Doug Wilson on Pacifism
2008 June 10
In the context of discussing Rodney Clapp’s book on Johnny Cash, God, and America, Doug Wilson examines pacifism here.
This is something I’d love to see Andrew engage Wilson on. There are no comments queued for the post, so it wouldn’t get lost. Whaddya say Andrew? I’d love to lurk and see what happens.
Thanks for the link
You have to sign up to comment on his blog, and I’m too lazy for that. But the first commenter there pretty nicely answered his centurion argument (which at its best is an argument from silence); his point about imagination is kind of facile: who really has to do more thinking to resolve conflict, the person who thinks he can blow his opponent into little bits when things get too difficult, or the one who can only persuade? You could also just as easily change his argument into: Christians committed to faithful marriages lack imagination because they can’t see any situation in which adultery would be justified. In practice, its the pacifists who are more creative.
Finally, his argument that pacifists are irresponsible (”stand by for a bloodbath” ) misses the whole point: pacifism argues that Christians are not responsible to make sure history goes the right way, with force if necessary; it argues that God is responsible for the way history goes and we are to put our faith in him that he will do so (”Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God…”; this also addresses the commenter who appealed to the image of Jesus as warrior). And, frankly, its not as if violence always (or even often?) solves major problems, and its not as if there are no clear examples of non-violence averting crises (e.g. Ghandi and his hunger strike), etc. etc.