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Following Jesus in nonviolent struggle for justice and peace, we love our neighbors and enemies as God loves us all, becoming a peace church to share in God’s work to save the world.

Jesus and World Religions: The Tyranny of Exceptions

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JESUS, ANTHROPOLOGY AND WORLD RELIGIONS
Some Good News

by John K. Stoner

5th of 7.

5. The Tyranny of Exceptions

    Christianity has been plagued by a morality of exceptions in the matter of how to deal with offenders, enemies, and especially war--producing a theology of justified war when its true genius is a theology of war rendered obsolete.

    Theologians across the centuries, eager to give the appearance of honoring Jesus, start with lip service to peace as a goal and Jesus as their guide. But before the ink has dried on those sentences they are busy developing exceptions to his teaching to love our enemies, and showing why doing good and saving life are usually, but not always, the lawful thing. In their hands the “not always” grows and grows until the “usually” has shrunk to something between seldom and never.

    Jesus asks, “Is it lawful in your holy system to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” and the church has answered, “Generally the former, but...we have these other thoughts too.” Jesus has taught, “Love your enemies,” and the church has responded “Yes, but...what does love mean, and who is my enemy?” Thus has developed over the centuries a veritable tyranny of exceptions to the most fundamental obligation which Jesus laid upon his followers.

    The sad history of the church’s involvement in wars is so familiar and well-documented that it is unnecessary to repeat it here at length, but at the same time essential to address its unavoidable implications. Seed has been sown to the wind, and we shall continue to reap the whirlwind if we do not, with relentless clarity and unmitigated vigor, revise the strategy of our sowing. Toward that revision, some proposals.

    First, when any social group has engaged to this extent in human depredation, nothing less than an attitude of perpetual contrition can begin to redress the wrong. And to this contrition must be attached a fixed determination to change. That is, a will to repent-- for the root meaning of “repent’ is to change one’s mind--and just as surely to change one’s behavior. Moreover, here let us urge without fear of contradiction, let white males lead. That is to say, let those who led in wars and crusades now lead in contrition and repentance.

    Secondly, we are bound to say the obvious: that the time which the church’s theologians, preachers and teachers spend justifying war cannot be spent exploring and creating the ways of peace. The misdirection of energy and potential which has been and continues to be devoted to exceptions to Jesus’ plain teaching is a cancer in the soul of the church. Brilliant as they are, the church’s ethicists, theologians and Bible scholars cannot know and develop the things that make for peace while they are justifying the things that make for war. And if I as an insider do not name and lament this, the worldly critics and detractors of the church will do it for us, and that with a vengeance that will dwarf the whimper of complaint which I raise here and elsewhere.

    Which names a third impact of the church’s sad involvement in exceptions to Jesus’ clear teaching--this tyranny of exceptions has discredited the church in the eyes of millions of people who could have been the church’s best friends. We cannot with impunity ignore and discredit the plain teaching of the one we claim to follow. A major consequence of failing to do good and save life has been the alienation of people of goodwill and responsive conscience. If we are not following our leader, we are not going to persuade other to do it. Have you noticed that with the exception of liberal Christians virtually every spiritual person and religious adherent in the world is eager to promote the writings and teachings of their own spiritual leader. Why is that?

    To conclude this brief discussion of the tyranny of exceptions I’ll end where I might have started, by asking where the impact of this tyranny can still be found in our midst. Is this problem real or imagined? So now, let the reader ask in his or her own mind, How do I answer Jesus’ question, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” Is my answer to this simple and straightforward, clear and unequivocal? Or is it complex and subtle, even devious and evasive?

    And having quite plainly asked themselves Jesus’ question, let the reader then take it just as clearly and unavoidably to religious leaders, starting with those identified as Christians, and observe carefully whether they begin to discover exception. If they do, let the reader decide for herself whether the tyranny of exceptions is still a problem.

Comments

Thank you so much.

I have been entering the "fight for peace" just recently in my life and finding, of course, much heated rebuff, even total personal rejection. I am learning this way and learning to love the fight as it will get me closer to Christ's way.

Please keep breaking it down for us simple folk. And keep up "the fight."

Posted by: Heather Johns

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