Keep in mind Christian nonviolence during Lenten season

‘I am a Christian pacifist,” states Duke Divinity School professor Stanley Hauerwas, who was named by Time magazine as “America’s best theologian” in 2001 (a label he disdains, by the way).

“Being Christian and being a pacifist are not two things for me,” Hauerwas continues. “I would not be a pacifist if I were not a Christian, and I find it hard to understand how one can be a Christian without being a pacifist.”

Hauerwas’s writings have challenged and shaped me since I first encountered them in seminary during the 1980s. At the core of his work is the idea that the church of Jesus Christ is to be shaped by the story of its Lord. That story is one of radical hospitality, forgiveness of enemies, and the practice of nonviolence.

As we move closer to the Christian observance of Holy Week and Easter, Hauerwas would remind Christians that their lives and communities are to be shaped by the story of Jesus, who preferred to offer his life to those who would take it over killing in order to save himself.

After an initial period of enthusiasm for Hauerwas’s account of Christian nonviolence, my interest waned when I left the insular atmosphere of the seminary classroom for the “real world.” During the U.S. military intervention in Kosovo, I was conflicted about the campaign because of the horrific atrocities being committed by Serbian forces. I believed something had to be done to halt such butchery. “Is nonviolence realistic?” I asked myself. “Is it even moral?” I wondered.

Hauerwas himself has said that the greatest argument against pacifism is that it abandons the innocent who should be protected. I realized I had relegated Hauerwas’s theology to the bin of romantic idealism when, upon hearing about Serbian atrocities, my initial thoughts were: “Bomb the (blank) out of those (blank)ers!”

Yet, as the war in Iraq drags on into its fourth year, I find myself drawn once again to the prophetic work of Stanley Hauerwas. Or, I should say, I find myself drawn to the prophetic story of Jesus, whom both Hauerwas and I attempt to follow.

It is a mistake for Christians to frame a position on the Iraq war - or any war - based on the secular politics of the left or the right. The only coherent position about war for a Christian must be formed by first engaging the words of Jesus who said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Any Christian stance on war must account for Good Friday, when Jesus faced his enemies’ aggression and violence by absorbing it on a cross, rendering it impotent.

As Easter approaches, Hauerwas reminds us of Paul’s instruction in the New Testament epistle to the Romans: the only way for Christians to share in the resurrection of Christ is to first be united with him in his death. In effect, Christians are called to form a polity all their own. That polity is called the church, a community within which Christians attempt to practice the radical sort of politics called for by Jesus’ life story. This politics privileges nonviolence, forgiveness of enemies, radical hospitality, and the proclamation of truth to a world that knows no way other than violence and the commodification of every relationship and resource.

I don’t pretend to be a foreign-policy expert, but I am relatively clear that Jesus calls his followers to pursue a distinct path. We are told that the world is fundamentally changed after 9/11. But Hauerwas says that Christians should not be surprised that the world is a dangerous place, given that we tell one another at the beginning of each Lenten season we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

He has also said that Christian nonviolence - even in the face of terrorism - “is not a strategy to rid the world of war.” Rather, “as faithful followers of Jesus, we cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent in a world of war.”