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.

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.

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.

I would love to see a panel of James KA Smith, Jim Wallis, and Stanly Hauerwas.

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