Christian Pacifism Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The telling of the Great War (1914-1918), mainly through the point of view of combatants, is one of the best scenarios exemplifying how women have been obviated and censored throughout history. Moreover, the engagement of pacifist women has been doubly belittled due to a misinterpretation of the term pacifism. Consequently, this paper aims at re-examining the origins and values of pacifism and giving visibility to pacifists Jane Addams, Mabel St Clair Stobart and Rose Macaulay.

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- Gender Studies, English Literature, Pacifism, World War I

It is noted that Adolf Hitler lived his rise to power, connected to the realization and the military expansion of the Third Reich, with the conviction of being invested with a messianic task, a conviction wrapped in a halo of religious selfcelebration and characterized by an improper exploitation of religious symbols and, above all, by the propagation of a ‘new’ vision of the world and of humanity
based on the principles of National Socialism. Max Josef Metzger, theologian and Catholic priest, stands out among the persons against such a dangerous manipulation of religion and determined to oppose the pseudo-messianism of
Hitler. His resistance was not of the violent type, but rested on the intent of proposing to German society an alternative world view to that of the Führer, based on consummately evangelical values and animated by a renewed faith in the
Messiahship of Jesus. Such courageous action, that invited Christians to undertake a way of authentic conversion, sought to sow in the dark and vast terrain of the Third Reich ideals of brotherhood and tolerance, of peace and unity, educating toward a true and authentic ethic of the Beatitudes. Executed by guillotine for his untiring activity of wanting to give witness to the Kingdom of Christ as the one true Reich, Metzger represents also today a significant and actual example of someone taking up the Gospel position against the repeated temptations of the ‘world’ to restart the construction of the Tower of Babel and to force humanity to submit to the idols created by its own hands.

- by Ľubomír Jozef Žák
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- Pacifism, Martyrdom, Christian Pacifism, History of ecumenism

Points out how religion is power; power will be used by others--even the non-religious; when things go awry, then, religion is then blamed, often by the same ones who have exploited its power. This calls for critical and wary analysis of the rhetorical use of religion as a pawn, followed by its being blamed as a scapegoat. Published in The Destructive Power of Religion; Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, edited by J. Harold Ellens (4 volumes, Westport/London: Praeger Publishers, 2004), Vol. 2, 265-83.

- by Paul N Anderson
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- Religion, Christianity, Political Philosophy, Ethics
- by Neil Taylor
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- Just War, Aquinas, Pacifism, Augustine
- by Ted Grimsrud
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- Pacifism, Anabaptist Theology, Christian Pacifism, Christianity and Politics

an affirmation of pacifism

- by Daniel M Keeran MSW
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- Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, Philosophy

Anabaptist environmental theologies and ethics could and should do more to engage issues of environmental racism and environmental justice. Since most Anabaptist environmentalisms center on efforts to witness to God’s peace within creation, a failure to address ecologies of racialized violence undermines the tradition’s core theological values. This essay identifies three main varieties of contemporary Anabaptist environmentalism: agrarian virtue, bioregionalist discipleship, and eschatological eco-pacifism. It explores how each variety frames the natural environment within an account of Anabaptist faith and life, considers why and how problems of environmental racism elude that frame, and offers initial suggestions for how advocates and practitioners might sharpen each version in participatory dialogue with movements for environmental justice.

- by Luke B Kreider
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- Religion and Ecology, Anabaptist Theology, Christian Ethics, Ecological Theology
- by Josiah Macrae Callaghan
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- Pacifism, Just War Theory, Karl Barth, Jacques Ellul
- by Derek Woodard-Lehman
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- Race and Racism, Virtue Ethics, Alasdair MacIntyre, Stanley Hauerwas

Patron: Dr. Peter van den Dungen, Peace Historian, International Network of Museums for Peace

- by Dominique Miething and +1
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- Peace and Conflict Studies, Erasmus, Nonviolence, Peace Movements

In this paper the author contends that the normative response to state sanctioned violence is Christian pacifism. This is not a passive type of existence but a call to enter into the transnational, and global community seeing residents of all countries as brothers and sisters in Christ. Christian Pacifism therefore sees peace as a gift already given to us, and that we bear the burden of bringing that to a world wedded to nationalism by showing the shared humanity of us all. Therefore in living out the gift of peace we enter the world's conflict seeking to show resolution in the midst of tragedy.

- by Shoshanna E . Carroll
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- Peace and Conflict Studies, Pacifism, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas

Using the theme of “discipleship” found in the witness of the peace churches but neglected in Roman Catholic theology, this paper interrogates concrete practices of military training and culture in the contemporary United States. Viewed through the lens of discipleship, military training is described as a process of discipleship in its own right, including practices of conversion and deliberate conscience (de-)formation that are fundamentally at odds with Christian discipleship and ultimately destructive to both the soldier and the victims of the US military. American Catholics can learn much from the peace churches in terms of ecclesial praxis for resisting the "destructive obedience" that is central to military discipleship.

- by Michael J . Iafrate
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- Military Ethics, Violence, Theological Ethics, Militarism

In this essay, I seek to set two stanzas of Edwin Starr’s pacifist lyrics in conversation with tenets of Just War Theory in the hopes that the resulting dialogue demonstrates the arcane Just War Theory while elucidating a few pitfalls of... more

- by Thomas G Hermans-Webster
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- Peace and Conflict Studies, War Studies, Protest Music, Colonialism

This essay considers the ecclesiology of William Robinson (1888–1963), a British theologian from the Stone-Campbell Movement. It surveys some of the distinctive features of his thinking on sacraments, theological ethics, and the nature of the church. It demonstrates that he sought to embody a “free church catholic” spirit. The conclusion brings Robinson’s ecclesiology in conversation with the present situation of the Stone-Campbell Movement, especially the Christian Churches (Independent) in America.

A critique of C. S. Lewis's essay "Why I Am Not A Pacifist" in _The Weight of Glory_.

Leo Tolstoy’s peculiar religious and political thought has been discussed in numerous studies, yet few of these address a core anarchist concern: his criticisms of the state. Tolstoy denounces not just war but also law and the economy as violent and enslaving, all under the ruthless mechanical supervision of the state machine. Moreover, for him, state authorities are deliberately and hypocritically deceiving the masses, promoting a system that destroys any sense of responsibility, and keeping people hypnotised by regularly whipping up patriotic sentiments – the army being the best example of the strength of all this deceit. Not only is Tolstoy’s denunciation of the state as violent and deceptive eloquently written, but much of it has not lost relevance since he first wrote it more than a century ago.

We live in an age of senseless killing. Some deranged adult or teen murders innocent people at the workplace, in homes, in schools, in churches, in movie theaters, on highways, or at public gatherings. Religious terrorists murder innocent people on trains, at beaches, at shopping areas, and wherever else there are crowds. What should be the Christian viewpoint on what to do with these murderers? Some Christians believe that we should not kill the murderers, or even physically harm them, because this would be in opposition to Jesus' saying to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44). Is this the correct application of that verse? I will examine the meaning and misuse of that verse in this paper.

- by Dennis Linscomb
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- Pacifism, Capital Punishment, New Testament Theology, Christian Pacifism
- by Dr Damon S Adams
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- Patristics, History of Christianity, Pentecostal Theology, Evangelical Theology

Our world is full of ideas about the way that humans should live. Some of these ideas create a more beautiful and equal world that we all want to live in, while other ideas create violence, hatred, inequality, and suffering. Some of us care an awful lot about beautiful ideas; we care enough to fight for them and spend our lives working towards them, and we care enough to resist. Resistance takes many forms, however, and there are many ideas about the most effective and correct ways to resist. “Elements of Resistance” attempts to transcend the false binary of nonviolent and violent resistance, and looks at the heart and soul of what it means to resist, why we resist, and what some different methods of effective resistance might look like. Drawing from recent work by social theorists and activists such as Derrick Jensen, Ward Churchill, Shane Claiborne, Johann Galtung, and Peter Gelderloos, as well as the work of Frantz Fanon, Henry Thoreau, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Mohandas Gandhi, this book is an exploration into the history, theory, and necessity of resistance to oppression.

- by Jeriah Bowser
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- Violence, Anarchism, Liberation Theology, Political Extremism/Radicalism/Populism

This essay was commissioned by the National Council of Churches of Christ Faith and Order Commission, engaged within an ecumenical consultation meeting in Douglaston, New York in 1991 on "The Apostolic Character of the Church's Peace Witness." It was then published in The Church’s Peace Witness, Marlin Miller and Barbara Nelson Gingerich, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 105-30.

- by Paul N Anderson
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- Religion, Christianity, Ethics, Applied Ethics
- by Daniel M Keeran MSW
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- Gnosticism, Buddhism, History, Psychology

Published, The Bible and Interpretation, June 22, 2018
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2018/06/and428022.shtml
While Sessions’s appeal to biblical authorization has failed, the larger question is why. Is it that the Bible has been interpreted adequately and rejected by modern society? Or, might it be that a flawed interpretation of a Biblical text has been wielded to support a problematic ordinance, calling for a closer look this notorious passage from Romans? Indeed, the latter is the case, and here’s why.

- by Paul N Anderson
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- Critical Theory, Religion, Sociology of Religion, Political Philosophy

(2018; master's capstone) Eva Gore-Booth (b. Co. Sligo, Ireland, 1870; d. London, England, 1926) was a poet and dramatist, part of the Irish literary revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Simultaneously, she was a political and social activist, an early intersectional feminist focused on the lot of poor and working-class women in urban England. As a committed pacifist, Gore-Booth took a strong stand against the First World War, articulating Gospel-based non-resistance and championing peace and the rights of conscientious objectors. This capstone argues that the depth and profound integration of her thinking is revealed in her response to armed Irish nationalism in the form of the April, 1916, Easter Rising, in which her sister, Constance Markievicz, was a principal participant. Far from the nationalist, or “provisional” defender of anti-colonial violence, Gore-Booth is sometimes held to be, our analysis of her political, poetic, and theological writings reveals Eva Gore-Booth’s fundamental rejection of nationalism, hierarchy, and political rule in favor of a universalist ethic of love transcending artificial divisions.

- by Andrew S Rogers
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- Irish Studies, Feminist Theory, Irish Literature, Nationalism

This talk claims that the most fundamental question raised by non-Constantinian theologies such as John Howard Yoder's is the precise relation between Christian ontology and Christian ethics. Yoder's critique is not essentially an historical, but a theological one: Christ has revealed that God is nonviolent, and so the use of violence is a failure to participate in divine being, to be like God. Some trends in Radical Orthodoxy are also briefly observed, as they serve to exacerbate the question here identified and commended as worthy of theological attention.

- by Jordan D Wood
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- Radical Orthodoxy (Theology), Christian Ethics, Theosis, John Howard Yoder
- by Jeriah Bowser
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- Social Change, Political Violence and Terrorism, Civil Rights, Resistance (Social)

This article explores Christian anarchist-pacifist Ammon Hennacy’s participation in Hopi politics and his role in popularizing a vision of Hopi culture among American radicals after World War II. Hennacy’s involvements at Hopi have largely escaped scholars’ attention, which is surprising, given that Hennacy has been recognized as one of “the spiritual progenitors of Sixties activism,” and many of his writings on Hopis have been accessible since the Fifties. The key to grasping Hennacy’s importance begins with recognizing that his arrival at Hopi in 1947 coincided with the emergence of a political faction that has come to be known in ethnographic writings as the Hopi Traditionalist Movement. Hennacy wrote about and on behalf of this faction without ever grasping what it really was, yet he himself was key to the Movement’s success in gaining recognition off the reservation as “traditional Hopis.” Historian James Treat has illustrated the influence these “traditional” Hopis had on Native American activism in the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies. However, this insight needs to be squared with the ethnographic evidence that the Traditionalist Movement was one approach to tradition among many at Hopi, where traditional belief and practice did not consistently distinguish the Movement’s followers from their political foes. New historical evidence developed here demonstrates that Hennacy’s flair for the dramatic and far-ranging connections to well-organized networks of media-savvy radicals and conscientious objectors––or COs as the latter were known––were crucial in forging important relationships between Hopis and non-Indians far from the reservation. That Hennacy did these things from the start of the Traditionalist Movement also revises our understanding of what this movement was. Just as Sherry L. Smith has recently exposed the commingling of the interests and actions of the Sixties hippies and Native American activists, the early history of the Hopi Traditionalist Movement can no longer be seen as a narrowly indigenous social phenomenon. It was multiethnic and multifaceted from the start, even as its participants conceived of it as Hopi.

- by Daniel M Keeran MSW
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- Business, Marketing, History, Psychology

This paper presents a thoroughgoing biblical theology of nonviolence. I begin by looking at the promises of a kingdom of peace and justice in the Old Testament before moving on to see how Jesus embodied these prophecies in his ministry. Next I turn to consider Jesus' most salient teachings on pacifism contained in the Sermon on the Mount and how he lived them out during his arrest, trial, and execution. Then I turn to consider how the rest of the New Testament works out this non-violent ethic, including how the cross is our example to emulate, how the apostles Paul and Peter confirmed Jesus' teaching on non-retaliation, how the resurrection of Christ demonstrated love's power over hatred, and how the Holy Spirit empowers the church to embody the kingdom as well. After this, I focus on how the New Covenant presents a change in how God's people are called to live (over against the Torah). Lastly, I briefly survey the witness of ante-Nicene fathers to see how Christians embodied the kingdom and taught peace until Christianity began mutating under the emperor Constantine. The appendices cover common objections against Christian pacifism.

- by Sean Finnegan
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- Nonviolence, Pacifism, Religion and Violence/Nonviolence, Christian Pacifism

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s strong statements in support of peace have encouraged Stanley Hauerwas and other interpreters to read him, explicitly or implicitly, as participating in the theological tradition of the peace churches. This paper argues that this reading misinterprets Bonhoeffer’s peace statements, which ought to be interpreted in the context of the Lutheran theological tradition with which Bonhoeffer identified. In fact, this misinterpretation of Bonhoeffer’s peace statements is one that he himself worked hard to avoid by carefully distinguishing his own position on peace from what he understood as that of the Anabaptists.

- by Michael P DeJonge
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- Ethics, Theology, Theological Ethics, Anabaptist Theology

The First International Willi Münzenberg Congress took place from 17 to 20 September 2015 in Berlin. Under the motto „Global Spaces for Radical Solidarity“, well over thirty contributions explored numerous aspects of the work of Willi Münzenberg and the transnational networks he represented. The Münzenberg Forum Berlin is pleased to be able to present for free download the documentation of most of the contributions with the e-book now published. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the three editors Bernhard H. Bayerlein, Kasper Braskén and Uwe Sonnenberg and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation for their generous support. Free Download: Global Spaces for Radical Transnational Solidarity. Contributions to the First International Willi Münzenberg Congress 2015 in Berlin, edited by Bernhard H. Bayerlein, Kasper Braskén and Uwe Sonnenberg, Berlin, International Willi Münzenberg Forum, 2018. 583 pp. ISBN 978-3-00-059381-9

Martin Wight’s contribution to British IR is well-known. His radical defence of Christian pacifism is often contrasted with his acute sense of ‘tragedy’ in the analysis of power politics. Such tension has been characterised as an ‘enigma’. Some have claimed that Wight changed his mind over time, labelling his position as ultimately ‘realist’ in the classical sense. However, this notion must be challenged in light of his own negative opinion on realism read against the religious and intellectual background of his work. In this paper it is argued that there is a considerable degree of continuity in Wight’s reflections on realism and war since the early pacifist phase. For this reason, judgement on whether or not Wight has abandoned pacifism later in his career should at least be suspended. However, a closer look at his statements which at first sight seem to support realism and to eschew pacifism actually opens up space for the opposing view that he remained sympathetic to pacifism and critical of realism even in the later years. In any case, it must be granted that his approach to activism considerably changed over time and that the whole issue was subsequently treated as a private matter.

- by Gerald W Schlabach
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- Just War, Pacifism, Augustine, Just War Theory

"When Leo Tolstoy died in November 1910, he was just as famous for his radical political and religious writings as he was for his fictional literature. Yet during the hundred years that have passed since, his Christian anarchist voice has been drowned by the sort of historical forces he had always been so eager to make sense of. Today, only few of even those acquainted with his literature know much about his unusual and radical religious and political writings (other perhaps than that they were unusual, radical, religious and political). What he has to say to Christians, to anarchists and indeed to the wider public, however, is just as urgent today as it was at the time of writing. In this testimonial to mark the centenary of his death, therefore, I wish to first provide a brief story of what happened to Tolstoy’s voice, and then to hint at the importance of the sort of contributions he can make to a number of vital challenges facing us today. "

Appreciation goes to Dr Brad Jersak, the author’s friend, encourager, and mentor. In October 2020 at his invitation, a Q & A format was adopted for a presentation on what most commonly is known as “Restorative Justice.” As is clear from the title, this presentation argued emphatically for peacemaking and abolition as opposed to reform. What follows is a reworking of that material and addition of new, retaining the Q & A format. It begins with three pointers to the tendency of the State to use the criminal justice system as a means to population control. It then gives some background to the author’s lifelong immersion in issues of Restorative Justice, and the development of his thinking, particularly with respect to individuals harmed by the criminal justice system. Its negative community impact is then set out and an assessment is made of the penitentiary as a disastrous social experiment. The article concludes with a positive look of how the Restorative Justice movement has risen as a genuine alternative to the Western criminal justice system.

- by Wayne Northey
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- Criminal Justice, Restorative Justice, Pacifism, Transformative Justice
- by Joshua Searle
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- Peace and Conflict Studies, Just War Theory, Just Peacemaking, Christian Pacifism