Nonviolence Works<\/strong><\/a>\nThursday, August 22, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>How is it that many Christians have managed to avoid what Jesus actually taught? We\u2019ve evaded major parts of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): the Beatitudes, Jesus\u2019 warning about idolizing \u201cmammon,\u201d his clear directive and example of nonviolence, and his command to love our enemies. I never see the Beatitudes on courthouse lawns. Perhaps we think his teaching is nice in theory but impractical in real life. Perhaps we do not believe nonviolence can actually effect real change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few years ago, people from around the world came together in Rome to discuss the Catholic commitment to peace. Marie Dennis writes: \u201cOne person after another shared how violence in his or her own experience, failed, and how nonviolence overcame violence.\u201d [1] As we saw yesterday, Pope Francis is helping reclaim Jesus\u2019 teachings on peace. Dennis continues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He is saying that nonviolence is effective in the real world of politics\u2014in fact superior to and more effective than violence. The world never gets to peace through violence and war but only begets more violence and war. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[One] active peacemaker the pope points to is Leymah Gbowee, the [2011] Nobel prize winner from Liberia. . . . She organized pray-ins and nonviolent protests that resulted in high-level peace talks to end the second civil war in Liberia. . . . The contributions of such women as Gbowee in Liberia and Marguerite Barankitse in Burundi are showing the way to the eventual cessation of violence and the dawning of peace. . . . [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In their book <em>Why Civil Resistance Works<\/em>, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan write about the effectiveness of nonviolence, drawing from examples in Iran, Palestine, the Philippines, and Burma. Based on in-depth research, they observe that nonviolent resistance is \u201cnearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as their violent counterparts.\u201d [3] Nonviolent campaigns have greater participation, loyalty, resilience, innovation, and civic impact than violent ones. [4] While surprising, there\u2019s plenty of evidence that the very thing we consider foolish confounds the wise and that the powerless confound the powerful (see 1 Corinthians 1:27).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One reason for our failure to understand Jesus\u2019 clear teaching on nonviolence lies in the fact that the Gospel has primarily been expounded by a small elite group of educated European and North American men. The bias of white males is typically power and control. From this perspective nonviolence and love of enemies makes no sense whatsoever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because we Christians haven\u2019t taken Jesus\u2019 teaching and example seriously, much of the world refuses to take us seriously. \u201cChristians love to talk of a new life,\u201d critics say, \u201cbut the record shows that you are afraid to live in a new way\u2014a way that is responsible, caring, and nonviolent. Even the common \u2018pro-life movement\u2019 is much more pro-birth than about caring for all life\u2014black and brown lives, refugees, the poor, the sick, immigrants, LGBTQIA people, the environment.\u201d In fact, many \u201cpro-lifers\u201d I know are the first in line to oppose any gun regulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m grateful that Christianity is finally becoming much more universal in its teaching, more effective in its action, and just more honest about Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nonviolence Nonviolence Works Thursday, August 22, 2019 How is it that many Christians have managed to avoid what Jesus actually taught? We\u2019ve evaded major parts of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): the Beatitudes, Jesus\u2019 warning about idolizing \u201cmammon,\u201d his clear directive and example of nonviolence, and his command to love our enemies. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18240"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18240"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18242,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18240\/revisions\/18242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>How is it that many Christians have managed to avoid what Jesus actually taught? We\u2019ve evaded major parts of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): the Beatitudes, Jesus\u2019 warning about idolizing \u201cmammon,\u201d his clear directive and example of nonviolence, and his command to love our enemies. I never see the Beatitudes on courthouse lawns. Perhaps we think his teaching is nice in theory but impractical in real life. Perhaps we do not believe nonviolence can actually effect real change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few years ago, people from around the world came together in Rome to discuss the Catholic commitment to peace. Marie Dennis writes: \u201cOne person after another shared how violence in his or her own experience, failed, and how nonviolence overcame violence.\u201d [1] As we saw yesterday, Pope Francis is helping reclaim Jesus\u2019 teachings on peace. Dennis continues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He is saying that nonviolence is effective in the real world of politics\u2014in fact superior to and more effective than violence. The world never gets to peace through violence and war but only begets more violence and war. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[One] active peacemaker the pope points to is Leymah Gbowee, the [2011] Nobel prize winner from Liberia. . . . She organized pray-ins and nonviolent protests that resulted in high-level peace talks to end the second civil war in Liberia. . . . The contributions of such women as Gbowee in Liberia and Marguerite Barankitse in Burundi are showing the way to the eventual cessation of violence and the dawning of peace. . . . [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In their book <em>Why Civil Resistance Works<\/em>, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan write about the effectiveness of nonviolence, drawing from examples in Iran, Palestine, the Philippines, and Burma. Based on in-depth research, they observe that nonviolent resistance is \u201cnearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as their violent counterparts.\u201d [3] Nonviolent campaigns have greater participation, loyalty, resilience, innovation, and civic impact than violent ones. [4] While surprising, there\u2019s plenty of evidence that the very thing we consider foolish confounds the wise and that the powerless confound the powerful (see 1 Corinthians 1:27).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One reason for our failure to understand Jesus\u2019 clear teaching on nonviolence lies in the fact that the Gospel has primarily been expounded by a small elite group of educated European and North American men. The bias of white males is typically power and control. From this perspective nonviolence and love of enemies makes no sense whatsoever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because we Christians haven\u2019t taken Jesus\u2019 teaching and example seriously, much of the world refuses to take us seriously. \u201cChristians love to talk of a new life,\u201d critics say, \u201cbut the record shows that you are afraid to live in a new way\u2014a way that is responsible, caring, and nonviolent. Even the common \u2018pro-life movement\u2019 is much more pro-birth than about caring for all life\u2014black and brown lives, refugees, the poor, the sick, immigrants, LGBTQIA people, the environment.\u201d In fact, many \u201cpro-lifers\u201d I know are the first in line to oppose any gun regulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m grateful that Christianity is finally becoming much more universal in its teaching, more effective in its action, and just more honest about Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nonviolence Nonviolence Works Thursday, August 22, 2019 How is it that many Christians have managed to avoid what Jesus actually taught? We\u2019ve evaded major parts of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): the Beatitudes, Jesus\u2019 warning about idolizing \u201cmammon,\u201d his clear directive and example of nonviolence, and his command to love our enemies. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18240"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18240"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18242,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18240\/revisions\/18242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}