August 3, 2019 • 47 mins
Episode Links:
br- A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/
- Thanks to Palmtoptiger17 for the beautiful logo: https://www.instagram.com/palmtoptiger17/
- Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751
- My Book (Free): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1524xtT4iKmqr7pATaKnXTMZlwk_aONXG
- My Book (Kindle): https://www.amazon.com/80-Conservative-Evangelicals-Prove-Relativists-ebook/dp/B07RDPW2NZ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=j.+g.+elliot&qid=1564647522&s=gateway&sr=8-1
- Pacifism Debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4xQaDDKY7k
- Followers of the Way: https://www.facebook.com/FollowersoftheWayBoston/?ref=br_rs
- Integrity Quote: https://learninginlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/13102829_1201726893232348_849045333103669078_n-770x770.jpg
- The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder: https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Jesus-John-Howard-Yoder/dp/0802807348/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=the+politics+of+jesus&qid=1564647725&s=gateway&sr=8-2
- My Summary of the Politics of Jesus: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/the-politics-of-jesus
- MASH conundrum clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=rvBS0VqJPXs
- Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace by Harvie Conn: https://www.amazon.com/Evangelism-Doing-Justice-Preaching-Grace/dp/0875522068/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=harvie+conn&qid=1564647790&s=gateway&sr=8-3
- My website on Pacifism: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/arguments-for-christian-pacifism
- American National Idolatry: https://www.facebook.com/ILovePortage/photos/a.396450011127660/511348556304471/
- Phillip Mast
- Laverne Miller
- Jesse Killion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Derek (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the 4th Way
podcast. We're called the 4thway because we believe that
there are 4 ways to live lifeand to respond to situations,
fight, flight, freeze, or faith.Now a lot of people really only
think that there are 3, fight,flight, or to run away, and
freeze to be passive. Mostpeople think that fighting is
(00:31):
ultimately the faithful way.However, we here at the 4th Way
podcast believe that JesusChrist taught us something else,
that faithfulness comes througha lifestyle that is nonviolent.
So, in this series, we are goingto be talking a lot about
nonviolence. In this episode inparticular, I want to share my
story with you because my comingto to a position of nonviolence
(00:57):
is something that absolutelychanged my life. It highlighted
so many biases in my life, andit removed a lot of biblical
dissonance from me and allowedme to accept the words of Christ
for the words of Christ insteadof having to make everything
into a metaphor or conundrums.So I'm excited to share my story
with you today, and, I thinkthat it would be very beneficial
(01:20):
to you, especially if you comefrom the background that I've
come from, which is a backgroundof conservative Christianity. I
think that my story willprobably help you to uncover
some of the biases that you mayhave and and some of the
presuppositions that you have.
And, that's gonna be veryimportant because in subsequent
(01:41):
episodes, we will be making apositive case for nonviolence,
for Christian nonviolence. And,it is extremely important that
you have your biases in check sothat you can take an objective
look at the information. So,hopefully, my story helps to
uncover some of that in you.And, here it goes. So I was
(02:04):
born, raised, and, I wouldprobably still consider myself
to be a conservative Christian.
And I I really am thankful formy conservative Christian
community and for all of theopportunities that I had. The
(02:25):
conservative group, in inPennsylvania, I'm not from the
Bible Belt of the South, but,kind of a Bible Belt up in
Pennsylvania. We've got a lot ofAmish and Mennonites and Bible
churches and and those sorts of,types of Christianity up there.
And I went to a Christianschool. I went to a Christian
(02:47):
college after I graduated frommy Christian school.
I was at church usually at least2 times a week, sometimes 3. If
we had a missions conference,maybe every day of the week. I
taught at a Christian schoolright out of college, and then I
taught at another Christianschool after that. And, now I'm
(03:08):
a missionary in Romania. So, mylife has just been saturated
with Christianity, andspecifically, the conservative
brand.
To give you kind of a anunderstanding of what
conservative Christianity meansfor those of you who may not
necessarily have have too muchexposure to that, I'll I'll give
(03:30):
you a few glimpses of of whatthat was like. So in our church,
which was also our school, wehad a Christian flag, And that
was extremely normal to me, butI've come to realize that it's
really weird to a lot of people.A lot of people don't know that
(03:53):
there's such a thing as aChristian flag. And there's
there's a pledge to thisChristian flag too. Let's see if
I can remember it.
I pled pledge allegiance to no.I don't remember it. I could get
it if, if somebody started me onit. Anyway, there is a pledge to
(04:13):
the Christian flag. Go ahead andlook it up if you don't believe
me.
But, we also had an Americanflag right on the the opposite
side of the Christian flag, Andthat was very normal for me too,
this this idea of patriotism,going hand in hand with with
(04:35):
Christianity. Because in ourminds, we were a or are a
Christian nation. And so theAmerican flag and the Christian
flag are side by side, and wewould say that the Christian
flag is dominant, but both ofthose things go pretty hand in
(04:56):
hand. And and we really upholdAmerican patriotism about as
much as we uphold Christianityand, and that sort of thing. So
that was pretty normal for me,but I know now that it's really
not that normal for a lot ofpeople.
(05:18):
We also, being conservative, wewere also very big into, like,
the Puritan work ethic and thisemphasis on personal
responsibility. We we workedhard, or we at least like the
idea of working hard. We youknow, this is the the area for,
(05:42):
like, Amish barn raisings andfarmers just saturated with with
farmers who work dawn till dusk.So, there was this just idea of
personal responsibility,personal effort, and that
extended into our moral lives aswell. There is this idea that
(06:05):
you are to be morallyindependent as well, and that
whatever happens to you in lifewe wouldn't say this, but
looking back, I I think we kindof have this understanding that
a lot of times, the things thathappen to you are somewhat a
result of of your moral failingsor moral successes.
(06:30):
So that was that's kind ofsomething that stands out to me
as being a part of my myconservative culture. And then
something that doesn't reallyseem to to fit with Christianity
in retrospect, but somethingthat was a very big part of my
culture was gun culture. And, Ithink there's this idea kind of
(06:50):
playing off of our our personalresponsibility and individualism
that we really liked in ourchurch. I think guns kind of
represent that freedom a lot.You know, it's blaze your own
trail.
You know, that's kind of how thewest was won. That's how
territory was conquered. That'show we we had this manifest
(07:12):
destiny, and we we became aChristian nation through through
this independence and this thiswork and, all our efforts and
bravery and and exploration. Sogun culture was a very big part
of of my growing up. Tons ofpeople had guns.
(07:32):
I had guns. I loved to shootthem. Still like to shoot them.
I no longer hunt, but, I I loveguns. They're really fun to
shoot.
So there there's a lot of otherstuff that I could talk about in
terms of what conservativeChristianity was like, but those
three things, I think, are gonnabe very pertinent as as we take
(07:55):
a look at nonviolence. I thinkthose three things are gonna
come together. You'll see, maybein this episode as well as
future episodes. But, here'swhere I I really see some of
those big disconnects with mycommunity and some of the things
that we really failed at becauseof of these things that we
(08:17):
upheld that we thought were goodand maybe were to a certain
extent, but became idols andthings that blinded us to true
justice, holistic justice. Youknow, we maybe had a glimpse of
some aspects of justice and somegood things, but we had some
pretty big failings.
So two examples come to mind.First of all, my community
(08:44):
talked a lot about personalresponsibility, and that
extended to, if somebody breaksinto my home, and I have a gun,
I'm gonna blast them. And, noregrets about that because that
moral failing is on them. Theyknow the consequences that
they're getting themselves into,potentially. And so, they come
(09:09):
into my house.
I'm not gonna ask questions.That puts my family at risk. I'm
just gonna blast the guy becauseI don't know if he has a gun. I
don't know what his intentionsare, and I'll just shoot him.
Okay.
Maybe maybe some of you can kindof understand that, but the
conversations get a lot weirderthan that. Because, for example,
(09:30):
you know, you'd also get thisadvice from people. Well, if
they're on your property and youshoot them, you better make sure
that they're dead, because ifthey're alive, they can come and
sue you. Kind of like the theliar liar scene that you see
where the, I think, a thieffalls on some kitchen knives in,
(09:51):
the home he's burglaring, and heends up suing the homeowner.
Apparently, I guess I don'tknow.
I don't know if that's an oldwives' tale or something, but
apparently that can happen. Andso, advice was given within our
community, somewhat jokingly,but not really, that if somebody
comes onto your property, you'redefinitely gonna shoot them. And
(10:13):
if you shoot them, you shouldkill them. So somebody comes on
your property, just kill them.That was the point.
And they'd even say things like,if they're running away, you
better shoot them before theyget off your property, because
once they're off your property,then you're liable and that
that's gonna be a problem. Somake sure you kill the guy while
(10:34):
he's on your property. And inretrospect, I mean, that's not
just wrong, but that's that'ssad that that we were so
indifferent to human life. Butbecause of our emphasis on
individualism, and and Americanpull yourself up by your
(10:58):
bootstraps, and you you are yourown person, and you're
responsible for all thesethings. We refuse to take
responsibility for other peopletoo, and especially for our
enemies.
And the gospel just didn't touchthat aspect of our life. Our
American ideologies supersededour Christian ethic and the
(11:21):
ethic that Christ taught, tolove even enemies. So that's in
retrospect something that thatplayed out that was just very is
right now very strange to me,but it was just absolutely
normal and made complete senseback in the day. Another thing
that I recognize in retrospectis that we we really lacked
(11:44):
mercy and grace. We saw poorpeople, and if it was a poor
person from another country, wecould understand that because
they're not part of God'scountry, the United States.
They're not part of a Christiannation. And so the things that
(12:04):
kind of have befallen them, youknow, especially, let's say,
children in Africa who have hadevil governments and famines and
natural disasters or hurricanesin in, in other parts of the
world. We we get that. Tsunamis,we we can help take care of
(12:25):
that. We understand when whenacts of God happen to you, when
natural evil occurs.
We can help you. But people inour own community, the
impoverished, single mother,well, I mean, why did she get
pregnant out of wedlock at 15?That's that's her choice. She
(12:46):
should have known better.Regardless of somebody's
situation, they could havechosen to get an education.
They could have chosen topersist. And we just this this
idea of individualism and justthis blindness to how blessed so
(13:07):
many of us were in our familiesto have people who modeled
things and provided us withresources. We were just
absolutely blind and still are.My community is is very blind to
to mercy and grace, particularlyto people who are who who we
(13:29):
perceive should be responsiblefor themselves. We don't do well
trying to understand andempathize with systemic issues,
and that is a huge problem inour community.
Well, I would say that if I hadto summarize what what was kind
(13:55):
of conveyed to me, my basicunderstanding of what my job as
a Christian was to be, it was toavoid secular culture, while
imposing what we considered tobe Christian culture on people.
So that family who who wasimpoverished because of their
(14:20):
bad choices, we're not gonnareally show them mercy and
grace. We're gonna kinda avoidtouching that and being tainted
by that. We're gonna avoid thatsecular culture, though, that
that evil, but we'll try totouch it with the gospel. And if
we can get them to becomesanctified, sacred, if we can
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get them to become a part of ourChristian culture, then we can
touch them.
And, so that's why a lot of whatwe focus on wasn't really mercy
to our community. If we didanything, it was revivals or
evangelism outreaches and andthings that focused on the soul,
(15:06):
which are wonderful. But, youknow, James and and some of
these other passages, Micah,have a lot of things to say
about mercy towards people, Jobespecially. You know, mercy is
not just, hey. I'll pray foryou, and, hey.
I care about your soul. Butmercy is is very physically
(15:28):
focused as well. And there's agreat book on this by by Harvey
Khan. I I forget the name of it,but I just read it. And he, man,
he synthesizes the gospel andand talks about how we have just
castrated the gospel by takingoff this this physical part of
it, and we have we haveseparated the sacred and the
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secular.
And that's that's exactly whatmy community did. And at the
same time, we were we weretrying to impose our Christian
will on others. And the way thatwe did this, the reason that we
had our Christian flag rightnext to an American flag was not
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only because we were a Christiannation, but because our job was
to keep this a Christian nationand to expand that nation, to
expand the the sacredness ofthis nation. And so that's why
during president Clinton'saffair with Monica Lewinsky, we
(16:36):
decried how horrible it was thata leader of ours would would
dare to do such a thing, to becorrupt in that manner, because
we wanted to uphold familyvalues. Now we're a little bit
hypocritical there because wehad lost the divorce the divorce
battle and lots of people thatwe knew were divorced, so we
(16:59):
didn't wanna rail on it too hardbecause we didn't wanna step on
toes.
But so when we said upholdfamily values, we mean democrats
who do bad things or gay people,because we didn't know any of
those at the moment. You know,that's what we meant by
upholding family values, and wewanted to impose that through
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legislation. We wanted toimpeach Clinton, and we wanted
to ban same sex marriage, whileat the same time just kind of
giving giving divorce a pass. Sowe kinda had some some issues
there, but we didn't wanna losemore ground. We defended the
pledge of allegiance and thisthe phrase under god on, and
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things on our currency, and andin pledges and ten Commandments
and court houses and all kindsof other things.
We did not want to lose ground.We do not want our Christian
nation to lose its Christianityin our minds. So so we were very
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big into into imposingChristianity on the government.
We We wanted Christian prayer inschools, and I say Christian
prayer because that's that'sexactly what I mean. We didn't
want prayer in schools.
We wanted Christian prayer. Godforbid a Muslim or a Satanist
try to put prayer in schools.That would just that would be
terrible. But we wantedChristian prayer because we're a
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Christian nation, and we wannaimpose Christianity. We wanna do
it through legislation, throughforce, through the the arm of
the government.
We this is something I onlyrealized recently, but, you
know, our view on immigrants waswas not good and has probably
gotten even worse, in recentyears because we thought that
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they were a threat to ourcountry. And there are lots of
there are lots of narratives asto why we think immigrants are
problems. But, ultimately, I'vediscovered that I think it's it
goes back to this Christiannation idea, and the issue isn't
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necessarily that immigrantswould come in and potentially
take our jobs. Maybe that'strue. Maybe they would hurt the
economy.
Maybe they would suck up someresources. Okay. And that
impedes my comfort a little bit.But that's that's sort of hard
to rationalize with withChrist's idea of mercy and
helping the destitute and andthose sorts of things. What I
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realized though is our mainissue with immigrants coming in
is that it waters down thisChristian nation, because you
have people coming in from othercountries that are, Muslims,
Buddhists, whatever else.
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I don't know what the what themain immigrants are to the
United States, but we have bigproblems with that. And
conservative Christians usuallyare are, Protestant in nature.
We've got, Baptists and certainbrands of Presbyterians and,
bible churches and and all thosesorts of of, institutions. And
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so even individuals coming fromSouth America or Central
America, well, they're notreally Christians because
they're Catholic. Now, I I don'tbelieve that.
Catholics, who believe thegospel are Christians, and there
are many of them. And there aremany protestants who don't
believe the gospel, who are notChristians. But growing up,
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there's this idea that thatreally the only Christians are
evangelicals, the only trueChristians. And so Catholics
weren't Christians, and that'swho's coming from South America
and Central America and Mexico.And, you know, and especially
there, maybe maybe someCatholics, maybe some European
Catholics would be trueChristians.
(21:10):
Maybe. But in South America,where they've got all those,
like, weird, older nativeconcepts that they've kind of
incorporated into theirCatholicism, nah. They're not
really Christians. So we can'treally let them come into our
country and water down thisChristian nation, because that's
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what we are. We are a Christiannation, and God has entrusted
that to us.
And we need to preserve it, andwe need to expand it. And so
that's where where my childhoodand and my values kind of led
me. They led me to that sort ofview of the world. Well, 2015,
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2016, president Trump, not notpresident then, but, Trump comes
onto the scene. And when I seehim and I hear the way that he
talks and I listen to to what hesays, I just am utterly
appalled.
And so much more has come outsince 2015 that make it even
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worse, but I was I was justappalled. And you've got a guy
who lies, who surrounds himselfwith people who lie, who makes
derogatory comments againstothers, against immigrants,
against women, against poorpeople, against his enemies.
He's aggressive with lots ofpeople, including nuclear
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nations like North Korea. He'sarrogant. He has itching ears.
He he needs to to always becomplimented. He can't stand not
being, praised. He is his sexualexploits are just, I mean, many,
and he's he's on, what, his 3rdwife, Something like that. He's
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he's greedy. And the list couldjust go on and on and on.
And there is nothing in Trumpthat is that is praiseworthy.
Other than now that he's beenpresident for a while, he does
follow-up on on a lot of thethings that he says he's going
to do in terms of of policy.But, you know, other than that,
(23:37):
just his character is ishorrendous. And there was such a
clear line for me that that thisman was evil, and it I just
didn't know what to do in thiselection because, at the same
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time, I I couldn't vote forsomebody like Hillary for
several reasons, but it'sparticularly because of the
abortion issue. I mean, abortionis just objectively wrong, and I
think I can prove that.
And it's, I I couldn't vote forsomebody who would accept and
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promote and advance such anegregious evil, but Trump was
such an egregious evil too. Andit baffled me that that my
community, the community that Iloved and still love, just
pretty much embraced Trump withopen arms, for the most part.
And especially once we saw thatTrump was going to be the person
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who definitely was the guy thatwe had to go with if we were
gonna vote Republican, if weweren't gonna vote 3rd party, if
we wanted to win. Well, that guywas gonna be Trump. And at that
point, not only were weendorsing him, but we defended
him at every turn, includingsome of his, just egregious
(25:09):
evils.
And that that boggled my mindthat our community would embrace
him and promote him and defendhim. And, but I didn't know what
to do, because I didn't knowwhat other choice we had. Didn't
I have to vote for the lesser of2 evils? At the same time, I was
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kind of rehashing an oldconundrum that I had thought
about for years and could neverreally figure out what the
answer was. And, it it's thisM*A*S*H conundrum, the, a
conundrum from the, TV, seriesM*A*S*H.
And in this episode, you've gota bunch of US army personnel and
(25:56):
and South Korean civilians onthis bus. They're driving, and
all of a sudden, they theyrealize that there's a North
Korean patrol around. And theystop the bus, and everybody's
absolutely quiet. Well,unfortunately, there's a baby on
the bus, an infant, who startsto cry. And one of the US
(26:18):
soldiers says, shut that babyup.
And so the mother can'trationalize with her infant
child, She has to choose. Do Ido I quiet the child? And by
quieting the child, the only waythat I can do that is to push
its face into my clothes andsmother it and the child will
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die. Or do I let the child cry?If I do that, I'm sure we're
gonna be found.
And when we're found, I knowwe're gonna be executed. Do I
kill one life to save 50, or doI, through my inaction, cause 50
(27:00):
people to die? 51 people withthe baby. Right? What, what do
you do in that situation?
And that was a conundrum to mefor so long. And, I asked a lot
of people for help on this one,friends, family, religious
leaders. I probably asked about50 different people. And, I got
(27:22):
2 types of responses usually.The first response was, I I
think if I were in thatsituation, I don't think I would
kill the child.
I just I couldn't do thatmyself. But if somebody else did
it, I don't think I could judgethem for that. I don't think
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that I could say that that iswrong. I just couldn't
personally do it. That wasprobably the majority of
answers.
It was it was ambiguous. Thenthe other group said, well, I
guess you you kinda have to doit, don't you? Because or you
have to kill the child becauseit would just be wrong to let 50
(28:05):
people die. You have to kill thechild. It's it's unfortunate.
It's sad. It's the lesser of 2evils. That's something you
gotta do. In all of this, I hadonly one person from my
conservative Christiancommunity, only one, who said
immediately, you can't kill thechild. That's that's wrong.
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Like, those 51 lives are inGod's hands, and you can't take
that into your own. One personsaid that, and it wasn't me,
unfortunately. It took me 5 or 6years of thinking through that
issue until I came to a pointwhere I said, you know what?
(28:48):
That that one person might onlybe one person, but that one
person makes a whole lot ofsense. And it was it was during
this time that I I realized thatmy community, the community who
is is good and loving andsupportive and and, fantastic in
(29:08):
so many ways, has a huge, hugeblind spot.
And we, for the past, probably15 to 20 years, have been
bemoaning this moral relativismthat our culture has. You know,
it's good for you, it's good foryou, it's good for me, it's good
for me. Yet, when it came tocertain issues, our pet issues,
(29:33):
issues where we felt we had tomaintain control, or issues
where we could sympathize withor issues where we could
sympathize with somebody. Now wecouldn't sympathize with a
mother who made a choice to havesex outside of wedlock and now
doesn't feel like she cansupport her baby. We can't
sympathize with that because wewould never do that.
And so, of course she shouldn'tabort. She needs to deal with
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the consequences. But, we couldimagine that were we an American
soldier on a bus in a war zoneand there was a child crying, if
we were in that situation, we wecan understand why you'd kill
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that child. And so, or ifthere's an election where you
have 2 evil people, we canunderstand to maintain control
of the situation and and asituation that we can empathize
with, we can understand choosingan evil. So, we were moral
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relativists too.
We're consequentialists, and andby that, I just mean the ends
justified the means for us incertain situations, not in
abortion, but in presidentialelections? Yeah. Of course. We
had to maintain power. We had tomaintain the Christian nation.
We had to advance the Christiannation, and so we had to pick a
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lesser evil. Well, needless tosay, as as these things were
circling around in my head, Ireally began to examine my life.
I had lived in Mexico for 2years, right out of college, and
I remember walking into aCatholic church and seeing these
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idols. And I do mean idols, notnot icons, but, idols from local
local Mexicans who, you know,100 of years ago, the Catholics
came there, put guns to theirhead, and said, convert or die.
And so they converted.
Right? They they put on a goodshow, but they also incorporated
their local deities into thechurch. And so they were
(31:43):
syncretists. They they wereCatholics in appearance, and
they went to a Catholic churchand did mass, but they were
really bringing in their otherreligion too. And I remember
feeling so sorry for thosepeople that the gospel was just
not embraced in their livesbecause they had these idols.
(32:06):
But what I was realizing at thispoint in my life now, 10 years
after Mexico, was that I was asyncretist. My community was
syncretistic. For a lot of us,you know, that included idols of
wealth or comfort, selfinterest, pragmatism, you name
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it. All those sort of politicalcontrol. Right?
We had we had lots of idols.They just weren't the physical
sort that you could see in thechurches. You couldn't see them
sitting up front on on pedestalsor anything, but you could see
them if you looked around. Youcould see them in people's
lives. You could see them inyour own life.
And, man, I was seeing idols. Iwas seeing idols in my life at
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this point. And I recognizedthat it was ugly, and I was a
huge syncretist, and so was mycommunity. And there was just a
flood of emotions at that pointof, you know, I I cycle through
anger. Sometimes I get angrythat because certain things have
(33:15):
become so obvious to me becauseof God's gracious conviction in
my life that I just, when othersbelittle people or or are just
so unmerciful, it makes meangry.
And I have to fight that becausethat's evil and that's
unmerciful towards my owncommunity. And but by the grace
(33:37):
of god, I would still be asyncretist in those ways. And
but for the grace of god, I havemany things that will never be
uncovered that I'm syncretisticabout right now. So, I have to
to be careful of my anger.There's also sorrow.
(33:58):
There's a feeling of abandonmentor deception or or betrayal.
That's a better word. Feeling ofbetrayal from my community
because you question, well, Ithought these people were in my
life were so godly, but they'reso blind to to the syncretism
that we have. And you ask allsorts of questions and and try
(34:23):
to deal with with, how thatrelates to who's a Christian and
what it means what the spectrumof Christianity is. You either
have way less Christians thanyou thought there were, or if
you take a gracious approach,you realize that, yeah, me and
(34:44):
my conservative syncretists arewrong about some pretty big
things, but God is gracious andand we're in the kingdom.
But then that probably alsomeans that some of the liberals
that that we think are so badand are syncretistic in their
own ways, yeah, they're probablyin the kingdom too. And I know a
(35:05):
lot of people take a hard lineapproach and want to exclude
people, but I think at thispoint in my life, recognizing
that that God's grace is so bigthat that he was he was merciful
to me in my just evil andunmerciful heart, I think the
kingdom's a lot bigger than thanI thought it was as a
(35:28):
conservative Christian. Andthat's good for, for us, for
conservative Christians, becausewe've got a lot of things wrong.
We're a great community in a lotof ways, but we've got a lot of
things that we need to work on.Anyway, if you would like to
know more about my experienceswith, coming to this
(35:50):
realization, if you want to hearan argument for why the ends
don't justify the means, if youwant to see how God has
uncovered, my, unmercifulactions and and led me to some
realizations of how I wassyncretistic and, as well as
specific applications of of,ends justifying the means, like,
(36:14):
you know, is it moral to lie tosave lives?
Or what about ectopicpregnancies? Specific
conundrums? Then check out mybook. It's called The 80%. You
can get that on Kindle or youcan get it for free.
I'll put a link here, because Ireally couldn't care about
selling it. I just would like toengage with people and and
(36:35):
hopefully be able to have adialogue and, figure out where
I'm wrong and where I'm not.Then, hopefully, that can spur
people on to to change and andtowards good. Well, anyway, at
this time, all theserealizations kinda coming to a
head, a friend sent me a debateon pacifism. This debate was at
(36:59):
Harvard and it was with somesome pretty smart people who had
done a lot of research andtaught at seminaries and and
other sorts of things.
And I didn't really wanna watchit. It was an hour and a half,
but my life was pretty busy atthis point. And, but at the same
time, I I had really there'dbeen a lot of things that were
(37:22):
swirling around in my head and Irealized that I was, I had some
pretty big blind spots. And soseeing those blind spots, I, I
recognize that maybe I shouldhear this video out. I really
think the Just War guys aregonna win.
I don't think the pacifists havea chance. Right? Because they're
passive, if right? So, I'lllisten to it, hour and a half of
(37:46):
my time, and then I can say, Iknow that I, I stand against
pacifism and here's why. Getthat out of the way.
Needless to say, I watched thedebate and I think the pacifist
won, hands down. And the casefor pacifism was no different
(38:07):
than it was a decade before whenI had heard pieces of it. What
was different was that Irecognized my syncretism, and I
recognized my biases, my mypreconceptions, my nationalism,
all these things that just thatmade me say, well, Jesus didn't
mean that because that wouldn'twork. Or, well, that was that
(38:30):
must have been a metaphor. Or,well, Jesus was the messiah, so
he had to do things differently.
Right? That's not prescriptivefor my life. All of those things
that that I had used to excuseaway the the teachings of Jesus,
just weren't there. I had noexcuses. And when I saw the case
(38:54):
side by side and without mybiases to to just shut down the
evidence, I I I had to side withpacifism.
I wasn't convinced from an hourand a half video, but I
recognized that this this issuewas a lot more complex than I
(39:17):
had thought it was. I contactedthe the group who had arranged
this debate. I believe they'recalled the Followers of the Way.
And, I mean, within, like, anhour, I got a response. And one
of the first things that I wastold to do is go read the
politics of Jesus.
And so I read that book by JohnHoward Yoder, and it it made so
(39:40):
many things click. And thefloodgates opened, and that's
how I got started on thisjourney. So, I'll put a link to,
to the debate. I'll put a, linkto the Followers of the Way page
so you can contact them if you'dlike. And also I'll put a link
here to my summary of JohnHoward Yoder's book.
(40:01):
I I did that for myself so thatI didn't have to go back and
and, read it over and overagain, but so I can just pull
out what what was important. Soif a shorter summary and maybe,
hopefully, a little bit easierto understand, if that would be
beneficial to you, I'll put alink here to that as well. So,
(40:23):
that's that's kind of the storyof how I began the journey to
pacifism or Christian nonviolence. And if you're from the
West or if you're from theUnited States like me, then I
hope the story will be helpfulto you. Because before you begin
the journey of of looking at thecase for Christian non violence,
(40:46):
you really need to assess yourmoral framework and
presuppositions first.
Because if you come to to thetable, with with all of these
excuses and without evaluatingand and making sure that you're
neutral, you're you're gonnashut down a case for anything,
(41:06):
but pacifism included. And whenyou do that, when you're able to
neutralize, your position, thenI would encourage you to kind of
come back and listen to futureepisodes as, as we lay out the
case for pacifism, and then getinto some rebuttals and things
(41:27):
as well. So, one other thing Iwant you to know before we we
end this podcast and begin, thethe cumulative case for pacifism
is that you do need tounderstand this is a cumulative
case. And what that means isthere is not one argument,
(41:48):
there's not one Bible verse foror against Christian nonviolence
that I can show you to makethings, go away, to make you
able to to just choose 1 or theother, hands down. There is not
one philosophical argument.
There there really isn'tanything I can give you that's
(42:10):
going to to help you one way orthe other to be sure about this.
So it's a cumulative case, whichmeans that you're gonna have to
weigh all of the evidence. Youmight hear something that
doesn't sound very convincingand you say, really? If that's
what you got going for Christiannon violence, then count me out
because I need to be convinced.Right?
(42:33):
Well, that's not really fair.And let me give you an example
why that is. So you've got let'ssay you got a crime. Somebody
commits murder. Somebody's ontrial.
You hear the prosecutor. Theprosecutor says, this guy
doesn't have an alibi. You say,so what? It doesn't matter that
he doesn't have an alibi. Thatdoesn't prove that he did it.
(42:56):
I'm out of here. He's notguilty. Well, no. That doesn't
make any sense. Not having analibi is not a big deal in and
of itself.
But as a part of a cumulativecase, it can be a huge deal. If
you found out that this this guyhad gunpowder, residue in his
hand, he had just had a fightwith the deceased, Somebody
(43:17):
matching his description wasseen in the area running away
from the scene of the crimeright after the crime was
committed. All those sorts ofpieces of evidence kind of come
into line. Then if he can'texplain where he was, if he
doesn't have proof of where hewas during the time that the
crime was committed, then nothaving an alibi is a huge deal.
(43:39):
And that's the thing about acumulative case.
Cumulative cases, any individualpiece that you isolate probably
isn't a huge deal. Some arebigger deals than others, but in
and of themselves, individualpieces of evidence don't really
have much weight. And that'swhat I feel a lot of people do
(44:02):
when they try to undermine thecase for Christian nonviolence.
They try to undercut this onepiece of evidence, or or they
they say, look. This thing thatthey say for Christian
nonviolence, that's notcompelling.
Great. You're right. It's notsupposed to be. But when you add
them all up, what is the weightof the circumstance? What is the
(44:23):
weight of of, the evidence thatwe have?
Now, unlike the example ofcrime, and and in the United
States, we have this 12 jurors,and they have to be unanimous
and that the person was guiltybeyond a reasonable doubt.
Great. That's awesome. We don'twant innocent people to be put
(44:45):
in jail, even if that meansletting some guilty people go
free. I like that.
But what you have to understandhere is that we've gotta have a
conviction. And this isn't thisisn't a court of law in the
United States. You have to liveyour life, which means you have
to convict some ideology. Andeither you're going to go with
(45:06):
fight and say, no. Fighting is away of faithfulness.
Right? That that's what it meansto be faithful at times, that we
fight and we kill and, we useviolence, we use coercion. Or
you have to convict Christiannon violence. You have to say,
no, Fighting is off the table.That's not faithfulness.
(45:28):
You gotta make a choice. It'sone or the other. And so since
that's the case, we're notlooking for beyond a reasonable
doubt here to prove our case. Weare looking for 51%. If we can
prove to you at this podcast orthrough all other, individuals
(45:49):
who are espousing Christiannonviolence, if we can show you
with 50.0001% certainty thatpacifism or Christian
nonviolence is the weightiercase, then you are more rational
to change your ideology tononviolence and to give up just
(46:15):
war theory or whatever it isthat you cling to.
Right? Anything over 50% friendChristian nonviolence, and we
win the case, and you are morerational to side with us. So
keep that in mind as you startlistening to future episodes.
That is something that so manypeople miss, and I understand
(46:35):
that when you hold to anideology, usually, I think Kum
said, like a paradigm shift.Right?
It it takes a lot there's a hugetipping point to get you to
change ideologies, and Iunderstand that. And that's why
I wanted to lead with my storybecause it's very important that
you get yourself to neutral.Because it shouldn't require a
(46:57):
huge tipping point of 90%certainty for you to become, for
you to adhere to non violence.It's to take 51 percent,
certainty. So keep that in mindas you listen to future
podcasts.
I think that's pretty much allfor now. I'm excited to get into
(47:18):
the next episode, which will be,the biblical case for Christian
nonviolence. And that's all fornow. So peace, because I'm a
pacifist. Can I say it?
Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the 4th Way
podcast. We're called the 4thway because we believe that
there are 4 ways to live lifeand to respond to situations,
fight, flight, freeze, or faith.Now a lot of people really only
think that there are 3, fight,flight, or to run away, and
freeze to be passive. Mostpeople think that fighting is
(00:31):
ultimately the faithful way.However, we here at the 4th Way
podcast believe that JesusChrist taught us something else,
that faithfulness comes througha lifestyle that is nonviolent.
So, in this series, we are goingto be talking a lot about
nonviolence. In this episode inparticular, I want to share my
story with you because my comingto to a position of nonviolence
(00:57):
is something that absolutelychanged my life. It highlighted
so many biases in my life, andit removed a lot of biblical
dissonance from me and allowedme to accept the words of Christ
for the words of Christ insteadof having to make everything
into a metaphor or conundrums.So I'm excited to share my story
with you today, and, I thinkthat it would be very beneficial
(01:20):
to you, especially if you comefrom the background that I've
come from, which is a backgroundof conservative Christianity. I
think that my story willprobably help you to uncover
some of the biases that you mayhave and and some of the
presuppositions that you have.
And, that's gonna be veryimportant because in subsequent
(01:41):
episodes, we will be making apositive case for nonviolence,
for Christian nonviolence. And,it is extremely important that
you have your biases in check sothat you can take an objective
look at the information. So,hopefully, my story helps to
uncover some of that in you.And, here it goes. So I was
(02:04):
born, raised, and, I wouldprobably still consider myself
to be a conservative Christian.
And I I really am thankful formy conservative Christian
community and for all of theopportunities that I had. The
(02:25):
conservative group, in inPennsylvania, I'm not from the
Bible Belt of the South, but,kind of a Bible Belt up in
Pennsylvania. We've got a lot ofAmish and Mennonites and Bible
churches and and those sorts of,types of Christianity up there.
And I went to a Christianschool. I went to a Christian
(02:47):
college after I graduated frommy Christian school.
I was at church usually at least2 times a week, sometimes 3. If
we had a missions conference,maybe every day of the week. I
taught at a Christian schoolright out of college, and then I
taught at another Christianschool after that. And, now I'm
(03:08):
a missionary in Romania. So, mylife has just been saturated
with Christianity, andspecifically, the conservative
brand.
To give you kind of a anunderstanding of what
conservative Christianity meansfor those of you who may not
necessarily have have too muchexposure to that, I'll I'll give
(03:30):
you a few glimpses of of whatthat was like. So in our church,
which was also our school, wehad a Christian flag, And that
was extremely normal to me, butI've come to realize that it's
really weird to a lot of people.A lot of people don't know that
(03:53):
there's such a thing as aChristian flag. And there's
there's a pledge to thisChristian flag too. Let's see if
I can remember it.
I pled pledge allegiance to no.I don't remember it. I could get
it if, if somebody started me onit. Anyway, there is a pledge to
(04:13):
the Christian flag. Go ahead andlook it up if you don't believe
me.
But, we also had an Americanflag right on the the opposite
side of the Christian flag, Andthat was very normal for me too,
this this idea of patriotism,going hand in hand with with
(04:35):
Christianity. Because in ourminds, we were a or are a
Christian nation. And so theAmerican flag and the Christian
flag are side by side, and wewould say that the Christian
flag is dominant, but both ofthose things go pretty hand in
(04:56):
hand. And and we really upholdAmerican patriotism about as
much as we uphold Christianityand, and that sort of thing. So
that was pretty normal for me,but I know now that it's really
not that normal for a lot ofpeople.
(05:18):
We also, being conservative, wewere also very big into, like,
the Puritan work ethic and thisemphasis on personal
responsibility. We we workedhard, or we at least like the
idea of working hard. We youknow, this is the the area for,
(05:42):
like, Amish barn raisings andfarmers just saturated with with
farmers who work dawn till dusk.So, there was this just idea of
personal responsibility,personal effort, and that
extended into our moral lives aswell. There is this idea that
(06:05):
you are to be morallyindependent as well, and that
whatever happens to you in lifewe wouldn't say this, but
looking back, I I think we kindof have this understanding that
a lot of times, the things thathappen to you are somewhat a
result of of your moral failingsor moral successes.
(06:30):
So that was that's kind ofsomething that stands out to me
as being a part of my myconservative culture. And then
something that doesn't reallyseem to to fit with Christianity
in retrospect, but somethingthat was a very big part of my
culture was gun culture. And, Ithink there's this idea kind of
(06:50):
playing off of our our personalresponsibility and individualism
that we really liked in ourchurch. I think guns kind of
represent that freedom a lot.You know, it's blaze your own
trail.
You know, that's kind of how thewest was won. That's how
territory was conquered. That'show we we had this manifest
(07:12):
destiny, and we we became aChristian nation through through
this independence and this thiswork and, all our efforts and
bravery and and exploration. Sogun culture was a very big part
of of my growing up. Tons ofpeople had guns.
(07:32):
I had guns. I loved to shootthem. Still like to shoot them.
I no longer hunt, but, I I loveguns. They're really fun to
shoot.
So there there's a lot of otherstuff that I could talk about in
terms of what conservativeChristianity was like, but those
three things, I think, are gonnabe very pertinent as as we take
(07:55):
a look at nonviolence. I thinkthose three things are gonna
come together. You'll see, maybein this episode as well as
future episodes. But, here'swhere I I really see some of
those big disconnects with mycommunity and some of the things
that we really failed at becauseof of these things that we
(08:17):
upheld that we thought were goodand maybe were to a certain
extent, but became idols andthings that blinded us to true
justice, holistic justice. Youknow, we maybe had a glimpse of
some aspects of justice and somegood things, but we had some
pretty big failings.
So two examples come to mind.First of all, my community
(08:44):
talked a lot about personalresponsibility, and that
extended to, if somebody breaksinto my home, and I have a gun,
I'm gonna blast them. And, noregrets about that because that
moral failing is on them. Theyknow the consequences that
they're getting themselves into,potentially. And so, they come
(09:09):
into my house.
I'm not gonna ask questions.That puts my family at risk. I'm
just gonna blast the guy becauseI don't know if he has a gun. I
don't know what his intentionsare, and I'll just shoot him.
Okay.
Maybe maybe some of you can kindof understand that, but the
conversations get a lot weirderthan that. Because, for example,
(09:30):
you know, you'd also get thisadvice from people. Well, if
they're on your property and youshoot them, you better make sure
that they're dead, because ifthey're alive, they can come and
sue you. Kind of like the theliar liar scene that you see
where the, I think, a thieffalls on some kitchen knives in,
(09:51):
the home he's burglaring, and heends up suing the homeowner.
Apparently, I guess I don'tknow.
I don't know if that's an oldwives' tale or something, but
apparently that can happen. Andso, advice was given within our
community, somewhat jokingly,but not really, that if somebody
comes onto your property, you'redefinitely gonna shoot them. And
(10:13):
if you shoot them, you shouldkill them. So somebody comes on
your property, just kill them.That was the point.
And they'd even say things like,if they're running away, you
better shoot them before theyget off your property, because
once they're off your property,then you're liable and that
that's gonna be a problem. Somake sure you kill the guy while
(10:34):
he's on your property. And inretrospect, I mean, that's not
just wrong, but that's that'ssad that that we were so
indifferent to human life. Butbecause of our emphasis on
individualism, and and Americanpull yourself up by your
(10:58):
bootstraps, and you you are yourown person, and you're
responsible for all thesethings. We refuse to take
responsibility for other peopletoo, and especially for our
enemies.
And the gospel just didn't touchthat aspect of our life. Our
American ideologies supersededour Christian ethic and the
(11:21):
ethic that Christ taught, tolove even enemies. So that's in
retrospect something that thatplayed out that was just very is
right now very strange to me,but it was just absolutely
normal and made complete senseback in the day. Another thing
that I recognize in retrospectis that we we really lacked
(11:44):
mercy and grace. We saw poorpeople, and if it was a poor
person from another country, wecould understand that because
they're not part of God'scountry, the United States.
They're not part of a Christiannation. And so the things that
(12:04):
kind of have befallen them, youknow, especially, let's say,
children in Africa who have hadevil governments and famines and
natural disasters or hurricanesin in, in other parts of the
world. We we get that. Tsunamis,we we can help take care of
(12:25):
that. We understand when whenacts of God happen to you, when
natural evil occurs.
We can help you. But people inour own community, the
impoverished, single mother,well, I mean, why did she get
pregnant out of wedlock at 15?That's that's her choice. She
(12:46):
should have known better.Regardless of somebody's
situation, they could havechosen to get an education.
They could have chosen topersist. And we just this this
idea of individualism and justthis blindness to how blessed so
(13:07):
many of us were in our familiesto have people who modeled
things and provided us withresources. We were just
absolutely blind and still are.My community is is very blind to
to mercy and grace, particularlyto people who are who who we
(13:29):
perceive should be responsiblefor themselves. We don't do well
trying to understand andempathize with systemic issues,
and that is a huge problem inour community.
Well, I would say that if I hadto summarize what what was kind
(13:55):
of conveyed to me, my basicunderstanding of what my job as
a Christian was to be, it was toavoid secular culture, while
imposing what we considered tobe Christian culture on people.
So that family who who wasimpoverished because of their
(14:20):
bad choices, we're not gonnareally show them mercy and
grace. We're gonna kinda avoidtouching that and being tainted
by that. We're gonna avoid thatsecular culture, though, that
that evil, but we'll try totouch it with the gospel. And if
we can get them to becomesanctified, sacred, if we can
(14:42):
get them to become a part of ourChristian culture, then we can
touch them.
And, so that's why a lot of whatwe focus on wasn't really mercy
to our community. If we didanything, it was revivals or
evangelism outreaches and andthings that focused on the soul,
(15:06):
which are wonderful. But, youknow, James and and some of
these other passages, Micah,have a lot of things to say
about mercy towards people, Jobespecially. You know, mercy is
not just, hey. I'll pray foryou, and, hey.
I care about your soul. Butmercy is is very physically
(15:28):
focused as well. And there's agreat book on this by by Harvey
Khan. I I forget the name of it,but I just read it. And he, man,
he synthesizes the gospel andand talks about how we have just
castrated the gospel by takingoff this this physical part of
it, and we have we haveseparated the sacred and the
(15:50):
secular.
And that's that's exactly whatmy community did. And at the
same time, we were we weretrying to impose our Christian
will on others. And the way thatwe did this, the reason that we
had our Christian flag rightnext to an American flag was not
(16:13):
only because we were a Christiannation, but because our job was
to keep this a Christian nationand to expand that nation, to
expand the the sacredness ofthis nation. And so that's why
during president Clinton'saffair with Monica Lewinsky, we
(16:36):
decried how horrible it was thata leader of ours would would
dare to do such a thing, to becorrupt in that manner, because
we wanted to uphold familyvalues. Now we're a little bit
hypocritical there because wehad lost the divorce the divorce
battle and lots of people thatwe knew were divorced, so we
(16:59):
didn't wanna rail on it too hardbecause we didn't wanna step on
toes.
But so when we said upholdfamily values, we mean democrats
who do bad things or gay people,because we didn't know any of
those at the moment. You know,that's what we meant by
upholding family values, and wewanted to impose that through
(17:22):
legislation. We wanted toimpeach Clinton, and we wanted
to ban same sex marriage, whileat the same time just kind of
giving giving divorce a pass. Sowe kinda had some some issues
there, but we didn't wanna losemore ground. We defended the
pledge of allegiance and thisthe phrase under god on, and
(17:47):
things on our currency, and andin pledges and ten Commandments
and court houses and all kindsof other things.
We did not want to lose ground.We do not want our Christian
nation to lose its Christianityin our minds. So so we were very
(18:07):
big into into imposingChristianity on the government.
We We wanted Christian prayer inschools, and I say Christian
prayer because that's that'sexactly what I mean. We didn't
want prayer in schools.
We wanted Christian prayer. Godforbid a Muslim or a Satanist
try to put prayer in schools.That would just that would be
terrible. But we wantedChristian prayer because we're a
(18:30):
Christian nation, and we wannaimpose Christianity. We wanna do
it through legislation, throughforce, through the the arm of
the government.
We this is something I onlyrealized recently, but, you
know, our view on immigrants waswas not good and has probably
gotten even worse, in recentyears because we thought that
(18:53):
they were a threat to ourcountry. And there are lots of
there are lots of narratives asto why we think immigrants are
problems. But, ultimately, I'vediscovered that I think it's it
goes back to this Christiannation idea, and the issue isn't
(19:14):
necessarily that immigrantswould come in and potentially
take our jobs. Maybe that'strue. Maybe they would hurt the
economy.
Maybe they would suck up someresources. Okay. And that
impedes my comfort a little bit.But that's that's sort of hard
to rationalize with withChrist's idea of mercy and
helping the destitute and andthose sorts of things. What I
(19:37):
realized though is our mainissue with immigrants coming in
is that it waters down thisChristian nation, because you
have people coming in from othercountries that are, Muslims,
Buddhists, whatever else.
(19:59):
I don't know what the what themain immigrants are to the
United States, but we have bigproblems with that. And
conservative Christians usuallyare are, Protestant in nature.
We've got, Baptists and certainbrands of Presbyterians and,
bible churches and and all thosesorts of of, institutions. And
(20:24):
so even individuals coming fromSouth America or Central
America, well, they're notreally Christians because
they're Catholic. Now, I I don'tbelieve that.
Catholics, who believe thegospel are Christians, and there
are many of them. And there aremany protestants who don't
believe the gospel, who are notChristians. But growing up,
(20:48):
there's this idea that thatreally the only Christians are
evangelicals, the only trueChristians. And so Catholics
weren't Christians, and that'swho's coming from South America
and Central America and Mexico.And, you know, and especially
there, maybe maybe someCatholics, maybe some European
Catholics would be trueChristians.
(21:10):
Maybe. But in South America,where they've got all those,
like, weird, older nativeconcepts that they've kind of
incorporated into theirCatholicism, nah. They're not
really Christians. So we can'treally let them come into our
country and water down thisChristian nation, because that's
(21:32):
what we are. We are a Christiannation, and God has entrusted
that to us.
And we need to preserve it, andwe need to expand it. And so
that's where where my childhoodand and my values kind of led
me. They led me to that sort ofview of the world. Well, 2015,
(21:56):
2016, president Trump, not notpresident then, but, Trump comes
onto the scene. And when I seehim and I hear the way that he
talks and I listen to to what hesays, I just am utterly
appalled.
And so much more has come outsince 2015 that make it even
(22:22):
worse, but I was I was justappalled. And you've got a guy
who lies, who surrounds himselfwith people who lie, who makes
derogatory comments againstothers, against immigrants,
against women, against poorpeople, against his enemies.
He's aggressive with lots ofpeople, including nuclear
(22:49):
nations like North Korea. He'sarrogant. He has itching ears.
He he needs to to always becomplimented. He can't stand not
being, praised. He is his sexualexploits are just, I mean, many,
and he's he's on, what, his 3rdwife, Something like that. He's
(23:12):
he's greedy. And the list couldjust go on and on and on.
And there is nothing in Trumpthat is that is praiseworthy.
Other than now that he's beenpresident for a while, he does
follow-up on on a lot of thethings that he says he's going
to do in terms of of policy.But, you know, other than that,
(23:37):
just his character is ishorrendous. And there was such a
clear line for me that that thisman was evil, and it I just
didn't know what to do in thiselection because, at the same
(23:59):
time, I I couldn't vote forsomebody like Hillary for
several reasons, but it'sparticularly because of the
abortion issue. I mean, abortionis just objectively wrong, and I
think I can prove that.
And it's, I I couldn't vote forsomebody who would accept and
(24:20):
promote and advance such anegregious evil, but Trump was
such an egregious evil too. Andit baffled me that that my
community, the community that Iloved and still love, just
pretty much embraced Trump withopen arms, for the most part.
And especially once we saw thatTrump was going to be the person
(24:43):
who definitely was the guy thatwe had to go with if we were
gonna vote Republican, if weweren't gonna vote 3rd party, if
we wanted to win. Well, that guywas gonna be Trump. And at that
point, not only were weendorsing him, but we defended
him at every turn, includingsome of his, just egregious
(25:09):
evils.
And that that boggled my mindthat our community would embrace
him and promote him and defendhim. And, but I didn't know what
to do, because I didn't knowwhat other choice we had. Didn't
I have to vote for the lesser of2 evils? At the same time, I was
(25:34):
kind of rehashing an oldconundrum that I had thought
about for years and could neverreally figure out what the
answer was. And, it it's thisM*A*S*H conundrum, the, a
conundrum from the, TV, seriesM*A*S*H.
And in this episode, you've gota bunch of US army personnel and
(25:56):
and South Korean civilians onthis bus. They're driving, and
all of a sudden, they theyrealize that there's a North
Korean patrol around. And theystop the bus, and everybody's
absolutely quiet. Well,unfortunately, there's a baby on
the bus, an infant, who startsto cry. And one of the US
(26:18):
soldiers says, shut that babyup.
And so the mother can'trationalize with her infant
child, She has to choose. Do Ido I quiet the child? And by
quieting the child, the only waythat I can do that is to push
its face into my clothes andsmother it and the child will
(26:39):
die. Or do I let the child cry?If I do that, I'm sure we're
gonna be found.
And when we're found, I knowwe're gonna be executed. Do I
kill one life to save 50, or doI, through my inaction, cause 50
(27:00):
people to die? 51 people withthe baby. Right? What, what do
you do in that situation?
And that was a conundrum to mefor so long. And, I asked a lot
of people for help on this one,friends, family, religious
leaders. I probably asked about50 different people. And, I got
(27:22):
2 types of responses usually.The first response was, I I
think if I were in thatsituation, I don't think I would
kill the child.
I just I couldn't do thatmyself. But if somebody else did
it, I don't think I could judgethem for that. I don't think
(27:44):
that I could say that that iswrong. I just couldn't
personally do it. That wasprobably the majority of
answers.
It was it was ambiguous. Thenthe other group said, well, I
guess you you kinda have to doit, don't you? Because or you
have to kill the child becauseit would just be wrong to let 50
(28:05):
people die. You have to kill thechild. It's it's unfortunate.
It's sad. It's the lesser of 2evils. That's something you
gotta do. In all of this, I hadonly one person from my
conservative Christiancommunity, only one, who said
immediately, you can't kill thechild. That's that's wrong.
(28:26):
Like, those 51 lives are inGod's hands, and you can't take
that into your own. One personsaid that, and it wasn't me,
unfortunately. It took me 5 or 6years of thinking through that
issue until I came to a pointwhere I said, you know what?
(28:48):
That that one person might onlybe one person, but that one
person makes a whole lot ofsense. And it was it was during
this time that I I realized thatmy community, the community who
is is good and loving andsupportive and and, fantastic in
(29:08):
so many ways, has a huge, hugeblind spot.
And we, for the past, probably15 to 20 years, have been
bemoaning this moral relativismthat our culture has. You know,
it's good for you, it's good foryou, it's good for me, it's good
for me. Yet, when it came tocertain issues, our pet issues,
(29:33):
issues where we felt we had tomaintain control, or issues
where we could sympathize withor issues where we could
sympathize with somebody. Now wecouldn't sympathize with a
mother who made a choice to havesex outside of wedlock and now
doesn't feel like she cansupport her baby. We can't
sympathize with that because wewould never do that.
And so, of course she shouldn'tabort. She needs to deal with
(29:56):
the consequences. But, we couldimagine that were we an American
soldier on a bus in a war zoneand there was a child crying, if
we were in that situation, we wecan understand why you'd kill
(30:17):
that child. And so, or ifthere's an election where you
have 2 evil people, we canunderstand to maintain control
of the situation and and asituation that we can empathize
with, we can understand choosingan evil. So, we were moral
(30:37):
relativists too.
We're consequentialists, and andby that, I just mean the ends
justified the means for us incertain situations, not in
abortion, but in presidentialelections? Yeah. Of course. We
had to maintain power. We had tomaintain the Christian nation.
We had to advance the Christiannation, and so we had to pick a
(30:58):
lesser evil. Well, needless tosay, as as these things were
circling around in my head, Ireally began to examine my life.
I had lived in Mexico for 2years, right out of college, and
I remember walking into aCatholic church and seeing these
(31:20):
idols. And I do mean idols, notnot icons, but, idols from local
local Mexicans who, you know,100 of years ago, the Catholics
came there, put guns to theirhead, and said, convert or die.
And so they converted.
Right? They they put on a goodshow, but they also incorporated
their local deities into thechurch. And so they were
(31:43):
syncretists. They they wereCatholics in appearance, and
they went to a Catholic churchand did mass, but they were
really bringing in their otherreligion too. And I remember
feeling so sorry for thosepeople that the gospel was just
not embraced in their livesbecause they had these idols.
(32:06):
But what I was realizing at thispoint in my life now, 10 years
after Mexico, was that I was asyncretist. My community was
syncretistic. For a lot of us,you know, that included idols of
wealth or comfort, selfinterest, pragmatism, you name
(32:30):
it. All those sort of politicalcontrol. Right?
We had we had lots of idols.They just weren't the physical
sort that you could see in thechurches. You couldn't see them
sitting up front on on pedestalsor anything, but you could see
them if you looked around. Youcould see them in people's
lives. You could see them inyour own life.
And, man, I was seeing idols. Iwas seeing idols in my life at
(32:52):
this point. And I recognizedthat it was ugly, and I was a
huge syncretist, and so was mycommunity. And there was just a
flood of emotions at that pointof, you know, I I cycle through
anger. Sometimes I get angrythat because certain things have
(33:15):
become so obvious to me becauseof God's gracious conviction in
my life that I just, when othersbelittle people or or are just
so unmerciful, it makes meangry.
And I have to fight that becausethat's evil and that's
unmerciful towards my owncommunity. And but by the grace
(33:37):
of god, I would still be asyncretist in those ways. And
but for the grace of god, I havemany things that will never be
uncovered that I'm syncretisticabout right now. So, I have to
to be careful of my anger.There's also sorrow.
(33:58):
There's a feeling of abandonmentor deception or or betrayal.
That's a better word. Feeling ofbetrayal from my community
because you question, well, Ithought these people were in my
life were so godly, but they'reso blind to to the syncretism
that we have. And you ask allsorts of questions and and try
(34:23):
to deal with with, how thatrelates to who's a Christian and
what it means what the spectrumof Christianity is. You either
have way less Christians thanyou thought there were, or if
you take a gracious approach,you realize that, yeah, me and
(34:44):
my conservative syncretists arewrong about some pretty big
things, but God is gracious andand we're in the kingdom.
But then that probably alsomeans that some of the liberals
that that we think are so badand are syncretistic in their
own ways, yeah, they're probablyin the kingdom too. And I know a
(35:05):
lot of people take a hard lineapproach and want to exclude
people, but I think at thispoint in my life, recognizing
that that God's grace is so bigthat that he was he was merciful
to me in my just evil andunmerciful heart, I think the
kingdom's a lot bigger than thanI thought it was as a
(35:28):
conservative Christian. Andthat's good for, for us, for
conservative Christians, becausewe've got a lot of things wrong.
We're a great community in a lotof ways, but we've got a lot of
things that we need to work on.Anyway, if you would like to
know more about my experienceswith, coming to this
(35:50):
realization, if you want to hearan argument for why the ends
don't justify the means, if youwant to see how God has
uncovered, my, unmercifulactions and and led me to some
realizations of how I wassyncretistic and, as well as
specific applications of of,ends justifying the means, like,
(36:14):
you know, is it moral to lie tosave lives?
Or what about ectopicpregnancies? Specific
conundrums? Then check out mybook. It's called The 80%. You
can get that on Kindle or youcan get it for free.
I'll put a link here, because Ireally couldn't care about
selling it. I just would like toengage with people and and
(36:35):
hopefully be able to have adialogue and, figure out where
I'm wrong and where I'm not.Then, hopefully, that can spur
people on to to change and andtowards good. Well, anyway, at
this time, all theserealizations kinda coming to a
head, a friend sent me a debateon pacifism. This debate was at
(36:59):
Harvard and it was with somesome pretty smart people who had
done a lot of research andtaught at seminaries and and
other sorts of things.
And I didn't really wanna watchit. It was an hour and a half,
but my life was pretty busy atthis point. And, but at the same
time, I I had really there'dbeen a lot of things that were
(37:22):
swirling around in my head and Irealized that I was, I had some
pretty big blind spots. And soseeing those blind spots, I, I
recognize that maybe I shouldhear this video out. I really
think the Just War guys aregonna win.
I don't think the pacifists havea chance. Right? Because they're
passive, if right? So, I'lllisten to it, hour and a half of
(37:46):
my time, and then I can say, Iknow that I, I stand against
pacifism and here's why. Getthat out of the way.
Needless to say, I watched thedebate and I think the pacifist
won, hands down. And the casefor pacifism was no different
(38:07):
than it was a decade before whenI had heard pieces of it. What
was different was that Irecognized my syncretism, and I
recognized my biases, my mypreconceptions, my nationalism,
all these things that just thatmade me say, well, Jesus didn't
mean that because that wouldn'twork. Or, well, that was that
(38:30):
must have been a metaphor. Or,well, Jesus was the messiah, so
he had to do things differently.
Right? That's not prescriptivefor my life. All of those things
that that I had used to excuseaway the the teachings of Jesus,
just weren't there. I had noexcuses. And when I saw the case
(38:54):
side by side and without mybiases to to just shut down the
evidence, I I I had to side withpacifism.
I wasn't convinced from an hourand a half video, but I
recognized that this this issuewas a lot more complex than I
(39:17):
had thought it was. I contactedthe the group who had arranged
this debate. I believe they'recalled the Followers of the Way.
And, I mean, within, like, anhour, I got a response. And one
of the first things that I wastold to do is go read the
politics of Jesus.
And so I read that book by JohnHoward Yoder, and it it made so
(39:40):
many things click. And thefloodgates opened, and that's
how I got started on thisjourney. So, I'll put a link to,
to the debate. I'll put a, linkto the Followers of the Way page
so you can contact them if you'dlike. And also I'll put a link
here to my summary of JohnHoward Yoder's book.
(40:01):
I I did that for myself so thatI didn't have to go back and
and, read it over and overagain, but so I can just pull
out what what was important. Soif a shorter summary and maybe,
hopefully, a little bit easierto understand, if that would be
beneficial to you, I'll put alink here to that as well. So,
(40:23):
that's that's kind of the storyof how I began the journey to
pacifism or Christian nonviolence. And if you're from the
West or if you're from theUnited States like me, then I
hope the story will be helpfulto you. Because before you begin
the journey of of looking at thecase for Christian non violence,
(40:46):
you really need to assess yourmoral framework and
presuppositions first.
Because if you come to to thetable, with with all of these
excuses and without evaluatingand and making sure that you're
neutral, you're you're gonnashut down a case for anything,
(41:06):
but pacifism included. And whenyou do that, when you're able to
neutralize, your position, thenI would encourage you to kind of
come back and listen to futureepisodes as, as we lay out the
case for pacifism, and then getinto some rebuttals and things
(41:27):
as well. So, one other thing Iwant you to know before we we
end this podcast and begin, thethe cumulative case for pacifism
is that you do need tounderstand this is a cumulative
case. And what that means isthere is not one argument,
(41:48):
there's not one Bible verse foror against Christian nonviolence
that I can show you to makethings, go away, to make you
able to to just choose 1 or theother, hands down. There is not
one philosophical argument.
There there really isn'tanything I can give you that's
(42:10):
going to to help you one way orthe other to be sure about this.
So it's a cumulative case, whichmeans that you're gonna have to
weigh all of the evidence. Youmight hear something that
doesn't sound very convincingand you say, really? If that's
what you got going for Christiannon violence, then count me out
because I need to be convinced.Right?
(42:33):
Well, that's not really fair.And let me give you an example
why that is. So you've got let'ssay you got a crime. Somebody
commits murder. Somebody's ontrial.
You hear the prosecutor. Theprosecutor says, this guy
doesn't have an alibi. You say,so what? It doesn't matter that
he doesn't have an alibi. Thatdoesn't prove that he did it.
(42:56):
I'm out of here. He's notguilty. Well, no. That doesn't
make any sense. Not having analibi is not a big deal in and
of itself.
But as a part of a cumulativecase, it can be a huge deal. If
you found out that this this guyhad gunpowder, residue in his
hand, he had just had a fightwith the deceased, Somebody
(43:17):
matching his description wasseen in the area running away
from the scene of the crimeright after the crime was
committed. All those sorts ofpieces of evidence kind of come
into line. Then if he can'texplain where he was, if he
doesn't have proof of where hewas during the time that the
crime was committed, then nothaving an alibi is a huge deal.
(43:39):
And that's the thing about acumulative case.
Cumulative cases, any individualpiece that you isolate probably
isn't a huge deal. Some arebigger deals than others, but in
and of themselves, individualpieces of evidence don't really
have much weight. And that'swhat I feel a lot of people do
(44:02):
when they try to undermine thecase for Christian nonviolence.
They try to undercut this onepiece of evidence, or or they
they say, look. This thing thatthey say for Christian
nonviolence, that's notcompelling.
Great. You're right. It's notsupposed to be. But when you add
them all up, what is the weightof the circumstance? What is the
(44:23):
weight of of, the evidence thatwe have?
Now, unlike the example ofcrime, and and in the United
States, we have this 12 jurors,and they have to be unanimous
and that the person was guiltybeyond a reasonable doubt.
Great. That's awesome. We don'twant innocent people to be put
(44:45):
in jail, even if that meansletting some guilty people go
free. I like that.
But what you have to understandhere is that we've gotta have a
conviction. And this isn't thisisn't a court of law in the
United States. You have to liveyour life, which means you have
to convict some ideology. Andeither you're going to go with
(45:06):
fight and say, no. Fighting is away of faithfulness.
Right? That that's what it meansto be faithful at times, that we
fight and we kill and, we useviolence, we use coercion. Or
you have to convict Christiannon violence. You have to say,
no, Fighting is off the table.That's not faithfulness.
(45:28):
You gotta make a choice. It'sone or the other. And so since
that's the case, we're notlooking for beyond a reasonable
doubt here to prove our case. Weare looking for 51%. If we can
prove to you at this podcast orthrough all other, individuals
(45:49):
who are espousing Christiannonviolence, if we can show you
with 50.0001% certainty thatpacifism or Christian
nonviolence is the weightiercase, then you are more rational
to change your ideology tononviolence and to give up just
(46:15):
war theory or whatever it isthat you cling to.
Right? Anything over 50% friendChristian nonviolence, and we
win the case, and you are morerational to side with us. So
keep that in mind as you startlistening to future episodes.
That is something that so manypeople miss, and I understand
(46:35):
that when you hold to anideology, usually, I think Kum
said, like a paradigm shift.Right?
It it takes a lot there's a hugetipping point to get you to
change ideologies, and Iunderstand that. And that's why
I wanted to lead with my storybecause it's very important that
you get yourself to neutral.Because it shouldn't require a
(46:57):
huge tipping point of 90%certainty for you to become, for
you to adhere to non violence.It's to take 51 percent,
certainty. So keep that in mindas you listen to future
podcasts.
I think that's pretty much allfor now. I'm excited to get into
(47:18):
the next episode, which will be,the biblical case for Christian
nonviolence. And that's all fornow. So peace, because I'm a
pacifist. Can I say it?
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