JUST USE OF FORCE

God commands the just use of force
By Rory Leishman

Suppose a man is walking past a park after dusk when he hears the desperate cries of a woman screaming, "Help, rape." What should he do? Rush to the defence of the victim, of course, and try by all means, violent and non-violent, to stop the attack.

Christian pacifists and their secular counterparts disagree. They reject the use of force to resist evil, even when there is no other means of curtailing the depredations of wickedness.

If a Christian pacifist were to arrive on the scene of a rape, what would he do - counsel the victim to stop pulling the hair of her attacker on the ground that violence begets violence? Would he remind the desperate woman of Jesus' admonition in the Sermon on the Mount: "Do not resist one who is evil."

Surely not. Only a lunatic would preach to a victim under attack. Yet Christian pacifists have no compunction about insisting to the rest of us that it's sinful and wrong to use any form of violence to stop a rapist or a tyrant like Hitler.

The great majority of Christian theologians reject this argument, and for good reason: The Bible, taken as a whole, makes clear that Christians are called upon to use force whenever it is absolutely necessary to prevent evil.

Granted, unlike Mohammed, Jesus did not take up the sword and did not allow his disciples to do so. Yet Jesus did not shrink from using force to achieve justice. He drove merchants from the temple and overturned the tables of corrupt money changers.

When a Roman centurion asked Jesus to heal his son, Jesus did not tell the officer to leave the army and take up life as a pacifist. Rather Jesus marvelled to his followers: "Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith."

Christian pacifists take literally the passage in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus counselled non-resistance to evil. Yet in this same sermon, Jesus also said: "If any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well." Should this latter statement be taken literally, too? If not, why not?

In an address entitled, "Why I am not a Pacifist," given to a pacifist society in Oxford, England, in 1940, C. S. Lewis suggested that respect is owing to a Christian pacifist who donates all his belongings to the needy. Who, though, can admire the inconsistent person, said Lewis, "who takes Our Lord's words a la rigueur when they dispense him from a possible obligation (to use force to defend the innocent), and take them with latitude when they demand that he should become a pauper."

Lewis held that the text on non-violence in the Sermon on the Mount was meant to be taken literally, but only in the context of the everyday frictions among neighbours. "In so far as the only relevant factors in the case are an injury to me by my neighbour and a desire on my part to retaliate," said Lewis, "then I hold that Christianity commands the absolute mortification of that desire. But the moment you introduce other factors, the problem is altered. Does anyone suppose that Our Lord's hearers understood Him to mean that if a homicidal maniac, attempting to murder a third party, tried to knock me out of the way, I must stand aside and let him get his victim?"

Some Christian pacifists maintain violence can never be justifiable, because it's intrinsically evil. What, though, is evil about using force to rescue a woman from a rapist? Theologically orthodox Christians take the sensible view that violence is sometimes an essential means of attaining justice.

In "Good Wars," an article in the current issue of First Things, (http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0110/articles/cole.html), Darrel Cole concedes Jesus was a pacifist, but only insofar as pacifism was inherent in his unique role as the redeemer. Cole insists: "No Christian can or should try to act as a redeemer, but all can and should follow Christ in obeying the commands of the Father. And the Father commands the just use of force."

"What does the LORD require of you but to do justice," proclaimed the prophet Micah. To this end, the Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Protestant, and Count Klaus von Stauffenberg, a Catholic, took part in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. Rather than condone the evils of Nazism, they resorted to the just use of force.

Alas the plot failed. Like other heroes of the Nazi resistance, Bonhoeffer and von Stauffenberg were arrested and executed by the Gestapo. They died as they had lived as soldiers of Christ, striving by all means to repel evil and defend the innocent.

Rory Leishman 836 Wellington St., London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3S7 Home/Office Phone: 519-439-2676 Home Page: http://members.home.net/rleishman