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2007-03-06 issue:

Do not answer violence with violence

Speaking Out column

by Vernon K. Rempel

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Like the “snow on snow” of deep winter in Christine Rosetti’s war-time Christmas carol, last autumn we had “shooting on shooting” in schools in our nation. It is breath-taking, angering and so very sad. Can you imagine receiving a final email from your child saying “I love U guys”? Can you imagine Amish girls lying dead in the green fields near Lancaster, Pa.? It seems like more than the soul can endure.

What can one say from our great tradition of rejecting violence both in perpetration and in response? Worldly or common-sense wisdom often wants violence answered with violence. Our tradition, which we understand to be a powerful reading of the Bible, through the lens of Jesus’ life, seeks another way. But we feel closely the enormity of the loss, grief and anger that dear people feel in these situations.

One response in our tradition has been to say that while the “world” may have its violence and counter-violence, the “regenerate” do not: Christ’s way is love. We call people into Christ’s community. Within community, the only sanction is regretful excommunication for failure to walk with Christ. The difficulty with this response is that increasingly we find it impossible to draw a bright line between the regenerate and the world. We find ourselves in the world with its issues and dilemmas, even as we seek to be an alternative community.

Another response that has been offered is that the only way of Christ in the world is “agape” love. Violence happens; we may only respond in love. The question immediately arises, however: What qualifies as loving response? Traditionally this meant no force at all, including no nonviolent or nonlethal response.

Here are four compelling considerations for our day:

1. The need to respond generously and with great and abiding empathy for those who have suffered violence. Talking about nonviolence is probably not helpful; demonstrating love is a far better path.

2. That we let our imaginations, even in time of greatest harm, be enlivened by the possibilities of God, not by what we automatically think or what common sense naturally presents. We seek to “be transformed by the renewing of [our] minds” (Romans 12:2). We may live with the divine hope that there are always more options than we have considered and actively seek a greater array of responses in conflict.

3. The affirmation that we may need to use force quickly and efficiently, but with restraint, to stop harm from happening. But force is different from killing; force as a way of Christ must always be open to the transformation of all involved, including the “vilest offender,” as the hymn goes. We may take penultimate action to restrain perpetrators; their ultimate fate rests with God.

4. That we need to nurture lives of community building, overcoming the ways of fear and rage that crop up all too often. This means we do not participate in fear mongering for political or social advantage. It is so easy to score points with fear and to organize our lives around fear. Over and over again, the biblical stories show the Spirit inviting people to “fear not.” Community building also means we do not participate in a culture of rage. It’s so viscerally satisfying to go raging; it is the assumed response to terrorism, school shootings and other great tragedies. It is the coin of politics, talk radio and letters to the editor. Tough talk, torture, getting guns and so on are considered real and useful responses. But do they get us what we want? Does rage result in peace and security? Clearly it does not. Instead we need concrete actions of love that answer and interrupt the growth of violence.

Violence of any kind seems to “go down into the soil,” making seeds for more violence. God did not create this world to be a vale of “violence on violence.” The creation was named “good”; Jesus again affirmed earth and human society as a place of peace, healing and hope. God has given the church the possibility for something different and greater than violence answering violence.

Vernon K. Rempel is pastor of First Mennonite Church of Denver.

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