Christian Nonviolence: A Case Study

 

Christian Nonviolence: A Case Study

October 11, 2022

 

Recently, I saw a news item that raised a significant issue of pastoral or ministerial ethics for me in connection with the proper relationship of the Christian toward violence. It told of a Greek Catholic priest in Lviv, Ukraine (formerly known in English as Lvov, the city’s Russian name). The story said that this priest stores certain supplies for the Ukrainian military in his church building. Then, at times, he changes from his clerical garb into civilian clothes, loads the supplies into his car, drives several hundred miles across Ukraine to the front lines of Ukraine’s war against Russia, and delivers the supplies to the Ukrainian military. The question what he does raises is: Is what he does ethical? Is it moral? I want to look at those important issues here.

First of all, there is no question that the Russian war on Ukraine and the way many Russian soldiers are behaving in that war are grossly, indeed diabolically, immoral, sinful. They are simply evil, and there is no way around that conclusion. People of conscience and the community of nations can only condemn Russian president Putin, the Russian military, and Russia generally in the strongest possible terms for Russia’s illegal, morally indefensible, unprovoked war of aggression against a peaceful neighbor. We can only take Ukraine’s side as it defends itself against Russia’s Nazi-like military assault on Ukraine’s very existence as a nation and the Ukrainian people’s existence as a people distinct from the Russians, which Putin inexplicably denies that they are.

Yet there is also no question that, though tragically so many of them don’t do it, every variety of Christianity should call Christians to reject all kinds of violence. Our call is to live lives devoted to Christian nonviolence. Jesus said, “I say to you, do not resist an evildoer.” Matthew 5:39a NRSV. The word translated here as “resist” actually means don’t resist violently not don’t resist at all, but Jesus here does reject all violent resistance to evil. He also said, “Love your enemies….” Matthew 5:44a NRSV. As a bumper sticker the Church of the Brethren once put out says, “When Jesus said love your enemies, I think he probably meant don’t kill them.” Indeed. That is precisely what he meant. All intentional killing of another human being, any human being, under any circumstances, is sin. All intentional killing of any human being contradicts God’s ways and violates God’s will for all people. Quite simply, it is morally wrong for anyone to do it, ever, to anyone, for any reason.

So what are we to say about that Ukrainian priest who ferries supplies to the Ukrainian military, which is engaged in the work of killing Russian human beings? The story I saw about him didn’t say that he personally kills anyone or even tries to. He does, however, act in support of his country’s military. The Ukrainian military, like any military including ours, has only one raison d’etre, namely, to destroy property and to maim and kill people. Sure, we cover up the horror of what our military is trained to do and does with words like honor, heroism, and the defense of our freedom (though for the most part what our military does has nothing to do with defending our freedom); but none of that changes the reality of what a military establishment is about. Yes, the Ukrainian army is defending its homeland against an unprovoked invasion by a much larger neighbor intent on destroying Ukraine as a nation and Ukrainians as a people. There is no denying the fact, however, that it is using violence to do it. It is killing people to do it, and the priest in this story is helping it do it.

Does that make what he is doing sinful? I think that the only truly Christian answer to that question is yes. Jesus, I believe, would not condone what he is doing. Jesus would not condemn this priest as a person, but he would condemn what he is doing to support the Ukrainian military as it goes about its mission of killing Russian human beings. I get it. That’s not a popular thing to say. I find it hard to say it myself, but that it is hard to say doesn’t make it wrong. I am convinced that it is correct.

Of course, most of Christianity would not call what this priest is doing sin. That’s because most of Christianity has bought into what is called “just war doctrine.” Christians developed just war doctrine in the late fourth and early fifth centuries CE, after the Roman Empire had become officially (and pretty much nominally, but never mind) Christian. Just war doctrine was, frankly, a way for Christians to get around Jesus’ teaching of nonviolence. It holds, in brief, that a Christian may use a minimally necessary amount of violence against combatants if the purpose of the violence is defensive and if it is ordered by a legitimate state authority. If there ever were a just war in this sense, Ukraine’s self-defense against the Russians is it. Our Greek Catholic priest recognizes the authority of the Pope in Rome. The Roman church which the Pope leads has accepted just war doctrine from the time it was first created until today. So surely in our priest’s mind what he is doing is not sinful.

Just war doctrine, however, does not change what Jesus taught about violence. Just war doctrine was at its beginning a way for Christians to convince themselves that they could ignore what Jesus said about violence, and it still is. But Jesus said what he said. He rejected violence, and he did it for a couple of reasons. One is, of course, that violence harms God’s people, and all people are God’s people. Another is that Jesus knew that God is, always has been, and always will be nonviolent in all of God’s ways. Jesus and the God he incarnates reject and condemn all violence. One cannot deny that truth and be fully Christian. Jesus and God call us to reject all violence too.

So what are we to say about the priest in this story? I’ve already given part of the answer to that question. We criticize what he does because it supports violence. We do not condemn him. We don’t condemn him because, while we criticize it,  we fully understand what he is doing. We even admire his commitment to his nation and his courage in opposing Russian evil. God calls all of us to oppose evil nonviolently not violently, but it isn’t easy for us to say that this priest is doing something wrong. Yet though we may not much like saying he is doing something wrong, he is.

He's doing the same thing wrong that Dietrich Bonhoeffer did. Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian in Nazi Germany. He knew what Jesus said about killing, but he also knew the massive, criminal, genocidal violence of the Nazi regime that ruled his country. He could see no way to stop that violence except through violence. So he joined a conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He joined that conspiracy, but he knew that killing even Hitler was a sin. He knew he had to beg God’s forgiveness for having done it. The Nazis executed him because of his participation in that conspiracy. To many of us he is a hero and a martyr, but we must say about him what the historic peace churches say about him. He is a flawed martyr, flawed because he was willing to resort to one act of violence to end millions upon millions of acts of violence.

As far as I know, the priest in the news story I saw is not a martyr, not yet anyway. He is still alive. He is, however, committing a sin albeit in support of a just cause. We must understand that that is what he is doing, but, like I said, that doesn’t mean we must condemn him for doing it. On a purely human level I admire and support what he is doing. Yet just as I believe that he must confess that what he is doing is sinful and must pray for God’s forgiveness, so I too say that what he is doing is sinful. I pray that God will forgive him, and I know that God already has forgiven him. I pray that God will forgive me for supporting what he is doing, and I know that God has already forgiven me too. I wish that there were some purely Christian way to avoid the conclusion that what he is doing is a sin, but there isn’t. So, Father priest, I admire you. I do not condemn you though I know that what you do is a sin. Know that I forgive you as I forgive myself for supporting you. More importantly, know that God does too.