Jesus’ resistance, cont.
In light of the previous discussion that has just wound down, I wanted to present something coming at the issue of lawful resistance from a different angle. In this case, I want to suggest that Jesus did engage in a kind of resistance against evil (and evil powers) that many Christians today may have a problem with. The tactic he used was deception.
The general (and correct) Christian aversion to lying has unfortunately, I believe, been absolutized in Christian ethics, causing us to miss examples in scripture of justified lying. The obvious ones have been debated for centuries (the Hebrew midwives in Exodus, Rahab the harlot), but others have been perhaps regarded as wrong when they should not have been (many of the deceptive actions of the patriarchs should probably not be condemned: see James B. Jordan’s provocative essay “Rebellionn, Tyranny, and Dominion in the Book of Genesis” for defense of this position, and for the source of my thinking on this issue, found here).
But a further example of this kind of behaviour is seen in Jesus’ own actions. One type of activity that would fit in this category is Jesus’ practice of telling parables: as he explained on one occasion, much of Jesus’ parable teaching was intentionally designed to confuse, or at least to make his teaching unclear to those who were not sympathetic. This is also found in other situations not explicitly parabolic in the Gospels: e.g., Jesus use of language that has double-meanings in John, and his indirect responses in his final trials before the high priest, Herod, and Pilate.
There is one example of this, however, that seems especially hard to avoid:
John 7:2-10 Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. (3) So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. (4) For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” (5) For not even his brothers believed in him. (6) Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. (7) The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. (8) You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” (9) After saying this, he remained in Galilee. (10) But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.
This fits with a theme Jordan points out in his arguments on this issue, including in his book Primeval Saints: Jesus uses deception both for the purposes of protecting himself from aggression and as an evangelistic technique.
The overall point is this (again, following Jordan): the general command in scripture is against bearing false witness (in a court scenario) about or lying to your neighbour. This law does not apply to tyrants who wish to kill you or other innocent people.
Though, one can rightly suggest that Jesus’ words only literally meant “I’m not going up now”, in the sense that they meant: make a big public entrance. Yet, there was still an element of tactical secrecy here, regardless.
What’s interesting about the false witness commandment is that it’s about bearing false witness against your neighbour, i.e.: lying in a way that will bring harm to your neighbour. Christopher Hitchens of all people pointed that out.
Yes, exactly. And in a warfare type situation (or a self-defense one), the OT commandments are fairly clear that it is, at minimum, permissible (if not obligatory) to harm hostile people.
Andrew, your last comment hits on the question that came to mind in reading your post. Can the same basic logic apply to murder, to us, today? That is, is drawing a distinction between taking the life of your neighbour for personal reasons, and taking the life of an assailant or legitimate enemy? I’m not simply talking about self-defence; I include preemptive violence in my question.
Ben,
Could you possibly phrase your question a different way? I’m not sure I’m understanding.
As a general answer: I think biblically vigilante murder/revolution is prohibited. Magistrates can justly take a life. According to just war principles, too, some preemptive attacks are legitimate when one is aware of an imminent and serious threat.
You understood my question. Let me rephrase for the sake of clarity (sorry it’s Monday and I’m not firing on all cylinders):
It is not your belief that the commandment “do not bear false witness” is a complete prohibition on lying. More often than not, people take the phrase “bear false witness” and “lie” to be simply interchangeable but as you (rightly) point out, this is incorrect.
So it stands to reason that taking the commandment “do not murder” to be a complete prohibition on killing, for example, would be similarly incorrect.
In either case it seems, to me, that an acts “sin value” is highly dependant on context; these prohibitions do not so much pertain to the pure and simple acts in and of themselves, but rather to the why and the where of them; the ultimate point being that seemingly sinful acts are perhaps not sinful when a greater good is at stake.
So, as you’ve answered, yes; you feel that taking a like is possibly justified insofar as the state calls for it. So then the question is, what defines a state? Are, for example, 13 rebellious colonies a state? What determines a body’s ability to act as an authority in this way? It appears as though you would have to make some sort of allowance for revolution; the American Revolution being a fair example.
It seems like a non sequitur, but I’m asking because I’m curious as to how this interfaces with your pacifism (or are you taking a softer line)?
Ben,
I just wrote a long reply that disappeared into internet oblivion, so here is the short version (please don’t take my abruptness for frustration towards you)
1) I’m not a pacifist anymore. But I don’t think true revolutions, where subjects overthrow by killing the government, to be permissible according to the OT (with its examples of David and Saul, the proverbs’ warnings against revolutionary activity), or Jesus (with his contra-zealot teachings and ministry), the epistles’ recommendations about Christians relations to governments (Romans 13, etc.), or the criteria of just war theory (since one of the criteria have historically been that an act of war has to be pursued by the authorities). I also don’t think, pragmatically, that violent revolutions (in the sense I’ve defined them) are more effective than non-violent ones. The ones that do succeed often end up replacing the corrupt authorities with other corrupt authorities.
2) The American revolution might be just in the case that it was not truly revolutionary. some have argued the colonies has no legal obligation to submit to the english parliament (as opposed to the english king), and so the revolution was actually a war of defense. I don’t know if this is true.
Thanks Andrew! Good thoughts.
Yeah, the idea of “the state” can be difficult to make sense of. The American Revolution being, possibly, the best example.
But in the case of an authority killing its own people, locally… I don’t know if I see much a difference.
So, off-topic I know, but what brought about your movement away from pacifism?
Well, the difference in the interpretation of the US revolution I mentioned is that the parliament, in that version, would not be an authority at all in the colonies. It would be a foreign invader.
As for my shift: it happened in stages I guess. Psychologically I was first motivated by recognizing that pacifism seemed to logically lead to anarchism, and at the time especially I was not inclined to want to move in that direction. Yoder, for example, did not take pacifism in an anarchist direction, but I couldn’t any longer see how that was consistent.
This led to a revisiting of the biblical evidence, and the first step was probably recognizing that the Sermon on the Mount said nothing the OT did not already say. From there I reevaluated the other texts used to defend pacifism (e.g., Jesus’ commands about the disciples’ relations to the kings of the gentiles, etc.), and found the same thing. Later reading confirmed even further that the OT already gave an anti-revolutionary ethic, which just made my view of Jesus’ teaching even more persuasive to me.
This was all helped by the fact that I saw tensions and problems in Yoder’s view of the OT throughout. His lower view of scripture led to what seemed to be a theological/ethical criticism of Ezra-Nehemiah, and the whole restoration episode in Israel’s history. Further, he makes some odd criticisms of certain commonplaces in OT political ethics (e.g., in one place he suggests it was practically impossible to actually apply the principle of proportionate punishment (“eye for an eye”)). Human experience, let alone the authority of the OT, suggests otherwise. So, things like this all along made me suspicious that Yoder’s view presumed a defective view of the OT, and I was a pacifist insofar as I adjusted it the best that I could. But I suppose later I realized that I had been overinfluenced by the pacifist (even the fairly positive one, which suggests that alleged NT pacifism is not a moral criticism of the OT, but just a movement in redemptive history) reading of the OT in the course of my study of Yoder.
Thanks for the explanation!