Here is Miroslav Volf, a pacifist himself, on why Christian nonviolence actually needs the vengeance of God to be coherent (not to mention Biblical):
My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone...Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence. the thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban hom for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God's refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind...
Exclusion and Embrace, p. 204
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Volf Gold.
Mike, I have distant memories of reading Exclusion & Embrace at college. I do remember being struck by the power of his argument on violence and forgiveness - especially given the context he writes from. Even if I don't buy pacificism - the best case I've seen for it comes here - in the middle of a profound meditation on evil & justice
But am I right in remembering E&E having a chapter on gender and indentity that you wouldn't be so quick to endorse? I'm pretty sure it was this book that left me so appreciative and affected by one argument and so disappointed by another.
Yes, the Gender Identity chapter I think is below par - and the grapevine tells me that Volf himself acknowledges this. However, I rate the rest of the book as life-changing...
Maybe I should get around to reading Volf sooner rather than later. I think, and have always thought, that divine vengeance is intrinsic to a biblical pacificism, he's absolutely right on that.
Not familiar with the guy, but this tidbit seems problematic:
- When does this vengeance take place: now, soon, later, afterlife, Judgement day?
- Some people will invariably take this theology and decide to help God out with the divine vengeance
- If we are created in God's image, what does divine vengeance say about us?
- Which 'biblical' parts does this theology emphasise and play down (OT vs NT)?
- What theory of the atonement are we working with?
- Are we not just sanctifying human attitudes regarding vengeance, throwing in the liberal boogyman ad hominem rather than discussing other parts of scripture that would seem to contradict this theology?
Perhaps my reading of the Bible is corrupted by my liberal pinko hippie lenses, but didn't Jesus have a pretty awful time at the hand of others, yet decided to forgive, rather than take vengeance? And Jesus was God, right?
There are countless stories of forgiveness in countries plagued by war, genocide and other hideous crimes. It is not uncommon for liberal Westerners to find it repulsive that such crimes can be forgiven...
Which is why (for all the problems it creates) governments—even Christian ones perhaps—rightly wield the sword.
Anonymous, most of the issues you raise are addressed very powerfully by Volf in the chapter I cited.
Chief among his arguments is that human beings are NOT God. The image of God notion does not mean that human beings replicate God in all ways; nor should they. Volf is wise enough to know that this disanalogy hasn't always been observed historically, granted.
What about Jesus praying "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". rather than "I forgive them, but you take vengeance for me" - tho' there is also 1 Peter 3 "he entrusted himself to him who judges justly".
anon - God will deal with those who harm us. One way or another. Either they will repent and be forgiven because God's vengeance on their sin fell on Christ, or they won't and they will suffer the consequences for what they have done at the Judgement. Either way, we are assured that God does not just act with indifference to human sin and evil acts, but deals with it with justice.
"Perhaps my reading of the Bible is corrupted by my liberal pinko hippie lenses, but didn't Jesus have a pretty awful time at the hand of others, yet decided to forgive, rather than take vengeance? And Jesus was God, right?"
Hi, it's the orthodox preterist again. Misinterpreting NT apocalyptic is part of this problem. Everyone overlooks AD70.
Just as judgment upon Ahab's crime against Naboth was postponed a generation, so the crimes against Christ were forgiven but repeated against the first century church. The blood of the "son of Ahab" was spilt in the same field and "Jezebel" Judaism was thrown down.
"And a great multitude of the people followed Him, and women who also mourned and lamented Him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. "For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, 'Blessed [are] the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!' "Then they will begin 'to say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!" "For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?"
Luke 23:27-31 (see also Revelation 6:16)
Luke 21:21-22 "Luke 21:21 "Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her. For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled."
God has a long fuse, but He has a fuse, and most often it's a generation - enough time to call out a remnant.
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