In previous posts, I expressed my belief that nonviolence and peacemaking are critical elements in kingdom of God ethics (See for example Peace or a Sword and One Thing C. S. Lewis Was Wrong About).  In fact, the very first post in my blog was about Christianity and terrorism.  Today, given that the war in Afghanistan has officially ended, many are raising questions about what was accomplished after 20 years of military engagement.  It seems appropriate to revisit nonviolence as an alternative, and that is what Mitchell Atencio did in an article published on September 2, 2021 in Sojourners, titled Could the U.S. Government Take Nonviolence Seriously?

Atencio succinctly states the cost of the war in human lives, without discriminating between American and Afghan lives:

“After 20 years of war and violence under four different presidents — and the deaths of more than 172,000 people — the United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan on Monday.”

To First Century Christians, nonviolence was a way of life.  Democracies differ from that model because they do not hesitate to use the power of the state to defend their interests.  However, as Jesus said, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” Violence always leads to more violence.  In Afghanistan, even an effort to end the war resulted in more violence, providing an unfortunate illustration of this saying.  A suicide bomber attacked the Kabul airport and killed 92 people, including 13 American military members.  President Biden vowed to respond, and did.  As Atencio put it,

“For many, ending the war in Afghanistan seems like a step toward a more peaceful future. But even in the process of ending a war, the United States has relied on violence to enforce its will: Two days before Biden’s address, on Aug. 29, the U.S. carried out a ‘defensive strike,’ using drones to attack what it said was the vehicle of an ISIS-K suicide bomber in Kabul, Afghanistan; following the attack, news reports said several civilians, including seven children, had been killed in the strike.”

Of course, terrorists don’t play by any rules and are only doing what we have come to expect from them.  But democracies, especially when they claim to be guided by “Judeo-Christian” values, must wrestle with the moral implications of their actions.  It is therefore legitimate to consider alternatives to the military solutions.  Atencio says such alternatives exist:

“But according to nonviolent activists, academics, and policy experts, violent intervention and retribution has never been the only option. Though these experts are aware that nonviolence is often viewed as impractical or ineffective — especially in geopolitical crises — they insist that the moral and practical arguments are on their side.”

He then quotes Lisa Schirch, senior fellow with the Alliance for Peacebuilding and a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute:

“What this moment in time teaches us is that war does not work. There’s no evidence that any amount of firepower or money could have changed this situation. Everything was thrown at Afghanistan that could be thrown at it in terms of a military solution. Nonviolence is a strategic choice for effectiveness.”

Mahatma Gandhi provided a model of successful nonviolent resistance and, according to Atencio, still inspires nonviolence practitioners such as Eli McCarthy, a board member for the DC Peace Team, a group of nonviolent practitioners that “conducts nonviolence trainings across the world and attempts peacekeeping and de-escalation during tensions and conflicts in Washington, D.C..”  To describe the essence of nonviolence, Atencio quotes McCarthy who says:

“[Gandhi] said the constructive program is the largest part of nonviolence, and it’s all these things that help meet the basic needs in the community and build the unity of the movement. Constructive nonviolence aims to meet people’s needs when it comes to labor, education, physical and emotional health, and spirituality, and public policies aimed at meeting those needs are likely to reduce violence.

The obstructive program is non-cooperation, strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and that only becomes really important when we fall short in constructive [nonviolence].”

Nonviolent activists are trained to protect, while being themselves unarmed, vulnerable or targeted individuals during a crisis.  Positive results from that approach have been seen in places such as South Sudan.  In fact, in recognition of the viability of this approach, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) spent $16 million between 2015 and 2021 on peacebuilding initiatives in Afghanistan.  But this is insignificant when compared to the $1.5 trillion spent on the war in Afghanistan.  In addition, according to Lisa Schirch and other experts, USAID’s approach is flawed because it fails to account for local realities and often looks like a mere attempt to use local people as “contractors implementing the U.S. strategy.”  Instead of pushing for research on peacebuilding initiatives on the ground, USAID tends to emphasize the idea of building a democracy, an American ideal that is not necessarily aligned with the needs of the locals.

One may wonder why religious institutions, and Christian institutions in particular, do not necessarily lead the way in peacebuilding efforts.  Atencio refers to Myles Werntz, a theologian and ethicist who says the disconnect between “a personal commitment to nonviolence and nonviolence as public policy” can be traced back to the work of the highly respected American theologian Reinhold Niebhur in the 1930’s.  According to Werntz,

“Niehbur [develops] this notion that people in their individual lives can be pious, but any time you start introducing more complex societies, then it becomes impossible to fulfill the perfectionism that you see within the gospel. In other words, nonviolence might be personally preferable, but it isn’t necessary as public policy. This approach led many theologians to reject nonviolence as a policy option.”

Reinhold Niebhur is an iconic figure in American Christianity.  It is not surprising that he was embraced by statesmen who were inclined to make use of the American military might.  But from my perspective, the marriage between church and state in the Roman Empire and the use of Just War Theory had already made those ideas pervasive in Church history.  Ironically, Jesus himself carried out his ministry under the highly militarized Roman Empire, which was already a fairly complex governing system.  But he did not accept Niebuhr’s logic.  He told his disciples to pursue the kingdom of God, which implied rejecting the wisdom of the world as represented by Rome.  He warned them that such a pursuit would invite persecution from governing authorities and endanger their lives.  But they had to stand firm and not be afraid of those who kill the body (Matthew 10:16-31).  People like Niebuhr were essentially saying that Christians should seek protection from the state and its military power.  Was Jesus wrong?  Or has his teaching been distorted?

It is true that the cost of following Christ may be very high because nonviolence makes his followers vulnerable in a world that does not believe in it.  However, Christians would be, at the very least, expected to engage in warfare with great reluctance.  They would also be expected to engage in efforts to reduce the need for wars and weapons of war.  Werntz presents Glen Stassen as an alternative to Niebuhr who, in the 1980s and 1990s, promoted a theology of “just peace”:

“Just peacemaking embeds nonviolence as one practice among others that are designed, when viewed comprehensively, to reduce conflict. It includes not just nonviolent direct action, but reduction of weapon sales and treaty negotiations.”

McCarthy, who is a Catholic proponent of Just Peace, explains how the Catholic Church should help:

“We need to start being clear that a foreign policy that is consistent with human dignity — or a humanitarian approach — is a policy that is oriented by a commitment to grow in nonviolence.”

Schirch and McCarthy provide details on what to do:

• The United States could begin funding peacebuilding — broadly understood as dialogue and restorative justice efforts between combatants — as well as health care, education, and jobs.
• The U.S. could also provide training in nonviolent resistance and pilot more programs in unarmed civilian protection.
• The U.S. could fund and provide legal support for nonviolent activists jailed by authoritarian regimes.

Atencio also reports that Susan Hayward, associate director of the religious literacy and the professions initiative at Harvard Divinity School, is worried about flaws in the way U.S. foreign policy views the impact of religion abroad:

“Baked into the international system and into diplomacy, especially in the West, is a great deal of simplistic and often biased thinking about religion.”

She believes diplomats should have adequate religious training and should “perform religious analyses and consider the conflict zones, the relationship between the government and religious entities, the religious demographics, the sacred sites (especially sites with dispute between religious groups, like in Jerusalem), and determine if/how religion should be engaged by diplomats.”

Indeed, religious groups could be useful partners to advocate for nonviolence in cases where the state tends to resist such an approach.

Overall, in view of the tremendous amount of funding made available by forces that advocate for warfare, the peacemaking effort must be sustained and well-funded, and must put a great deal of effort into educating populations about its potential benefits.