Monthly Archives: September 2012

_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 2

Posted by Caleb Coy on

“Pacifism is not a monolithic stance or approach to war, violence, or politics.  There are varieties of it.”

The first chapter of the book distinguished between pacifism and passivity.

In chapter 2 D. Stephen Long deals with the difficult question “What About Protecting Third Party Innocents?  Can we just let our neighbors die?”

Long doesn’t pretend all this is easy.  He’s a reluctant pacifist who came from a military family.  He doesn’t let us choose pacifism for some bogus reason.  He rejects that liberal pacifism where we just say we hate war but perpetuate the conditions that make war “necessary”.  He rejects the notion that war is bad because all soldiers are bloodthirsty savages.  Many soldiers are and have been decent, loving, exceptional, faithful people who seem to be incapable of harboring hate, and what we call good soldiering requires “self sacrifice, disciplined community, and moral attentiveness.”  He rejects the notion that pacifists are better because they don’t like war and everyone else does.  Practically nobody loves war (except immature American boys who play Call of Duty all day and think war would be fun).  Even the most battle-hardened want to avoid it, with few exceptions.  So we can’t reject violence for cheap reasons.
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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 1

Posted by Caleb Coy on

When you think of people who believe in nonviolence, what image comes to mind?  Is it someone you find distaste in?  Is something about them other than their commitment making you dislike them?  Now picture someone who is like you or someone you admire in every way.  Then imagine them truly believing in nonviolence.  Would you call them a sissy?  Coward?

In my last post I introduced the chapter-by-chapter review of A Faith Not Worth Fighting For, a collection of essays on Christian nonviolence, specifically questions often asked about it by skeptics, or just curious seekers.

The first chapter opens with a common misconception worded in this question:  “Isn’t Pacifism Passive?”

We come to see that this argument against peacemaking has not roots in logic or theology, but comes from what I’ve found is a mixture of semantic misunderstanding and aesthetic distaste.  In her essay C. Rosalee Velloso Ewell addresses this question very well.

[note: for the sake of clarification when I speak of pacifism I will speak of it in broad terms, meaning a commitment to nonviolence, which we will see is based on the word for “passion”.  Whether that means a decision never to use violence ever, we shall see as we read along.]

As with the rest of the book, Ewell leads the discussion based on five assumptions for Christians:
1) Jesus and his story are real
2) We are to be witnesses of Jesus
3) We “see thru a glass dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12), but “we do see Jesus” (Heb. 2:9)
4) Faith is a journey in which we question ourselves and shine our light for others
5) It all goes back to the life (and death, and  re-life) of Jesus
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Announcing: A by-chapter review of _A Faith Not Worth Fighting For_

Posted by Caleb Coy on

I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will command peace to the nations.

-Zecheriah 9:9-10

I’ve been looking forward to reading a certain book for a while, now that I’ve had some friends recommend it to me.  The book is called A Faith Not Worth Fighting For, a collection of essays about Christian nonviolence.  It is a book that I already know will challenge me, will set the voice of scripture up against some things people sometimes tell me who also read that scripture a lot.

I’d like to thank Carl Jenkins for really getting me interested in the reading, and for giving me bits and pieces of his reading along the way.  He did a book review.  I’m doing a full chapter-by-chapter throughout the next month or so.

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Lessons from a Tampa Tantrum

Posted by Caleb Coy on

One of the lessons I’m going to teach my son one day is this: I have an apple and Mikey and Tommy both have an apple too, but they each want another apple. Joey has never had an apple and wants to try one, so I decide to give him mine. But Mikey and Tommy are big bullies, and Joey gets picked on, so if I give him an apple they’re just gonna take it away from him most likely. Tommy’s always been the bigger bully (at least that’s what Mikey always says), and so I might as well give my apple to Mikey instead of Joey because if I give it to Joey and Mikey and Tommy try to get it, Tommy might get it instead of Mikey.

What I’m going to teach my son is that it’s very important for me to give Joey my apple no matter what Mikey and Tommy say or do, even if I know they’ll take it away. Because there are four people who need to see it happen. What I will not teach my son is that giving an apple to Joey is the same as giving it to Tommy because he’s a big old bully.

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