I have been reading Richard Hays "NT ethics" as recommended by Keith. He suggested that I would find Hays interesting on the topic of divorce and remarriage, which I did, but then I was interested enough to go on and read his section on violence and pacifism as well. I was horrified to realize that everything I thought I understood about this topic was wrong! I wrote an entire essay on how Bonhoeffer was completely justified in trying to place a bomb under Hitler and that Tolstoy and Ghandi were misguided idealists.
I realize now that I was overly impressed with long lists of references in other languages and that my thoughts were seduced by intricate arguments, all extensively footnoted. Betz and Guerlich marshalled and paraded clever ideas derived from intricate word studies and studies of the times which I could not possibly challenge. And yet, I was vaguely uneasy even then that these towering intellects did not themselves quite agree. In the end, I sided with Betz over Guerlich and said that Christians should participate in "just wars" and in defense of the innocent.
But now I love Richard best! His writing style is much plainer than the other two, deceptively easy to read and he leaves all the footnotes to the end of the chapter, where you can ignore them if you like. His strength is in his insistence in contextualizing verses, and he has some very sharp things to say about the practice of "decontexualized proof-texting"! He places the verses he is examining within the context of the Gospel, within the setting of the whole New Testament, and against the background of the Old Testament and the Jewish culture of the early church. He doesn't go in for tortured reasons, just looks at the most probably meaning in the context, to the author and the immediate audience. It is amazingly different to what I have read before.
He makes a very powerful argument that all Christians should be pacifists, on the basis of the teaching from Matthew 5:39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. This is exactly the verse I wrote my first essay on! But now I realize that Hays did a much better job...
- he demonstrates that Matthew did not think the world was ending, so this is not an "interim ethic".
- he demonstrates that Matthew did not think this was an impossible ideal intended to show us how great our need is for the mercy and grace of God, or for something to aspire to in eternity but not achievable in the here and now.
- he demonstrates that Matthew did not think this was something for "special" Christians or for disciples who were more holy than the rest of us, but a teaching for everyone.
Having talked about how this teaching applies to us today, he then went on to discuss the other reasons for Christian pacifism:
- the example of Jesus not letting himself be defended with a sword, but instead allowing the innocent to suffer (himself) and leaving his own justification in God's hands.
- the words of Jesus who restrains the disciples when they want to inflict punishment on a town which ignored their teaching, and says that God will judge.
- numerous examples from the teachings of Paul about "as far as it rests with you, live at peace".
- the calling of Christians to do good to enemies, even in the face of persecution.
- the calling of Christians to overcome evil with good, not to fight evil with evil.
This last point reminds me very strongly of CS Lewis's point about "forgiving enemies". That we know we are supposed to forgive our own enemies, but that we feel justified in hating enemies of the innocent because of insufficient identification. He proposes that we identify with the victims just enough to make their enemies detestable to us, but not enough to make their enemies our enemies and therefore suitable recipients of love and forgiveness.
Very challenging!
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