Fighting over pacifism
For those who've been away recently, or don't get out (into the blogosphere) much, this post by Kim Fabricius over at Ben Myers's Faith and Theology has got many blogs talking (see here for a string of links). Josh of Theologoumenon offers this important quote from Miroslav Volf.
On this issue I remain unhappily undecided, blown about by every wind...
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4 comments:
I think Moltmann became a pacifist somewhere about the time he wrote The Way of Jesus Christ. What he says there about nonviolence and peacemaking is amazing. I later found that he had several years earlier co-written a small booklet with my Doktorvater, Glen H. Stassen, for the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America on the need for the risk of peacemaking. This was in the late '80s at the height of the Cold War and Glen had enlisted Moltmann's help in his behind the scenes campaign to rid Europe of the NATO short and mid-range nukes which were destabilizing. The campaign was successful and gave Gorbachev the leverage he needed with his generals to push through Glasnost and Perestroika--thus hastening the end of the Cold War. (Though no one could have known that at the time of the anti-Euromissile campaign.)
It is a great quote from Volf, isn't it?
I wonder - is it perhaps useful to make a distinction between 'violence' and 'judgement'? Semantics, perhaps, but sometimes semantics matter...
Drew, did you notice the discussion over on Josh's blog? I think he is working with just such a distinction. And while distinguishable, we also have to pay attention to their connections. Michael Jensen had a post trying to define violence a while back that generated much discussion.
Glen Stassen & I co-wrote a chapter for a collected work called "Defining Violence and Nonviolence." It was later printed as a pamphlet for Every Church a Peace Church. Although we only deal with human actions (so no help on whether divine judgment counts as violence or not), the piece has brought praise from several quarters and requests for wider distribution.
I have several copies available for $5 apiece if you send me info. at mlw-w@insightbb.com or you can order the resource at the website of Every Church a Peace Church, www.ecapc.org .
End of shameless, self-promotional, plug.
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