Nonviolence and Christian Faith: A Challenge

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Why is nonviolence a challenge for Christians?

Following the teaching and example of Jesus, the early Church was nonviolent. The later Church certainly wasn’t. Christians fought each other and those of other faiths in bloody and destructive religious wars: they tortured and murdered those who didn’t agree with them: and - centuries before Hitler - they repeatedly massacred Jews, in the name of Jesus and fomented by the Church’s antisemitic propaganda. Why this violent history is now largely ignored, and what if anything should be done about it, are both challenges.

More recently, since faith became ‘private and personal’, most Christians have acquiesced in the use of violence by the State on their behalf. Some have served in the armed forces, learning how to kill and even having to do so. Many Christians seem to have stopped bothering about the morality of things like nuclear deterrence and drone warfare. An almost universal spiritual/cognitive dissonance now exists because of the fundamental misfit between Jesus’ teaching about nonviolence and the witness of most of his 21st century disciples. Confronting these contradictions is definitely a challenge.

What should the individual Christian do about all this? A good start would be to read this book and be challenged by it!