Resisting Hate

The recent invasion of Charlottesville, Virginia, by Neo-Nazis, KKK members, and other white supremacists, and the various response tactics by counter-protesters, have been the subject of intense examination in the days following.  This conversation is difficult and necessary.  Especially for those who espouse non-violence as the only moral response to hatred and injustice, serious questions have been raised and must at least be examined, if not answered.

My first thought was of the similarities between the current debate over tactics and the tensions of the Civil Rights era, exemplified by the competing views of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.  Both were sons of Baptist ministers, but their life paths took very different directions.  King was relatively sheltered from the worst abuses of racial segregation.  He had opportunity for education and became a minister himself.  Malcolm’s father moved the family from Nebraska to Michigan because of threats from the KKK, but their new home was burned and his father brutally murdered by whites.  During a stint in jail Malcolm was converted to Islam and became a leader in the Black Muslim faith, then later turned to traditional Sunni Islam.

We Believe in Violence

If anything positive can be said to have resulted from the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, it may be that it has generated a national discussion about gun control that seems to have more seriousness and staying power than that which followed other recent mass shootings.  President Obama has set forth a concrete plan to address the issue, a combination of actions that can be taken immediately via executive order and legislative proposals which will require action by Congress.  Vigorous discussion is taking place in the news media and social networks.  One can only hope that reasonable and effective regulations will eventually be put in place as one step in efforts to reduce the slaughter.

It is not my purpose here to rehash the hundreds of arguments that are being made for and against the President’s plan.  Instead, I want to invite reflection on our attitudes toward violence.  For purposes of this discussion, I will focus on physical violence, while recognizing that verbal violence can also do substantial harm.

Criminalizing the Teaching of Non-Violence

In June 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that a portion of the US Patriot Act prohibiting the provision of “material support” to designated terrorist organizations includes training in non-violence by humanitarian aid workers.  The specific case which prompted the ruling was Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (HLP).  HLP had sought to provide training in human rights advocacy and peacemaking to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey, a small group which the US government has listed as a terrorist organization.

This ruling is, in effect if not in intent, profoundly anti-Christian.  First, it criminalizes the speech and actions of those who attempt to follow Jesus’ clear examples and teachings about how we are to relate to our enemies.  And second, it denies the possibility of repentance and conversion on the part of those to whom such training would be provided.  Ironically, two of the three dissenting justices are the two non-Christians now seated on the Supreme Court.  It appears that some of our Jewish brothers and sisters have a better understanding of “the things that make for peace” (Luke 19:42) than do most of the Christian members of our highest court.

Peace among the Peoples

In late July 2010, I had the privilege of being the Moravian representative to a conference hosted by the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana.  The event, titled Peace among the Peoples, was advertised as “An Ecumenical Peace Conference on Overcoming the Spirit, Logic and Practice of Violence.”  It certainly lived up to its billing both as an ecumenical gathering and as a conference focused on the ways of peace.

Practical Peacemaking

In late summer 2010 as I was walking downtown, I observed a vehicle parked along East Main Street with a large sign in the rear window.  The sign read, “Save America; shoot a Liberal.”  Because at the same time there was an anti-President Obama demonstration going on in front of the Post Office, my first concern was that there was potential for a shoot-out on our streets.  Later I learned that the two were unrelated.  While the demonstrators had come from a national organization to set up shop with their signs and pamphlets for a few hours and then move on, the vehicle appears to belong to someone with local ties.

Questions about a Tragedy

During the days following the massacre in Arizona, I spent hours at my computer, searching a number of websites for news, commentary, analysis; trying to make some sense of this most recent national tragedy.  While it is still too soon to know all the details of the accused shooter’s mental state and motivation – and indeed, perhaps we never will – several larger questions about the kind of society we have created for ourselves have clearly emerged.  In this column I propose to explore what Scripture can teach us about several of those questions.