Can you help me understand something? I am convinced that if all
Christians truly embraced the full meaning of the Gospels and followed
Jesus' example of nonviolence that we would not resort to killing and
waging war to solve the world's problems or to rid the world of tyranny
and terrorism. Whenever I mention the fact that Jesus never condoned
violence, never resorted to using it, was always telling people to forgive
and love their enemies, someone inevitably brings up the Gospel stories of
when Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the Temple. As one of my
correspondents put it, "even he recognized that there are times when that
is the only languge understood by those he spoke to, and he was willing to
speak in that language." I see this event as Jesus using nonviolent,
direct action to bring attention to an unjust system, but others see it as
an occasion when even Jesus, who was perfect, eventually got fed up, ran
out of patience, lost his temper and resorted to violently rampaging
through the Temple, using the whip on people to get his point across.
My question is does this one incident justify war? Does this really mean
that there are times when we have no other choice but to invade other
countries and wage wars in order to rid the world of tyrants and despots
and that God understands, even though hundreds, thousands or millions of
innocent people get killed, why we had to do it. Is that really true?
Responding to http://www.bruderhof.com/us/Who_we_are/GuestBook.htm
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