God's Politics - Chapter 10
Part III: Spiritual Values and International Relations
When Did Jesus Become Pro-War?
Chapter 10 - Blessed are the Peacemakers
Winning Without War
The theme of this chapter seems to be that war is an unwise and immoral choice in fighting the war on terrorism. Wallis' focus is clearly on how to win the war on terrorism, but how to do it better and more Christianly. The problem I have with Wallis here is that he seems to give a lot of ground in his stance of non-violence. At least in this chapter non-violence isn't necessary because we are followers of Jesus and seek obedience to our Lord, but rather because it works better. I agree with Wallis, non-violence does work better, if your goals are reconciliation, peace and justice and you have the courage to sustain large losses. However, posing the issue in this light leaves it very vulnerable, first because few american Christians would agree that non-violence is more effective and secondly because the goals of the united states in going to war are not reconciliation, peace and justice. Non-violent strategies surely are more effective if you want to live alongside your former enemy and have your children attend the same schools. If, however, your goal is simply to topple their government for a more firm foothold in the region and to secure oil assets non-violence is very ineffective.
Wallis seems to be trying to sell non-violence as a "cleaner, more effective" alternative to war, but if he's trying to sell that to the policy makers he's barking up the wrong tree. If he's trying to sell it to the Christians in america, he'd do a lot better by delving into non-violence as faithfulness to God rather than a more effective solution.
While I've disagreed with the beating Wallis has taken for being a "Constantinian of the Left," and a "modernist liberal," I think those criticisms hit pretty close to the mark concerning his treatment of non-violence as an effective tool of the state in this chapter. On page 160 he says, "If nonviolence is to have any credibility, it must answer the questions that violence purports to answer, but in a better way. Saying no to violence is good, but having alternatives is better." Perhaps nonviolence would lose "credibility" to the united states, but not as a Christian response! I agree with Hauerwas, who he cites later in the chapter as believing that "pacifists cannot be expected to have easy policy answers for every difficult political situation, especially when they are often created, at least in part, by not listening to the voices of nonviolence in the first place." The current quagmire in Iraq seems to be a lose-lose situation, stay and fight a bloody and crippling war, or withdraw and let terrorists gain control of the country? These are not the options that we came to following a path of nonviolence, why would we have easy answers to such situations? When the US helped place Saddam Hussein in power and gave him chemical weapons to fight Iran with, it started the ball rolling to a point where he was seen as a threat to others and pathologically oppressed his own people. So many of the "sticky moral situations" that cause people to turn their noses at pacifists exist exactly because no one listened to the pacifists to begin with.
Wallis turns to the Sermon on the Mount and points out that Jesus said "blessed are the peacemakers," not blessed are the peacelovers whom everyone claims to be. He gives some good examples of active peacemaking, that again, I agree are great strategies for peacemaking, but don't see why the united states government would buy into the goals of such peacemaking as they are essentially self-sacrificing and Christian, rather than self-serving and profitable.
The two sections of this chapter I found particularly helpful were on Police and the definition of terrorism. Wallis explores how terrorism can be fought using international law, but gives attention to some of the traditional reluctance pacifists have had with police. Drawing on John Howard Yoder's amazing work The Politics of Jesus, Wallis argues in favor of the use of force coming from police because unlike warfare violence or the threat thereof is applied only to the offending party; the use of force is subject to review by higher authorities; the officer applies power within the limits of a state whose laws even the criminal knows to be applicable to him; there are serious safeguards against violence being applied against the innocent; and the power of the officer is usually great enough to overwhelm the offender so that resistance is pointless. Wallis also draws some examples from Gerald Schlabach, who writes, "Political leaders draw on the rhetoric of national pride, honor and crusading to marshal the political will and sustain the sacrifices necessary to fight wars.... Police officials by contrast appeal to the common good of the community to justify their actions. Police officers are expected to use the minimum force needed to achieve their objective, and are judged harshly if there is 'collateral damage' of the kind that routinely occurs in warfare. War can never be subject to the rule of law in the way that policing is."
Of course these are ideals, but on a larger scale policing, at least structurally is far more compatible with pacifism than war of any kind.
To wrap up the chapter Wallis tackles the very definition of terrorism. At times Wallis almost sounds like Noam Chomsky in his work Manufacturing Consent. Turning to how we define terrorism, he points out that one must walk an impossibly fine line to call the killing of civilians by a non-state organization like Al-Queda terrorism, but refuse to apply the label to nations who commit the very same actions. In warfare killing civilians is called "an accident," or more disturbingly, "collateral damage." And yet this is not the case. If someone were to drive down a sidewalk and kill pedestrians we would not call it "an accident." In modern warfare about 90% of the deaths are civilian casualties, thus those waging war know their actions will kill civilians. This is terrorism. Dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was terrorism. Fire bombing Dresden and Tokyo was terrorism. Selling arms to Indonesia so that they can commit genocide in East Timor (as Carter did) is arming and aiding terrorists. Shelling Baghdad and bombing a hospital in Afghanistan are acts of terrorism. It doesn't stop being terrorism just because the terrorist was elected.
Wallis ends the chapter by saying that "in the end, Christian peacemaking is more a path than a position." To give an illustration of this point I'll reference back to a section Wallis quotes from A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict.
Regimes have been overthrown that had no compunction about brutalizing their opponents and denying them the right to speak their minds. How? By first demonstrating that opposition is possible, peeling away the regime's residual public and outside support, quashing its legitimacy, driving up the costs of maintaining control, and overextending its repressive apparatus. Strategic nonviolent action is not about being nice to your oppressor, much less having to rely on his niceness. It's about dissolving the foundations of his power and forcing him out.
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posted by Charlie at 3:22 PM
5 Comments:
Once again, Charlie, a good summary, and insightful analysis of Wallis' handling of the issue. I might find myself a step further in Wallis' direction only in that I saw Wallis finally suggesting "international pressure" and "diplomatic" strategies as the best alternative FOR THE POLITICAL POWERS. His appeal, for me, is posing the question as a response to the "ends" that we should be seeking (which is to begin trying to stop the spiraling of violence and refuse to bring innocents in to the conflict.)
On p. 163ff "We must advocate the most extensive internaitonal and diplomatic pressure the world has ever seen against the Bin Ladens of the world and their netowrks of terror".
It seemed that this was being done immediately after .....while the world was saying "We're all Americans now", and investigations were underway into the financial networks of the terrorists. But as we know, the U.S. soon began to flex its muscles, and began the bombing, and proceeded to alienate the rest of the world by effectively calling those who wouldn't support us in Iraq "pussies".
While Wallis poses the terrorist problem as "unique", calling for "real solutions" in that here is a sure "aggressor" (unlike the "Manufactured Consent" typically generated by Empires such as the U.S.), he ends up talking about "police methods" rather than war and armies, and "International and diplomatic pressure"
Wallis writes about how Hauerwas said that "advocates of non-violence can and should offer alternatives to reduce the violence in any conflict" (p.167)
Wallis also references Walter Wink in pointing out how the U.S., as usual, is using the "myth of redemptive violence" to prove how violence can "save us". "We simply haven't trained the churches , or anybody else for that matter, in the crucial theology and practice of active nonviolence"
I have more, but I want to think a little more and put in a new comment
I added more thoughts on my blog in this post
I would love to see a panel of James KA Smith, Jim Wallis, and Stanly Hauerwas.
I think there is still a valid discussion of non-violence being effective for other reasons than being Jesus' followers. Non-violence is effective because it is Christ's example AND...it is an effective way to resist tyranny. I think this chapter shouldn't be taken on its own away from the context of the book. Wallis does establish that non-violence is the way of the Word, and then he goes on to say wouldn't it be great if our government could learn this lesson.
I don't actually think it leaves pacifism weak. I think it exposes the motives of our government as imperialistic and arrogant. Is it compelling towards the argument for non-violence? Well, has Christ's message of non-violence been compelling to our Christian President? I find it hard to believe that any argument has the power to convince those who are not already open to the idea. Americans support the war and the idea of protecting and pushing our way of life around the world, not because they don't read their bibles or pray. But because they don't believe that is what the bible says. Wallis' arguments that use good reason for non-violence at least address that there are different ways of interacting with the world than domination, and that it does happen to be a better way according to Christ as well.
As you have noticed the next chapter talks about peacemaking and the beauty created when we work for reconciliation and peace. Wallis expands on why this idea isn't just for Christians but for all the world. If we could tell the world that Jesus has a better way and the better way happens to really be the practical and reasonable better way too, why do we dog it? We shouldn't. peace.
Like I said earlier, it's not that I think non-violence isn't effective, it's that it's not effective for the goals of the United States.
Non-violence doesn't really help if your goals are toppling a regime in a month and then privitizing the infrastructure so that American companies can own everything in said country.
Thus, I wish Wallis had explored Non-Violence as an expression of faithfulness to God, rather than a useful means to an end.
And I was trying to say that Wallis is talking about faithfulness to God if you keep the chapter in context of the ongoing discussion of war and empire.
Discussion of non-violent resistance's effectiveness may have been in direct response to the goals of the US gov't to expose the motives for what they are. Don't you think the motivation of this discussion is to inform Christians as well as non-believers about what is right and holy? For those who don't believe, is there any way to show that God's ways are right besides saying God's ways are right? He's already said that pacifism is faithfulness to God. There are more reasons than that to use pacifism effectively in our world.
I get that our gov'ts motives are not in line with anything non-violence tries to accomplish. Wallis' discussion here could inform those whose motives are "toppling a regime in a month and then privitizing the infrastructure so that American companies can own everything in said country." If these are the motives truly for doing what we are doing in Iraq a discussion of pacifism as faithfulness to God won't make a bit of difference anyway but also pointing out that Wallis has already done that in this book.
I should stop posting on this subject. I don't think it makes a difference to either one of us that we disagree.
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