Archives For nonviolence

Oscar Romero on the church as a people for the common good

July 19, 2012 — 1 Comment

I just finished reading Oscar Romero: Reflections on His Life and Writings (Orbis) by Marie Dennis, Renny Golden, and Scott Wright, a short biography about someone too few in North America really know.

Romero was the archbishop of San Salvador from 1977 to 1980, and was killed in a hospital chapel during mass just before breaking the bread and sharing the wine. He was assassinated for opposing unspeakable government brutality against El Salvador’s poor during the country’s civil war. He never advocated violence, and refused to demonize his opponents; he even proactively forgave his assassins.

In this book, the authors tell the story of how this reserved, quiet, respectful man became archbishop, how his words and actions became bolder along the way, and how he lives on in the hearts of the Salvadoran people.

He has become a bit of a hero among Catholics across Latin America, but I think he has much to teach all of us, Catholic and Protestant, Latin American or otherwise.

Two or three times over the years I’ve read through a collection of his sayings and prayers called The Violence of Love (available as a free ebook here). One passage in particular has really stood out to me, and I think its applicability for largely comfortable and consumeristic church-goers (which is all too many of us, all too often, if we’re honest) will be clear:

God wants to save us in a people. He does not want to save us in isolation. And so today’s church more than ever is accentuating the idea of being a people.

The church therefore experiences conflicts, because it does not want a mass, it wants a people. A mass is a heap of persons, the drowsier the better, the more compliant the better.

The church rejects communism’s slander that it is the opium of the people. It has no intention of being the people’s opium. Those that create drowsy masses are others.

The church wants to rouse men and women to the true meaning of being a people. What is a people? A people is a community of persons where all cooperate for the common good. (January 15, 1978)

Of course, there is a definite individual aspect to salvation, and before we can be reconciled to each other we must first be reconciled to God. But it seems to me that many of us who are highly concerned with being saved seldom consider what we’re saved into and what we’re saved for. I’m grateful for clues to these questions in Oscar Romero’s life and words.

A brief online biography of Oscar Romero is available here.

[About the photo: A tribute to Oscar Romero at Eliana's, a Salvadoran restaurant in our neighborhood in Phoenix where Katie and I had lunch yesterday]

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Five lessons from Desmond Tutu

January 4, 2012 — 2 Comments

It’s a good practice, I think, to read books about inspiring people who have lived remarkable lives. It’s a way of learning to see the world through the eyes of those who have most profoundly shaped it. For my part, I’ve made it a point to learn what I can from Nobel Peace Prize winners - folks like Martin Luther King, Jr., Wangari Maathai, Elie Wiesel, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Dag Hammarskjöld, and Mother Teresa.

Another remarkably inspiring Nobel laureate for me is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who led the nonviolent anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and served as chair of  the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He just turned 80, and a new biography was published for the occasion: Tutu: Authorized (HarperOne), by South African journalist Allister Sparks and Tutu’s daughter, Mpho Tutu. The book also includes anecdotes and memories from a great variety of people who have known Tutu or have been impacted by him in different ways, and these perspectives give the book its intimate feel. I’d already read two of Tutu’s books, and did some research on him while I was at Eastern, but reading this new biography was a real treat.

While Tutu holds some theological views I fundamentally disagree with, he’s still someone I look to with tremendous gratitude and respect for all he has done to work for peace and reconciliation as a church leader. I hope he has paved the way for many who will follow in his footsteps. Most of us won’t shape history quite the way Tutu has, but I think all of us can learn from his example and consider the implications for our own spheres of influence, however great or small they may be.

Here are five things about Tutu that jumped out while reading the new biography.

1. Spiritual disciplines: time after time, those reflecting on Tutu’s life referred to the impact of his practice of spending hours every day in silence and prayer. While it could come across as snobbish or holier-than-thou for Tutu to leave a meeting or party or to sit silently in a car ride with a reporter and spend that time praying, no one seems to think he’s a spiritual snob. Rather, they see the rest of his life — the calm, the joy, the perseverance, the humility – and they’re impressed. And many of them, for what it’s worth, don’t share Tutu’s faith.

2. Being fully present: Tutu recognizes that to give to others as he does so deeply and consistently, he needs to be nourished. The flip side of spending so much time alone and in prayer, then, is that when he’s with people, he’s with them fully. And he’s the same person, it seems, whether he’s with long-time friends, with a world leader for the first time, or with an ordinary person like you or me. He seems to have a humanizing effect on people even — or perhaps especially — in dehumanizing situations. This plays out in his belief in ubuntu, which roughly translates into “a person is a person through other people.”

3. Humor: an immensely important but largely overlooked quality among his fellow activists is Tutu’s sense of humor. He never seems to take himself too seriously, and his humor is often self-deprecating. It’s evident that his sense of humor had a lot to do with dispelling a number of quite tense situations during the apartheid era when there wasn’t much to laugh about. By putting his audiences at ease, it made his costly message of peace and reconciliation a lot easier to swallow.

4. Humility: one never gets the sense that Tutu considers himself better than anyone else. He was constantly present with poor, angry black South Africans when it would have been much safer to champion their cause from a distance. He didn’t allow his international fame to go to his head or to distract him from the reality on the ground. Also, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Tutu quietly stepped away from his temporary role as political leader of the movement, happy to see someone else take the lead. This kind of humility is beautiful because it is rare.

5. Civility: at a time when pressure was mounting among black South Africans to take up arms against the apartheid government, Tutu did what he could to seek nonviolent alternatives and to urge restraint on both sides. Rather than pitting himself against white South Africans or demonizing them, he sought to show that everyone desperately needed a new way forward. In a world of terrifying religious extremism, Tutu’s civility is a breath of fresh air. While his vision for a “rainbow people of God” and his affirmation of the equal goodness of all religions leads him, in my estimation, into theological relativism and universalism, he has nonetheless led one of the most remarkable nonviolent movements in history — and for that example and legacy we can all be grateful.

What are your thoughts on Desmond Tutu? What have you learned from him? In your own sphere of influence, how have you been able to put into practice what you’ve learned?

[Photo credit: Getty Images via TIME.com]

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Repaso: McKibben on calm power, Brooks on rugged altruism, Mouw on Christian civility, Van Dyke on beautiful questions, and a video referencing martians

August 26, 2011 — Leave a comment

1. Bill McKibben on jail and MLK’s “calm power”
You probably haven’t heard much about it, but a group of activists are staging a nonviolent protest outside of the White House in opposition to a proposed oil pipeline stretching from Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico. Bill McKibben, a leading environmental activist, was among those arrested. He reflects on the example of his nonviolent hero, Martin Luther King Jr., who gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech 48 years ago this Sunday, and describes his experience behind bars:

We spent three days in D.C.’s Central Cell Block, which is exactly as much fun as it sounds like it might be. You lie on a metal rack with no mattress or bedding and sweat in the high heat; the din is incessant; there’s one baloney sandwich with a cup of water every 12 hours. I didn’t have a pencil — they wouldn’t even let me keep my wedding ring — but more important, I didn’t have the peace of mind to write something. It’s only now that I’m out, with a good night’s sleep under my belt, that I’m able to think straight. And so, as I said, I’ll go to this weekend’s big celebrations for the opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial on the Washington Mall with even more respect for his calm power.

2. The rugged altruists
New York Times columnist David Brooks writes about the “virtues” of those Americans who venture into the developing world trying to do good. It’s not the most profound column he’s ever written, but it’s worth a quick read:

As you talk to people involved in the foreign aid business — on the giving and the receiving ends — you are struck by how much disillusionment there is. Very few nongovernmental organizations or multilateral efforts do good, many Kenyans say. They come and go, spending largely on themselves, creating dependency not growth. The government-to-government aid workers spend time at summit meetings negotiating protocols with each other. But in odd places, away from the fashionableness, one does find people willing to embrace the perspectives and do the jobs the locals define…

3. Richard Mouw on Christian civility
Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary where he also teaches philosophy and ethics, was interviewed by Krista Tippett on Being as part of the radio show’s Civil Conversations Project. Mouw is a political conservative and an evangelical and here he is on American Public Media challenging his own people to civil public discourse, and he does so with humility. This sort of message and example is something I think we desperately need, perhaps these days more than ever.

4. The art of asking beautiful questions
This reflection comes from a guy I haven’t met, but who works as a missionary in Guatemala City. In this rather raw reflection, he describes Guatemala City as the “strange context of street gangs in prisons, homeless youth on the streets, teenage prostitutes and families caught in relentless poverty.” It’s worth the read:

The acclaimed English poet E.E. Cummings once wrote, “The beautiful answer is always preceded by the more beautiful question.” Do you believe that? If we really believed as a community that the beautiful question was far more important that the well crafted answer, our ministries with young people would be far more effective. The belief here is that beautiful questions actually reveal beautiful answers. If we really believed that, we as Christians would be the best question askers in the world… I have come to believe with all of my heart that it is a profound and highly successive ministry that learns how to ask beautiful questions of high-risk kids in hard places. I believe this out of the conviction that beautiful answers spring forth from beautiful questions.

5. Asset from Chalmers Center
Here’s a cool two-minute video from the Chalmers Center on a new model for community development they’re trying, linking churches in the US with churches elsewhere, emphasizing microfinance and education. If that’s not enough to pique your interest, as a bonus, there’s even a reference to martians.

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War: A force that gives us meaning?

August 1, 2011 — Leave a comment

I recently posted a review of Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way by Walter Wink, who says that when it comes to confronting evil, what Jesus modeled and taught is a “third way” that’s different from — and better than — our natural instincts either to fight or flight. Several weeks before that, I reviewed The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, The Making of a Navy SEAL by Eric Greitens, who argues that the world will always need more humanitarians than it needs warriors, but without a disciplined, principled few who use their strength for good, humanitarianism will never be enough.

In keeping with these reflections on war and peace, I just finished reading War Is a Force That Gives us Meaning by long-time war correspondent Chris Hedges. It’s not a book I’d recommend very freely, simply because it covers some gruesome ground. Then again, it’s a book about war from a guy who’s been there — in El Salvador, in Bosnia, in Kosova, in Palestine — and so, gruesome might be what you’d expect. He describes the paradoxical nature of war, based on his experience of it: “The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years.” At the same time, he argues that “it can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.”

He describes in quite vivid detail much of what he has witnessed in war, most of it sickening, and is quite critical of those who plunge nations into modern warfare, which, he says, is unavoidably “directed primarily against civilians.” Yet he’s not a pacifist:

Even as I detest the pestilence that is war and fear its deadly addiction, even as I see it lead states and groups towards self-immolation, even as I concede that it is war that has left millions of dead and maimed across the planet, I, like most reporters in Sarajevo and Kosova, desperately hoped for armed intervention. The poison that is war does not free us from the ethics of responsibility. There are times when we must take this poison — just as a person with cancer accepts chemotherapy to live. We can not succumb to despair. Force is and I suspect always will be part of the human condition. There are times when the force wielded by one immoral faction must be countered by a faction that, while never moral, is perhaps less immoral.

He makes that statement early on, but chapter by chapter he writes of his disillusionment with what war all too often entails. He critiques “the plague of nationalism,” laments the destruction of culture, describes the seduction of battle, and warns against the hijacking of memory.

As he takes us country by country, from one war zone to another, he describes the anguish people experience, whether they were considered “winners” or “losers”, and how the toll of war — which is sometimes the lesser evil — is exponentially greater than the dollar amounts and death counts that make headlines. Interestingly, however, in all of these contexts he found an exception:

There are few sanctuaries in war. But one is provided by couples in love. They are not able to staunch the slaughter. They are often powerless and can themselves often become victims. But it was with them, seated around a wood stove, usually over a simple meal, that I found sanity and was reminded of what it means to be human. Love kept them grounded. It was to such couples that I retreated during the wars in Central America, the Middle East, and the Balkans. Love, when it is deep and sustained by two individuals, includes self-giving — often self-sacrifice — as well as desire. For the covenant of love is such that it recognizes both the fragility and the sanctity of the individual. It recognizes itself in the other. It alone can save us.

Later, he continues:

Love may not always triumph, but it keeps us human. It offers the only chance to escape from the contagion of war. Perhaps it is the only antidote. And there are times when remaining human is the only victory possible.

And that’s as much of a high note as you’ll find in this book, which is brutally honest, sobering, a bit depressing, and unfortunately as timely as ever.

People debate the merits of war, often on philosophical, ethical or even theological grounds, and that’s all well and good. But sometimes it’s important, though neither convenient nor pleasant, to be reminded of the hellish realities of war, and that beyond the bold, detached, uncomplicated pronouncements on one side or the other, exist real people bearing heavy burdens, often in nearly unbearable silence.

For followers of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, a book like this can serve as a reminder that in a world where war is an unavoidable reality, we have work to do. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” says Jesus, “for they will be called children of God.” That, I’d say, gives us the possibility of finding, and sharing, the kind of meaning that lasts.

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Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way

July 20, 2011 — 1 Comment

A month ago I reviewed a book by a humanitarian-turned-Navy-SEAL. I included a poignant part of his conclusion:

The world, I believe, is not constructed so that it presents us with perfect choices. I’d joined the military, in part, because I saw that to protect the innocent, we have to be willing to fight.

I can’t say that after reading and reflecting on the book I’m anywhere closer to leaving the humanitarian world to join the military in order to defend the oppressed, but as I wrote, I really appreciate and respect the intellectual process he articulated as well as the discipline he demonstrated as he sought to use force to protect the vulnerable.

Here, now, is a review of a book strikingly different yet strangely similar. It’s different in the sense that the author espouses nonviolence, rather than military intervention. It’s similar in that both authors are nuanced and take into consideration the complexity of the real world in which we make our difficult, at times agonizing, decisions about right and wrong and good and evil.

This second book is Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way by Walter Wink. He’s a fairly well known mainline Christian professor, author and speaker who coined the phrase ”the myth of redemptive violence,” which has been expanded upon in books by influential Christian pacifists like Shane Claiborne, Greg Boyd and others. On the pro-war/anti-war continuum, Wink leans strongly anti. But he’s not a pacifist. The way of Jesus, according to Wink, simply doesn’t fit neatly into our natural, polarizing categories. He writes:

There are three general responses to evil: (1) passivity, (2) violent opposition, and (3) the third way of militant nonviolence articulated by Jesus. Human evolution has conditioned us for only the first two of these responses: flight or fight.

“Militant nonviolence” is an interesting — and rather provocative — choice of words. What he articulates in the book might be better understood as “creative” or “active” nonviolence. All too often, he writes, Christians claim to favor nonviolence but what they really mean is that they favor an absence of conflict. Withdrawing from conflict or claiming neutrality in cases of oppression or abuse, however, doesn’t serve the oppressed and abused. It enables the perpetrator to further oppress and do injury. At the same time,

Violence simply is not radical enough, since it generally changes only the rulers but not the rules. What use is a revolution that fails to address the fundamental problem: the existence of domination in all its forms, and the myth of redemptive violence that perpetuates it?

Wink doesn’t rule out violence altogether, though. Instead, he writes,

[E]ven if I am committed to nonviolence, I may find myself in a situation where I am not able to find a creative, third way, and must choose between the lesser of two violences, two guilts. Even then, however, it is not a question of justifying the violence. I simply must, as Bonhoeffer did, take on myself the guilt and cast myself on the mercy of God. But in a situation of extreme oppression, it is far better that we act violently than let our fear of sin and guilt paralyze us into no act at all. I cannot even be sure that my nonviolent acts are just, or right, or willed by God.

It’s this humility and honesty that I love most about Wink’s book, and though the Navy SEAL I referenced earlier wasn’t necessarily writing as a Christian, he demonstrated these often-rare traits as well. I really like Wink’s conclusion, and I think he’s right that the Third Way is the better way:

Many people have not aspired to Jesus’ Third Way because it has been presented to them as absolute pacifism, a life-commitment to nonviolence in principle, with no exceptions. They are neither sure that they can hold fast to its principles in every situation nor sure that they have the saintliness to overcome their own inner violence. Perhaps a more traditional Christian approach would make more sense. We know that nonviolence is the New Testament pattern. We can commit ourselves to following Jesus’ way as best we can. We know we are weak and will probably fail. But we also know that God loves and forgives us and sets us back on our feet after every failure and defeat.

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