Although I don’t know that I agree with everything…I found one treatment of the pacifist-Jesus/Just-War paradox here
Cripes, this is getting so nice-nice I probably SHOULD have posted in GD.
magdalene, I really needed a good laugh. And that one had me rolling. Thanks! 
YES. Absolutely.
Throughout the New Testament - and it doesn’t matter if the words are Jesus’ or Paul’s - there’s a continual subtext that the Gospel message is taking what the world considers wisdom and turning it completely inside out.
[Passages below in vB quotes are the RSV from my link; passages in " " quotes are from the New English Bible, which I’m hand-typing in because I love its wording.]
Matthew 23:12 -
Mark 8:34-37 - “Anyone who wishes to be a follower of mine must leave self behind; he must take up his cross, and come with me. Whoever cares for his own safety is lost; but if a man will let himself be lost for my sake and for the Gospel, that man is safe. What does a man gain by winning the whole world at the cost of his true self? What can he give to buy that self back?”
Or I Corinthians, Chapter 1:
At the heart of Christianity is God become man, dying a criminal’s death to save us all from the evil that is at the heart of us all. I am told by those who are more familiar with the mythologies of other mystery religions that gods dying so that the world might live wasn’t a new idea with Christianity. But I’m not sure that any of the others invited its adherents into the heart of the paradox, and Christianity most certainly does.
As Paul says to the Corinthians, again (II Corinthians 5:15-16): “His purpose in dying for all was that men, while still in life, should cease to live for themselves, and should live for him who for their sake died and was raised to life. With us therefore, worldly standards have ceased to count in our estimate of any man; even if once they counted in our understanding of Christ, they do so now no longer.”
That’s a pretty radical call, and it demands the leaving behind of the ordinary way of seeing things. You’re seeing it absolutely right, magdalene.
So where does this leave us with Christianity and pacifism? I think if we get back to those verses from the Sermon on the Mount, there is some limitation there, and it’s not just legalism, at least in my encounter with the Scriptures:
It places radical demands on what I must do if I am the attacked or offended party - radical demands that I confess I am almost never up to. But it says nothing about what I must do if my neighbor is attacked. But we know what Christ does, and we know we are called to follow him:
John 10:11-15.
So there is no doubt in my mind that, when the wolves of this world would prey on the innocent, we are called as Christians to intervene. The moral dilemma comes in when no nonviolent intervention will suffice to protect those whom we would shelter. Do we run away? Do we nonviolently share in their fate? Or do we resist with the force of arms?
I don’t have any Scriptural wisdom to take us over this final hump. I only have the truth that seems self-evident to me: if somebody’s got to die, I believe it’s better if the (metaphorical) wolves die than the sheep - that those who seek the death of others have fairly placed themselves in jeopardy, while those who haven’t sought to do others harm deserve no such ill. If it is up to me, I can’t stand by and say that it doesn’t matter whether the aggressor, or his intended victim, is the one to die.
Jodi - as you can see, I find it evident that Christianity has become less radical over time, that seventeen hundred years of being more or less the official religion of the European people from Constantine on, has been a devil’s bargain: the Church got not only an end to the persecutions that had occured as late as the reign of Diocletian (284-305) but favored status as well. But that of course gave the Church and its leaders something to lose. And when the bill came due for their status, in terms of blessing questionable actions on the part of rulers, the Church gave its blessing and kept its status, apart from the occasional Becket or Thomas More.
Whether in century upon century of European wars, or in our own Civil War, priests and ministers on both sides blessed the troops as they went off to battle, and pronounced the cause just. In evangelical churches across our land - and in a great many non-evangelical churches as well - Old Glory flies in the churchyard, and resides on a flagpole behind the pulpit, and rarely is there whispered a suggestion that serving one’s Lord and serving one’s country might not be one and the same.
The visible Church is indeed a de-radicalized church, one that is usually a healthy distance from any demanding calls, big or small. But occasionally the Spirit sweeps over the waters, and some embers on the shore burst into flame once again.
Amazing post, RTFirefly - thank you.
Of course, RTF, you realize that I never said the church had no become less radical – I never addressed myself to radicalism at all. What I said was that I believe that MAGDALENE is incorrect is saying that the commandment “thou shalt not murder” was “de-radicalized,” if you will. The fact that God apparently sanctions capital punishment in the OT, and after giving the law to Moses, indicates that that commandment was never interpreted as “thou shalt not kill, ever ever ever,” but was later given some new and different interpretation by Augustine, Aquinas, et al.
This is a far different issue than whether the church has become less radical as it became more populist, which is an issue I did not address, though as to that I do agree with your post.
Most of the anti-Christian posters here are overlooking something, when they ask why Christians re eager to “turn the other cheek” and forgive the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center, as the skeptics’ casual reading of Scripture suggests a good Christian should.
In this case, Catholic Astorian sees no moral problem with attacking and exterminating the people behind this attack. IS that hypocritical? I dont see how.
“Turn the other cheek” is of absolutely NO relevance here, because (drum roll)… it wasn’t MY cheek that was struck!
And I am in NO position to forgive Osama Bin Laden, because… Bin Laden did NOTHING to me!
If I forgive those who hurt me, that’s highly admirable. But for me to forgive those who harm OTHERS is arrogance disguised as humility. And for me to blithely accept harm done to others, in the name of Jesus, I am beneath contempt.
preach it…
The cite I quoted earlier said
"The most noteworthy aspect of the moral approach to warfare in Aquinas and Calvin is that it teaches—contrary to today’s prevailing views—that a failure to engage in a just war is a failure of virtue, a failure to act well. An odd corollary of this conclusion is that it is a greater evil for Christians to fail to wage a just war than it is for unbelievers. When an unbeliever fails to go to war, the cause may be a lack of courage, prudence, or justice. He may be a coward or simply indifferent to evil. These are failures of natural moral virtue. When Christians (at least in the tradition of Aquinas and Calvin) fail to engage in just war, it may involve all of these natural failures as well, but it will also, and more significantly, involve a failure of charity. The Christian who fails to use force to aid his neighbor when prudence dictates that force is the best way to render that aid is an uncharitable Christian. Hence, Christians who willingly and knowingly refuse to engage in a just war do a vicious thing: they fail to show love toward their neighbor as well as toward God. "