As our family prepares to move into community in Lawndale, I've been doing some reading on the belief and practice of the earliest Christians. First I read John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus, in which he attempts to unearth the social implications of the gospel. Yoder, a Mennonite and pacifist, finds a very challenging message in the New Testament witness. His reading of scripture leads him to the conclusion that Jesus rejected both quietism and revolution, though he was tempted especially by the latter throughout his life. Yoder extrapolates from the Lord's example a belief that we in the church should engage in "revolutionary subordination" to the passing powers of the world. I am intrigued by this idea, though I found myself rebelling against it throughout - thinking to myself, as a child of the post-Constantinian church, that we Christians must seek to reform and improve the empires in which we live. Yoder utterly rejects this notion, tackling even the now-classic counterexample to his pacifism, the problem of Hitler and World War II. He argues that the assumption of Christian realists - namely, that the right thing to do was to pick up arms against the evil of Nazism - reflects a decided lack of faith. After all, he points out, amongst the facts of our faith is the reality that God has already triumphed in Christ. In following after him, we must not pick up guns, but instead the cross. I left Yoder's book challenged, but also wondering, what is the substance of this "war of the lamb" of which he speaks? And most pressingly, in what ways is it different from the quietism that Christ so clearly rejected?
From Yoder I moved on to Wayne Meeks' The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul. The book offers a window into the wider contexts - Roman, Jewish, urban, etc - in which early Christian communities lived, as well as into the internal life of the same. He investigates questions about authority, ritual, belief, and social position within the early church. I enjoyed the book, though I was left still curious about two questions of profound interest to me, particularly as we embark into intentional community: 1) the ways in which imperial opposition impinged on local church life, and 2) the nature and longevity of the "apostolic socialism" - the sharing of all things in common - that is so clearly described in the book of Acts.
4 comments:
This is an intriguing dilemma. One historical charge of Christianity as the lamb, the "other cheek" , while still possessing the lion-hearted passion of the crusades. I seem to recall this being described by Chesterton in "Orthodoxy" as being amongst the "paradoxes of Christianity". I remember thinking to myself that this was hardly a paradox at all; one could easily conclude that there could be a time for fighting and a time for diplomacy. Chesterton seemed to believe both fit within the Christian doctrine, seeming to reason that if you cannot fight for your FAITH, it is difficult to see what you would fight for, and if you are not prepared to fight at all, you might be lacking the passion infusing a prototypical Christian.
My impression was that violence is generally frowned upon by the doctrine, but I am not convinced that "revolutionary subordination" would always be a practical universal tenet. In the context of an intentional community, it would make sense to try to work within the system you have entered to accomplish your goals (flies, honey, vinegar, etc) much more so than heavy-handed zealotry.
I think a situation of a violent tyrannical regime, however, is very much another matter. Though I suppose there might be those that would say dying as a martyr (as did Christ) would be fulfilling the doctrine of the faith, that does not seem practical for the survival or perpetuation OF the faith nor its constituents. The debate about immortality in the kingdom of god would be outside what a poor agnostic, pragmatic skeptic such as myself could provide :)
Thanks for the comment, Jeff. Certainly Christians have fallen on both sides historically on questions of war and peace. As a pacifist, Yoder probably finds himself in the minority.
Your final point is particularly astute, and Yoder deals with it explicitly. He does not think the church should be concerned with "effectiveness" or even with sustaining its own existence. Both of these are secondary to our first obligation, which in his view is to follow Jesus' example - even if that means violent death at the hands of empire...
I am digesting the comments....I do not believe Jesus was a martyr....
To clarify, I am not claiming he did or did not *personally*; merely that there are those that do hold that view.
This issue seems to come up in various forms consistently among christian groups I have interacted with. Debating whether one could or should, for example, break one of the ten commandments to prevent other greater transgressions(or sins) seems to be a favorite topic of discussion.
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