pacifism

A Bloodless Zeal

by James Hamrick 20 December 2011

Whenever I talk to Christians about the non-violent way of Jesus they inevitably bring up an incident from Jesus’ life that ‘proves’ that pacifism is nonsense: his cleansing of the temple. All four canonical Gospels tell us that Jesus went to Jerusalem, entered the temple, and proceeded to chase people and animals out, overthrow tables, [...]

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Confessing Pacifism, Repenting in Love

by Nichola Torbett 28 October 2011

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece for this website that called for a confessing movement. Consider this my first confession, inspired largely by my participation in Occupy Oakland.
Until recently, I have been what one of friends calls a “nonviolence fundamentalist.” Inspired by the movements of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., among [...]

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British Nuclear Weapons: A Jesus Radical Witness to Church and State

by Stuart Blythe 13 April 2011

Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde, near Faslane, some twenty five miles North West of Scotland’s largest city of Glasgow is the base for Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent. This takes the form of Trident missiles carried on four nuclear powered submarines. On the 16th April 2011 an ‘Easter Peace Witness’ as part of the campaign [...]

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Arming Christian Campuses?

by David C. Cramer 30 March 2011

I teach at a small Christian liberal arts college in Northern Indiana, which—much to my consternation—recently gave approval for the chief campus safety officer to carry a gun while on duty. The other day after one of my classes, a student of mine asked me what I thought of letting campus safety officers carrying guns. [...]

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Nonviolently Resisting God

by Paul Munn 28 March 2011

If when you do right and suffer for it you take it patiently, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin; no deceit was found on his lips. When he was [...]

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Protest Church Involvement in Mass Homicide

by Elbon Kilpatrick 4 November 2010

Since August 6, 2009, I have been standing in front of church buildings in Tennessee with different signs that protest the church’s involvement in mass homicide (see “Protest Church Involvement In Homicide” under “Politics and Current Events” on the Jesus Radicals Forum). I am a Mennonite who believes Christians are required to follow Christ’s command [...]

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Pies, Beers & Spy Bases

by Graham Cameron 11 October 2010

In April 2008, Father Peter Murnane, Adrian Leason and Sam Land (now known collectively as the Waihopai Ploughshares) broke into the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) signals intelligence gathering facility outside of Blenheim in the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. They cut through two high security fences, slashed the radome covering one of the [...]

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The Heritage of Rulers: Transitions in History

by Jared Both 5 October 2010

The early Christians were pacifists.¹ It was only in the second century did Christians become or remain soldiers. John Cadoux’s explanation for the Christian transition into militarism is of a slippery slope in moral ethics due to economic and political pressure. A major sociological shift had occurred after the second century to even allow Christian soldiers [...]

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Early Christian Ecclesiology and “The Property Question” [part 2]

by Andy Alexis-Baker 5 October 2010

Michael White and others present an ecclesiology where leadership developed from property ownership and wealth. Wealthy property owners decided for their household/church. Rather than voluntary, committed Christians, churches reflected their social milieu and hierarchies. Such narratives explain growth, leadership and relationships in terms of the Greco-Roman social world, and also show continuity with later Christianity: [...]

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Early Christian Ecclesiology and “The Property Question” [part 1]

by Andy Alexis-Baker 28 September 2010

At our 2009 Christianity and anarchism gathering, speaker Rev. Emmanuel McCarthy said:
There are no peace churches in the United States. Because when you have got more than you need, and other people do not have enough to live on, you only keep the excess by violence. You do not keep it by appeals to faith [...]

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