(20) S1E20 Rebuttal: Would You Really Allow an Intruder to Harm Your Family? (Part 2- the Practical)

• A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/
• Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751 
• The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne: https://www.amazon.com/Irresistible-Revolution-Updated-Expanded-Ordinary-ebook/dp/B00UF72BAK/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=irresistible+revolution&qid=1569093639&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
• What Would You Do?: https://www.amazon.com/What-Would-John-Howard-Yoder-ebook/dp/B00AAX11H8/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=john+howard+yoder&qid=1569093701&s=digital-text&sr=1-4
• Pablo Yoder's Testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOdGENdH1fo

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Episode Transcript

Derek (00:06):
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. This is the
second episode in our discussionof how pacifism deals with
violence done towards them ortheir family. Since this is such
an important topic, we are goingto begin with a lengthy recap of
the last part because somepeople might just jump into this

(00:30):
section right here, and, becauseit's the the practical section.
So we wanna make sure that youfirst understand what last
episode was about, which is,undercutting this this idea of
the moral legitimacy of evenasking this question. And in in
the last part, we started bydiscussing how this really is an

(00:55):
emotional argument to ask, well,what would pacifism do if
somebody comes in to harm yourfamily?
Because pacifism would let yourfamily get killed, therefore, it
must be wrong because I don'tlike that. That's a hard thing
to handle. And that emotionalargument just does not, does not
have moral validity. We canempathize with people who are

(01:18):
put in difficult situations, butemotional arguments are not good
arguments. And that's amplifiedby the fact that there's really
nothing, or or what I what Ithink is very little, to back
this emotional argument.
And that's proven by the firstfive episodes that we did, which

(01:38):
makes the positive case forChristian nonviolence. So even
if you wanted to start with thisemotional argument about how
difficult it would be to handlean intruder as a pacifist, that
might be a good starting pointto say this intuitively seems
wrong. But then you have to gothrough the biblical case, the
philosophical, the empirical,all of those things. And when we

(02:02):
take a look at all of thosethings, the weight is
significantly for nonviolence.So this emotional argument just
doesn't really have much of aleg to stand on logically.
And we discussed a few specificcircumstances that might help to
highlight how we know that thistype of thing doesn't undermine

(02:23):
a position. We talked about howthe difficulty of circumstances
doesn't justify something, thatwould be sinful even if we can
empathize with it. And the onethat we've talked to, talked
about several times through alot of these episodes is this
idea of prostitution and lookedspecifically at the story of Les

(02:44):
Mis, in one of our earlierepisodes talking about how even
if somebody's in the most direof circumstances, we don't think
that prostitution is legitimate,even to feed one's family. While
we can empathize with theprostitute and while we can see
them as not only, not onlysomebody who's in sin, but maybe

(03:05):
even primarily somebody who's avictim, it doesn't mean that we
condone the sin. ConservativeChristians also would not make
any leeway for abortion.
And we would say, you know, thatthat poor mother in some faraway
land who is starving to death,and her other 8 children are

(03:27):
starving to death, and she'spregnant, and she knows that one
more mouth to feed is going tokill some of them, we would say
that she's not legitimate incarrying out an abortion. Or if
if she doesn't have the medical,facilities to to handle things
well, and her life might be indanger. We would say that, well,

(03:48):
no. Abortion is the taking oflife, of innocent human life,
and that's not justified in anycircumstance while we might be
able to empathize with her. Wealso looked at one that I think,
you know, in those first twoexamples, you might be able to
find some individuals, even inthe conservative realm, who
would say, well, I I couldlegitimize those things in

(04:09):
certain circumstances.
So we also threw in in one ofthe more, the easier ones to
make that nobody would agreewith. We kinda looked at the
donner party event in, in theOld Testament, where you've got
Jerusalem besieged and 2neighbors who agree to trade

(04:30):
their kids. One day, they'd killand eat one of their kids, and
on the next day, they'd kill andeat another of their kids. And
we said that it doesn't matterhow bad the situation is.
Starving to death is more moralor is the moral thing to do,
because choosing to murder andeat your kid or anybody else's

(04:52):
kid is just not moral.
And there are more importantthings in life as a Christian
than life itself. And that isthat is holiness, and that is
that is love. And to kill andeat your kid or somebody else's
kid is not holy, and it is notlove. So regardless of of how

(05:13):
much we can empathize withsomebody's particular plight,
morality is not determined bythe emotions of circumstance,
and we can't use that to justifysin. I I also tried to show in
the last part how it seems to methat that a lot of people who
ask this question about anintruder really aren't aren't

(05:37):
trying to uphold life all thatmuch.
I don't know anybody who takesall of the possible
preventative, nonlethal measuresbefore they advocate violence.
They might have locks on theirdoors. Maybe they have an alarm
system, but they don't have alot of other things. They don't
have gates. They don't havebarking dogs.

(05:59):
They don't have floodlights ormotion sensor lights. They don't
have video cameras. They don'thave tasers, and the list could
go on. The creativity of nonlethal means is, is endless,
and, most people pretty quicklyresort to violent means as an

(06:20):
option. And we we see this veryclearly, at least in the United
States, where people tip theirhands to their willingness to
spend lots and lots of money onincreasing the lethal means for
response to violence rather thanspending money on people's
health, including mental health,and positive justice sorts of

(06:40):
care that are more preventative.
We like armed guards and armedteachers harsher sentences with
people in prison for longerterms than we like that more
than we like universal healthcare, more money towards mental
health care, better screeningsand licensing procedures for
guns, non lethal defensemechanisms in schools, etcetera.

(07:02):
We really show that we don'tvalue life all that much,
particularly when it's the lifeof somebody who who we deem not
worthy of it. So that's that's aa recap of the last part, which
brings us to today, and probablythe part that most people are
gonna be interested in, which iswhere we put the moral reasoning

(07:25):
and and enemy love, to the sidea bit. And maybe not the enemy
love so much. We'll definitelybe touching on that.
But we're gonna address thepractical handling of, well, how
does enemy love actually look?How does it play out in a
scenario, where somebody'scoming in to harm you or your

(07:46):
family? For the most part, I amgoing to be just going through
John Howard Yoder Yoder's bookcalled What Would You Do? It's a
really good book, and it's it'sone of the shortest books, you
know, on on the pacifist readinglist that I would recommend. And
it's it's fantastic, and it'salso really interesting because

(08:08):
other than the first sectionwhere Yoder kind of goes through
some assumptions, most of thebook is, is really anecdotal
essays from individuals or aboutindividuals who faced violent
situations with nonviolence andhow that turned out.
So let's jump right in. Yoderargues that there are 5 major

(08:32):
assumptions. I think Yoder Yodermentioned 6, but I'm gonna
highlight the 5 that I think areparticularly applicable. He
highlights 5 big ideas and andassumptions and such that
individuals who ask thisquestion, what would you do, 5
things that, we need to pull outof that. Yoder mentions that the

(08:54):
first main assumption thatpeople have when they say, what
would you do, is that theoutcome is really fixed without
my use of violence.
If I don't use violence, myfamily will die. That's the
assumption. Because when whenthey pose it to pacifists, they
say, well, what would you do?And the assumption is the

(09:14):
pacifist either has to say, Iwould just stand there, or they
have to use violence. I mean,what else is on on the table?
Because we know that if youdon't use violence, something
bad is going to happen. But whatYoder points out is that this
fails to allow for agency. Itfails to allow for agency of the

(09:35):
aggressor, and this idea thatthey can change their mind and
be impacted by by things. Itfails to allow for the agency of
the victim, as if they don'thave a say in how things go or,
any any things that they mightdo to deter the attacker. And it
also, limits your agency and allof the choices that you have on

(10:00):
the table in terms of of howthings might play out.
And one of the main issues thatYoder has with this is that it's
self fulfilling. If I tellmyself that there are no
choices, then there are less,it's less likely that, there
will be other choices thatpresent themselves to you in

(10:21):
your mind. You're not gonna bevery creative about trying to
solve a situation if you limityourself to 2 choices. You're
not gonna look for other ways.Easy solutions quell creativity.
The the second thing, and itkind of goes a little bit along
with determinism, but it's thisidea that, I can assume that I

(10:44):
have omniscience, that I knowwhat the attacker is gonna do,
but also that I know what myviolence is going to do, that I
know that my violence is goingto be successful, or that I know
that my violence isn't going tomake the situation worse. I am

(11:05):
presuming omniscience over thevictim's wishes. If the victim
is my family, I might have a agood idea of what their wishes
are. But if there's anotheranother victim, how do I know
that they're not nonviolent andthat they wouldn't want the
enemy to be loved? So I Ipresume to know the victim's
wishes.
I also presume omniscience inknowing God's will in this

(11:28):
situation. Now you take a lookat at, somebody like Jesus who
did not want to suffer,recognize that this was the
greatest injustice happening tohim as he went to the cross, but
also recognize that in this, Godwanted him to love his enemies
and lay down his life, and outof that came the greatest good

(11:49):
possible. We have otherexamples. Now I don't I don't
think, the example of Joseph Idon't think Joseph had too much
ability to fight 11 of hisbrothers off. But, you know, in
in Joseph's situation, had hebeen able to fight, should
should he have, or had he knownGod's perfect will that him

(12:10):
going to Egypt would be thesalvation of his his family and
the lineage.
You know, maybe Joseph'swillingness to, to allow
violence to come to him wouldhave been something that Joseph
should have submitted to had hehad 2 options, violence or

(12:32):
nonviolence, on the table. Pointis, there are very clear lines
of reasoning in the Bible that,say, hey. Look, Christians.
You're gonna suffer like Christsuffered. And there are also
lines of reasoning that say, Godwill bring good even out of
evil, and we can trust him inthat.
And so when we say, I'm gonnakill the attacker because that

(12:54):
is the greatest good, thatreally presumes some level of
omniscience that I know that Godcan bring, or that God wants me
to kill the attacker and becausethat's the that's the best thing
that God could bring out of it.I mean, one of the examples that
we talked about in one of theearliest episodes was the Amish

(13:15):
and how their sacrifice andtheir nonviolence, while it was
terrible and horrible, it ittouched millions of people's
lives. Now there is, of course,a big difference between me
going out and choosing tosacrifice somebody's life for

(13:37):
for good, versus when bad thingshappen, being willing not to
sacrifice holiness andrighteousness and, enemy love
for for people, and and thoseare 2 very different things. So
if somebody comes in to to harmmy family, I'm not going to I'm

(14:00):
not going to say, hey. Here yougo.
Kill my family because thatwould be a sacrifice for god.
That's not at all what I'msaying, but what I'm saying is
that, God calls us not to not tosacrifice our holiness for the
preservation of of life, and wecan trust God and His
omniscience to bring good out ofthat. And, we see over and over

(14:23):
again in the Bible that that istrue. Following in in the line
of reasoning, we come to pointnumber 3, which is this idea
that we perceive in thisquestion that we are in control.
So somewhat along withomniscience, we assume that the
outcome is in my control.
If I choose violence, I willsucceed. If I choose violence,

(14:47):
I'm not going to make thesituation worse. But, we know
that violent responses can oftenfail and can actually increase
the violence done as itinstigates more violence from
from an aggressor. We'll see oneexample, in in one of the
stories from Yoder's book, butone very clear example that's

(15:09):
not in the book is isBonhoeffer. And Bonhoeffer, if
you know his story, is he was anonviolent individual who,
supposedly then got into somesort of scheme to assassinate
Hitler.
Well, that scheme failed, and itactually ended up, doing some

(15:29):
some damaging things, not onlyto the individuals who are part
of the conspiracy, but in termsof how Hitler reacted and moved
forward, from there on out andhow he protected himself and was
determined. And and beyondfeeling like, this question,
assuming that we have control,it's also assuming that to have

(15:53):
control is what is a good thing.And we've we've highlighted
Philippians 2 over and over andover again, but when it comes to
having control or submitting towhat is right, we understand
that the model for us is Christ,which is giving up our rights

(16:13):
and submitting even to somethingthat seems foolish, like enemy
love, and foregoing our controlfor god's omniscience and
omnipotence. 4th point is that aa lot of times this question
ends up highlighting reallysomething that is that that

(16:34):
shows hypocrisy and selfinterest. Most of the times in
the scenario, the focus is onprotecting my family or my
neighbor, somebody who is is inmy group or like me.
And then in Yoder's book, he,you know, he says that, you
know, nobody ever says, man, Ireally have to, make sure that I

(16:57):
I take some action to protect,that Vietnamese family over
there who's being attacked by mycountry. Because, of course,
when when Yoder wrote this, itwas, you know, around or or
after the time of the VietnamWar. And his point is just that,
you know, you can insert anygroup of people you want today.

(17:17):
The immigrants, from Mexico,South America, whatever, any of
the countries that we'refighting, or bombing, using
drones on, we're all up in arms,and and we think it's terrible,
and we need to protect ourfamily. But when it comes to
even doing something minimal,like pressing on our government

(17:39):
in order to protect the familiesof people from other countries
who need it, especiallycountries that we perceive as
drains on our society or asenemies, yeah, we'll let that
go.
And Yoder shows that thisquestion often really is just
showing this in group mentalitythat we see, you know, when
Jesus addresses the Phariseeswho say, who's my neighbor? And

(18:03):
he responds with the parable ofthe Good Samaritan showing that
even the person that you hatethe most is your enemy. Well,
this question of what would youdo, which always focuses on, who
we think is our neighbor. Right?Our fellow countrymen who lives
in the same community as me orin the same household as me, it

(18:24):
really shows that, the intuitioncomes less from the protection
of life in general and more fromthe protection of what we
perceive as ours or our group.
And I in in one of the, previousepisodes, I think I think it was
episode 7, about Cyril and hisquestion of of protecting

(18:45):
friends, you know, I I kind ofpointed out that we have this
big hypocritical, blot on thethe conservative position, and
that the conservative positionsays that abortion is the modern
day holocaust, and it's worsethan the modern day, worse than

(19:05):
the holocaust because we'retalking about tens of millions
of innocent lives killed. Andthat's what we think. Right now,
there are abortions going on.There are innocent babies being
killed. Yet for some reason, wedon't feel this imminent weight
to use violence in order toprotect the unborn.

(19:28):
And while I agree we should notuse violence to protect the
unborn, that's because I'm apacifist. What excuse do people
have who are willing to kill fortheir family against against
aggressors? What excuse do theyhave for not using violence to
protect innocent human life? I Idon't know. I think that's a a

(19:52):
glaring problem, and I thinkpart of that answer is that
there is this hypocritical selfinterest inherent in the
question of what would you do,which always centers around what
would you do if somebody in yourfamily or somebody that you can
relate to is is being harmed.

(20:13):
And that, of course, will leadinto our final point, which is
this assumption of righteousnessor rightness that I have the
right to be the judge, jury, andexecutioner of the person who's
coming into my home. And,interestingly, Augustine would
have disagreed. Augustine, theguy who's, famous for really

(20:37):
popularizing just war and kindof formulating it, into
something that was accepted byChristianity, Augustine would
have said, no. You don't. Youlay down your life.
The only time you can kill yourenemy is in a position granted
by the state, like the army orsome sort of police force, if if
they would have had that, butthat was probably the army back

(21:00):
then. So some sort of positionfrom the state. And even then,
if you're gonna go kill somebodyin a position of the state, you
need to make sure that as youkill people, you're killing them
in love, whatever that means.Luther also disagreed with
personal defense. Now he was hewas okay with it for, you know,

(21:22):
protecting other citizens, butnot for protecting oneself.
And I'm really only highlightingthat because, it it doesn't
matter what what some peoplesay. But when you look at the
early church who's against allnon or all violence, and you
take somebody like Augustinewho's big on violence, and
popularizes it, but he's still,like, no. It's just terrible, if

(21:45):
we're gonna gonna use that forindividual, for individual
position. And we see all the wayup to the 12th century that even
soldiers would have to paypenance for killing in battle.
And we even look at thereformation when some people
would say that the churchcurrently gets, finally gets

(22:05):
purified again, and evensomebody like Luther really
questions self defense.
This idea that we can be judged,jury, and executioner, and
that's perfectly fine, that's arelatively new, concept. It it's
especially, an American concept.I I'm not sure how prevalent it

(22:27):
is in other parts of the world,but, yeah, that's that's new in
Christianity. And part of thatis is because of what Augustine
highlighted with, you know, howcan you love somebody when
you've got all these passionsgoing on as they're coming in,
and you're angry, you'refearful, all of these things.
It's it's nearly impossible tokill an intruder or an aggressor

(22:48):
with love.
And if you can't kill them withlove, then, certainly, you're
not killing them rightly. Andit's also because it going back
to point number 4, we recognizethat if somebody's coming to get
my family, then when I kill, I Ihave no hope in being objective
in the situation. I'm gonna killout of, often, preventatively. I

(23:14):
don't know what the intent ofthe aggressor is, but he's in my
home and my family's in closeproximity, and I'm not gonna
take the chance. And I prejudgethe intruder.
I prejudge the aggressor, and Iend up killing and judging, not
knowing what their true intentwas and not knowing if I could
use some other means, but doingthis out of a passion to protect

(23:37):
my own. It's just impossible tobe an objective judge, jury, and
executioner when the nature ofthe event is is so infused with
self interest. I think Yoderdoes a pretty good job of of
highlighting a lot ofassumptions that most of us
wouldn't even think about, and Ithink those are are very good

(24:00):
things to to dwell on as welisten to some of the essays and
stories of individuals who havepondered nonviolence or
experienced nonviolence anddiscussing how to act and why to
act. So I am going to begin withjust some quotes from the essay

(24:21):
section that Yoder goes through.And I probably most of the
names, nobody will recognize,but he does have an essay by by,
Tolstoy, which you may know.
And so we'll we'll begin withTolstoy, which is the first
essay that Yoder puts in there.And rather than grouping by
idea, I'm actually going to justmove through in the order that

(24:44):
you can find these quotes in thebook, so that if you do get the
book, you can kind of followalong and and know where to find
these. Quote 1 by Tolstoy.Tolstoy says, there are actions
which are morally impossible,just as others are physically
impossible. As a man cannot lifta mountain and as a kindly man

(25:06):
cannot kill an infant, so a manliving the Christian life cannot
take part in deeds of violence.
Of what value then to him arearguments about the imaginary
advantages of doing what ismorally impossible for him to
do? Tolstoy, right there, is issimply saying, there's really no
point in discussing thisquestion because it's so

(25:27):
unchristian. Like, the theoption isn't even on the table
for Christians, what's the pointof talking about the advantages
of doing this thing? It would belike us talking about the
advantages of killing and eatingour kids if we were besieged,
like, like we see people do inKings. It it's just, like,

(25:49):
discussing that, what's thepoint?
Because that option shouldn'teven be on the table for us as
Christians. And Tolstoy arguesthat it's it's the same way for
Christians here. What's thepoint in discussing what we do
if somebody comes into to ourhome to hurt us or our family?
What's the point in discussingan option that shouldn't even be
viable for us? Another, essay,one by Henry Hodgkin, Hodgkin

(26:15):
makes a a point that I think,will will complement Tolstoy's
quote here.
And Hodgkin says, the lastresort in the mind of Jesus
seems to have been the supremeappeal of forgiving love. If
that failed, nothing else wouldsucceed for the end he hadn't
view. With the revolver in ourpocket, so to speak, we miss the

(26:37):
power to make the opine thefinal appeal of goodwill. And
what Hodgkin is saying is that,for for most of us, when we ask
the question, what would you do?The last resort, the the the
very last hope we have is usingviolence.
And Hodgkin's just saying, forJesus, the last hope he had was

(27:03):
showing love. And if thatfailed, that's the most he could
do, because to do more would notbe, like God. And, so that
option should not even be on thetable for us, because it was
Jesus' last resort. It should beour last resort. The next quote
we'll look at is, is actually, Ibelieve, 2 quotes from a guy

(27:23):
named Dale Brown.
Now, I'll preface this quoteinstead of explaining it
afterwards, because I think,Brown, instead of kind of
pointing to a small scale, isgoing to be talking about a
large scale of of war. And thisgoes back to our episode where
we talked about the necessity ofdoing evil, and what would you
do if if ISIS was going toslaughter a village. And this

(27:46):
notion that a lot of times wethink that when we do good, or
that when we do violence to stopsomebody, that we're doing good,
and that that is the thegreatest good that we can
possibly do. And Brown is justgonna point out that that that's
not necessarily the case. That'sa pretty big assumption.

(28:07):
And then we can extrapolate thatdown to, what what that might
look like on an individual levelto say that, hey. Look. Taking
violence and not killingsomebody might actually not only
be the Christ like thing to do,but it might actually, in the
end, be the best, the greatestgood thing to do. Just like God

(28:28):
brought good out of Joseph'simprisonment and slavery and
Jesus' death, so I know he canand will bring good out of
whatever happens to me. Sohere's the quote from from
Brown.
A pacifist may be tempted tocounter with a different case
likewise anchored in history.For example, if America had been

(28:50):
pacifist and had kept out ofWorld War 1, the world might
never have known an unjust peacetreaty and severe reparations
which helped to create theconditions for Hitler to come to
power. Another bit ofspeculation will indicate the
way to plead a position by thetype of if question selected. If
America had not entered WorldWar 2, Germany and Russia might

(29:12):
have destroyed each other to theextent that communism would have
been crushed and Germany soweakened as to ease her
stranglehold on Europe. So,again, Brown is really just
pointing out that, like, if wewanna play hypotheticals with
what, what a nonviolent positionmay hold, then the pacifist is

(29:34):
just as free to to arguehypotheticals.
And you can say, well, if wedon't use violence, this
terrible, horrible, like, theworst thing possible will
happen. But Brown just pointsout that, well, I can make up
hypotheticals too that are veryreasonable of what might happen
if we don't use violence. And heuses World War 2 as an example

(29:55):
and shows how if we wouldn'thave joined World War 1 and that
horrible peace treaty wouldn'thave come about, Hitler may not
have come to power, and theremay never have been a holocaust.
Or if, if the holocaust didoccur and the United States
never joined World War 2, Russiaand Germany might have pummeled
each other. Germany may havebeen subdued.

(30:17):
Europe, might have had powerover Germany eventually. And
there may not have beencommunism, which has wreaked
havoc and killed how many peoplein Russia and China? So when we
play the hypothetical game, wecan't forget that hypotheticals
can go both ways. Brown's nextquote, I think, is one of my

(30:38):
favorites because, he kind oftongue in cheek sarcastically, I
imagine, shows us a hypotheticalthat's not really a
hypothetical. Well, it's ahypothetical for today, but it's
pretty clear that, he's pointingto a a real life event.
So here's what here's what Brownsays, and it's awesome. Quote,

(31:02):
though we have pointed to thepitfalls of playing the
hypothetical game, we now yieldto the temptation. In raising
the hypothetical if, thepacifist might talk like this,
what if a man would come andchoose among others for his
disciples, a member of theStudents for a Democratic
Society, a militant black poweradvocate, and an official of the

(31:23):
Internal Revenue Service? Whatif he would teach them that the
way to overcome evil is withgood? What if the same one would
say he was going to set atliberty those who are oppressed?
What if he would advocate in hisown home church the dividing up
of all the farmland and propertyanew? What if this man would go
into the churches of the landand turn over the offering

(31:45):
plates which are filled with theprophets from the military
industrial complex? What ifthere are more than one set of
hypothetical questions?Obviously, Brown's quote there
is a direct reference to Jesuswho, you know, didn't didn't
pick this an IRS agent and thoseother individuals, but he picked

(32:05):
the equivalent of those for hisdisciples. And, he overturned
borders and definitions andgroups, and he created this
diverse group of people whoshould have hated each other.
And he taught them to love eventheir enemies, even unto death

(32:28):
by submitting their their powerand control. So if we wanna play
the hypothetical game, I thinkBrown's kinda just saying, why
don't we, instead of playing thehypothetical game, why don't we
look at the actual game? Youknow, we're Christians. Why
don't we look at the actualexample and apply that instead
of playing these hypotheticals?Next few quotes are gonna be

(32:49):
from a guy named Dale Ackerman.
And this first quote by Ackermanis is a very stinging quote
because, he points out that theself interest and, failure to
follow Christ in in modern day,this modern day question of what

(33:11):
would you do when assuming thatwe need to take control and not
suffer to avoid suffering. Sohere's Ackerman. The stumbling
block for the church throughmost of its history has not been
the defenselessness of Jesus,which has been regarded as
necessary for the salvationdrama, but rather the corollary,
that his people should bedefenseless in the same way. The

(33:33):
prevailing protests within thechurch against acceptance of
that defenselessness have comeas a sort of echo of Peter's
outburst. God forbid, lord.
This mustn't happen to us.Peter, with his plea, was for
Jesus a stumbling block, a luretempting him to turn from God.
In wrong headedness too, he wasa representative first start for

(33:54):
the church. And for followers ofJesus, that modification of
Peter's plea against sufferingat the hands of adversaries has
continued to be the primary lureaway from God. Archimedes just
saying, like, when when Petertried to tempt Jesus, he said,
oh, no.
That must never happen to you.But, as a church, we haven't

(34:17):
really had a problem with Jesus'death and suffering. It's kinda
like, yeah. Well, he needed todo that. I'm glad he did.
I'm glad he he submitted to thatand, gave up control to God and
God's plan for his life. And wechanged Peter's plea instead of,
no. God forbid that sufferingshould happen to us. God forbid
that we should have to losecontrol. And Aquaman's saying

(34:39):
that, while that was one of thebiggest stumbling blocks for
Jesus, and we talked about thatin our episode on, his messianic
role, this idea of control andavoiding suffering was the
biggest stumbling block intemptation for Jesus.
It currently is the biggeststumbling block in temptation
for the church, except insteadof protecting our savior, it's

(35:01):
this stumbling block as we seekto to protect ourselves. And we
see that in the way that the thechurch tries to gain power
through force, as well asthrough politics. And, we can
just look at it through throughall the history of of the
church. Alright. We'll end withone last quote from Ackerman,
which, out of all of them, doespoint the most to kind of this

(35:25):
this practical nature andpointing out how the what if
question as answered bypacifists really isn't as
impractical, as as people mightsay.
Ackerman says, The questionabout the family being attacked
typically assumes that if a manis enough of a man and is ready
to use a weapon, he can savethose under attack. But, that is

(35:48):
a typical Hollywood picture ofthe good guy out shooting the
bad guy. In real life, however,the attacker would ordinarily
have the upper hand and animpulsive resort to violence
would be most problematic. Onestudy showed that when a gun is
used for home defense, thosebeing defended are more likely
to be killed than when a gun isnot used. The person who uses a

(36:09):
gun to stop an attacker maysucceed, but in many cases does
not succeed.
The person who tries to stop aviolent attack by initiatives of
love may succeed or quite oftenmay fail, But the nonviolent
defender, even in failure,stands with the Lord of the
Universe whose climactic defeatby His adversaries was drawn up
into the supreme victory of theresurrection. We take a big risk

(36:32):
if we resort to lethal defense.We also take a big risk if we
reject such violence and seek tolive the love of Christ, but
rejecting the way of Christconstitutes the biggest risk of
all. And I'll come in rightthere specific to the what if
question when an attacker comesinto your home, to your family,

(36:53):
he just addresses that, look,you can say that non violence
has its risks, and, admittedly,it does. It is a very big risk.
But violence also has its risks,and the risks to violence go
beyond, beyond not beingsuccessful. They can also
aggravate the situation, and youmight also, shoot your own

(37:16):
family members. Your own familymight get there might be more
harm that's done than if youdidn't use violence. But even
more than that, you take therisk of not being identified
with your Savior and partingways from Him. There's a
spiritual risk that goes onthere too, and we looked a
little bit at that when wediscussed moral injury,

(37:37):
especially with soldiers.
Okay. So moving on from from thequotes of people who have
contemplated the practicalnature of non violence against
an aggressor aggressor, we'regonna now look at some anecdotal
stories of people who haveactually faced violent
situations with nonviolence. AndI really wanted to, like, read,

(38:01):
like, 5 of these. We're justamazing. And they are pretty
short stories, but we just don'thave the ability to to read all
of that.
So there might be 1 or 2 storiesthat I read extended portions
from, but, nevertheless, I Iwant to highlight what I think
are some of the best. Before weget into the stories proper, I

(38:22):
do want to just highlight a fewthings that you need to keep in
the back of your mind, or at thefront of your mind, actually,
would be better. First of all,we're not arguing that
nonviolence always or evenmostly works. We're just gonna
show how violence is overratedand how nonviolence can actually

(38:42):
work. Doesn't mean it will work.
Doesn't mean it always works. Itmight not even work better in
terms of, preserving your familyin the immediate term. But
nonviolence is often viewed asbeing passive and being no good
and being impractical, and wewanna try to erase that idea.

(39:05):
There, there are a few thingsthat are highlighted throughout
all of the stories in Yoder'sbook. First of all, is that
violence as an option oftenhurts our own families and
communities more.
We know that having guns in thehome can lead to family members
being shot, injured, and killed,not only in terms of mistaking

(39:25):
somebody for an intruder andkilling your own family, but
also increasing the violence inthe situation when there is
aggressor, is an aggressor, aswell as just having the
availability of a weapon in thehome makes suicide much more
likely and easy because of theaccessibility of of an easy
solution for suicide, which is agun. The other danger of having

(39:50):
violence as an option, is that,we looked at this when we talked
about the Holocaust and theStanley Milgram experiment and
how people who are open toviolence are much easier to be
convinced of, doing violenceinappropriately. If I believe

(40:11):
that violence is a legitimateoption, then all that needs to
happen for me to to do violenceto somebody is to be convinced
that that person is less thanhuman or that that person is an
enemy who threatens. We see thatin just about every atrocity
that ever occurs, is thatthere's a dehumanization. And

(40:33):
when you're open to violence,you're more open to dehumanizing
groups of people.
As a society, that's true. We'vetalked about how violence can
increase violence in asituation. We've talked about
how violence can perpetuate andeven even birth violence. We
talked about the Kingdom movie awhile back where, we it shows

(40:56):
the cyclical nature of violence,talking about World War 1 and
World War 2, the how doing WorldWar 1 and that peace treaty
probably caused World War 2 andand etcetera. And out of that,
we have the the birthing ofIsrael and and a lot of
different, different issues arecreated with the Middle East

(41:19):
during World War 1 and World War2 that extend even into today.
We can see that through some ofour proxy wars and cold wars. We
just know that violence oftenperpetuates and births violence,
and we know that that violencehurts us in terms of moral
injury. And, finally, I want youto keep in mind that non

(41:43):
violence is important becauseit's going to always maintain
enemy love. And because of that,and because violence is not an
option on the table, it is goingto allow for creative solutions.
Instead of, an either or, eitheryou let the enemy do something
terrible to your family or youtry to kill them, instead of the

(42:06):
either or situation, the optionson the table are maybe not
endless, and and especially, youknow, when you're in the heat of
the moment, it's probably, youknow, but by the Holy Spirit's
guidance, it might be difficultto think of what in the world
you can do.
But, nevertheless, there arelots of different options that

(42:29):
are available when you'rewilling to think creatively. So
let's take a look at at some ofthose creative solutions. First
story is a a pretty awesomestory by a missionary named
Gladys Aylward, and she was amissionary to China. And the
story goes that that she was, ather missionary house and all of

(42:50):
a sudden this this Chinese guardfrom the prison down the street,
came to her and said, hey. Yougotta come right now.
So she ended up going with him alittle begrudgingly. And when
she got there, realized thatthere is a murderous riot going
on in the prison. And the theprison warden said to her, we

(43:11):
need you to go in there and stopthis. And she looked around at,
like, the the armed guards whowere standing around and
soldiers and things. And she'slike, well, why don't they go in
there?
And, essentially, they were alltoo scared to go, because there
were tons of prisoners, bigprisoners, just going nuts. And,
well, she's like, well, why doyou want me to go? I'm just a a

(43:33):
little lady. And they said,well, you've been preaching that
you have the living god insideof you, so surely you can go in
there and stop this. And, ofcourse, she talks about her
feelings at that moment, and,she was just, like, well, what
do I do?
Because, I mean, I I say thatand I I mean, I do believe it,

(43:54):
but I don't know how much Ibelieve that in a in a murderous
prison riot. And so she goes inthere and she she feels like
that's the best way to kind ofgo about things. She can't
really turn back. She knowsshe'll lose her ministry, and
she needs to put her money whereher mouth is. So she goes in and
she starts commanding theprisoners around, and they

(44:19):
listen to her.
And she takes a bloody ax fromone of them and says, you give
that right here. And she takesit, and, she talks about this
the scene that she sees. And indoing that, not only does she
stop the murderous riot, but sheends up being able to be an
advocate for the prisoners who,they're literally imprisoned.

(44:42):
They never got any work to do.They didn't see some, like,
like, nothing.
And so they were, I mean,practically insane. And so she
was able to be an advocate forthem while at the same time
stopping the riot because shedid have the living God inside
of her. Something that we can'tforget that no matter what
situation we face, it is not upto us to control the situation.

(45:08):
It's up to us to do the rightthing and allow room for God to
work if we believe that we havea living God inside of us. 2nd
story I really liked, and it's areally short one.
I wanted to read it. But,honestly, like, if I read that
one for whatever reason, thatone, the way that it was
written, the beauty of it, itjust, you know, it makes me cry.

(45:28):
And, it's it's called The Art ofReconciliation by Terry Dobson.
And he talks about aikido andhow he trained in aikido. So
even though he was nonviolent,aikido is a a form of
nonviolence which deals withthrows and holds and stuff.
There are different forms ofnonviolence. Some people would
say you can't do lethalviolence. Some people would say,

(45:52):
you can't do any violence. Andthen there are people in between
who would would be with okaywith some sort of force and
restraint, like aikido, but, butwould not want to actually harm
somebody. And so he talks abouthow he's been training in
aikido, but in aikido, theydidn't get to practice on each
other because aikido isn't aboutthey don't want you to ever do

(46:15):
violence.
It is the absolute last resortto actually grapple with
somebody, and it's all aboutprevention. And so he's on this
train, and this drunk guy comeson, and he starts he hits this
woman with a baby and startskicking at this old couple. And
the guy's like, alright. I wantI wanna take this guy down. I
need to protect people.

(46:36):
And, as he as he motions to theguy to come fight him, this old
guy on the train just says, hey,to, to the attacker. Not like a,
hey, you, but like a, hey. Like,you're my friend. Come over
here. And the guy goes over andand asks what what the guy
wants, what the old man wants.

(46:58):
And he just starts startstalking. And he just says, hey,
what you been drinking? And theguy says, well, I've been
drinking sake. And the old mansays, oh, me too. My wife and I,
we always drink sake.
Every night we go out into ourgarden, and we and he just goes
on and and talks about his storyand starts asking the guy
questions about his wife andfinds out that his wife is dead
and, you know, he doesn't have ajob, and the guy breaks down and

(47:21):
just talks about how ashamed heis. And, the old man, he puts
his head in the old man's lap,and the old man strokes his hair
and just says, oh my, tell metell me about it. And the the
guy telling the story whoobserves this, the the guy who's
practicing aikido, and he says,man, I was put in my place that

(47:42):
day because even though I I knowthis nonviolent, martial arts,
the the point of it is to nothave to fight. And this old man,
by showing interest and byloving, was able to really
resolve the situation. Now, hadthe the guy performed aikido on

(48:07):
on the attacker, he probablywould have succeeded and subdued
him.
And, you know, the immediate theimmediate threat of that man to
the people on the train wouldhave been resolved. However, the
problem with that is that, theproblem really wouldn't be
resolved because that man wouldnot be any better. And in fact,

(48:29):
he might even be worse becausehe's frustrated that he was beat
up by somebody, that he, youknow, it would not be getting to
to the heart of the issue. Butthat old man, through his
nonviolent love towards theaggressor, not only stopped the
situation, but may have stoppedfuture situations because of of

(48:52):
his love. And love is the onlything that can do that.
Physical force and violencedoesn't solve any situation
except perhaps the mostimmediate situation. But after
that immediate situation, thereis no resolution. It doesn't
resolve problems, and that'sbecause problems can't be

(49:16):
addressed through physicalviolence. Physical violence from
aggressors are really just,actions that are outworkings of
something much, much deeper. Andlove touches those deeper parts,
Violence does not.
3rd story by Sarah Courson.She's a a missionary in South
America and talks about howthere was some uprising, and

(49:40):
they were dealing not so wellwith with foreigners, harming
men and and raping women and andtaking them. And they just
didn't really know what what thesituation was for them. But one
night, they saw the army cominginto their their village. And

(50:00):
the army came up to them, andthey were threatening them and
talking about them, taking themaway.
And, you know, she goes into thethings that she she told them
about how, you know, can we getyou some tea? Can we can we feed
you? How can we we love you. Andthey said, this is ridiculous.
We don't we don't believe that.

(50:21):
They're like, you're here.You're spies. You're you're the
enemy. I said, no. No.
Our our god teaches us that weare to love even our enemies.
And they just they just can'tbelieve that that is true. And,
one of the guys kind of goesagainst his commander, and he's

(50:42):
like, alright, you women, youcan go back go back to the
house. Like, don't tell anybodythat I let you do that. Just go
back.
And so they do. They're saved.But, then they receive a
message, a day or 2 later thatsaid, hey, on Sunday, we're, our
commander's coming to yourchurch for for service. Now, all

(51:03):
the men are out as just womenand some of the villagers, And
so, the lady is like, okay.Well, we we'll have service, but
anybody who doesn't wanna come,please don't come.
But all of the the church showsup. They come there, and they do
what they normally do, and theyhave a a greeting time for for

(51:26):
visitors, which they always do.And they greet and welcome the,
the army who has taken basicallyall of the men out of the
village and the foreigners. And,at the end, this guy, the
commander gets up there and hesays, you know what? I I could
have fought any amount of gunsyou might have had, but there's

(51:47):
something here I cannotunderstand, and I cannot fight
it.
Had there been resistance, hadthere been animosity, anything
else, the the soldiers wouldhave fed off of that. That's
what soldiers do. They'resupposed to be confrontational.
They're supposed to, fightconflicts. But when they

(52:08):
experienced love of people whoshould have hated them, it was
it was something that theycouldn't fight.
This next story is about a womanwho had somebody come into her
home, broke through her window,and she woke up to see a man
coming towards her in her bed,which is probably the the most

(52:29):
fearful thing that anyone canthink of, especially especially
a woman. And this is this is theone that my wife was most
interested in, like, yeah. Like,what do you even do in that
situation? So I'll I'll bereading a few quotes out of here
and kind of talking through itas well. So here's what, the

(52:52):
author says when when she shetalks about what was going on in
her head in in the moment, thesplit second she saw this guy
coming towards her.
She talked about her thoughtprocess, and then she she ends
here where she says, I realizedwith some clarity that either he
and I made it through thesituation safely together, or we

(53:13):
would both be damaged. Oursafety was connected. If he
raped me, I would be hurt bothphysically and emotionally, and
he would be hurt as well. If hewent to prison, the damage would
be greater. The thought disarmedme.
It also released me fromparalysis and a desire to lash
out. It freed me from fear'scontrol over my ability to

(53:35):
respond even though I still hadfeelings of fear. I found myself
acting out of concern for thesafety of us both, reacting with
firmness, but with littlehostility in my voice. Now she
she talks a little bit laterabout how this is extremely
important. She says thatnonviolence as a strategy really

(53:55):
isn't a good strategy.
She said it has to be somethingthat's genuine. She had a
genuine concern for herattacker. She said, had she not,
had she expressed fear? Had sheexpressed, hostility? Those are
the types of things that we knowaggressors feed off of, and that

(54:16):
they're they come prepared forthose two things.
They come prepared to feed onfear and, and just this the
terror in their victims. Andthey also come expecting
hostility, and they're ready forthose things. But when they
don't experience that, it it hasthe potential to throw them off

(54:38):
and and diffuse the situation.And so what she did is, as he
was approaching her, she she sawthat he had a watch on, and she
said, what time is it? And theguy stopped.
He it's, like, the last thingthat he was expecting, and he
looked at his watch, and shesaid, oh, well, that time is
different than the time I haveon my clock. When did when did

(54:59):
you set your watch? And she juststarts talking to him like a
human being. And they get intotoo much more conversation, and
she goes down and makes tea forhim and, and all of that. But
she has a genuine interest inthe person, and in his
well-being, And it shows in theway that she talks to him and

(55:22):
the wonder of the situation,experiencing something that he
was not expecting at all toexperience, kind of threw him
off in in his approach.
And, again, I I do wannaemphasize, had she done that
with a 100 different attackers,this may have been the only

(55:42):
individual that that ever workedon. Or maybe it would work on a
100 because maybe the HolySpirit would have been there to
protect her for each and everyattacker. This this says
absolutely nothing about whatpercentage of these nonviolent
instances will work. But what itdoes highlight is an attitude

(56:07):
that this lady was was fosteringin herself, and through the
spirit, was able to manifest andhow the manifestation of that
was probably the only thing thatreally could have affected her
situation positively,especially, being a smaller
woman than than the attackerwas, a a larger male. Screaming,

(56:32):
and trying to fight, all ofthose things, probably would
have really just ended in in apretty bad situation.
There's one more quote that Ifound especially, important out
of, out of this story, and Iwanna highlight that right now.

(56:53):
She says, but Jesus requiredmore of people than a moment's
choice. He showed himselfwilling to accompany the choice
making person by attempting tocreate a context for comp
conversion. To create more inneravailability to the truth, He
fostered situations which evokedwonder and could reflect the
consequences of people's actionsback to them. He worked to

(57:16):
create a context for conversion.
His parables are models of thisdynamic. Jesus says, if anyone
wants to sue you and take yourcoat, give your cloak as well.
If someone takes one garment,the owner is advised to hand
over the other. Why? In thatclimate, without both garments,
one will suffer from exposure tothe elements.

(57:38):
So Jesus counsels, give away thecloak also. Let your adversary
see in your nakedness the truthof what he is doing. Do
something wonderful and open hiseyes. Jesus also says, if anyone
forces you to go one mile, goalso the 2nd mile. This means
walking the extra mile for anenemy, the Roman soldiers, who

(57:59):
have the right to impress anyJew to carry their gear for 1
mile.
For the 1st mile, the soldierhas the power. But imagine the
Jew refusing to lay down theburden after the 1st mile and
walking on, freely, for the 2ndmile. Who has the power after
the 1st mile? Powerrelationships change. During the
second mile, the Jew has thechance to work on the soldier to

(58:23):
help him come to insight abouthis actions, to help him see the
Israelite as a person and nolonger as an object.
I thought that was that wasbrilliant because I I didn't
really understand Jesus'commands in that way before. I
mean, you you kinda see the, oh,well, that's cool that somebody

(58:44):
would do that. Like, that that'sso sacrificial to go the 2nd
mile. But this was the firsttime that I've ever had anybody
expound on where the powerreally lies in that. And then in
the 1st mile, in the first, theouter garment that you give
somebody, who's demanding itfrom you, really what you're
doing is you're an object forthem.

(59:06):
You are an object of something,an object to ease their burden,
an object of material goods.You're just an object. But when
you give freely beyond what theyask you, no longer are you an
object, because you're givingfreely. And that changes the
power dynamic, because no longerdo they have the power over you,

(59:31):
but you are acting freely. Andit's in that in that moment when
you are no longer an objectbecause you are acting freely
that you are able to be seen notas an object, but as a as a
human being.
And, they're able to see thatwhat they're doing is something

(59:52):
that's being done to anotherliving human being, and one who
is kind and generous at that.Now, of course, again, this
isn't about effectiveness. Idon't know at what rate that
kind of thing works. But I doknow that if somebody's heart is
going to be changed, it's goingto be changed through the Holy

(01:00:15):
Spirit's work, through that kindof thing, and not through
resistance. Yoder includes anumber of other stories in here.
One story that was reallyinteresting was, this guy in New
York City. He's in a gang. Hebecame a Christian and he
decided to leave, and he knewthat they were gonna try to kill
him. But as he as he declaredthat he was leaving and he

(01:00:37):
walked away, nobody attackedhim. Well, a little bit later,
the one of the the higher ups inthe gang talked to him and said,
man, I I had my hand on my knifeand I was ready.
I was gonna kill you. And hesaid, but I couldn't. I I was
glued to the floor. I couldn'tmove. And he said, what

(01:01:00):
happened?
What made that happen? And thegang met former gang member was
able to explain to him aboutGod, and that gang member ended
up coming to Christ. So, thiskind of going back to the first
story we talked about, you know,discussing how we need to leave

(01:01:22):
room for God because God is incontrol. And remembering that
God is able to do those kinds ofcrazy things that that we just
can't imagine Him doing isimportant, and that allows us to
be nonviolent. It's sort of likeShadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
where it's like, look, I knowGod's able to save us, and if he
does, that's awesome.

(01:01:43):
But if he doesn't, he's stillgod. And that's, I I think, the,
the nonviolent motto rightthere. There are also stories
of, individuals who who dodifferent sorts of creative
things. One woman notices 2 guysapproaching her and coming up on
her, and she she can just tellwhat's going on. And she has

(01:02:06):
some, like, takeout food in herpurse, some, like, leftovers.
And so she reaches down into herpurse and and pretends to vomit
and, like, has all these thesefood, food items there to make
it look like vomit. And so thethe guys are repulsed and and
just veer the other way. Allsorts of creative things that

(01:02:26):
people do. Some of them, likethe vomiting, aren't really
directly loving in the sense of,oh, I'm gonna try to talk you
through not raping me. Right?
That's that's a a last resort.But it is creative in the sense
of she prevented those peoplefrom harming her, and she was
able to, prevent them from doingsomething that could have

(01:02:49):
morally screwed them up forever.So let's summarize and and
close-up shop here. Nonviolenceis about maintaining enemy love
with an eye towards theirconversion to doing good. So we
seek to help prevent individualsfrom doing evil and marring

(01:03:11):
their souls, but, also, wedesire their good.
And we can see that in most ofthese stories, and we can see it
if we go back and think aboutsome of the other things we've
talked about. One of the onesthat sticks out to me is is
Denmark and how even under Nazicontrol, their nonviolent
movement actually started toconvert the hearts of the German

(01:03:34):
officers that were there.Whereas, you just don't see that
kind of thing happen to the sameextent in places where, where
individuals are trying to killthe Germans. While maintaining
enemy love, the position of nonviolence also takes a
Philippians 2 approach to powerand control. It submits to God

(01:03:59):
and leaves room for God to doamazing things.
It recognizes that the thequestion isn't really, what what
could I do? The question is,what should I do? And following
Christ and submitting to God iswhat I should do, and at that
point, it it's not really aboutwhat what could I do, it's about

(01:04:22):
what will God do? Will God saveme like he saved Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego out of thethe flames? Or will he not and
still be God?
And maybe bring something greatout of it, like he did out of
Joseph's slavery or Jesus'sdeath. But it might include my
suffering. And we recognize theimportance of, if if God will

(01:04:46):
not amaze us and miraculouslysave us, then he will have to
amaze us and miraculouslysustain us through through
difficulty, like he did withwith Jesus, in the garden and to
the cross and eventually throughresurrection and restoration. We
really have a great cloud ofwitnesses here who can testify

(01:05:09):
to the miraculous power of God,to the importance of of enemy
love. And, it it's it's great tolook at to look at those
examples, and there are many,many, many, many more.
This is just a handful of theones from this one book, and I
know that there are other booksout there as well. It would also

(01:05:29):
be worthwhile to look into theearly Christian martyrs. I know
one one example that stands outto me is Polycarp, disciple of
John. Polycarp, when he was anold man, the Romans came for him
to, to take him, to be executed.And Polycarp's like, come on in,
guys.

(01:05:50):
Can I give you something to eat?And he made sure that that they
were fed before they they headedout to where he was burnt at the
stake. And, so we've got a agreat cloud of witnesses that
extends way beyond this, thismore modern cloud of individuals
choosing nonviolence. I hope youare able to see this question

(01:06:14):
more clearly. I hope you're ableto see, how there's really no
moral foundation to theemotional question, how you can
see a lot of the assumptionsthat are really built into it
that are are problematic for it,and how you can see, how really
it doesn't have all that much tooffer that it's it's presented

(01:06:38):
to.
And it really only gives you oneoption, whereas, nonviolence
gives you many, many otheroptions while allowing you to
maintain enemy love. So, that'sall for now. So peace, because
I'm a pacifist, and I say it, Ireally do mean it.