
again we just don't know. Of course leaving the military (even in our own day)
is not always an easy thing to accomplish.
But what of the
Church in the era subsequent to the Apostles?
As mentioned
previously the early Church was generally opposed to military service. There's
debate is over why this was the case. Was it due merely to the hostility of the
Roman government?
Those who argue thus
have forgotten something. Not all of the Church was located within the sphere
of Rome. There were many Christians outside the empire in the tolerant lands of
the Parthians and as far as I know there is no record of them serving in their
rather cosmopolitan military.
Of course later the
Church suffered persecution under the Sassanids because when Constantine 'converted'
to Christianity, the many Christians inhabiting the Persian Empire were
perceived to be a potential fifth column.
By the late 2nd
century there are stories of Christians within the Roman legions but it must be
contended this is a still a minority position and the idea of 'Christian'
soldiery was not properly born until the age of Constantine.
And yet even then not
everyone accepted this. The early monastic record casts a great deal of doubt
on the perceived path of a so-called Christian soldier. One need only think of
Martin of Tours. Many like him viewed it as a 'lesser' calling if not
incompatible with following Christ and others still continued to view it throughout
Late Antiquity as a deviation from Christian norms.
During the early
medieval period the record continues to be mixed. While on the one hand
so-called Christian kings such as Charlemagne are lauded, the profession of
soldier is something base, something sub-Christian in the eyes of many. It was
a life of sin, murder and a road to hell.
Only with the rise of
chivalry and the Crusades was this image re-cast and even then despite it
becoming the official position of the Western Church, not everyone accepted it.
Eastern Orthodoxy has never 'embraced' war in the way the West has.
Roman Catholicism itself
has always been ambiguous on the topic, even as it blessed Crusades there were
still forces at work within it that challenged war and all that goes with it.
The Franciscans of course became so radical in this as to suffer persecution
and then in desperation some of them turned (ironically) to violence and made war
with Rome and the Papacy.
Protestantism (I
think) is the only Christian movement in which the mainstream has almost
unanimously blessed and endorsed the soldier's life and the path of warfare.
There are reasons for this I think, unfortunate ones to be sure, but they do
make sense. It was Protestantism's secularisation of society, its support of
the middle class, nationalism and capitalism that both necessitated this path and
constructed a theology in defense of it. Its transformation of the secular into
the sacral made this almost inevitable.
While the old Celtic Church was far from monolithic and far
too prone to tribalist prejudice, generally speaking its testimony was one of
peace and an attempt to break with the impulses of worldly power and glory...
the forces it associated with Rome and its Anglo-Saxon mission.
The Waldensians were committed to the principles of the
Sermon on the Mount and were opposed to warfare and capital punishment. That
said, there are always exceptions and some communities were so pressed by their
Roman persecutors that they turned to the assassination of Inquisitors as a
last resort.
Among the Hussite spectrum, the Taborites represented the
worst forms of sacral violence and were rightly denounced by figures such as
Petr Chelcicky. In some ways they were as bad as the Crusaders. The majority
Utraquist faction was committed to the Bohemian state, helped crush the
Taborites and later played no small part in the schemes that led to the
outbreak of the Thirty Years War.
If we wish to use 'Hussite' in the broadest sense, then
Chelcicky and the later Unitas Fratrum (which was itself a formation of Utraquist
and other dissidents) bear witness to the proto-Protestant peace testimony... a
heritage lost in the fires of the Magisterial Reformation and its wars for
Christendom.
The Lollards were always a diverse group. Scripturalists in
the proper sense, there was a strong tendency among them to follow the New
Testament to the letter. That said, it's clear some were involved in not only
the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 but the Oldcastle Revolt in 1414. After that, the
political aspirations of the Lollards disappear and they become a deliberate underground
group until the 1530s when they join the Reformation and disappear from
history. I think it best to say their testimony was mixed from the beginning
and despite the certainty of official histories, their origins like that of the
Waldensians are somewhat obscure. It also must be pointed out that groups like
the Lollards and Waldensians were far from monolithic.
It is of interest to note that whenever a dissident group
arises that is determined to follow the New Testament to the letter... the
pacifist position is embraced. It's only when the doctrines of Scripture are
mixed with political, economic or philosophic concerns that the powerful
testimony of Christ and the Apostles is diluted and corrupted. Once a group
believes the Kingdom is defined by some boundary, class or political concern
the pathway is opened to eventual violence.
With the Magisterial Reformation the peace testimony of the
medieval underground and in particular the Waldensians all but disappears.
Intriguingly a case could be made that some of the Waldensian groups in
Germany, Austria and elsewhere were during this period transformed into
Anabaptists. Though I lament their abandonment of Scriptural Baptism, the Anabaptists
faithfully retained the Waldensian view of the Kingdom of God. This view was most
clearly articulated by Chelcicky who I personally believe was either a
Waldensian or closely connected to them.*
Later, groups like the Quakers adopted a pacifist position
but theirs is the beginning of a process of doctrinal development wherein I
would argue Christian Pacifism takes an unfortunate turn. Some of the Pietists
movements should probably be included in this reckoning.
Next come some of the 19th century Restorationist
groups. The 19th century was an era of turmoil and contrasts within
the Christian Church. Many errors were born and yet there were also some
healthy corrective impulses at work. With regard to the issue at hand the
Plymouth Brethren and Church of Christ both have a peace testimony, but sadly
this was lost in the wake of cultural movements and social conflagration. The
Civil War in the United States drove some such as David Lipscomb to a peace
position while others moved away from it. The Crimean War drove some of the
Brethren toward a position of non-violence but eventually the position was
abandoned.
The World Wars largely destroyed the peace testimony of many
of these groups. In a forgotten chapter of American Church history, many of the
early Fundamentalists also held to a pacifist position in the face of WWI. For
most of them this was not due to an outworking of the gospel or a literal
ethical application of the Sermon on the Mount. For them it was the principle
of separatism and antithesis vis-à-vis the world. They were attacked for it and
accused of being subversive.
Sadly when the world was faced with the carnage of World War
II, most of these Fundamentalists abandoned the position entirely and embraced
the nationalism and narratives of the Cold War. Fear of communism drove them to
abandon their separatism. Not everyone jumped on the Evangelical bandwagon but
many did and those that didn't fell into a morass, eventually equating their
remnant mindset with confused and erroneous metanarratives about the United
States.
At the end of the day few Christians are willing to follow
through on the teaching and implications of the New Testament. Power, material
wealth, security and respectability are the world's jewels, its quest and its
reward. We are called to eschew these things and yet that means taking up the
cross and enduring ridicule and shame.
Sometimes I wonder how many professing Christians become
hostile to this message and embrace theology which affirms the world because in
the end they are afraid to appear as something less in the eyes of their peers.
Having lived without these things for many a year I can testify that sometimes
the hardest to endure is the lack of respect... to be looked down on and even
despised.
And yet the Scriptures tell us to expect this. Is this not
the plight of Psalm 73? Is this not the encouragement given to the early Church
in the epistles but especially the Asian churches in Revelation?
This basic and fundamental aspect of Christian consciousness
and mentality was lost in catastrophe that was born of Constantine. Truly his
tenure represented a foundational 'shift' in the identity of the Church. It was
the beginning of an apostasy that within a few generations would all but
decimate the message and calling of the Gospel. Indeed it was a Dark Age.
Take up the cross according to your Providential calling.
Speak to the culture, don't be ignorant of the world, but don't get caught up with
its conflicts and concerns either. Let them fight over their money with
Caesar's image, let them fight over their stolen lands that they trade back and
forth. Let them fight their political theatre. Let the dead bury their dead.
Watch, tell the truth and proclaim truth to a lost and dying world but remember
you're a pilgrim. We are exiles in Babylon, Sons of the Prophets in the
Northern Kingdom, Christians in the Roman Empire.
Constantine not only represented a shift but the trajectory
born of his conversion has sowed fog and confusion. Once the paradigm that
birthed Theodosius, Charlemagne, Calvin's Geneva, and Oliver Cromwell is
dispensed with, the line of demarcation becomes all too clear.
We're not here to earn respect or find security, to become
rich or famous. We're not here to seek vengeance or help build a new Babel.
Once this is understood, the question of retribution, taking up a badge or gun,
or putting on the uniform of the state become basic questions, obvious and not
worthy of controversy. In many cases these obligations are also forms of
bondage, which Paul also commands us to avoid. Once your eyes are opened, then
truly the tragedy of Constantine and even the Church today becomes painfully clear.
But again, we were warned of this. Take comfort.
* This point has been a subject of debate but when the term
Waldensian is understood properly as a generalisation, the problem is largely
resolved. Chelcicky like the vast majority of Waldensians remained a committed
paedobaptist even while criticising paedobaptism as it functioned within a
Constantinian system. He seemed to grasp that infant baptism was not a result
of Constantinianism, the historical record alone makes this clear. Rather, the
problem was that infant baptism along with many other doctrines was corrupted
by the Constantinian framework. The Anabaptists, tainted by the reductionist
tendencies of a kind of common-sense rationalism proved unable to navigate these
waters and rather than remain faithful to the full testimony of the New
Testament, they instead embraced a theology which all but eschewed outward
signs, symbols and means. While solid on the question of antithesis, they
failed to do justice to the full-orbed teaching of Scripture with regard to the
Church and its rites and ordinances.