A brief aside on nonviolence in the early church
This post showed up on the Lew Rockwell blog today, and I had to send in a response. Here’s what I wrote:
In her recent blog entry on LRC, Becky Akers writes that she has difficulty picturing “Christians in the catacombs praying God’s blessings on the legionaries as they crucify Peter, exile John to Patmos, and martyr Paul,” noting that it is the Romans too who crucified Christ.
While I am 100% on board with the call for Christians to stand for peace against the warmongering and violence of the state, this statement from Akers is just as incorrect as the pro-war theology she rightly critiques (and indeed, I would argue thatit is just this sort of refusal to take seriously Jesus’ calls to love our enemies which ultimately leads to that very pro-war theology). The first martyr, Stephen, famously prayed for those stoning him as he died (Act 7:60). Likewise, we have many accounts of early martyrs praying for their persecutors; Jesus himself prayed while on the cross for the forgiveness of his executioners, in keeping with his teachings of love for enemies we see earlier in the Gospels.
Praying and blessing one’s enemies doesn’t mean agreeing with their actions as Akers seems to suppose; indeed, were their actions not so objectionable, there might not be an occasion for the prayer.
Akers may not be able to imagine early Christians following Christs’ commands and praying for their Roman abusers, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. As for modern Christians, certainly we must pray for the victims of state violence, but we are not absolved from praying for its perpetrators as well.This is a little more theology-focused than I normally post here, but it’s political enough that I figured I’d share.
Conversely, this is slightly more politically-focused than I normally post here, but it’s theological enough that I figured I’d share.
