Previously in this column (here), I have discussed the transitions in common terminology from "nonresistance," to "passive resistance" (a term first used, and then rejected by Gandhi as misleading), to "nonviolence," including "nonviolent direct action," as a practice involving aggressive struggle against injustice using nonlethal methods that seek to cause minimal damage to the opponent psychologically, and no physical harm at all. Mennonite theologian Guy Hershberger, in War, Peace, and Nonresistance (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1944; 3rd ed., 1991) famously contrasted the ethic of "nonresistance" adopted by the Anabaptists and their Mennonite, Amish, and Hutterite descendants (and also the peace witness of the Dunker/Brethren groups such as the Brethren Church and the Church of the Brethren) with the "pacifism" of Friends/Quakers and of the ecumenical pacifist movement, and very definitely with the "nonviolence" of Gandhi (and, in the 2nd. ed, pub. in 1969, of the Civil Rights movement). It was widely assumed by outsiders that Hershberger's view was normative for Mennonites, although John Howard Yoder's Nevertheless: Varieties of Religious Pacifism (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1971; rev. and exp. ed., 1992), which classified Hershberger's view as "The Nonpacifist Nonresistance of the Mennonite 'Second Wind,'" had shown that not to be true: the peace witness took a variety of forms within, as well as without, Mennonite circles. More recently, Mennonite Peacemaking: From Quietism to Activism by Leo Driedger and Donald B. Kraybill (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1994), showed an even larger spectrum of peace stances among Mennonites, many of whom now prefer terms like "pacifism" or even "nonviolence" to "nonresistance." Yet the term "nonresistance" retains a strong hold even on many Mennonites whose peace witness is quite active and may involve civil disobedience and other forms of nonviolent direct action. As evidence of this last point, the Confession of Faith in Mennonite Perspective (see here for an online hyperlink text and ordering information for booklet form with commentary), the 1995 Confession which is the basis of unification of the Mennonite Church and Mennonite Church, General Conference into the Mennonite Church, USA, still uses the term "Christian Nonresistance" to describe the peace witness.

But to most people outside Mennonite circles, the term "nonresistance" connotes passivity in the face of injustice. (This hasn't always been the case. 19th C. abolitionists and active pacifists such as the Grimke sisters, Adin Ballou, William Lloyd Garrison, and others called their advocacy of methods that today would be labeled "nonviolent direct action" "nonresistance.") Terms like "nonviolence" and "nonviolent direct action" have been coined to show the more active, even sometimes aggressive, approach. Still others have thought that even these terms still sounded too negative; "nonviolence" tells what an action is NOT (violent), but does not describe what it IS. Therefore, many still don't understand that active nonviolence is a form of struggle against injustice. Other terms have been suggested: Gandhi sometimes used the Hindu and Jain term "ahimsa" ("no harming") to describe his pacifism, but joined together two Sanskrit words to coin the term satyagraha (literally, "struggle for truth") to describe his campaigns of nonviolent direct action. English-speaking disciples of Gandhi like Joan V. Bondurant and Richard Gregg have translated satyagraha as "truth force," a term adopted early on by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and by the African-American Methodist minister James Lawson, whose workshops on nonviolence helped prepare the activists of the Nashville sit-in movement.

Martin Luther King, Jr. sometimes used the term truth force, but his commitment to the primacy of Jesus' ethic of agape-love led him more often to translate satyagraha as "love force." Others in the Freedom Movement used the term "soul force," which, capitalized and merged as Soulforce has, in recent years, been adopted as the name of a Christian movement for gay rights which uses Gandhian and Kingian methods to confront Christian leaders and denominations with the humanity and Christian faith of gay and lesbian Christians and with the oppressive nature (as Soulforce members see it) of the traditional Christian condemnation of persons of homosexual orientation and of all same-sex sexual activity, no matter how monogamous or based on covenant love. Latin American peace and justice activists have coined the term firmeza permanente or "relentless persistence," since the Portuguese and Spanish equivalents of "nonviolence" sound even more passive in those cultures than in English-speaking North America. Noting that the Arabic term jihad does not mean "holy war," but "struggle" and that Islam has traditionally taught that the "highest jihad" is the outer struggle for justice in society and the inner spiritual struggle against sin, some Muslim pacifists have even proposed the term "nonviolent jihad," a slogan that is likely to communicate better in Islamic circles than outside them. I am sympathetic with all of these efforts, but none of them have become as widespread as "nonviolence" and "nonviolent direct action." So, here I will define those two terms and hope to clarify them.

Working not with idiosyncratic personal definitions, but by examining the actual usage in the peace literature of the last 40 odd years, I would say that nonviolence is a lifestyle characterized (at a minimum) by the refusal to commit lethal or potentially lethal actions even in self-defense, and to work actively for peace, based on justice, in the world. Beyond that, the consensus ends. Many say that nonviolence includes refusal to eat meat, but others, like myself, are not vegetarians. There is debate (even among nonviolent feminists) as to whether or not nonviolence commits one to the moral condemnation of all elective abortions (as opposed to spontaneous abortions or miscarriages) with many traditional Mennonites, Brethren, evangelical pacifists, and groups like Feminists for Life saying that nonviolence does entail as much regard and protection for developing fetal life as for life outside the womb. On the other hand, many Quakers, especially from the more liberal Friends Meetings, liberal Protestant pacifists, mainstream and liberal Christian feminists would say differently. Adherents of nonviolence also differ over whether parental discipline of children can include physical discipline, like spanking. (My own view on this last question is that research has shown spanking to be a very ineffective form of discipline and that the potential for child abuse is too great for me to risk it, but I dissent strongly from the simple equation of spanking with child abuse so that every parent who has ever punished a child in that way would be ipso facto a child abuser. The latter claim is, in my view, simply false. There are many reasons to advocate forms of parental discipline that do not involve physical punishment and I do, but I won't condemn all parents who spank as "violent" or "child abusers." In my view, that would require a different level of physical force.) Nonviolent Direct Action is a nonviolent form of struggle against injustice using various methods of protest and persuasion, noncooperation, and, in advanced campaigns, even nonviolent coercion to resist oppression and injustice, expose its true nature, and transform the social context. Nonviolent direct action may be used to reinforce a social system against internal or external challenges, to reform a system in light of espoused values denied in practice, to defend individuals or groups against violent attack, or even, to completely change a system -- the latter being a nonviolent revolution.

Some may ask, "But shouldn't peacemakers be trying to resolve conflicts between parties, not looking for ways to win over opponents, even nonviolently?" There are two complementary answers to this: 1) In classic nonviolence theory as articulated, for example, by Gandhi or King, one is not trying to defeat individual adversaries so much as defeat an unjust system they represent, defend, or are enmeshed in without knowledge. The satyagrahi or "truth warrior" always hopes for the adversary's conversion and seeks ways to restore the adversary to community -- a more just community. 2) Practices of conflict resolution are another vital part of an overall theory of "just peacemaking" (see http://www.fuller.edu/sot/faculty/Stassen for more on just peacemaking theory) and as necessary as nonviolent direct action. But often people in power refuse to come to the negotiating table. Nonviolent direct action often creates a space where negotiation or mediation is possible. As long as one side of a conflict thinks it can be resolved in their favor by force, and has no moral objections to using force to "resolve" the conflict, conflict resolution strategies are impossible.

Conflict resolution specialists Roger Fisher and Glen Ury, of Harvard's Negotiation Project, always recommend that each party develop a "best alternative to a negotiated settlement" if the other side refuses to negotiate in good faith. Nonviolent direct action is a better alternative than violence or war -- and may well lead back to the negotiating table.

Political scientist Gene Sharp, formerly at Harvard's Center for International Affairs and now the founder of the Albert Einstein Institution for Research, Publications, and Consultations on Nonviolent Struggle (www.aeinstein.org) has developed the most thorough classification of forms of nonviolent direct action. In 1973, Sharp published his ground breaking 3-volume, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent). The first volume, Power and Struggle, described all political or economic power as based on the cooperation of the governed. If the governed withdraw their cooperation and keep it withdrawn through all subsequent attempts at repression, the authority in power must either change to meet the demands of the dissidents or it will fall. War and violent revolution are forms of noncooperation, but, Sharp explains, they are not the only or even the most effective forms. Campaigns of nonviolent noncooperation can involve a larger sector of society, often win support from previously uncommitted third parties, may even convert the opponent or portions of the opponent's party, and make it easier for reconciliation and social harmony after a campaign than does violent revolution or war. Further, even if a nonviolent campaign is unsuccessful, it has enormous benefits for those engaging in it, including increased self-esteem, decreased domestic and societal violence by members of the grievance group, more internal unity in the grievance group, and a greater diffusion of social power. Further, "losing" nonviolent movements are usually in better shape (fewer lives lost, less damage to the economy, etc.) than losing violent movements, which means that the nonviolent movement may more easily regroup and plan a more successful campaign later than a failed revolution, war, attempted coup d'etat, etc. In fact, "mixed" campaigns of violent and nonviolent movements actually weaken the movement and draw out the struggle. The violent opponent prefers dissenters to use violence rather than to oppose them in a sustained campaign of nonviolent direct action. In his third volume, The Dynamics of Nonviolent Action, Sharp examined several nonviolent campaigns, successful and unsuccessful and showed what worked, what didn't and why, using his consent/cooperation model of social power. The middle volume, The Methods of Nonviolent Action, classified 198 different methods of nonviolent direct action and gave historical examples of each. Nor did Sharp claim that this exhausted all possibilities. Just as tactics and strategy in the "science of war" develop over time, so do nonviolent methods as a result of new nonviolent campaigns and further research. (One can find all 198 of Sharp's categories of nonviolent methods online at www.peacemagazine.org/198.htm and, as a PDF/Acrobat file on the website of the Albert Einstein Institute, www.aeinstein.org)

Why bother to classify methods of nonviolent direct action so thoroughly? As the editors of the Albert Einstein Institute's website put it themselves, "Far too often people struggling for democratic rights and justice are not aware of the full range of methods of nonviolent action. Wise strategy, attention to the dynamics of nonviolent struggle, and careful selection of methods can increase a group's chances of success." I would say that is also true for the use of nonviolent direct action in personal self-defense, although this area has not been researched to the extent that mass movements have -- a deficiency that needs redressing quickly.

I will not reproduce all of Sharp's categories here. You can read them yourselves at the places cited above. I do, however, want to outline his broadest categories and give a few examples within each in order to give some idea of the scope and range of nonviolent direct action. Sharp divides the methods into 5 broad categories, roughly moving in an escalating scale of dissent, pressure, and coercion: I. Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion; II. Methods of Social Noncooperation; III. Methods of Economic Noncooperation (subdivided broadly into different methods of boycotts and different methods of strikes); IV. Methods of Political Noncooperation; and V. Methods of Nonviolent Intervention.In the first category Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion fall the types of actions that most people in Western Europe and North America think of when someone says, "nonviolent direct action." The value of Sharp's analysis is that by seeing that all these (54) actions fall only within the mild category of "nonviolent protest and persuasion," it is easier to see that the widespread claim that "nonviolence doesn't work" in case X or Y is a failure to understand the stronger (and riskier) forms that nonviolent direct action can take. In this category fall such things as public speeches, signed public statements and declarations by organizations and institutions (e.g., the many declarations by U.S. religious leaders and others against war in Iraq), group or mass petitions, banners, posters, bumper stickers, leaflets, flags, op-ed pieces in mainstream newspapers or entire campaigns in alternative media (legal or illegal). Included here are also such things as mock awards (e.g., In December of every year, CLOUT, Citizens of Louisville Organized and United Together, gives a "Grinch of the Year" award to the public official who has done the most to neglect or harm the poor of the community), group lobbying, picketing, marches, parades, pilgrimages (as political acts rather than just personal spiritual quests), etc. Some of the more creative and unusual methods listed here include: protest disrobings -- a practice that has biblical precedent. (E.g., the prophet Isaiah went nude through Jerusalem because captives in war are often dragged away fully or partially nude and Isaiah was symbolically warning the people of their fate if they did not repent. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his hearers that if their outer garment has been used as collateral for a loan and is then taken in court, they are to strip naked and hand over their inner garment, too, to expose the court's injustice.) In the 17th C., there were several incidents of protest disrobings by Quakers of both sexes. Most recently, 50 women in Delano, California, part of a new anti-war group called "Unreasonable Women," stripped nude and arranged themselves on the ground to spell out "PEACE" with their bodies. An aerial photograph made the Los Angeles Times and was reprinted on the Internet at the Common Dreams website. There is also the practice of "haunting" officials by following them everywhere -- a practice that peace activists in New York did for weeks with Sen. Hillary Clinton to express their disapproval of her Senate vote to authorize Pres. Bush to use military force against Iraq. Political mourning can be used, including mock funerals either of an opponent or of some value (e.g., "freedom") that one sees as dying or dead. Demonstrations of political dissent at actual funerals also belong in this category, but can backfire, as happened at the funeral for Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN).

Methods of Social Noncooperation include ostracizing persons: e.g., excommunication (or in Anabaptist circles, uses of "banning" and "shunning"), but also including selective or full "social boycotting" ("shunning") of collaborators with an oppressive regime, etc. Among the rarer forms of such ostracism is what Sharp calls "lysistratic nonaction," a characteristically female action in which sexual favors are withheld from husbands or lovers until certain grievances are met. (Sharp's term is a reference to the Greek play, Lysistrata or "The Women," in which Greek women fed up with years of war, refuse to have sex with their soldier or politician husbands until they stop the war and take actions for peace.) During the Civil Rights movement, male activists were often male chauvinists and treated female activists as second class citizens. At one point, several of the women from SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) staged such a "sex strike" (they used an earthier term I won't repeat here!) with their husbands and boyfriends until they obtained better treatment. I am told that after 10 days, all of their demands were met! (Note: As with all nonviolent actions, this one could carry physical risk in certain contexts. In many cultures and contexts, women are not allowed to refuse their husbands sexually and doing so could result in physical abuse or even death. This male "ownership" of women's bodies is one of the many global forms of violence against women, still not adequately addressed -- even by peace and justice folk. I could not let that pass unmentioned here.) Other methods of social noncooperation include student strikes, providing sanctuary, a "flight" of workers to another region (a precursor of the strike), canceling sporting events, withdrawal from social institutions (e.g., members of prestigious golf clubs, quitting because those clubs discriminate along racial or gender lines; many 19th C. abolitionists withdrew from their congregations or denominations after being unable to convince them to take strong stands against slavery, etc.), or even the complete disappearance of whole villages (temporarily or permanently).

Methods of Economic Noncooperation fall into the broad categories of boycotts -- refusing certain products, goods, or services, or strikes -- cessation of work. Forms of boycotts include consumer boycotts, rent strikes, worker and producer boycotts, lockouts (an action used by management or owners), withdrawal of bank deposits (e.g., the campaign in U.S. circles, especially in African-American circles, to withdraw their assets from any bank doing business with South Africa as long as apartheid reigned); tax resistance, domestic or international embargos. Forms of strikes include protest strikes (for a minute, hour, day, etc.), farm workers' strikes, prisoners' strikes, work slowdowns, "sick-ins" (used especially where strikes are illegal, such as "blue flu" epidemics among police departments to protest pay, working conditions, etc.), etc., up to and including complete economic shutdown of a society. This last is almost always used in a context of dictatorship or against an occupying invader.

Methods of Political Noncooperation include refusal to give public support for a government when required, boycotting legislative bodies (when they are shams to give the illusion of democracy to a dictatorship), boycotting elections when rigged, boycotting government employment, withdrawal from government educational institutions (e.g., by South African blacks to protest the 1954 Bantu Education Act), refusing assistance to government enforcement agents. Citizen alternatives to obedience include everything from deliberately slow and reluctant compliance, nonobedience in absence of direct supervision, disguised disobedience, sitdowns, refusal of meetings to disperse when ordered, civil disobedience. There are also a range of methods available to government personnel in protest of actions or policies by higher ups or of occupying powers viewed as illegitimate, etc. They include everything from blocking lines of communication up and down hierarchical institutions, to deliberate inefficiency, to judicial noncooperation with other branches of government, to direct mutiny of police or soldiers, etc. (The last was amply illustrated in 1991, when the Soviet Army refused to obey orders by leaders of the hard line Communist coup against Gorbachev and their decision instead to defend rather than attack the Parliament building.)

Methods of Nonviolent Intervention include psychological interventions such as hunger strikes, reverse trials, and nonviolent harassment, physical interventions such as sit-ins, freedom rides, "pray-ins," etc. The most extreme (and risky) of such actions are forms of nonviolent raids, e.g., when Gandhi's followers attempted nonviolently to seize the salt works of the British monopoly. For days, wave after wave of nonviolent "raiders" calmly and quietly walked toward the gates and demanded entrance, but were beaten brutally by the guards. Nonviolent air raids use planes, balloons, etc., with no weapons, to deliver leaflets, food and medicine, etc. These methods also include nonviolent obstruction and even occupation. Social interventions include guerilla theater and speak-ins (the latter being a tactic dating at least as far back as 17th C. Quakers going to established churches and interrupting the preacher with the declaration that God had appointed the Quaker and not the minister with a message, and proceeding to preach!), overloading of facilities with too many needs, etc. Economic interventions include reverse strikes (working when the opponent doesn't want one to), nonviolent land seizure, defiance of blockades or embargos (e.g., delivery of medicines and medical equipment to Cuba by U.S. clergy in Pastors for Peace or to Iraq by Voices in the Wilderness -- both of which are forms of civil disobedience that entail risks of harsh government responses), seizure of assetts, alternative transportation systems (e.g., the carpool during the Montgomery Bus Boycott) and alternative markets, etc.

Nonviolent direct action is a form of struggle. Like war or violent action, it involves risk to the practitioner as well as to the opponent, although "truth warriors" do everything possible to minimize the risk of bodily harm to the opponent or neutral parties, while often taking far greater risks of personal harm than do soldiers. It is not a form of powerlessness, but a use of social, moral, and economic power in ways not easily understood by those who believe, with Mao, that "power flows from the barrel of a gun." Strategy and tactics are determined both by moral considerations (just as not every soldier approves of every possible military weapon, strategy, or tactic, so also "truth warriors" have disagreements among themselves about specific methods, tactics, and strategies), but also by criteria of effectiveness and of the severity of the problem. Campaigns meant to dislodge an oppressive regime from power, or cause an occupying army to leave, will naturally be far more coercive and riskier than will those actions meant only to challenge one policy or to reform a system still considered basically good or legitimate. Rigorous study of such methods, including asking the relevant moral questions about particular methods, will help churches clarify what it means to be peace churches or "just peace churches" in the contemporary context.

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