From the Center for Public Justice. When I read this I thought of this group (Calvinincommon.org). When I listen to the American political left I hear a deep ambiguity about the use of violence. On one hand I hear some aspirational pacifism, but on the other hand there is a militant energy that believes in the power of threats of retribution (often political, social (shame, regret) or economic) to achieve its goals. I think this inconsistency undercuts the legitimacy of the left because they can’t seem to make up their minds if they really want to be pacifist when threat clearly seems to be their tool of choice.

Pacifism can be enormously powerful but only when those who flirt with it are willing to go all the way. Apart from that it looks more like the kind of scrawny, whining victim power that feeds on a self-indulgent self-pity.

All pacifism leverage a “greater good” in order to seek the energy for sacrifice. Christian pacifism I believe ultimately leverages a judging God and the received resurrected body of Jesus as the source of its capacity to endure loss in the hope of a cruciform redemption of one’s adversary since ultimately our enemy is not of flesh and bone. pvk