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The United States has more Christians than any country in the world, both in numbers and as a per cent of our population. Roughly 80% of Americans identify themselves as Christian. Only about half are actively involved in the life of a church, but this is still a large number. But are we a Christian nation?
As a Christian who seeks to take Jesus seriously, I have an ultimate commitment to non-violence and a reluctant acceptance of the notion of a “just war.”
Most cultures have been patriarchal, and the world’s religions have for the most part sanctified patriarchy, legitimating it in their teaching and practice. I illustrate with Christianity, the religion I know best.
Was Jesus a social revolutionary? In the ordinary sense in which we use the phrase "social revolutionary," yes. Like the Jewish prophets before him, he was passionate about economic justice and peace, and advocated active non-violent resistance to the domination system of his time. He was a voice of peasant social protest against the economic inequity and violence of the imperial domination system, mediated in the Jewish homeland by client rulers of the Roman Empire - in Galilee, Herod Antipas, and in Judea and Jerusalem, the temple authorities. He spoke of God's kingdom on earth, as the Lord's Prayer puts it: Your kingdom come on earth, as it already is in heaven. Heaven is not the problem - earth is.
Full disclosure: I am among those who opposed the invasion of Iraq before it happened. I opposed it for Christian reasons. Moreover, I think those reasons have a pragmatic function: they would have prevented us from embarking on a pre-emptive war that has proved to be disastrous.
According to the almost two millennia old tradition of Christian teachings about war, there are only two legitimate Christian positions. The first is a commitment to non-violence. Jesus taught non-violence and non-violent resistance to evil. For the next three centuries, Christians were committed to non-violence, and Christian writers explicitly grounded their refusal of violence in the teachings of Jesus. The first three centuries are often referred to as the time of Christian pacifism: Christians were pacifists, loyal to the message they had received from Jesus.
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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