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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.

Condem the Church for its Warmaking? Which Church?

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RESPONSE TO A MESSAGE (Revised Feb. 7).

What Kind of Christianity is This?
An Apologetic for the Original Form of Christianity

Although I agree that most of history’s wars have had religious (especially Christian) origins, backed up by each religion's "holy" scriptures, I do have to take exception to the blanket condemnation of Christianity by pointing out one reality, and that is that the original form of Christianity, long since forgotten by the powers that be, was initially a religion of pacifists. The earliest followers of the pacifist Jesus were nonviolent, trying hard to return good for evil, feeding the hungry, making friends out of enemies by figuratively disarming them with their refusal to retaliate. Jesus’ prohibition against casting the first stone was taken seriously in the first two centuries.

The earliest Christians also took seriously Jesus' clear command to "love your enemies," and, despite the brutal Roman persecutions, the religion survived and thrived. By 300 CE, it had grown into one of the largest religions in the empire, at which point the emperor Constantine, who was a polytheist until he was on his deathbed, co-opted the church by offering it property, wealth and prestige and seduced it into becoming a state church. Soon after that, its leadership eventually felt obliged to defend the empire by supporting and then joining the violent military defense of its borders. Soon the just war theory of Augustine appeared, making Christian violence - long forbidden to the followers - legitimate. Christianity had become a religion of justified military violence and justified apathy towards the victims of violence.

So, condemning Christianity is justified up to the point of acknowledging that the ethical teachings of Jesus (forgiveness 70 X 7, unending mercy, ministering to “the least of these” and the unconditional love of friend of enemy) have been basically ignored by theologians, clergy and lay leadership. What keeps the churches silent, of course, is the fear of losing their tax-exempt status or pro-war members if they were to speak out strongly about issues of nationalistic militarism.

But the original form of Christianity, where Christians refused to take up the sword, should not be condemned. Rather, critics of Christianity should start challenging the churches to go back to their roots where evil was indeed aggressively and courageously resisted but it was done by using nonviolent means, like Jesus, Gandhi and King did.

The organization that has as its main mission the challenging of and the calling for the transformation of the Christian churches into true peace churches is Every Church A Peace Church (www.ecapc.org). ECAPC could use all the help it can get to proclaim this unwelcome message. The message needs more interest from non-Christians, practicing Christians, lapsed Christians and even Jews, who have been so terribly victimized in Christianity’s sordid history of anti-Semitism. The world needs more pacifist churches maximally invoking - and implementing - the powerful ethical stances and teachings of these nonviolent heroes: Jesus, Gandhi, King, Dorothy Day, the Berrigan brothers, and numerous other prophetic voices whose major motivation for protesting was their commitment to a nonviolent deity. The followers of the nonviolent Jesus should be courageously “going to the streets” wherever violence (whether military, economic, racial, gender, etc.) raises its ugly head - no matter if it is in the US Congress or the Parliament in London, # 10 Downing Street or in the Oval Office, in the Knesset or in the headquarters of Hamas, in Tehran or in Baghdad, in the Kremlin or the Vatican, in Colorado Springs or in the bowels of the 700 Club.

Jesus was a prophet, an anti-war leftist, a socialist and a feminist

Comments

Dear Dr. Kohls,

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Christianity today and in the pre Constantinian era. The Catholic Church teaches that Constantine's mother, Monica, was a Christian while Christians were persecuted by Rome. It is possible that Constantion was protecting his mother from possible persecution and treason by adopting the Church. I feel that the church was encouraged to promote Jesus as God,s son, eternally begotten of the same life as God to justify Jesus' death as a sacrifice that could have only been made by God for us. I don't know if Jesus was God. I have more respect for Jesus as a man than I could for God. If Jesus was God what he did was done out of knowledge of God's will and not out of faith. If Jesus was not God he did something that showed his faith beyond knowledge.
If Jesus was God why did he spend a whole 30 days in the desert praying to himself? If he was God why would he pray that he could die some other way, or question God about his being forsaken?
Before the New Testament was written down it was probably embellished making Jesus seem greater than life. It is also possible that the teachings of Jesus were toned down so that people who understood what he was saying wouldn't break civil laws. Constantine couldn't have expected his followers to follow Jesus' teachings when they questioned the authority of the powers that be.

Keep me in your prayers as I am currently un employed.

Rey Hinckley
7518 Barringer Rd
Baton Rouge, La 70817
(225) 938-0081

Posted by: Rey Hinckley

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