Marginal Christianity

Giles Fraser Tolstoy’s War and Peace is well over a thousand pages. And the BBC has been criticised for whittling it down into a mere six episodes. So it’s obviously ridiculous to try and summarise such a whopping doorstopper in three short sentences. But seeing as Tolstoy believed there was quite a lot to be said for foolishness, here goes: all Christians are fools. Politicians can’t allow themselves to look or behave like fools. Therefore, politicians cannot be Christian. No wonder the Russian Orthodox church excommunicated him in 1901. He was a thorn in the side of organised religion and, even more so, a vigorous opponent of the state. For Tolstoy, the state was one great big protection racket, a monopoly of organised violence demanding money for a false promise of security. For by the raising of armies its citizens organise for war and yet also make themselves a target for attack. Thus the Christian state is a contradiction in terms. Not that you’d know it from the BBC’s ...

http://www.runningheads.net/2014/05/02/engaging-the-myth-of-a-non-violent-jesus-by-jeffrey-mann/ Posted on   May 2, 2014   by  Charlie  |  Leave a comment G. K. Chesterton once wrote that  “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” When it comes to the nonviolent implications of this “Christian ideal,” the  situation is even bleaker—something  other than  the nonviolence of the gospel has been found wanting, and this  lack in something else  is used to set aside the gospel. A good example of this procedure is to be found in a recent essay published online at RealClearReligion:  “The Myth of a Non-Violent Jesus”  by  Jeffrey Mann, Associate Professor of Religion at Susquehanna University . I was alerted to the essay by a friend from  graduate  school (and  Cascade Books author ),  Kate Blanchard of Alma Co...

http://www.missioalliance.org/youre-not-a-pacifist-are-you/   “You’re not a  pacifist  are you?” I get that question a lot. People who have read my books or heard my sermons will often “confront” me with that question. There seems to be a hint of scandal implied in the question, like asking, “you’re not a  pornographer  are you?” This strikes me as a bit strange. I suppose the hint of scandal comes from the assumption that pacifism is a sort of cousin to cowardice. This also strikes me as strange. To endorse the dominant view that the employment of violence is compatible with Christianity requires no courage at all — that’s just following the crowd. But to differ from the dominant view on the sanctity of state-sponsored violence may require an uncommon reservoir of moral conviction. Pacifism is not a popular position in America, and especially not among patriotic evangelicals who have ardently sought to amalgamate the American state and the Christian ...

Stanley Hauerwas ABC Religion and Ethics 2 Sep 2013 http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/09/02/3839028.htm Americans are a people born of war, and only war can sustain the belief that they are a people set apart. War is necessary to sustain their belief that they are worthy of the sacrifices of past wars. Credit: www.shutterstock.com Pacifists always bear the burden of proof. They do so because, as attractive as nonviolence may be, most assume that pacifism just will not work. You may want to keep a few pacifists around for reminding those burdened with running the world that what they sometimes have to do is a lesser evil, but pacifism simply cannot and should not be, even for Christians, a normative stance. Nonviolence is assumed to be unworkable, or, to the extent it works at all, it does so only because it is parasitic on more determinative forms of order secured by violence. Those committed to nonviolence, in short, are not realistic. In contra...