Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep943: Christian Nonviolence: Drs. Myles Werntz and David Cramer

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

Myles Werntz (PhD, Baylor University) is associate professor of theology and director of Baptist studies at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. He is the author or editor of several books, including Bodies of Peace and A Field Guide to Christian Nonviolence. David C. Cramer (PhD, Baylor University) is managing editor at the Institute of Mennonite Studies, sessional lecturer at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and teaching pastor at Keller Park Church in South Bend, Indiana. David and Myles recently wrote a book called A Field Guide to Christian Nonviolence and this is the topic of our conversation. We discuss a biblical case for nonviolence and some pushbacks including the conquest of Canaan. We also discuss the killer at the door, policing, nonviolent revolts, and pulling up violent systems by the roots. Theology in the Raw Conference - Exiles in Babylon At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will be challenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My two guests today are Dr. Miles Wirtz, who has a PhD from Baylor University. He's Associate Professor of Theology and Director of Baptist Studies at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, the same location that his university is named after. He's also the author of several books, including Bodies of Peace and the most recent, A Field Guide to Christian Nonviolence, which he co-authored with my other guest, Dr. David Kramer, who also has a PhD from Baylor University. He's the managing editor at the Institute of Mennonite Studies, a sessional lecturer at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and Teaching Pastor at Keller Park Church in South Bend, Indiana. In this episode, we discuss all things related to Christian nonviolence, both things that are related to their book, A Field Guide to Christian Nonviolence, and also other things related to the topic. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only dynamic duo miles and david all right hey friends i'm here with and David. Hey, guys. Thanks for coming on the show. We both go back quite a ways. David, I mean, I came across your name and work. Was it through Justin Bronson? Yeah, very well could have been. I think that was the connection because he was working on that

he was working on that book um a faith not worth fighting for i think right yeah and then i actually wrote a review in the mennonite quarterly review of your book fight that i think you said has a new name now right yeah yeah it's a non-viol, the revolutionary way of Jesus. Yeah. Are we, have we actually met in person? I can't remember if we've met in person. I don't think so. Just corresponded on email and social media and stuff. Cool. And then Miles, we were on a panel together of, was it nonviolence versus just war theory or something like that? That was a little intimidating. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those, one of the classic just war versus non-violence panels uh yeah we actually talk about that i talk i mentioned that in the in the introduction to the book but that was one of the impetuses that

that really started there were like a there were like a few things that came together that really i think pushed us to do this book and me being on that panel was kind of the tipping point for me in the just war this is a topic that I read and write on a lot so I know all the just war arguments and keep up with the literature and all that but it just

it was frustrating to me because it felt like the folks from the just war position had no idea what Christian nonviolence consisted of, apart from the Schleinheim Confession and a couple of chapters of Yoder's Politics of Jesus. So it's just, yeah. And then David at the same time was writing,

had just written this article for Sojourners, in which he mapped out what became the basis for the book, kind of offering a typology of the different ways in which Christian nonviolence had unfolded. I already have a bunch of questions, especially with that panel. That was an interesting, I didn't know what to expect wandering into it. And I would just, kind of like you, is more convinced of my position, largely because of, I don't want to say ignorance, like that sounds negative, but there was like a lack of familiarity with Christian nonviolence. They just kind of seemed to address base level,

kind of surface level arguments of just pacifism in general, kind of like, yeah, it doesn't work. I don't know. It wasn't really the wasn't really theologically astute, you know? And we, I remember going, getting into Romans 13 and some of the background there. And it was like, they didn't even, I don't know. It was frustrating, but also encouraging because it's like, okay, so I'm not, I'm not out to lunch, but, um, why don't we start, uh, start with you, David, how did you, let me just quick background, but who you are and how you got into this topic. And maybe like for both of you, like what, tell us about that journey of becoming convinced that nonviolence is the best representation of Christianity. brief introduction to who I am. I'm a pastor at Keller Park Church, which is a Mennonite church in South Bend, Indiana. We actually just became Mennonite this past year, so that's a part of my story as well. But I also work at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and I think

this mug I'm drinking from has the logo on there. And a lot of your listeners might recognize that name as associated with John Howard Yoder, who taught there for about 30 years, author of The Politics of Jesus. And that's a part of our story as well. So we'll talk about that, I'm sure, as we get into the interview. But my role there, in addition to some courses on the interview. But my role there, in addition to some courses on kind of Christian attitudes to war, peace, and revolution and related topics, is to work at the Institute of Mennonite Studies. I'm the managing editor there, so we do publications in Mennonite theology and ethics and all that. So how did I get here? I guess you could go all the way back to kind of pre-9-11 um i grew up in a fairly conservative white evangelical context um you know we went to

church sunday morning sunday night wednesday night you know heavily involved in the youth group and all that type of thing and at at that time, you know, junior high and high school, I would have considered myself Christian Christian, especially evangelical response to that, that it started to raise questions in my mind about sort of that whole package deal of sort of God and country. through reading works in, um, Anabaptist theology then in seminary and beyond, um, started to come more in the direction of a, um, nonviolent approach. I would have probably just called myself a Jesus-y pacifist or something like that. Um, but a lot of that, um, But a lot of that approach was influenced heavily by Yoder. And so I met Miles in 2011 when we were at Baylor together in PhD programs in theology and ethics. And we were both there to study Yoder's theology and writing dissertations on him. And around that time, some survivors and advocates sort of blew open the story that had long been kind of a well-kept, not so well-kept secret, I guess, about his own history of sexualized violence. And that had been something that I sort of had heard rumors about and heard different takes on, but not really

let that sink into my approach to nonviolence. And so that kind of sent me on a whole new trajectory then of working out how does nonviolence relate to all these other areas of life, not just the debates between just war and pacifists, but also how we live our lives as Christians in the church, in our homes and all that type of thing. So that's kind of fast forwarding to how we get to the book, a bit of my journey. I'm going to ask Miles this too, but I'll ask you before you pass it over to Miles, what do you think is the best argument against christian non-violence like wait is there is there one kind of thing where like man

this this one's tough like i can see where people are coming from here you know um um well one of one of the you know biggest advocates of christian Christian nonviolence in the 20th and early 21st century is Stanley Hauerwas, who was a close friend of Yoder's. And he would talk about one of the best arguments for nonviolence being the witness of Christians and the witness of the church, especially as it lives out nonviolence. and the witness of the church, especially as it lives out nonviolence. And so I think if we take that argument seriously, then I think we have to say the inverse is also true, that the best argument against nonviolence is when we see that fail to be lived out by people who are advocating that very view. So I think we have to take very seriously kind of walk and word together. Um, and that's something that, yeah, we're still grappling with. Okay. Yeah. Good. All right, Miles, give us a little background, who you are and the,

I'll end up asking you that same question. Yeah. So I teach theology and direct the Baptist study center at, Center at Abilene Christian University. I've been here for about two years. I've taught a bunch of other places. Yeah, Preston, so you and I first met when we were on a panel together in, what, 2015? I think so, yeah. Yeah, I was teaching at Palm Beach Atlantic in Florida at the time. So my journey into Christian nonviolence came, uh, it really started, I think,

uh, in 2001 with, uh, with 9-11. I think that's, that's not a, not, not an uncommon story. Uh, so I was in a class, I was in seminary at the time, was in an early morning, uh, class, the administrative assistant came in, told us we needed to turn off the TV, and so we were just transfixed for a couple of hours. And so after I walked out of the building that morning, I was walking in my car, not sure what I was going to do with the rest of the day, just because nothing really seemed like the normal thing to do. the normal thing to do and just out of nowhere heard like the the the passage from matthew kind of ringing in my ears of love your enemy and i thought this is such an in like this this this statement doesn't make any sense in contrast to what i've just seen on the tv it just seemed to

be such an utter contradiction that i couldn't quite quite, I couldn't shake it. And it didn't quite know what to do with it. Um, it was not that I, I mean, it wasn't that I grew up in a, like a militant background. I mean, I grew up near an air force base and I think it was kind of the presumption that that's, that's how it, that's how it worked. Um, but it just never really occurred to me to even think about the question of non-violence i think until that until that point and so that then began just kind of a very slow process of sorting through uh these questions of what it means to be a christian in a world which is uh which is surrounded in violence uh part of what we do in the book is talk about the ways in which violence is not simply kind of international geopolitics, but it's also kind of the intimate sorts of violence that occur within the space of relationships

and around issues of sexual identity and all these kinds of things. sexual identity and all these kinds of things. So the violence from the highest levels to the smallest moments is just endemic within what it is to be a creature in the world. Yeah. So I'm looking at the table of contents and you have a chapter A is on resisting sexual and gender-based violence. So I think that's really helpful that this book covers a whole gamut. It's not just about public policy or warfare or even biblical theology in and of itself, but you're trying to apply it to all areas of life. Would that be an accurate assessment and kind of a unique contribution of the book? Yeah, I think so. I mean, just a brief overview of the book. We're kind of laying out eight

different approaches to Christian nonviolence, and that's part of what Miles was talking about on that panel, where there was just the assumption that Christian nonviolence is this one thing, kind of this static view that might be associated with the Schleinheim Confession from the radical reformers or something like that. And we just think we know what it is. And what the book does is tries to like, blow that up and say, it not just a simple, single thing, but it's actually this living tradition that there's multiple streams that kind of merge and 21st century and kind of what their underlying logics are, what their underlying biblical, theological, ethical kind of grounding is, and then how that lives out in the world. And so that last chapter on, we call it Christian anti-violence, which is resistance to sexualized and gender-based

violence, isn't just like an add-on to traditional kind of discipleship-based Christian non-violence that we might sometimes think of, but in some ways it's actually resisting certain moves within that kind of nonviolence. And so not all of these views build on each other. Sometimes they do, and we can talk about ways they relate or influence each other, but sometimes they're actually talking back and forth to each other. So the arguments aren't necessarily just pacifists versus just warriors, but sometimes it's an internal debate among those committed to something like nonviolence. You know, so my audience is, you know, a lot of people listening, very, you know, biblically

centered, probably all over the map denominationally, even theologically pretty diverse. But I think, you know, most people listening, you know, the Bible is a big deal in their life. Could you, and you can tag team this if you want, but like, for somebody who's not that familiar with Christian nonviolence and how this squares with the Bible, give us a quick overview of your understanding of how the scriptures promote, you know, Christian nonviolence. Obviously you have, you know, Old Testament's an issue. There's all kinds of warfare, even sometimes commanded by God. You've got, you know, certain, you know,

temple cleansing passages in the New Testament and stuff. But yeah, what's your understanding of how the Bible promotes this vision? Miles, you want to take a couple passages and I can... Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think probably the most familiar passage to your audience is probably going to be what you find with the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus tells his disciples to turn the other cheek, to pray for those that are persecuting them, to go the second mile. This is in some ways ground zero in that it's the most explicit. It gives this just explicit warrant that when you're dealing with even those who are your enemies, this is how you're to do it.

But I think it really goes beyond that. You have, once you get into, I think, the letters, then it's the undergirding assumption that we are to be truthful with one another, but we're to be patient with one another, that we're not to enact different kinds of violence toward one another. You have Paul describing kind of some of the abuses that are taking place in the churches as what we now would describe as forms of violence against, like so exclusion of people from meals or the mistreatment of the poor. The different chapters in the book will kind of touch on those and describe those as different kinds of violations toward other people. That the way that we engage with one another sexually or the way that we engage with our economics, that these can all be forms of degrading and violent behavior

toward another person. So you don't find as many explicit warrants in the letters of Paul, but it follows from the same premise that this is one of the undergirding uh themes of what it is to be a christian is to behave in this way in a world which will not frequently return the favor right so even if you engage in the world in a way which following jesus exercises non-violence don't expect that it's going to work out well right frequently it won't but David you want to pick up from there

I think we might have lost David he's mesmerized he's just I wish people could see his frozen face on the screen right now he's just like staring off into the ether while we're getting David his frozen face on the screen right now. He's just like staring off into the ether. Well,

while we're getting David back, what about the Old Testament? That's typically, I would say, I mean, you know, people go to various passages in the New Testament, but I think people take it as a given that like God didn't just allow warfare to happen.

That's one thing. That's the is, but there's also some ought, right? Some commands in the Bible, Deuteronomy 20 and others, the Canaanites and all these things. Like,

how do you respond to, how do you respond to that? So I think the, the way that I would, the way that I typically respond to it is by taking a look at the ways in which early Christians interpreted those passages. So they interpreted it in a way that doesn't try to wave them away and doesn't try to dismiss them,

but they engage with them in a way that reads them typologically or spiritually. So one great example here. So you have an interpreter, of alexandria who writes a commentary on joshua and so when he's dealing with these passages of well what do you do with you know god commanding uh what do you do with god commanding warfare um he reads that and says yeah i what how we are to read this today is that we're to read this as a struggle against sin. Like we're not to take this as a new kind of an ongoing commandment to enact violence against our enemies. But in light of Christ, we now read these passages in a way which takes seriously like the struggle against sin, but also takes seriously the commandment of Jesus to not do violence against our enemies.

Now, he's not origin when denied that that is not a literal historical event that happened, right? He's not saying that – Yeah, I don't think that he would deny that. I think that he takes it for granted that that happens. I think there's a way of dealing with the Old Testament that would try to maybe mythologize it or to say maybe that was just their understanding of what God commanded. But that's not the – I haven't read that in a minute, but that's not my – I don't remember how Origen deals with that.

I think that he just kind of takes it for face value and says that may have been what was appropriate then, but in light of Christ, that's just not on the table. what was appropriate then, but in light of Christ, that's just not on the table. And we have, I mean, just to add, and this is, I mean, in my, in my book, I mean, that's why I have three or four chapters just on the old Testament because I really, I didn't feel comfortable, you know, and I know I've got friends who take that interpretation that miles you

articulated that, you know, this, they misheard God or this is an Israelite way of understanding what they thought God said, but he really didn't. And I just, um, you know, they misheard God, or this is an Israelite way of understanding what they thought God said, but he really didn't. And I just, you know, I've talked with Greg Boyd about this, and he takes, and I don't want to misrepresent his view, but an approach kind of like that. I just, I don't know, like, even with the Canaanite command, the command to kill the Canaanites, And I think a good biblical case can be made that it wasn't every man, woman, and child. That's not because I'm comfortable with

that. I mean, I am, but I think there's exegetical evidence for that. When you look at the nature of the command in Deuteronomy 20, 16 to 17, and its fulfillment in Joshua 10 and other passages where, and I don't want to get lost in the weeds, but we know that they, okay, so you have the command in Deuteronomy 20, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Okay, seems to be comprehensive. And you have in Joshua 10, I forget the verse.

Trust me, it's there. 1030, I think, where there seems to be a clear statement that that command was fulfilled. We took the land, you know, the north and the south, the foothills and the valleys, according to the command of the Lord. And it seems to be very clearly referring to Deuteronomy. So whatever Deuteronomy is commanding, the book of Joshua says, we did it. But we know for a fact from the book of Joshua that they didn't kill everybody. So there seems to be some...

There's a little bit of hyperbole there. Yeah, which is very common in warfare rhetoric in the ancient world and common in the biblical text. which is very common in warfare rhetoric in the ancient world and common in the biblical text, you know, um, a million men didn't march up from Ethiopia, you know, in,

in, in Chronicles or whatever, like that just didn't happen. That's not, there wasn't that many people then. Um, so yeah, anyway,

I don't want to get lost in the weeds, but, um, even still, even, even if it's not a comprehensive command to annihilate every man, woman, and child, even if it is kind of like take the land, slaughter a bunch of people, I still think that, I don't know, to say that, because they're rebuked for not fulfilling that. Like the entire book of

Judges is premised on the fact that they didn't do that command. And then they ended up intermarrying with the Canaanites and that leads to problems. And so, you have this huge thread all throughout the Old Testament that is connected to this Canaanite, this command to conquer the land through violence. So, if you say, no, that's not really what God said, There's just so much. It just seems like that creates many more problems than it solves. David, you were gone for a little bit. Yes. And he thought, I don't even know if you, I mean, are you familiar with like Boyd's position or, and I don't want to keep saying this because I have not read his books. I don't want to

misrepresent him. But how do you handle the command to slaughter the Canaanites and Deuteronomy and others? I mean, I might get in trouble by some of my Mennonite friends for saying this, my peers for saying this, but I just don't think the Bible is, strictly speaking, pacifist. I don't think that's really necessarily what is required to commit oneself to Christian nonviolence. And so I'm sure you're familiar with like Christian Smith's work, The Bible Made Impossible, where whatever you might think of his overall take on it, I think his main point of like, what is the point of the Bible? What is it trying to do? Is it trying to answer every last ethical question for us? Or is it trying to point us to God as revealed in

Jesus? And then it's sort of our job as Christians to live our lives in response to that revelation. And so, you know, I have many friends. and yeah, you mentioned Boyd, I'm familiar with his work, who do a lot of kind of exegetical, hermeneutical work to try to make the Old Testament sound more nonviolent than I think it is. I think there are streams within the Old Testament that kind of present a way of unfolding into a non-violent life. So, you know, God also in early chapters in Genesis seems to be very upset with humanity precisely because of its violence. And so it seems as though when you look at Genesis 6, that the sign that the world had become so corrupt was the increase in violence. So it seems clear that there's some fall from an ideal that would have been a more, you know,

this vision of shalom. And then in the prophets, you see them kind of hearkening back to that vision and looking to sort of an eschatological realization of that vision. So I kind of go different, you know, depending on the day of the week, kind of how I deal with those passages in Deuteronomy, like, is it kind of what Paul does in Romans 12, where he says, vengeance is mine, says the Lord. So, you know, basically, if God commands it, that's up to God. But unless we get that command, that's not up to us. And so the ethic that is presented there in Romans 12 is very much in line with the Sermon on the Mount, even though it's predicated on this somewhat violent text of leaving vengeance up to God. But then you have other passages like in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, be perfect because your heavenly father is perfect. And it seems like the ethic is one of imitation.

And so it's trying to be more like God. And if that's the case, it kind of raises the question of if we're called to imitate God, is God nonviolent? Or is God's quote unquote violence something that we're not supposed to imitate because of our creaturely finitude? Yeah, it seems, I mean, of course, there's aspects of God's character that we're supposed to imitate but also i don't know not to be to to you know simplify a complicated theological issue but of course we're also not to imitate god in certain ways too you know i mean and especially that's i just talking to one of my kids about this other day and they had a hard time with it and i got i. And I never really did. Like, vengeance is mine.

Therefore, you don't take vengeance. And so he's like, well, how come God gets to take vengeance? He's God. Like, he has a right to do whatever he wants. We don't have that right. So I don't know. We imitate God when he says imitate me in this area. But there's areas where he explicitly says,

you don't do this because I'm going to take care of it. And it just seems natural that like, like God alone would be the one that would execute judgment perfectly. He knows, you know, like no human would be capable of doing that. So I don't, I don't know. That's never really bothered me. But for me, it was, you know, if you ask the question, is there any evidence that Christians... Okay, so now we're dealing with a new covenant ethic. We know clearly there are ethical differences and trajectories between the old covenant and new, right? There's things permitted in the old that are prohibited in the new and

things permitted in the old. Well, whatever, flip it around. I think I messed it up. You know, that's just, you know, and anybody that didn't go to church with a lamb on their shoulder agrees with me, right? There's certain things that the Old Testament says don't do that we're fine doing. So there's differences between the old and new. And for me, the leading question is, is there any New Testament evidence, any evidence that God wants Christians to use violence to confront evil? So I know everybody's thinking about the attacker at the door. What about China invades America? All these scenarios that people bring up. I'm like, okay, is there any evidence in the New Testament, which was written in the backdrop against a lot of evil and a lot of violence. Like it was, these, these were live options.

Evil was everywhere. Violence is everywhere. This is, this is not like, oh, they didn't have these categories in mind. No, that, these are the primary categories that existed against that backdrop against the very violent Jewish movement is born. This new brand of Judaism that morphed into christianity um there's no i don't see any evidence in the new testament where god allows or desires or commands violence as as a means for a christian to confront evil uh in the world um this is this is howard thurman's point in the first chapter of god of

jesus and the disinherited or jesus and yeah jesus inherited uh that he he makes the comparison between kind of first century galilee and his own his own experience and just said yeah the reason that jesus can command this is because jesus knows what it is to be disinherited, to be of the oppressed. And so Jesus' own experience of being in that situation where violence is a very real option and the violence is very present is what gives the credibility toward his statement about nonviolence. Yeah. So it's not, yeah, it's exactly that. It's not like this is an unrealistic thing because Jesus didn't know anything about like, you know, the intruder at the door or the attacker at the gate or whatever. But rather the opposite. Yeah. But this is intimately known. So, yeah. And he's still going to and he still says it. that Jesus is himself Jewish, and so he is, you know, fulfilling an option within Judaism. I don't want to paint the, you know, distinction too sharply between, like, the Old Covenant and the

New in the sense that there's not continuity there. This isn't a Moseanite type of perspective, or, you know, supersessionist or whatever. Jesus is drawing on the prophets who are pointing in this direction already. And so I think there's development, however you understand development within scripture. I think there's development even within the Old Testament as you move into the prophets where even someone like Jeremiah is saying like, hey guys, we're not going to fight back here. We're going to trust in God for deliver guys, we're not going to fight back here. We're going to trust in God for deliverance, and we're going to go and seek the peace of the city to which we've been called. And in their prosperity lies our prosperity.

And so, you know, Jeremiah very well could have said, let's form an alliance with Egypt to fight off the Babylonians, and he didn't take that option. So I do think there's continuity and difference. And Isaiah too. I mean, I wouldn't quite call Isaiah a pacifist, but he's headed... Well, he is very... I'm not Isaiah, but the God revealed through the book of Isaiah. It's very anti-militaristic. And most people know Isaiah just through kind of cool quotes here and there that are encouraging for spiritual living or whatever. But if you follow the storyline of Isaiah against its background, like you said, I think Isaiah, I want to say 31, like the command, don't go down and make an alliance with Egypt. Again, it's been a while

since I studied it, so I might be butchering it. But there's a lot of stuff there that doesn't leap off the pages because we're not familiar with the categories that Isaiah is working with. But I remember working through the whole book in preparation for my book.

And yeah, I was just shocked at how anti-militaristic it is. I wouldn't quite say if all we had was Isaiah, we would all be absolute pacifists, but there is a critique against military might, against going to war. And I don't think it's just like, don't go to war because you're going to get your butts kicked.

Like, you know, we have the whole story of Sennacherib and this slaughter, you know, 175, that like God can do what he wants to do. So it and this slaughter, you know, 175, that like, no, God can do what he wants to do. So it's not just, you know, you're a weaker military force, therefore, it's not wise for you to go to war. It's kind of like, no, let's stop this warfare thing, trust in God for deliverance. So it's almost like Isaiah and in Jeremiah, the prophets, well, this is what you said, David, that it's almost, it forms this bridge between kind of a more violent, deeper Old Testament history and the Sermon on the Mount. The prophets give us kind of a segue to the sermon.

I think there's already some kind of gestures in that direction earlier on. So even in some of the books you cited earlier, you know, Deuteronomy and Joshua, So kind of pre-United monarchy, there are warnings about militarism and nationalism even then. So when, you know, when the people come and ask Samuel for a king, he's quoting from Deuteronomy, blessings and curses to say, like, if that's what you want, that's what you're going to get, but here's what it's going to lead to. And so I see a sharp critique even there of militarism. So I think that all your kids are going to get conscripted. Yeah. Yeah. That, that, uh, first Samuel, I mean, they want a militaristic king, a king like the nations, right. Who will go out and fight our battles. And,

and again, if you compare that to what we know about other nations around the time, yeah, profoundly militaristic. And then the king was the military leader and, you know, um, then that, that's, that's who they wanted. Um, and so, yeah, Samuel's critique is, it, it is a, it's not just a critique of kind of this abstract critique of, no, God's your king. Don't, you don't want a human king. It's, it's, it's more specific than that. It's like, no, you want this kind of military leader with a military machine and it's not

going to lead well, but I'll give it to you anyway. And that's exactly what ends up happening. Okay. One more. And I, I want to actually get to some of the stuff in the book, but I have to ask. The argument I feel like I always get from biblical Christians isn't really a biblical argument. It's, wait, you're just going to let your wife and kids get raped by somebody breaking into your house? I've had more people get visibly upset at me when I talk about nonviolence. And it really comes down to this.

Like you're just going to let this kind of evil run wild. How do you guys respond to that argument? The killer at the door. I mean, David, when you gave your strongest objection and said that it was one of, do Christians actually practice this? This is the one that I think about, is the suffering of the innocent. Yeah. think one of the one of the questions that um advocates for non-violence wrestle with is what you know what does it mean to be non-violent and yet present within spaces of suffering right so it doesn't it's not a it's it doesn't wind up being a zero-sum game of either you let evil go unchecked and run wild, or you take up lethal means and destroy attackers.

Like, it's not a zero, like, it's not an on-off switch in that respect. So there's all sorts of folks that talk about the ways in which... So one of the things that we mentioned briefly, one of the things I think that probably would need to do more work on is the role of, say, restraint or the role of deterrence or the role of doing away with the things which are causing the violence. So in the instance you're describing, kind of the attacker at the door scenario, there's a lot of things that can happen between disarming an attacker and killing them, right? There is restraint that can happen. There is disarming the weapon. There is, you know,

there is putting yourself in the way of those that would be attacked. There's a lot of options which are on the table here other than I need to kill the person who is at the door. Yeah. David, do peeling extra head on. So in that book, we talk about your faith not worth fighting for. There's an essay in there by Amy Warhol and Kara Slade who talk about that very question. and there by Amy Warhol and Kara Slade who talk about that very question. But to me, I would kind of say the attacker more often than not is already within the door. Most sexual violence or violence that happens is from someone in the house. And how is a church responding to revelations of that that are happening all around us. And so we can kind of create this heroic sense of like, I would voliantly stand up and fight to save my spouse's

honor or whatever in this extreme situation. But then when we hear stories of abuse happening within our church, oftentimes those very same people are resistant to doing what's necessary to address that in a real way. So that might sound evasive, but I think when 99.99% of those kinds of scenarios are coming from within the home, to look at the 0.01% as an argument against nonviolence to me seems kind of like a bit of a red herring. Okay, but how would you deal with the 0.01%? I mean, theoretical situations and not that this is purely like, you know, we are speaking out of privilege a bit. I mean, this is more

real for certain populations than maybe for us but let's just say there is that you know person who is storming the door like do you think there is could be a place for violence as a lesser

to evils or defense of the innocent I think physical constraint is one thing I would say that violence is the lesser of two evils or defense of the innocent? I think physical constraint is one thing. I would say that I don't live my life in such a way to prepare myself for that violent encounter. So I don't stockpile guns in my house. I don't have any kind of violent weapon that I'm aware of. I'm sure I could find something if I needed to, but I'm not living my life as a Christian in such a way that I'm constantly, vigilantly preparing for how I'm going to violently defend my own life or my family. So in that moment, yeah, sure, I'll use some kind of force if, you know, that ever came about, hopefully to restrain that person and not to inflict violence on them. So I think

Christian nonviolence can get conflated with sort of the historic non-resistance view, which is a little bit different, which is like, we, you know, don't engage violence or the world or the attacker in any way. And, you know, historic Mennonite or Amish communities, some of them would adhere to that type of view. That's not really quite what we're doing in this book on Christian nonviolence. There's very active ways to quite what we're doing in this book on Christian nonviolence. There's very active ways to engage violence nonviolently. Yeah. Peter Ackerman's history

is called as a new kind of force which I think gets at the heart of what the book is trying to do is that nonviolence is not passive in the sense of withdrawal I think that that's a common misconception of what nonviolence does

but it seeks to actively engage in a way which lowers the temperature or it's better conceived of as as different modes of peacemaking and what all that entails so yeah yeah i think that's where i like what you said about well just the it's not a zero-sum game like and the way that question is often framed not that that scenario is intrinsically theoretical. Okay, that does happen.

But the way it's framed, it is theoretical. It's like, wait, wait, you're going to just be nonviolent and not stop the killer through violence? Like, whoa, whoa, there's, let's just, let's paint a real picture here. Okay, so guy breaks in. He's dead set on beating up my kids, killing my wife, raping my family and everything. How would I even kill him? Well, you used your gun. Well, I don't keep a loaded gun in the house.

Okay. Let's just say you have a loaded gun in your house. Okay. Well, do you know the risk of a child dying with a loaded loaded gun in the house far outweighs this scenario where i didn't sleep with some dude's wife i'm not involved in a drug cartel or like there's there's no reason why somebody would come in not that it can't happen but the percentages of my kids being at risk with a loaded gun in the house go way far beyond the scenario you're painting okay okay let's just say let's just scratch all that just to say for for the sake of argument you have a

loaded gun in your house okay am i a good shot like i'm not a very good shot i gotta be scared i would like miss the guy and blow one of my kids heads off or something who's standing behind no no you're a really good shot well if i'm a good shot i'm gonna shoot the gun out of his hand or something you know well no no no no like you're a good shot, I'm going to shoot the gun out of his hand or something. Well, no, no, no, no. You're a good shot, but not that. And all of a sudden, it just starts to get like, are we talking about the real world or not? What if he's coming in, he's storming through my house, and bam, I'd pull a John Wayne, blow his head off.

What if he was actually after my TV because his kid's starving to death and he's a homeless guy, whatever, and wanted to go sell me? How do I even know he's dead set on? Is he a robot? How do you know? How would I know? It's a hundred percent dead set with no other negotiation or restraint. That's going to turn me away from killing my family.

He's a, he's pre-programmed to kill my family. And unless I like, it just starts to get a little bit, I don't know. It's intended to be, here's a real life example, know but it's like it's kind of not like you painted that really otherworldly scenario is that fair i mean am i i

don't want to get lost in the weeds of it and i i don't like you i don't want to evade like i think it's a it's it's something that really has challenged me and i you know people say what would you do that stage i don't know what i would do. All I know is a person who's trying to understand the Bible to say, I don't have a verse in the New Testament or a theme or a trajectory or in my ethical authority that says, no, guy breaks in, bam, blow his head off. I don't have that as far as I can see in the New Testament. So I don't know. Sorry, I'm taking too much of

this is supposed to be about you guys. Well, I just think, I mean, the way you kind of deconstructed the question, it's sort of points to how it's based on a certain, almost pathology, but certainly sort of a view of the world in which I am responsible for my things to protect my stuff. And I think when you play that out further, it sort of shows how maybe American Christianity has gotten into some of the dead ends it's gone because of that kind of perspective. So not that wanting to protect your loved ones is a bad thing, obviously, but when you kind of keep teasing that out further and further and living your life in light of that, I think it leads to greater kind of desire for control and all of that type of thing. And so I think it's, if that's the foundation for your approach as opposed to the teachings of Jesus,

then, you know, you're already kind of off track a little bit. Like tragedies do happen in the world. We mourn them. We try our best to avoid them as possible. But if we kind of make all of our life decisions based on that very remote possibility of a tragedy, I think it could lead us down the wrong road. I'm curious about... The world is not a safe place,

but I think that doesn't... that we engage the world expecting... Yeah, go ahead. No, my... Yeah, I think... But there's a lag time in the internet connection here, so that's why we're unintentionally talking over each other. Um, go ahead and, uh, miles, you, you were on a thought there just to,

why don't you repeat it? No, I won't cut you off. So I think that I'm trying to remember what I was even going to say. Um, yeah, I think that the world, the world is a violent place. I think that that's, I don't think that you can, there's any way to avoid that. But it doesn't then follow that the way that you engage a violent world is

with the return of violence. The world is not a safe place, but it doesn't then follow that you do everything conceivable to avoid danger, or that you could prepare for every conceivable to avoid danger that you can, or that you could prepare for any,

every conceivable eventuality. I think that that's, that's a paralyzing way to live. And I think Jesus fully acknowledges that the world is a violent place and it's a dangerous place, but yet this is the way that, that Christ has called us to live through it as a reflection of, of the God that we have been called to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm curious about your two chapters, all of them really, but chapters five and six. So chapter five is realist nonviolence. And that might be kind of stuff we've kind of been talking about. But the second, chapter six in particular, nonviolence as political practice, because that's another question often comes up. Like, you know, are we, I don't know, saying that like nations should be nonviolent? Like, are we saying America should, you know, deconstruct its military? Like, is this even the design of a Christian ethic?

Or I'm assuming, I don't know if that's what you're, well well, let me ask you rather than assuming I have the authors in front of me. Talk to us about chapter six and yeah, what's that chapter all about? Yeah, well, there's kind of a progression throughout the book in a way from chapter one, looking at nonviolence as Christian discipleship, and a lot of the questions we've been talking about today kind of would fall under that category. In fact, we mentioned your book on nonviolence within that chapter as part of kind of that approach to nonviolence as Christian discipleship. But in looking at 20th and 21st century thinkers, Christian thinkers, we've seen that some of them come at these questions differently.

And it's not that they're not committed to following Jesus or don't follow the Bible, but it's maybe their entryway into nonviolence comes from a different direction than I read the Sermon on the Mount and now I'm convinced. And, you know, your book, I remember reading it the first time and kind of being struck by like this sense of you almost seemed as surprised as anybody else. Like nonviolence is what you came to. Like, you know, I like hunting and I, you know, all this stuff. But here I am. What am I supposed to do? This is what the Bible says. But some other thinkers kind of come at these questions differently.

But some other thinkers kind of come at these questions differently. And the chapter on realist nonviolence kind of arises from a challenge around World War II from Reinhold Niebuhr, who is a Christian realist, who said basically, like, if you want to follow Jesus literally, that's fine. Go be Amish or Mennonite. We need those people to show us the ideal. But if you want to actually make a difference in the world, you have to give up nonviolence. And so he creates a binary between absolute nonviolence and political kind of responsibility yeah and what we find is other thinkers come along after him and and say are those are only two options or are there ways to be politically responsible to actually try to combat the evil in the world maybe not to to make nations pacifist like like you put it but maybe to make them more just and more equitable? Are there ways that we can maybe minimize the causes that lead to war in the world? And can we do those things without engaging in violence? And so a lot of the thinkers in that chapter are kind of taking up that challenge of Niebuhr and trying to say, what are the things we can be doing now?

You know, Glenn Stassen is an example that we talk about in that chapter where he talks about these nonviolent initiatives that can kind of help reduce the amount of violence in the world, help lead to a more just and equitable world, not denying that, you know, the world isn't Christian, nations aren't Christian, they're not going to completely lay down their arms, but maybe we can move it in a more just direction. And then, Miles, I don't know if you want to talk about political practice a little bit. Sure. Yeah, so chapter six, the political practice, it draws in, I think, some figures that would be fairly familiar. The political practice, it draws in, I think, some figures that would be fairly familiar. It talks about Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez. But it gets to this question of what is the role that's most familiar to, I think, to most folks is the ways in which nonviolence functions as a form of protest or as a form of political pressure internally. So it pairs well with the chapter that David was just talking about, which deals more with the question of nonviolence as it relates to nations externally. organizations externally. So that it's not just people protesting in the streets, but it is, it provides actionable ways to engage the world at large.

Okay. Do you guys have thoughts about Christians in the police force? Do you guys wrestle with that in the book? I get that question a decent amount. Yeah. I remember you talking about that in your book because wasn't your dad a police officer? Yeah, he was LAPD for 17 years. And this was Richard Hayes, I think he said, was one of the more difficult ones for him. And I've read among the fairly broad nonviolent camp, different perspectives on it. Yeah. So this is where if you take kind of a strict view of nonviolence as not participating in war or not killing someone, you know, strictly taking it as like bloodshed being what violence is and nonviolence being not doing that,

being what violence is and nonviolence being not doing that, then I could see some forms of policing that would still fall under that rubric. So like Gerald Schlaubach is a thinker we talk about in the book where he actually advocates for what he calls just policing, which is sort of an alternative to war. And it's sort of modeled on policing. But if you think of violence more broadly, which some of the chapters, like the chapter on liberationists, nonviolence, we talk about how people like Oscar Romero view violence as not a break from the norm, but actually part of the norm. Like our lives are so enmeshed in violence. And I think if you take that approach, then policing itself might be a way of maintaining some of those inequities

and some of those violences we find in the world. So even if they're not literally shedding blood, they might be a part of that system that could be violent. And so I think there's critiques beyond just whether they should carry guns or not. Although, you know, with the police shootings we see in the news frequently, we know there is that kind of violence as well. So the Mennonite Church that I'm a part of has some curriculum on police abolition. If your listeners want to look that up on Mennonite Church USA, I'm sure it would be a very challenging read, but they're trying to pull in thinkers from black and queer communities

and others who are finding the police presence as a form of oppression. That's one perspective, but yeah. Yeah. That one's hard. That one's hard for me. I mean, yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't, cause I mean, people will, you know, say I'm a hypocrite if like, well, okay. Even if you wouldn't be a cop, you would call the cops if somebody, right? Like you would. And I'm like, yeah, you would call the cops if somebody, right? Like you would. And I'm like, yeah, I think I would. But yeah, is that a, I don't know. It's hard.

I don't know what to do. I mean, it's still, it is still to me not, well, it's not like the main question, again, goes back to, does Bible believe in Christians? What does Jesus in the New Testament say about how Christians should confront evil? And then, you know, all these kind of, what about this? What about that? I think they should flow from that paradigm. And I think there's, yeah, there's some that are just, they're just tough, you know? So yeah, I don't know. I mean, you know, when I did a little bit of research on this for my book, I mean, gosh, it's been like 10 years now, but I mean, we often think of our

kind of US American situation, which is very different and unique. And there's, I think, other countries still today, or at least in the past, where police didn't carry guns. And it wasn't a... The question wouldn't have been as pressing for other forms of policing around the world and historically compared to the situation in America where there's 350 million guns in the U S and we have a very unique kind of gun culture and, you know, we're built on a gun foundation and, um, it's just, it is a, it is a unique situation. I'll have to say like, like the question is kind of specific for the American context and is, is, is different if you apply it to other, other contexts. Not,

not that it's completely different, but I don't know. Yeah, Miles, I wonder if you'd talk a little bit about the apocalyptic nonviolence chapter. Oh, yeah. Just in the sense of how it creates a dis- between the way of life, the way of Jesus, and the way of death, and how that might play into this conversation a little bit. Yeah, so one of the streams that we talk about, and this is probably a stream that's not going to be known, uh, as it's not known as well. And it's probably not known to your, to your listeners is what we call apocalyptic nonviolence. So got the book here in front of me. It is chapter, uh, what chapter chapter? Chapter four. Four.

Yeah, chapter four of the book. So it centers on a guy. One of the key figures here is a guy named William Springfellow who did a lot of his work in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The call to nonviolence is not a withdrawal from the world, but it is an active call of God to dismantle those things which are causing death in the world. That the ultimate struggle here is, I mean, this is like deeply New Testament, right? It's like death is the final enemy. And so death shows up and it manifests its powers within creation in all kinds of ways. That he calls, this is what Stringfellow calls like the principalities. These are all emissaries of death in one way or another.

And so the way that Christians deal with violence is by actively opposing those things which are causing death to manifest itself within the world. And so you have Stringf Stringfellow, uh, himself did not do this, but he had said there were a couple of, uh, Catholic priests and a collection of other folks that would do things like, uh, break into draft offices during Vietnam and burn the draft cards, you know, or destroy draft records or would break into nuclear facilities and uh, try to dismantle the various

weapons. And so I think broadly applied, like this is, this is a form of nonviolence because you're not, it, it, it's, it recognizes that the real struggle here is against death itself and being willing to destroy those things which are proliferating death within the world. Interesting. Yeah. And so when you, when you, when you,. And so when you think about it within the question of policing, it begins to ask the question, what are those elements within the way in which we think of ordering society? What are those things which are helping to provide some sense of regulation and order? And what are those things which are contributing to the death and

degradation of people, right? So it might entail some things. It might entail, you know, not dismantling everything about law. It might not entail dismantling everything about providing people who are, you know, who are judges or adjudicators and people in conflict. It might not, it probably wouldn't entail that, but it probably would mean looking hard at the ways in which we do that. You know, are the ways in which we're thinking about an orderly society, are those actually contributing to the death of people? Are those contributing to the degradation and oppression of people?

And those would be the things from an apocalyptic perspective that you need to really dismantle. Those things have to go. Yeah, that's good. No, that's good. I wonder how much of... I mean, isn't violence wrapped up a lot with things like socioeconomic status and poverty and hunger and you know um which that's there's there's got to be i mean yeah there's got to be like more systemic

questions and things and questions they need to be asking things that need to be addressed if we're really concerned about again confronting evil stopping uh the innocent from being oppressed you know like we're dealing with really complex uh systems of injustice that are wrapped up into that question rather than just no bad guy pulls a gun you shoot him you know it's like well okay i don't i do again i don't want to avoid that question. Um, but I want to set it in a more complex real life, you know, context, but. David, do you want to talk about the liberationist chapter? Cause that really gets into that question. Yeah, that's where that question really comes to the fore. Um, we, we focus on Latin American liberation. There's also black liberation, women's liberation, so on. But our chapter draws heavily on people like Helder Camara, Oscar Romero, and others who are not saying like economics and politics lead to violence, but that those things can themselves be a form of violence

and so for them non-violence is about just what you're saying Preston like confronting actively confronting those injustices because those are forms of violence and not just in an abstract way but in a very real way that those are leading to death. And that's been a big challenge for me in researching for this book, is that I came to Christian nonviolence, as I shared at the beginning, from a very kind of the Bible says that I should do it, end of story type of perspective, kind of what we talk about of nonviolence of Christian discipleship. I'm still committed to that, but I've seen ways in which it goes deeper than just kind of a literal refusal to engage in bloodshed, but actually trying to identify where violence is in our society and how we can be actively undoing that.

And so even the word nonviolence might itself be a little bit of a misnomer because it sounds like there's violence and then we don't do that. So we're nonviolent. And I think that word anti-violence we used in the last chapter might be kind of the direction that I'm moving where it's more about what are we as Christians doing to seek justice, to seek peace in the world, and how can we undo those violences all around us? Yeah, that's good. I like that. That's, yeah. Or even Ron Sider, he's got that book that documents kind of all the non-violent revolts against systems of oppression when when people try to for instance you know i think liberia i mean there's so many examples we can list but like countries where there was a horrific oppression top down right and uh the

people who are being oppressed even sometimes when they try to use violence, the people, the oppressor, I mean, just overpower them, you know. But it is shocking. I haven't double-checked all his research. So, I mean, you know, I'll let people fact-check this. But it is shocking how many powerful systems of oppression have been dismantled through nonviolent means when violent means did nothing but the opposite now i i still do stand by you know my statement in the book and something you guys have said you know our main goal is a faithfulness not necessarily perceived effectiveness. I think that is ethically more superior. But at the same time, it is shocking at how often nonviolent revolts, it went on a systemic level, are actually both

faithful and more effective as well. Is that valid? Did you guys talk about that? Have you verified Sider's survey in his book? Yeah, I don't think we fact-checked all of Sider's stuff. There's a couple of – and we get into a little bit of that in the book. There's a couple of – there's a researcher that I follow named Dr. Erica Chenoweth. There's a researcher that I follow named Dr. Erica Chenoweth. She's at the, the Coble school, the Coble school,

which is in Colorado. It's part of University of Denver, I believe, but she has documented, she's done a lot of the social scientific work on this and documenting the ways in which nonviolence has been used within popular revolts or within within political process um and the results are actually really it's really interesting because uh sometimes it's nonviolence plus other factors sometimes it's nonviolence alone

um i think if we look for nonviolence to do all of the heavy lifting i think that you can find those examples yeah but frequently it's nonviolence, and this again kind of touches on the realist chapter that we wrote, frequently it's nonviolent protest in combination with other factors. So something like, say, the transition of power in Poland in the 1980s, we could mythologize it and say, yeah, it was just purely nonviolence that did this,

but it was actually nonviolence in combination with international pressure and support from the church and some economics. And so it was just like this complex of factors, which nonviolence did play a significant role but maybe not the only was it the only factor there but even those are still non-violent right i mean economic sanctions and publicity and i mean that's well that's that gets a little that gets a little dicey okay because then you want you might wander the critique that this gets to part of the ways in which

some of these types might argue with one another. When you start talking about economic sanctions, then you have to ask the question, well, who's being really affected by the economic sanctions? So a liberationist perspective might push back and say, well, not so fast. You think that economic sanctions is a form of nonviolence, but it's actually really hurting the poorest at the subsistence level. It's not really putting pressure on those at the top that have the most wealth to withstand it. It's really doing violence against the most vulnerable within that society. We do mention the story of Liberia actually in the last chapter because that was a woman's-led movement. I don't know if you've seen the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell or if your

listeners have ever heard of that, you got to check that out. It tells a story about how Christian and Muslim women basically combined forces non-violently to stop the war there. And as Miles said, there's other factors going on at the same time, but it was really a women's led prayer movement that turned the tides on that war. So that's the compelling story that I think fits Ron Sider's narrative. And one thing, you know, Sider, he's a scholar for sure, but he's also an activist who puts his action where his mouth is. And he gave a speech back in the 80s, basically saying we should be as committed to nonviolence as soldiers are to war. And out of that was a group founded called the Christian Peacemaker Teams. I think they're now called Community Peacemaker Teams,

but they go around the world basically to war-torn areas to try to get in the way and to try to disrupt the violences that are happening. And that kind of goes back to Sider's influence there. Wow. That's wild. Yeah. The Liberia, was that, was that the one where all the women said, we're not going to have sex with y'all until there's peace or something? Like there's like a sex strike or something? I thought that was creative.

Oh, we lost David again. Miles, is that – I don't want to get that wrong. Yeah, I don't recall the specifics of it. That reminds me of – there was a movie uh what was it it was a it was a spike lee movie several years ago where he he redoes less estrada but that's the basic premise of it is that there's there's conflict and the women decide to to with to to not have sex with any of the warriors until there's peace and so that eventuates peace it's creative yeah but i don't i don't i don't't, I don't remember the,

I don't remember the specifics of it. Yeah. Well, I'm going to, we're going to wrap things up here. I've taken you over an hour. We lost David. David isn't longer with us.

Hopefully he's still alive. Hopefully no one broke into his house and disconnected his internet, violated his internet. Um, uh, well, dude, seriously,

thank you so much for this book. I, I, yeah, I'm excited to get it, check it out. And, uh, well, dude, seriously, thank you so much for this book. I, I, yeah, I'm excited to get it, check it out. And I hope it really, uh, stirs some great conversations. I mean, that's, that's, I don't know. I'm my audience is probably mixed. Some people were fully convinced. Others may be appalled that we're even talking about this.

Other people are somewhere in between. Um, the main thing is, again, it's, it's really good to ask the question, like, what does the Bible say about this? What is a countercultural Christian view of things like violence in the face of evil, whether it's evil being done to you, done to someone else, whether it's systemic evil, whatever it is, I think we do need to take seriously what the New Testament has to say about that. And I don't want to say like, a metaphor, everybody will be right where we're at.

But I mean, we do need to have this conversation, right? So I mean, I hope your book, if it doesn't convince everybody, will at least stir some really good conversations, drive people yet again back to the text and the counter-cultural upside down nature of the kingdom that Jesus sought to establish, you know? Right. Yeah. The goal of the book is just to open it up and say,

the Christian on violence has labored under a variety of stereotypes for far too long. And there's a whole lot of directions and a whole lot of folks that you've never heard of, but you should. And so it's easy to dismiss it if all you have is a caricature of it. So let's get down to the sources. Let's get down to the actual figures. Let them speak for themselves. And then we can have a real robust conversation but I think by and large

it's hard to have a real robust conversation when no one knows what Christian nonviolence is that's what I experienced it felt like it was very one-sided there was a great deal of unawareness I'll say as to what christian

non-violence entailed yeah good david uh you missed it but i was uh now there's no excuse yeah i was uh we're closing this town i gotta run uh and i'm taking you over an hour but uh yeah thanks david and miles for coming on the show really appreciate it and hope your book uh finds its way into many people's hands. Thanks so much. Yeah, thanks for having us. Take care. Music Music Music Music