Bill Maher on Christian Nonviolence
Recently Bill Maher interviewed Dr. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas and the head of Pathway to Victory.
During their discussion, Maher asked Jeffress about the killing of Bin Laden and how it jives with Jesus’ many statements about nonviolence and loving our enemies.
Honestly, I think Jeffress’ answer was a cop-out, and it demonstrates the lengths we will go to ignore passages that don’t fit our political and theological assumptions.
The amount of hermeneutical twisting and turning necessary to limit Jesus’ words to only “personal offenses” is unconscionable, particularly for someone with an advanced degree in theology who really ought to know better.
Take the “go the second mile” teaching for example, which was about nonviolent resistance to the brutal Roman occupation. Not exactly a personal offense.
Christ’s message of loving our enemies cannot be twisted to fit nicely alongside “shooting our enemies in the face,” and I think it’s about time we stopped pretending otherwise.
[Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting there isn't a difficult conversation to be had about the role of the state in enacting justice. There is, and we can no more point to Jesus' teachings and pretend that settles it in one direction than we can point to Romans 13 and pretend that settles it in the other. My issue is rather the way we ignore Jesus' teachings altogether and act as if they pose no challenge to our assumptions about war and state violence.]
___________________
For another way of reading Romans 13, see this appendix to Jesus for President
booo. i suppose a christian could support state sanctioned killing, but to pretend away all tension is disingenuous. also, if it all matters and is all scripture, paul or anyone one can’t just cancel out the words of Christ.
a faith of convenience and easy answers will never expand the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. mercy.
Exactly, it’s the pretending like it all fits together so nicely that frustrates me.
There is a difficult discussion to be had about the role of the state and justice, but when we act like those teaching of Jesus are about something else entirely it seems like willfully ignoring passages we deem inconvenient.
I don’t accept non-violence and I’m embarrassed that this is the defense that Christianity is getting. There are plenty of reasons why a Christian might accept shooting Osama Bin-Laden “in the face.” (If you are unwilling to defend yourself from violence then what does “Love thy neighbour as thyself” mean? How can you love God if you aren’t willing to oppose injustice?) What we get from Jeffress here is luke-warm tapwater. Within Christianity we need the hot and the cold but not the luke-warm.
“If you are unwilling to defend yourself from violence then what does “Love thy neighbour as thyself” mean?”
There is an important difference between resisting violence and resisting violence *with more violence* And it seems like refusing to perpetuate that cycle of violence is exactly the sort of thing “love thy neighbor as thyself” would mean. After all, Jesus is pretty clear that our “enemies” count as neighbors as well.
Perhaps the problem was the medium. What we get is a minute and a half clip from a TV show–how will that solve so deep an issue? Even if I had watched the entire show I would likely still have difficulty with the format. In my view, if Jeffress made any error at all it was in supposing that the great and difficult tension between statecraft and soulcraft could be worked out in a studio before a live audience. If the tensions of our faith have any power at all it’s in the days, weeks, and even lifetimes that we need to absorb and implement God’s revealed wisdom. Did we just witness dialogue, or entertainment?
Pingback: Texas Pastor dismisses Jesus’ teachings. | The Peace Pastor | a Chron.com blog