What I Believe

by Fred Dettmer
Purchase Meeting

Civilization in general, and the United States in particular, worships at the alter of holy violence. At the heart of that devotion is the belief that lethal force wielded for proper purposes can deliver peace and justice. This faith in redemptive violence insinuates itself into every facet of our culture; from the consensus view of our political class to our standard history curriculum; and from the major themes in our popular entertainment to the talking heads and editorial pens of our major news and informational media; even in our sports and games and toys. In the words of theologian John Dominic Crossan: “Since we first invented culture (or it us), violence has been our drug of choice. . . .”

Every war brings the temptation to find saints and sinners, to deem some virtuous and others malicious, to identify victims and aggressors. Society demands that we take sides. Taking sides invites justifying the use of lethal force in defense of great principles. And the invocation of great causes takes attention away from the annihilative realities of warfare.

This is the challenge faced by the Peace Testimony. How do we convey our truths to communities devoted to principles of holy violence?

This is some of what I believe:

We are told that each war is justified by great principles: freedom or liberation, the homeland, my people and our way of life; fending off predators and throwing off oppressors; even for God; especially for God. It follows, then, that war fought for a great cause must be moral. The sanctity of the goal, of our goal, cleanses the means used to reach the goal. Hence, the choice to eradicate evil through lethal force is a moral choice.

The invocation of great causes, however, obscures the reality of warfare. The wages of war are life, property and resources; the killing and maiming of human beings and the destruction of property and communal wealth. The wages of causes are the intellect and debate.  War employs weapons to prove one’s superior destructive power. Causes employ thoughts and words to prove one’s superior constructive ideas. Adoption of a just cause doesn’t and can’t change the essential truth that warfare vindicates force, not principle.

The evil in violence is the violence, not the character or motive of those employing the violence. “The spirit of Christ... is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it....”

Three of the Gospels tell a story about Jesus being offered power to rule the world. IMAGINE THE GOOD HE COULD HAVE DONE! The stories report that Jesus turned down the opportunity with the retort “worship the Lord, your God, and serve him only.” The Gospel According to John makes the point more directly:

“After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.”

When we pray that God shall “lead us not into temptation,” I believe the temptation is the belief that lethal violence can be used to bring justice when, in fact, it only brings dominance. When we ask God to “deliver us from evil,” that evil is that temptation to believe in redemptive violence. Jesus invited his followers and us into the Kingdom of God and modeled what that means with his life. That Kingdom demands justice and, rather than peace through victory, it promises peace through justice. And that is what I believe.