Thread: Pacifism, Jesus and the military

I practice non-violence, but I do not believe that you are automatically a hypocrite for supporting military action or even using violence yourself. If the action is truly necessary for your own safety or freedom then I think that it is ok, however this often is not the case. Most wars are about power, which leads to separation(those with power vs those without it).

The situation is similar with police. Police are currently a necessity because we have a violent culture. Our government attacks it's own people(war on (some)drugs). I believe that soon we will have a culture in which the individual is respected and once this happens we will slowly move towards a type of society where police are not necessary, but this is all speculation and isn't likely to happen in our lifetime.

Personally I think the message of Christ is more metaphorical. It's not meant to show that people who don't do exactly what he says are evil. It's practical advice. Being a violent and aggressive person, you make a lot of enemies. If one is kind people view them as being beneficial to themself as well the community and are more likely to work with them than against them. Strength in numbers, it boils down to into math even. It comes down to believing in people, society.

Though maybe I'm wrong. I suppose if you truly accept Christ you must reject social norms completely and practice nothing but unconditional love, but I dunno. I think that you have to look at what's happening and do what you think will be best for yourself, your family and people you care about. As a hobo you can't make much of a difference in the modern world.

Considering that the Catholic church itself has acted violently for hundreds of years...

If you believe in total pacifism, then you can't support fighting in any form. So yes if you believe in Jesus teaching exactly, you are a hypocrite if you support the police and the army.

Stonedape may have a point, except look at how much Jesus did while being a hobo. Total pacifism isn't an easy choice, and in some situation can result in your death. If you follow Jesus and what he taught, you shouldn't fear death however. It takes a special person who can stand up for what they believe in, even if it will result in their death. Jesus tried to teach people to live to that ideal, to be perfect. Often people fall short, and they can't reach that goal of being perfect. However if that is what you believe in, you should strive for perfection.

Originally Posted by Alric

It takes a special person who can stand up for what they believe in, even if it will result in their death.

Not necessarily a wise one though.

Pesonally I am a total pacifist, I refuse to kill bugs which I am severly afraid of, but I don't think it is hypocrytical to support military. Although I strongly advocate for Matthew 5:38-39, Matthew 5:38-39 - Passage*Lookup - New International Version, ©2010 - BibleGateway.com It is the code I live by.

True, but society was different then. I guess that's no excuse in some sense. Have you ever seen Hamlet 2? They say something in that movie about how Jesus would have to be a celebrity in order for people in our culture to even consider his message(at least a large number of people). I agree with this. But I suppose you don't have to have the same level of influence Jesus had to imitate him.

I don't encourage fighting of any kind, but I also don't fight to stop fighting. By doing so you only create more conflict because people are going to fight so long as they are not conscious enough of themselves and the world they live in. As long as there is violence inside of people it will manifest outside of them. I think that rather than being a hobo one ought to do whatever they can to make people more aware of the world they live in and their own relationship with it. To make people think, and even try to teach them to empathize with people they hate or think of as useless or degenerate. You can do this as a hobo, but in our society you have more effect if people respect you in some way, or at least don't think you smell bad.

I'm no christian, but I don't think that Jesus intended for his teachings to be taken literally, as a kind of dogma. The whole turn the other cheek thing is about not resisting violence, not get angry about violence, because this creates more negativity in you. When this pattern of thought exists in you you can't find the peace that Christ taught about. However I think there are certain situations where I person has to stand up for themself. The important thing is to not get caught up in this and carry the violence into the next moment.

Well look at Gandhi, he is a good example of a modern day pacifist who accomplished a lot and was well known for it.

To say that Jesus left a lot of room for interpretation when dealing with clear and present danger to oneself or one's friends/family, is to say that Jesus didn't have all the answers. In my book, that makes the whole 'Son of God' thing a very hard sell, especially the typical Catholic sentiment that we don't need scientists and philosophers if we have the 4 gospels. You can contrast this with Buddhist scriptures that go into explicit detail that the Buddha encouraged non-violence even in the face of torture. There's absolutely no room for interpretation there.

The Ghandi thing brings up an interesting point, as does the fact that only through pacifism did Christianity survive for 300 years until the Romans adopted it as their official religion. Let's face it, if all martyrs went around packing weapons Christianity would have been wiped out within a hundred years. You almost get the sense that the Romans felt a great deal of guilt having tortured them for so long, and saw that they posed no real threat to their empire. Of course someone could argue that Jews were also pacifists in that their oppression went on as long as it did.

I wouldn't say that Jesus left a lot of room for interpretation, he was pretty clear in his nonviolence. However the bible does have a great deal of violence in it, and so there are times the bible may contradict what Jesus spoke. The problem with Christianity is that Jesus is the son of god, and the bible is the word of god. When they conflict, who is correct? Well Jesus is an aspect of god, just like the holy spirit is an aspect of god. So his teachings should trump that of the bible, which was just inspired by the word of god and written by humans.

I think the real reason there is so much violence in the history of the church, is self doubt in their own religion. There are obviously a lot of cases of people using the church to profit and gain power. In cases like that, the people in charge clearly weren't faithful, regardless of what they may say or the act they put on. You would expect most people high up in the church would rather die than harm someone, but I suspect that may not be true. However some people being a hypocrite and being unfaithful, shouldn't turn you off a religion. After all it is not about what everyone else believes, but what you believe.

Originally Posted by Alric

I wouldn't say that Jesus left a lot of room for interpretation, he was pretty clear in his nonviolence. However the bible does have a great deal of violence in it, and so there are times the bible may contradict what Jesus spoke. The problem with Christianity is that Jesus is the son of god, and the bible is the word of god. When they conflict, who is correct? Well Jesus is an aspect of god, just like the holy spirit is an aspect of god. So his teachings should trump that of the bible, which was just inspired by the word of god and written by humans.

The gospels were written by humans too. Anyway, I'm not clear on what you're saying in regards to my question. If Jesus is the definitive word in the 'ultimate guide to life', and he didn't leave anything out, are you saying it is hypocritical to support something like military air strikes on a hostile nation?

Originally Posted by Alric

I think the real reason there is so much violence in the history of the church, is self doubt in their own religion. There are obviously a lot of cases of people using the church to profit and gain power. In cases like that, the people in charge clearly weren't faithful, regardless of what they may say or the act they put on. You would expect most people high up in the church would rather die than harm someone, but I suspect that may not be true. However some people being a hypocrite and being unfaithful, shouldn't turn you off a religion. After all it is not about what everyone else believes, but what you believe.

It did and it should. It's not 'some', it's somewhere in the ballpark of 99%. The problem is most Christians don't realize they're not acting in accordance with their religion. I'm not talking about crusades here. I'm talking about people using and manipulating holy text to fit their ends, or outright ignoring their beliefs when it doesn't fit with their desires.

When you have most catholic schools and churches teaching less than half the bible because the other half is either irrelevant, barbaric, sexist or factually incorrect you really need to consider why they're hanging on to a copy of the Old Testament to begin with.

As far as what I believe, everything I believe(d) can be found outside the Christian texts sans dogma. But the drawback is that now when I want to control someone's life or vilify them, I can't just rely on some simple phrases and passages to convince millions to agree with me.

Yes, its hypocritical to support something like a military air strike on a nation. And Jesus knew what he was talking about, when he taught what he did. Just look at the wars we have today, they just spread more and more violence, and more and more people die. It doesn't solve anything. In nearly all cases, war is bad and it shouldn't be used. It is not just a moral thing, it is also a practical thing, since wars always waste tons of resources and money as well.

I think it's pretty amazing, how an idea of Jesus that argues for passivity can lead to people going to war. The very basic idea behind Christianity is to "turn the other cheek", yet through out all of history, people go to war to fight for christianity.

How is this possible? My belief is that because people are socially passive, their aggressive nature gets surpressed, and gets botteld up. So the moment the goverment comes up with any reason whatsoever to go to war, people will have the urge to release this bottled up aggression. Not turning the other cheek only leads to bottling up aggression, and in the end it leads to people exploding the moment they believe their aggression is justified: for example a war against terrorism. Or a war to defend Christianity.

So the idea of Jesus, pacifism, is the perfect tool to control the masses as humans are aggressive by nature.

I think the reason is because many of the people in control of the church have always been corrupt. As they say power corrupts. They get all that power, and then they start to abuse it, and they want more.

The general population are honest, hard working people but are often not as highly educated. So when someone who has status, and seems smarter because of their position(and not because of their actions or intelligence) people put faith in them, and trust they will lead them the right way.

If you go back to an earlier time a lot of people didn't even know how to read, so they couldn't read the bible. And then the bible wasn't even translated all the times, so even if you could read it doesn't mean you have an English bible. A person who never read the bible had to put their faith in the church.

I think you are right in that the average person is socially passive, but I disagree that they have a tendency for aggression. And even if they do, its normally a burst of anger that quickly fades, not anything that would last long enough to cause prolonged wars.

Instead I think the are passive, and just go along with their leaders. It is the leaders, who are often corrupt who whip people into frenzy, and manipulate people to do what they want.

Terrorism is a good example. Look at all the propaganda that the government used to gain support for wars. Wars which only are vaguely related to terrorism in the first place. If we had less corrupt people in charge of our country, and people with greater morals, people with character, restraint and respect for life, there would be no terrorism right now. 9/11 would of happened, and people would have gone on to realize that it was a one time thing and only few people died. There would of been no war. People would of went back to their lives as normal, trillions of dollars would of been saved, that were instead wasted, and millions of human lives would not have needed to die.

Seriously if you look at some studies that says the war in Iraq caused over a million deaths, how can you support that? The stats sound accurate, the US bragged about taking out the 700,000 man army of Iraq in just a couple of months. Since then many more have died.

So the question might be. Can one believe in Jesus and also support the death of a million people? The answer is pretty clear.

The Republican party is amazingly good at getting people to believe things by using Jesus. All they need to do is say "Jesus wants..." and there is a line of pickup trucks and nascars heading to the voting booths. Jesus hates gays, Jesus hates muslims, Jesus doesn't want free health care...

Originally Posted by dreamsickle

I was raised Catholic, so from everything I've been taught as a child Jesus preached total pacifism without exception. His apostles were taught to never raise a hand to anyone, even their captors. So with that in mind, are you a hypocrite if you support military action from your country and believe in Jesus Christ? (or even police for that matter) We tend to see an awful lot of this contradiction these days.

Do you own any possessions?

Of course I do.

"So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." -Jesus

"If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." -Jesus

So your talking of hypocrisy is actually totally hypocritical.

Jesus Christ.

Originally Posted by Xei

"So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." -Jesus

"If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." -Jesus

So your talking of hypocrisy is actually totally hypocritical.

This is another reason why I say that Jesus' message is not literal. Giving up your possesions is talking about giving up your attachments, to the past, to the future, to material goods, and living in the moment(the kingdom of heaven). Now I'm sure not all christians agree with me, but this is the same message many holy men have had. Jesus just found a way of putting it in Jewish terminology so that the people of his community could understand it.

Here's the thing I think people forget about Jesus and Christianity; Jesus has already done the heavy lifting for you. He died on the cross in order to forgive the sins of all who would believe in him, withstanding all the beating and torture and execution in a way no one else could because he was who he was. I know it says somewhere in the Christian Bible that it's not through your works that you will be allowed into heaven, but through the sacrifice of Jesus. Being a pacifist isn't what gets you in, praying X amount of times a day isn't what gets you in, etc. You're in, as long as you believe in Christ.

So...did Jesus preach nonviolence? Yes. Can soldiers be Christians and be allowed into heaven? By the Bible's words, yes. Have people acted in all sorts of awful violent ways in the name of God? Yes. Will they get into heaven too- yes, as long as they truly believed.

It's one of the most important parts of the Christian faith. By what the Bible and Jesus lay out, even the most vile villain you can think of (Hitler, for example)- if he asked for Jesus to forgive him in his final moments and really meant it- would get into heaven.

So for this specific case, it's okay for you to say "I practice nonviolence, and would refuse to fight for the government." But it's also okay for someone else to say "I'm a Christian and I am willing to kill or die in order to defend my country." The important thing is that both have faith, and accept that they are flawed human beings and that God loves them anyway.


(*Big* disclaimer on this- I am not a Christian, so don't take the above as preaching. I'm an athiest, but I enjoy theology and like most people in America are familiar with the rules and regs of Christianity.)

That isn't true Velzhaed. Well not entirely. As you said, you have to really mean it. That means living what Jesus taught. If you are not living it, you don't really believe. If you say you believe in him, but then ignore everything he said, then obviously you didn't really accept him into your life. In a way being a pacifist, and being a good neighbor is what gets you into heaven, because that is the result of having accepting Jesus into your life.

If you truly believe in Jesus and you ignore what he taught because you don't like it, then you are flat out rejecting him. There is no, "I believe in Jesus I know he said never use violence but I am going to ignore that and join the army anyway, because really he didn't know what he was talking about." As they say, you can talk the talk but unless you walk the walk your full of shit and didn't really accept Jesus.

I have to give a big /shrug on this one.

I don't believe in the guy in the first place, so it's hard to argue what his viewpoint is.

Viewing the scripture you can say...

A) Jesus died for my sins, and even though I know I will try and fail because I am a flawed being in a fallen world, his love lifts me to heaven.

B) Jesus died for my sins, but I still have to meet certain criteria in order to be worthy of his gift, to prove that I feel his influence in my life.

Well some people think because they are imperfect humans they are bound to fail, so they don't even try. If you are not trying, then you havn't accepted Jesus into your life. If you really do try, but fail then at least you tried. No one is perfect. If you are of calm rational mind and you join the army where you know your job is to kill people, that isn't trying. If you spend your life trying to be a pacifist and someone attack you, and you don't fight back, but he doesn't stop and in panic from the pain you punch them, that is failing because you are human. You still really did try though. And if you are sorry you hit that person in your moment of panic you will be forgiven.

If your not even trying, then your not really sorry. Christianity is about love, and being better people and treating others with love. Not about gaming the system of rules to maximize your sins, while still being accepted by god.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure that it's the case that every book in the New Testament is in accordance with the 'just repent and you'll go to heaven' line priests and televangelists like to sell their religion on. Certainly not every Christian is on that page.

Following the example of the supposed son of the creator of heaven and earth is a pretty tough ask.

One interesting thing is that in one of the apocryphal texts (either the gospel of Mary or Thomas - which some scholars say pre-date the legit gospels) they make mention of a community of vegetarians that lived in harmony with nature. Sounds vaguely like Buddhist monks. It would be entirely possible that they could have crossed paths with Jesus during the 20 or so undocumented years of his life