Should Complementarian Theology Lead to Pacifism?

Saluting Pacifist, or
Head Scratching Theologian?

What do famous complementarian John Piper and hardened pacifist Greg Boyd have in common? No, it's not that they're both Minnesota Vikings fans. And I'm not talking about their teaching stint at Bethel University.

David over at the Christians for Biblical Equality blog suggests it might be how they read the Bible.

In his post, "Why (Most) Complementarians Should Be Pacifists" David lays out two passages of scripture:

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. (1 Timothy 2:11-15, NIV)

And:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (Romans 12:17-19, NIV)

Arguing that the plain read of the first, which is often cited as defense for Complementarian read of Scripture. It's David's reasoning that those who take a plain read of 1 Timothy 2 have good reason to take a plain read of Romans 12 and end up a pacifist.

Here's the part I like:

...Why this disparity? Here’s one possibility: The non-pacifist complementarian is from a cultural context in which having Christians in the military (or other potentially violent occupations, such as the police force) is simply so normal that he (or she) could not imagine Scripture possibly teaching something contrary. At the same time, he is in a church context in which certain gender-based roles are so normal that Scripture couldn’t possibly teach something contrary to that either.

So what do you think? Read his whole argument, then leave a comment below. Should Complementarian logic lead those same folks to Pacifism? 

WHAT WAS THE VELVET REVOLUTION?

The Velvet Revolution was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia,  from November 17 to December 29, 1989.

In large part, popular demonstrations against the single-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, were dominated by students and by older, established dissidents.

On Friday, November 17, 1989, riot police suppressed a student demonstration in Prague that was part of International Students' Day activities. That event sparked a series of popular demonstrations from November 19 to late December.

By November 20, the number of protesters assembled in Prague had grown from 200,000 the previous day to an estimated 500,000.

On November 24, the entire top leadership of the Communist Party, including General Secretary Milos Jakes, resigned.

A two-hour general strike, involving all citizens of Czechoslovakia, was held on November 27.

With the collapse of other Warsaw Pact governments and increasing street protests, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced on November 28 that it would relinquish power and dismantle the single-party state.

Two days later, the legislature formally deleted the sections of the Constitution giving the Communists a monopoly of power.

Barbed wire and other obstructions were removed from the border with West Germany and Austria in early December.

On December 10, President Gustav Husak appointed the first largely non-communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned.

Alexander Dubcek was elected speaker of the federal parliament on December 28 and Vaclav Havel the President of Czechoslovakia on December 29, 1989.

In June 1990, Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections since 1946.

(source: Wikipedia)

Rosenstrasse Protest

The Rosenstrasse protest was a  was a significant instance of opposition to the events of the Holocaust.

This nonviolent protest took place on Rosenstraße ("Rose street") in Berlin in February and March 1943, carried out by the non-Jewish ("Aryan") wives and relatives of Jewish men who had been arrested for deportation.

The non-violent protests escalated until the men were eventually released.

In the mid-1980s, Ingeborg Hunzinger, an East German sculptor, created a memorial to those women who took part in the Rosenstraße Protest.

The memorial, named "Block der Frauen" (Block of Women), was erected in 1995 in a park not far from the site of the protest.

The sculpture shows protesting and mourning women, and an inscription on the back reads:

"The strength of civil disobedience, the vigor of love overcomes the violence of dictatorship; Give us our men back; Women were standing here, defeating death; Jewish men were free."

[source Wikipedia]

THE WAR PRAYER BY MARK TWAIN

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fulttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory with stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender!

Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:

God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest,
Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory —

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord and God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think. “God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, and the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon your neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain on your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse on some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard the words ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory — must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits.”

…

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

The Practicality of Nonviolence

There are several reasons I choose to live a nonviolent lifestyle and the least of those reasons is the practicality and effectiveness of such a lifestyle. Off the bat I should point out that nonviolence will not achieve all goals people have in conflict, but neither will violence. If one's goal is to end a life, nonviolence won't be of much use. Also, nonviolence is not always going to save lives, but again, neither is violence.

Violence is at its pinnacle. It has been practiced far more than nonviolence throughout time. It is developed. It is so developed that we now have the firepower to end all human life with the push of a few buttons (I assume that's how it works). At its height of greatness and high standing as the ruling method of conflict resolution worldwide it is still doing little to resolve conflict, make peace, and satisfy anyone who is not in great power (and even then it fails most of the time) worldwide.

Nonviolence is still being developed. Nonviolence, as a result of being neglected throughout the years, holds greater potential than violence. It has become increasingly more popular in the 1900’s and yet it is still rare to hear anyone name more than one or two nonviolent victories (especially if you rule out the American Civil Rights movement led largely by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi’s work in India). People don’t believe in nonviolence as an effective method of conflict resolution because they have not witnessed it enough.

“At this present time, because nonviolent struggle is something that has not been developed, its role is to complement conventional methods to defend our sovereignty, independence, and right to life. But in due time nonviolence will replace the old, violent methods.” –Miguel D’Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua

Nonviolence must be taught and rehearsed if it is to develop. If you give nonviolence the numbers that violence has in the way of participants, you would find that it stands far above the ways of violence, just as history has shown time and time again. History tells us that “people power” is remarkably effective.

For examples of this, study the protection of Boris Yeltsin from a coup in 1991 or the 1986 account of Peace Brigade International protecting Guatemalan human rights activists.

If you are going to pose “what if” questions then pose them with the knowledge that violence is as good as it is ever going to get and nonviolence is still in its early stages.

To keep this from being a novel, I will quickly recommend you research the nonviolent methods to remove leaders from power in Latin America, (Gorbachev of) Russia, (Jaruzelski of) Poland, (Suarez of) Spain, (Kadar of) Hungary, (Dubeck of) Czechoslovakia, (Karamanlis of) Greece, (Kucan of) Slovenia, and (Birendra of) Nepal. These efforts can be contrasted with violent efforts that seek to remove leaders from power and prove more profitable for all parties.

Finally, since discussions such as this always come down to the Nazis and Hitler. I want to address WWII. Nearly every time nonviolence was used against the Nazis, it succeeded. Foreign violence didn’t even bring down Hitler, technically. I'm not saying I have the answer to defeating regimes like Hitler's with nonviolence as opposed to violent military action. Rather, I'm saying there are ways (plural) and that if we give time and people power to nonviolence – creatively studying all it has to offer – then we will eventually find those types of answers together.

The biggest threat to nonviolence is a lack of creativity and imagination. Violence requires very little of both and yet we've given both to it and found ourselves more afraid than satisfied.

I will end with this excerpt from Engaging the Powers by Walter Wink.

“B.H. Liddell-Hart, widely acknowledged as the foremost military writer of our times, discovered in his interrogation of Nazi generals after World War II that they had little trouble dealing with violent resistance except in mountainous areas of Russia and the Balkins, or where advancing armies were close. But they expressed complete inability to cope with nonviolence as practiced in Denmark, Holland, Norway, and, to a lesser extent, in France and Belgium.

“’They were experts in violence, and had been trained to cope with opponents who used that method. But other forms of resistance baffled them. They were relieved when nonviolence was mixed with guerilla operations, which made it easier to combine suppressive action against both at the same time.’

“The generals found friendly noncompliance more frustrating than any other form of resistance, and had no effective means to counter it. ‘If practiced with a cheerful smile and an air of well-meaning mistake, due to incomprehension or clumsiness, it becomes even more baffling…. This subtle kind of resistance cannot really be dealt with in terms of force: indeed, nothing can deal with it. There is really no answer to such go-slow tactics.”

If we study we will see nonviolence holds more promise for peace. If we rehearse and plan nonviolent tactics and block off the escape route of violence as a “last resort” then we will begin to see the truth that history and the Word of God has spoken to us – Nonviolence is vastly superior to violence.

Travis Glen Blankenship

PEACE AND CONFLICT STUDIES: UC BERKELEY

Taught by Professor Michael Nagler.

BRAINWASHING AN ENTIRE GENERATION WITH VIOLENCE