Forum in Sydney

Last week I was asked to be part of a forum in Sydney on Christianity and War. This is the speach I gave:

In my work with young adults I often use an exercise called “I am” poster. I get each person to write down “I am” statements about themself. To start of today I wanted to give you a few “I am” statements about me.
“I am” – a child of God, pacifist, Anabaptist/Baptist/Mennonite, a child of my tradition, a survivor of violence, a follower of Christ, a young adult working with youth and young adults, an American who grew up Aussie, and a person who is still learning.
I was born into class, education, nationality, language, and skin colour that gave me great privilege – I believe that to those that are given much, much will be asked.

My tradition
I was raised in the Anabaptist and Mennonite tradition. During the Reformation the Anabaptist thought that the Reformers didn’t go far enough. They believed that they should be able to interpret the biblical text for themselves in community and not be told what the Bible said by priests. They believed in believer’s baptism, in an adult making this commitment to faith and a clear separation of church and state. They also believed that they could not take up the sword and fight because it contradicted the call of Christ. Because of these beliefs they were largely martyred. The tradition did manage to live on however and is marked by the continuing commitment to peace and non violence as well as community discernment and a simple lifestyle.

My family
I am the child of parents who read the gospels and felt that God was calling them toward a peaceful way of life and faith. Both of my grandfathers fought in WWII and many of my cousins have or are serving in the American armed forces. So being people of peace had to be a conscious choice. This means that I grew up knowing that I needed to live out my non-violent views and also be articulate about what we believed and why.
I have wrestled long and hard with the idea of military involvement because some of my cousins have killed people in their time in the armed service, so I can’t just demonise those bad soldiers, because they are part of my family. I cannot set myself up as over and against the other, I have to learn to know them and their motivations. But I find what the military does and teaches destructive, dehumanising and counter to my faith.
I realise that I have these views because my parents and my tradition are people of peace. My personal narrative has been flooded with stories of peace but I would rather tell these stories then add to the voices of the world that say the biggest guns, the most violence and the cleverest cunning wins.

My faith
I am a Child of God and a follower of Jesus Christ. My commitment to peace is deeply grounded in my faith and my relationship with God, through Jesus.
Jesus is my lens for how I read the Bible and look at life and faith.
When Jesus said “Love your enemies” he probably meant don’t kill them.
I see every person as a child of God and thus wonder, how dare we kill a child of God.
As the people of God I believe that we are not only called to not go to war, but to be active peace makers.
When I look to the New Testament and the life of Jesus I see a Jesus who was not violent. Yes, Jesus got angry but he did not repay in like kind, when violence was done to him he did not respond in violence, even to the point of death. He stopped violence by absorbing it and living out an alternative to retaliation.
I follow a Jesus that had power in weakness. Who stood up to the political and religious powers of his day and spoke truth. A Jesus who dodged stoning a woman by drawing on the ground, a Jesus who valued the least of these, but who was bold and compassionate at the same time.
A Jesus who said things like “Blessed are the peacemakers”, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.
I believe that as Christians we are called to be in the world but not of it – actively living something that is countercultural.
Jesus does not make this life sound easy, in fact he calls us to take up our cross and follow him.
I believe that People of God are not defined by boarders and nationalistic boundaries. We are the people of God bound together in Christ body through faith. I believe we are called to value difference and see the other as a brothers or sisters in Christ.

My Pacifism
So, I am a pacifist or I try to hold to the ideas and actions of pacifism in my life.
I know that I am compliant to/in violence. But I am not willing to let others be violent for me. I don’t think it is ok for me to say I am non-violent and then call in the police or the army to do violence in my name. I must actively work for peace.
Me being a pacifist does not mean that I am passive, I can’t sit by, but neither can I make the war makers into my enemy – they are people too and children of God, beloved to our creator, just as I am.
A majority of people would say that they are for peace but our budgets for war making say something different – imagine training for peace with the commitment and money that we train for war!

This leads me to My work
I am a young adult who works with youth and young adults.
Explain name and work at Irene’s Place.

Some of my work is struggling with these what if statements:
What if we trained our children to approach the other with curiosity and openness instead of suspicion and fear. What if we worked toward cooperation and the good of all instead of bowing to the myth of redemptive violence and encouraging children to play out war, putting guns in their hands at younger and younger ages and telling them that it is fun and a game to point a gun at someone and pull a trigger. We need to measure success with the good of all in mind and not just try to promote the individual to the detriment of the community.

Closing
My faith, my relationship with God in the example of Jesus and with the guidance and wisdom of God’ Holy Spirit, leads me toward peace. It is a complicated, active, involved peace. It is a peace that means more than an absence of war but that is grounded in God’s great shalom and wholeness. My faith is more than a relationship between me and God, it is also between me and other people and me and all of creation, my wholeness and shalom in God is tied to their wholeness.
I am a pacifist but I also confess that I am a human and flawed and in desperate need of God’s grace and mercy.
Nowhere in my faith do I see a call to violence, let alone war. What I do see is a strong call to the opposite, to be a people of peace actively following the prince of peace.