Thanks for this. As a fellow Christian pacifist, I often struggle to find words in these kinds of situations and you have given words to many of the thoughts I wish I had had. So, thanks tremendously.
I love this and will be sharing it far and wide as I think it’s exactly what we need to hear right now: “But we are in risky territory when we try to establish grades of respectability within violence, as if some of it might approximate how God created us to live. The moral calculus of violence must give way to a harder and more beautiful teaching: that all people are created in God’s own image, and the loss of any person is a victory of death, the last enemy Christ came to destroy (1 Cor. 15:26).”
Myles, this is an incredible and powerful read. I commend you for speaking big-T Truth on a topic for which it is most uncomfortable. As I have matured, Christian pacifism has come into my focus (which is why your book on the topic is on my short-term radar to read). For reasons you illustrate, it is the path illustrated by Christ. It seems to me that placing non-violence and love of enemies into some sort of "next world" ideal is another manifestation of Gnosticism, of which there are many, because pondering the abstract is much easier than changing your existing life.
Last year, Plough published this excerpt from Wendell Berry's newest book, in advance of the book's publication. It was a revelation to me on how to truly love your enemies in a Christ-like manner and the difficulty in doing so: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/can-love-take-sides
That really got to me. Then, I made the mistake of reading Dorothy Day who, like Ivan Ilitch, will absolutely wreck a person's notions of modern life. Dorothy's statement that "I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least" is one of the most deeply convicting things that I have ever read. It has changed my entire notion of dealing with other people, including those who wish me ill.
Loving God as we are called to do is very, very difficult. That's the point.
Thanks for this. As a fellow Christian pacifist, I often struggle to find words in these kinds of situations and you have given words to many of the thoughts I wish I had had. So, thanks tremendously.
I love this and will be sharing it far and wide as I think it’s exactly what we need to hear right now: “But we are in risky territory when we try to establish grades of respectability within violence, as if some of it might approximate how God created us to live. The moral calculus of violence must give way to a harder and more beautiful teaching: that all people are created in God’s own image, and the loss of any person is a victory of death, the last enemy Christ came to destroy (1 Cor. 15:26).”
Myles, this is an incredible and powerful read. I commend you for speaking big-T Truth on a topic for which it is most uncomfortable. As I have matured, Christian pacifism has come into my focus (which is why your book on the topic is on my short-term radar to read). For reasons you illustrate, it is the path illustrated by Christ. It seems to me that placing non-violence and love of enemies into some sort of "next world" ideal is another manifestation of Gnosticism, of which there are many, because pondering the abstract is much easier than changing your existing life.
Last year, Plough published this excerpt from Wendell Berry's newest book, in advance of the book's publication. It was a revelation to me on how to truly love your enemies in a Christ-like manner and the difficulty in doing so: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/can-love-take-sides
That really got to me. Then, I made the mistake of reading Dorothy Day who, like Ivan Ilitch, will absolutely wreck a person's notions of modern life. Dorothy's statement that "I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least" is one of the most deeply convicting things that I have ever read. It has changed my entire notion of dealing with other people, including those who wish me ill.
Loving God as we are called to do is very, very difficult. That's the point.