Earlier in the week, someone wrote a post on the “Myth of Redemptive Violence.” The claim was made that fighting for the sake of peace never brings about the intended outcome – that is, peace – except in fiction. I cannot say I wholly agree, as I find this to be an oversimplification. We live in a complex, fallen world. Violence is part of this fallen state. Yet the Bible points to redemptive violence often, even in ways that I don’t much care for. Yes, we say Jesus defeated death and sin through submission on the cross, but we also say that God will radically, and even violently, remove evil from the world sometime in the future.
So when is violence “good,” or necessary? We throw around the idea of choosing the lesser of two evils often enough. So what is evil in violence? Is violence qualitatively evil, or is there a quantitative aspect to it? Violence for the sake of ruling over others is always bad. I would think this goes without saying. One could argue revenge and self-defense are also evil.
But what happens when we see evil and violence directed at others, especially the helpless? Where does justice come into play? Let me use the tired, cliché analogy of World War II. The Third Reich was overthrown by the use of force and violence to stop Hitler’s totalitarian rule over Europe. It was later found out that Hitler intended to cleanse Europe of Jewish blood. Did the Jews freed from death camps think their redemption was just a myth? Saying redemptive violence is a myth seems to free us from our responsibility to help the helpless. I know that war is complicated and countries, including the U.S., may have had ulterior motives for joining in the conflict. War is hell, and I by no means am a warmonger. Most wars have been meaningless and full of tragedy. But there are some things, some evils, that I, and many like me, hate more than war.
Like I said earlier, we live in a complex world. I wish I could say that we live in a world where we never have to come to blows to attain justice for the downtrodden, but unfortunately not everyone holds this view. Remember, it only takes one person to destroy a utopia. We need to tread lightly and with open eyes before we make blanket statements concerning war and peace. And we can all hope for the day when violence will be wiped away from this broken world.
How should we think about violence as Christians? As human beings? That's a very difficult question. Some Christians do believe that to follow Jesus and take up our crosses involves refusing to fight, as he did. The way to save the world is to lay down our lives, not to take lives. They'll quote Matthew 5 where Jesus tells us not to resist the evildoer.
ReplyDeleteBut, as you point out, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that violence is sometimes necessary. A philosopher I admire says that life sometimes confronts us with "moral blind alleys," situations in which we'll do something wrong no matter what. Can we think of violence as an evil, as always reflecting the fallenness of our world, but acknowledge that living in this world means we sometimes have to be part of it? That might help keep us from seeing violence as a source of any kind of ultimate redemption. Rather, it might simply involve choosing the lesser of the evils before us.