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ahimsa
moral or political ju-jitsu
satyagraha
Jane Addams
Mubarak Awad
Adin Ballou
Vinoba Bhave
Dorothy Day
Catherine de Hueck Doherty
Danilo Dolci
Mohandas ("Mahatma")Gandhi
Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Kamaladevi
Martin Luther King
Muriel Lester
A. J. Muste
Gene Sharp
Marjorie Sykes
Henry David Thoreau
Count Leo von Tolstoy
Lanza del Vasto
Here are some of the elements that a political leader depends on:. Note that they all require cooperation by others.
Authority. The leader's staff and supporters need to agree to support him or her. They are more likely to do so if the leader's position seems to be legitimate. Those governed must also consent to be led, at least grudgingly.
Human Resources. These are the many people who work in support of the leader: staff, police, army, legislators, judges.
Skills and Knowledge. Leadership can erode quickly if staff, police, army, legislators, judges and others are incompetent.
Intangibles. Habits and attitudes of supporters and followers--psychology, common ideologies. Americans tend to agree that capitalism is a good system; Soviet citizens began to doubt that communism was.
Material Resources. Land, natural resources like oil and iron, money, economic systems like banks and stock markets, communications media, roads, airports, seaports, transportation vehicles.
Sanctions. Laws and their enforcement; military defense. Are police and soldiers willing to support the leader? (When not, there can be a coup d'etat.) Are they efficient? Are appropriate weapons available (nukes, armored humvees)? Is the rest of the population cooperative--i.e., willing to stay out of the way? (In the Philippines, citizens massed in between the contesting army forces.) Enforcement is easiest when most people comply.
1. Habit. It never occurs to many people that they could withdraw cooperation--except in certain "safe" areas like speed limits on highways.
2. Fear of punishment. Most people are well aware of police, courts, and prisons. In more oppressive situations, they are aware of torture and death squads.
3. Feel moral obligation. For example, people might not believe that the situation is oppressive; they might think the people being oppressed are dangers to society and need to be suppressed; they might believe that the government's actions are for the common good of society, that they are God's will, that the laws or commands are legitimate, or reasonable, or have always been accepted.
4. Have something to gain personally. Many German academics in the mid 1930s gained valuable advancement when Jewish scholars lost their positions; white male southern landholders in the US in the 1830s enjoyed leisure, thanks to slave laws.
5. Identify psychologically with the ruler or the government. Political party affiliation can have this effect. So can attachment to popular media commentators. Leaders try to "wrap themselves in the flag"--to give the impression that their policies are for the good of the nation, so that all patriotic citizens should support them.
6. Don't care about that area. Few people have the time and energy to pay attention to all the important issues. They tend to concentrate on those that affect them personally. Leaders often encourage distractions like sports or media stars to keep people from paying too close attention.
7. Have no self-confidence. Few people feel confident enough to confront powerful leaders and movements.
2. social analysis (a descriptive analysis) clarifies the reality of the situation and its causes. One makes use of academic disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, economics, psychology, political science, history, and cultural studies. One studies who exercises power and in whose interest they exercise it, what laws and institutions support that exercise of power, and how things came to be that way. When powerful people make and successfully enforce decisions that benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else, we are in a situation of oppression.
3. theological reflection (a normative analysis) shows how things could and should be. This analysis judges what is good or bad, just or unjust, desirable or undesirable about the current situation. It also explores other possible situations and judges them as well, comparing the desirability of alternative situations.
4. pastoral or action plan shows how to move from the present unsatisfactory situation described in (2) toward the more just situation described in (3). Plans are most successful when they are quite concrete, telling who should do what, when, where, and how.
If the injustice is deep, those who profit from it will usually resist the pastoral or action
plan and attack the campaigners. At that point, the hidden violence which was present in
the injustice will become visible in the resistance to these changes and attacks on those who
promote them.
People with little understanding of active nonviolence often think they can improve its effectiveness by adding a little violence, to scare the opponent. But in fact, the addition of "a little violence" weakens the effectiveness of nonviolence. Oppressors are used to violent resistance: they are prepared to counter it. But nonviolence gains its power from the effect it has on a wider public--they reduce or withdraw their cooperation because they see the contrast between the violence of the oppressor and the nonviolence of the resister. That contrast helps them to understand where justice stands. "A little violence" on the part of the resisters--while understandable--confuses the judgment and provides oppressors with an excuse to "crack down" on "terrorists." Soldiers or police will easily perusade themselves that they are only defending themselves. Bystanders may be tempted to agree. On the other hand, when the activists can maintain nonviolence and also maintain their resistance despite attacks, the more the oppressor uses violence, the more the oppressor loses public support and respect, and the weaker the oppressor becomes. Even soldiers and police begin to question what they are doing. A sort of moral ju-jitsu sets in, to the advantage of the activists. So the activists' motto should be: "Don't let the opponent incite us to violence." Activists must not only maintain nonviolence, they must do so visibly and publicly under provocation so that outsiders can clearly see the contrast with their oppressors.
Israel seems to have understood this in its occupation of Palestinian lands. Whenever Palestinians show signs of mounting a serious nonviolent campaign, Israel initiates an attack to provoke a violent Palestinian response which is used to justify continuing Israeli violence.
The contrast between the oppressors' violence and the activists' nonviolence affects various groups as follows:
As already noted, repression should be expected. That repression is not the end of the campaign, but its beginning--it is bringing into the open the hidden threatened violence that has maintained injustice through fear. Violence by the oppressors is the sign that the activists are threatening his power. Leaders may be attacked, arrested, beaten, tortured, or killed. Often they are made to "disappear" so that their family and friends cannot find out what has happened to them. If the activist community refuses to be intimidated and continues the resistance despite threats of pain and death, a kind of moral or political "ju-jitsu" begins to operate, as mentioned above.
In martial arts such as ju-jitsu, judo, karate, and aikido, combatants can throw an opponent off-balance by stepping aside at the critical moment and letting the opponent's punch pass by, even grabbing the opponent's arm and adding to the energy of the punch--which is at that point into thin air. The harder the opponent punches, the more he or she is thrown off balance. In similar fashion, moral or political ju-jitsu deprives the attacker of the expected response and leaves him or her exposed as an unjust attacker against an opponent who threatens no harm. Observers note the moral difference between the two sides and realize that the oppressor is unjustified. These observers may be third parties, or even the very soldiers or police that the oppressor depends on to maintain the injustice. In Palestine-Israel, for example, the organization "Combatants for Peace" is made up of Palestinians and Israelis who formerly engaged in violence against each other but now have laid aside their weapons and cooperate for peace. Israeli members refuse to obey orders to serve in the occupied territories--many of them are serving sentences in prison.
When significant numbers of soldiers, police, politicians, journalists, editors, lawyers, judges, bureaucrats, and others on whom the oppressive government depends for support begin to have second thoughts, to act inefficiently, or quietly to obstruct the oppressor's policies, the power of the oppressor dissolves.
Critics frequently object that active nonviolence can be effective when dealing with civilized opponents like Great Britain or the United States, but are convinced that it would be ineffective in the face of more brutal opponents like Nazi Germany or Soviet communism. They ask, "Do you really expect someone like Hitler to change his mind?" This comment shows that they don't understand how active nonviolence works. One doesn't start by changing Hitler's mind, but rather by changing the mind of some of the people that Hitler depends on to carry out his programs. Hitler alone could never have murdered 6 million Jews, along with other millions of Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, and other "undesirables."
In fact, historical
examples show that persistent and courageous activists have restrained or
overcome governments even as oppressive as the Nazi government of
Germany or the communist government of the Soviet Union. But such power
depends on activists overcoming their fear of pain and death--confronting
great injustice requires great courage. Oppressors believe
that most communities are not up to the challenge. Sometimes they find
out that they are wrong.
In The Politics of Nonviolent Action (vol. II), Gene Sharp gives historical examples of 198 different types of nonviolent action, some involving successful actions against Hitler's "final solution" or against communist oppression. The examples from the Nazi era had real though limited success; those from communism eventually destroyed the oppressive system itself.
Note that--historically--violent resistance also has limited success. At least one side of every violent dispute loses.
We mentioned above that it is usually a small group at first that both identifies the injustice and believes that something can be done about it. Active nonviolence requires that many more people come to agree with those judgments, so that they will withdraw support from oppressors and give support to new leadership. But this consensus and solidarity does not have to be total. The majority of citizens are uncommitted to change at first, even if they are suffering, because they have not yet gained confidence that something can be done. As the campaign proceeds, the uncommitted gain more confidence, some who have been benefiting from the injustice begin to have second thoughts, and support for the holdouts begins to erode. Initial successes build more confidence, and the movement gains strength. Fearlessness of leaders who persist despite repression gains the respect of others.
Oppressors seek collaborators to infiltrate the movement. Typically, these infiltrators try to incite campaigners to violence in order to give the oppressors a plausible excuse for repression. Such collaborators are called agents provocateurs--a French term. As the movement becomes aware of them, activists need to counter them with a clear, consistent commitment to nonviolence, dealing with them in the same open, nonviolent way that it deals with the opposition leaders themselves. Honesty and openness make it difficult for collaborators to divide the movement as they would like to.
Note that active nonviolence is not always used against a government. It may be used to defend a legitimate government against invasion or pressure from outside. In other cases, it may be used to confront the current government in favor of more just policies. Note that it is easier to defend a legitimate, well-supported government against an invader, or a legitimate, clearly just campaign against a repressive government, than to defend an illegitimate, hated government or campaign. This is true both of armed defense and of active nonviolence, but active nonviolence is particularly dependent on convincing people that its cause is just.
In contrast, Gene Sharp argues that such a position limits the number of people likely to commit themselves to a nonviolent campaign. He presents active nonviolence as one of several possible tactics, a sanction especially appropriate for the 20th-21st century nuclear stalemate where violence would be so disastrous. Show people a different way to fight, he argues, and perhaps we can avoid a nuclear holocaust. We should not insist that people commit themselves to nonviolence in all conceivable circumstances, but we should show them that it is highly to be preferred in this particular situation.
Weak people may choose to use nonviolence because they don't have the capacity to use violence. This is "satyagraha of the weak."
Strong people choose nonviolence even when they could force their way, because they are committed to nonviolence as a way of life. This is "satyagraha of the strong."
The goal of a nonviolent campaign is not to win a partricular struggle, nor to prove that one is right, but to find the truth and do justice. Gandhi believed that absolute truth exists, but he pointed out that no human being encompasses that absolute truth. No human can be sure that he or she is right. Thus, we must not destroy out opponent who may be carrying part of the truth that we are seeking. Rather we should respect our opponent and invite her to enter into a dialogue with us to bring out the truth more clearly. We are willing to suffer at the hands of our opponent because undeserved suffering has power to touch hearts and break open minds that are closed. Most humans cannot continue attacking others once they can see that these others are neither causing nor threatening to do them harm. Those few who are psychologically incapable of compassion--the psychopaths, estimated to be about 2% of the population--will be more and more isolated as others withdraw their support. Eventually, even they will lose the capacity to harm.
We pointed out that the practice of nonviolent struggle can transform its opponents. It also has strong positive effects on the group that is making use of it. Sharp points out the following effects (ch 14): The group becomes no longer submissive to oppression. It finds its own power, becomes fearless, increases its self-esteem, gains satisfaction, hope, enthusiasm, and a sense of humor; shows less aggression within the group, develops greater unity and cooperation within the group, and demonstrates a spirit that is contagious.
Many nonviolent activists and leaders of the last two centuries have drawn their energy from religious roots. Here are some examples.
In the 19th century
Adin Ballou (U.S., Christian: Baptist, Universalist, Unitarian). He developed Hopedale, a utopian community, cooperated with William Lloyd Garrison 's campaign against slavery, and wrote the highly influential book Christian Non-Resistance which strongly influenced Thoreau. He corresponded with Tolstoy, who translated his writing into Russian.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862, U. S., Transcendentalist). Noting that the poll tax supported the unjust U.S. war with Mexico which he believed was intended to extend slavery, he refused to pay it. When he was tossed in jail as a result, his friend Emerson asked him, "What are you doing in there?" Thoreau retorted, "What are you doing out there?" Hks famous essay "On Civil Disobedience" was a result.
Count Leo von Tolstoy (1828-1910, Russia, Christian anarchist).7 Born a nobleman, converted late in life to radical pacifism. Best known for his novel War and Peace, his pacifist and anarchist beliefs are developed in The Kingdom of God is Within You. He thought that governments were incapable of achieving peace, but peace would come when men simply refused to enlist in armies. Numerous Tolstoy Clubs developed in the 1880s to study his ideas. Strongly influenced by Ballou and Thoreau, he himself influenced Jane Addams and Mohandas K. Gandhi.
Jane Addams (1860-1935, American). Founded
Hull House in Chicago to serve immigrants
trying to establish themselves in the new world. Surprised by a burglar
one night while asleep at Hull House, she asked him what he wanted. He
said he was out of work and needed money. She responded that she had no
money, but would try to find him a job if he came back the next day. He
did, and she did.5
In the 20th century
Mohandas ("Mahatma")Gandhi (1869-1948, India, Hindu). An Indian lawyer trained in
London serving a client in South Africa, he began to realize how Indians were being
oppressed there when he was thrown out of a first-class compartment and off the train
because of the color of his skin. He developed a nonviolent campaign to change the laws
and practices. Returning to India, he continued struggling for India's freedom from
England and the poor Indian's freedom from oppressive traditions and practices, such as
the caste system. His successive campaigns resulted in the British abandoning their colonial
control over India. When he tried to bring Hindu and Muslim together and end the riots
surrounding the separation of Pakistan from India, he was killed by a Hindu who believed
that he was favoring the Muslims.
Khan Abdul Ghaffar ("Badshah") Khan (1890-1988, India (Pathan "Northwest
Province"), Moslem). "The
Gentle Giant." A tribal leader of the Pathan tribes of
northwest India and southeast Afghanistan (roughly the same people we
now call "Taliban"), he became a friend and associate of Gandhi.
Ghaffar Khan convinced the
fierce Pathan warriors to try aggressive nonviolence instead of
violence. He organized and
trained a nonviolent army of hundreds of thousands of Pathans,
the Khudai Khidmitgars ("Servants of God"), infuriating the British who
didn't know how to deal with them. After independence, the new rulers
of Pakistan were
no more interested in promoting local rule than the British had been.
Ghaffar Khan spent
most of his life in prison. See the article comparing Khudai Khidmitgars with Shanti Sena and the Nonviolent Peaceforce and another comparing Ghaffar Khan to General Akhtar who led the violent Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union.
Kamaladevi. As a young woman student, she joined Gandhi's movement, helping organize
a "peace army" called the Seva Dal. Although the army never grew to the thousands that
Gandhi originally envisaged, Kamaladevi organized it in small groups through hundreds of
villages all across India. Members were trained to (1) carry on Gandhian satyagraha, (2)
carry out community development, and (3) interpose themselves in the middle of conflicts
to calm people down.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968, U. S., Christian). Born in Atlanta, doctoral degree
from Boston University, pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, he
became leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Strongly influenced by Mohandas Gandhi,
he developed the nonviolent strategies of the racial movement in the United States. He was
jailed, stabbed, and his home was bombed; and in the end he was shot dead when he began
to connect race relations with economics and the war in Vietnam. He helped found the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and ran a training school for nonviolence. He received
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
Lanza del Vasto (French, Christian). A disciple of Gandhi who gave him the name
Shantidas, del Vasto resisted the French war in Algeria and the French development of
nuclear weapons nonviolently. One of his personal experiences of nonviolence in the face of
banditry is described in the article "Sample Christian Thought on Justice, Peace, Prosperity, and Security" (Search for "Lanza" for the brief summary, and see Lanza del Vasto, Warriors of Peace: Writings on the Technique of
Nonviolence, etc. Michel Random, tr. Jean Sidgwick (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1974) pp. 35-38 for the full story.)
Vinoba Bhave (Indian, devout Hindu). Gandhi's heir-apparent, Bhave instituted the
Gramdam movement which influenced wealthy Indians to donate land and villages to the
poor. By the time of his death, tens of thousands of villages and rural acres had been
donated in a kind of Hindu "jubilee." He would organize village-wide celebrations at
which the donations were solicited. He also decided to revive Gandhi's dream of a
nonviolent army, which had been called Seva Dal under Kamaladevi. For that purpose he
enlisted an all-woman committee headed by our next example, Marjorie Sykes.
Marjorie Sykes (English, member of Gandhi's ashram at Sevagram). Chosen by Vinoba
Bhave to head the revival of Gandhi's nonviolent army called Shanti Sena (recently revived). Originally
attempting to train large numbers of young people, Marjorie found it impossible to give
them the depth of training they needed in such large groups. She changed the plan so that
groups of eight or nine were trained both in nonviolence for reconciliation and in small
village agriculture. The pattern thus established has carried over to the Peace Brigades
International centered in the United States.
Danilo Dolci (Italian, disillusioned Christian). Famous for resisting Fascism in the late
1930s, and the Mafia in Sicily after the Second World War, Dolci developed a number of
innovative techniques including the "reverse strike" in which people do more work than
they are supposed to as a demonstration of their independence from repressive authority.
In a celebrated trial, Dolci was convicted of repairing a public road, with other peasants
whom he organized, against the authority of the local politicians who didn't want their
authority challenged by unauthorized work. He has titled one of his books Waste, where the word "waste" refers both to environmental
pollution and to human lives wasted by murder. See also the New York Times review of his book Sicilian Lives.
Dorothy Day (U.S., Marxist turned Roman Catholic). From a young Marxist activist
journalist, Dorothy was drawn against all her instincts into the Roman Catholic Church by
a spiritual force she could not resist. Having had one abortion and then being abandoned
by her lover, she insisted on giving birth to her second child although her second lover
refused to accept any responsibility for it and, in fact, left her. Moving to Manhattan, she
opened a house of hospitality for the homeless. One of her early homeless was a French
peasant named Peter Maurin who insisted she should learn more about the social traditions
of the Catholic Church and that she should start a penny newspaper. They called their
paper the Catholic Worker, hawking it across the street from Marxists ("Read the Daily
Worker") by calling out "Read the Catholic Worker Daily"! During the 1950s and 1960s
she was jailed several times for refusing to take cover in nuclear air raid drills. She was also
active in women's issues, farm issues, union issues, and many more. Today, the Catholic Worker movement has numerous houses throughout the United States.
Catherine de Hueck Doherty (Russian, Roman Catholic, refugee in the U.S., settled in
Canada.) Founded a city center much like Dorothy Day's, but soon moved out into the
Canadian rural area to found Madonna House. Combined Russian Christian spirituality
with ministry to the poor. Has written extensively on spirituality.
Muriel Lester. (British, upper-class) Founded a settlement house in London similar to Jane
Addams' Hull House in Chicago. Joined Gandhi in India in the 1920s. Worked with
Maude Royden of England to form a nonviolent peace army to stand between the Chinese
and the Japanese in the Manchuria of the 1930s. Her intention was for that army to be
sponsored by the League of Nations, but the League declined their offer. She engaged in
much informal shuttle diplomacy between China and Japan; later in the Middle East. The
International Fellowship of Reconciliation was more prepared to endorse her work than the
League had been. During World War II her efforts in Latin America landed her in prison.
Gene Sharp (U. S., Christian but promoting a universal active nonviolence). His monumental thesis The
Politics of Nonviolent Action
and numerous later publications analyze and illustrate the dynamics by
which active nonviolence achieves its success. Concentrating on
international relations, he argues against armed national defense in
favor of educating and training citizens for provocative, active
nonviolent defense. Such defense has
the following advantages: (1) since one's enemies do not feel
threatened by it, it avoids an arms
race. (2) The techniques taught extend easily to nonviolent and
respectful everyday relationships In contrast, armed resistance
and the traumas that it produces increase domestic violence. He founded the Albert Einstein Institute
to promote further research on "strategic nonviolence" and disseminate
that research especially to those who would be likely to make good use
of it.
A. J. Muste (1885-1968, U. S.). Born in Holland, he moved to the U. S. at age 6. A Dutch
reformed minister with a degree from Union Theological Seminary, New York, he led a
textile strike in Lowell MA and headed a labor college. He helped to develop the sit-down
strike as a union tactic. Strongly influenced by Gandhi, chair of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation (FOR) for many years, active with the War Resisters' League (WRS), chair
of the Committee for Non Violent Action (CNVA), he refused to pay war taxes and was a
leader in the movement against the Vietnam War. When he was 81 years old in 1967, he met with
Ho Chi Minh in North Vietnam and died a couple of weeks later.
Mubarak Awad (Israel/Palestinian, Greek Christian). He has adapted Gandhi's techniques to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli dispossession and occupation of Arab territories. The Israeli government showed it fear of his effectiveness in 1989 by canceling his visa on technical grounds (which they do not enforce against Jews), despite his having been born in Israel and holding U.S. citizenship. He Founded the Center for the Study of Nonviolence in Jerusalem (1986) and, since his expulsion, Nonviolence International (1989) registered in Washington, D.C., Thailand, Russia, and Palestine with affiliates and resource centers in Aceh, Indonesia; Bangladesh; Jerusalem; Bangkok; Moscow; and Washington, D.C.
The persistence of evil and the pervasiveness of violence serve to legitimate violence and make it difficult for Christians and others to take non-violence seriously, including the non-violence of Jesus. T.V. shows and movies, nightly news programs and daily living surround us with images of violence. From battered women, crime, urban riots, and Bosnia we are nearly overwhelmed with violence.
In most instances the solution to the problem of pervasive evil and violence is projected to be the exercise of more creative, and often times more lethal, forms of violence. Violence saves, or in the words of New Testament scholar, Walter Wink, we believe in "the myth of redemptive violence."
<<Watch several Saturday morning cartoons. In what ways is the message of redemptive violence conveyed to children?>>
According to Wink, in his provocative book, Engaging the Powers, violence and not Christianity is the real religion of America. The myth of redemptive violence "undergirds American popular culture, civil religion, nationalism, and foreign policy" (p. 13).
Wink says that "one of the most pressing questions facing the world today is, How can we oppose evil without creating new evils and being made evil ourselves?" The answer, he says, involves taking the non-violence of Jesus seriously.Wink describes the traditional responses to danger and evil as flight or fight.
Flight = submission; passivity; withdrawal; surrender.
Fight = armed revolt; violent rebellion; direct retaliation; revenge.
Wink says Jesus offers a third alternative or way: creative, active non-violence.
<<Read Matthew 5:38-42. You might also want to read pp. 175-182 in Engaging the Powers>>
Drawing out the wisdom and tactics of Jesus as described in the Matthew text (turn the other cheek, give your cloak, walk an extra mile) Wink shows how Jesus' Third Way empowers oppressed people to take the initiative and respond with dignity to a situation of oppression, to put the oppressor in an awkward position while offering the possibility of repentance and transformation.
Wink summarizes Jesus' Third Way as follows (pp. 186-87):
* Seize the moral initiative
* Find a creative alternative to violence
* Assert your own humanity and dignity as a person
* Meet force with ridicule or humor
* Break the cycle of humiliation
* Refuse to submit to or to accept the inferior position
* Expose the injustice of the system
* Take control of the power dynamic
* Shame the oppressor into repentance
* Stand your ground
* Make the powers make decisions for which they are not prepared
* Recognize your own power
* Be willing to suffer rather than retaliate
* Force the oppressor to see you in a new light
* Deprive the oppressor of a situation where a show of force is effective
* Be willing to undergo the penalty of breaking unjust laws
* Die to the fear of the old order and its rules
* Seek the oppressor's transformation
Wink notes that in the Matthew passage we see Jesus as a tactician of non-violence and that these tactics need to be adapted to our own time. However, Jesus' commitment to non-violence goes beyond tactics. It is reflected in his death on a cross. Jesus was committed to non-violent resistance because non-violence reflects and reveals the character of God.
Before dismissing the non-violence of Jesus as somehow utopian we would do well to remember that Jesus also lived during very violent times. Rome routinely crucified those it considered agitators and it sent in its legions to destroy entire cities when necessary; some Jewish groups assassinated Jews who collaborated with Rome and eventually there was an armed rebellion against Rome led by the Zealots. There were also many Jews waiting for a violent coming of God, a messiah that would come and throw out the hated Romans, cleanse the temple, and re-establish Israel as an independent nation ruled by a Davidic-type king. In other words, Jesus' nonviolence was as strikingly counter-cultural in his time as active non-violence is in our own.
<<Why do you think the non-violence of Jesus is often not taken seriously?
What are some examples from recent history of people and movements who have rooted commitments to non-violence in the example of Jesus?
Choose a recent or current situation where violence
is/was pervasive--Bosnia, Iraq, U.S. urban crisis. What might a strategy of non-violent
action look like based on Jesus' third way?>>
For more information, contact:
Rev. David W. Smith
University of St. Thomas
Mail 4137
2115 Summit Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105-1096
(651) 962-5325
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