The Myth of a Christian Nation

by Gregory A. Boyd

  Now, the particular way we might answer these sorts of questions is less important than whether or not we approach such questions in a distinctly kingdom fashion. We will always have to wrestle with ambiguity in this life. The ultimate question is, do we wrestle with this ambiguity from a distinctly kingdom-of-God perspective, or do we allow ourselves to be pulled into a kingdom-of-the-world perspective as we seek to answer them? The goal of this book has not been to provide the “right” answer to ambiguous ethical questions but to help kingdom people appreciate the urgency of preserving the unique kingdom-of-God perspective on all questions and on life as a whole.

  Still, I believe it may be helpful to some readers to address a few of these difficult issues. What follows is my own wrestling with five of the questions I have most frequently been asked whenever I’ve publicly presented the perspective articulated in this book.

  1. WHAT ABOUT SELF-DEFENSE?

  You argue that a central aspect of the kingdom of God is the refusal to return evil with evil by using violence. Are you saying that if an enemy threatened to kill you, your wife, or your children, you wouldn’t use violence to protect yourself or them?

  The New Testament commands us never to “repay anyone evil for evil,” but instead to “overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:17, 21; cf. 1 Thess. 5:15; 1 Peter 3:9). Jesus said, “Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also” (Matt. 5:39). He also said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27–28). The teaching seems pretty straightforward, yet this very straightforwardness presents us with a dilemma.

  On the one hand, we who confess Jesus as Lord don’t want to say that Jesus and other New Testament authors are simply off their rockers in telling us not to resist evildoers, to repay evil with good, to love our enemies, and to pray for and bless people who mistreat us. If our confession of faith means anything, it means we have to take this teaching seriously. On the other hand, we have to admit that it’s hard to take this teaching seriously when it comes to extreme situations such as having to protect ourselves and our family from an intruder. Not only would most of us resist an evildoer in this situation, killing him if necessary, but most of us would see it as immoral if we didn’t use violence to resist such an evildoer. How can refusing to protect your family by any means be considered moral? Isn’t it more loving, and thus more ethical, to protect your family at all costs?

  How do we resolve this dilemma? It helps somewhat to remember that the word Jesus uses for “resist” (antistenai) doesn’t imply passively allowing something to take place. It rather connotes resisting a forceful action with a similar forceful action.1 Jesus is thus forbidding responding to violent action with similar violent action. He’s teaching us not to take on the violence of the one who is acting violently toward us. He’s teaching us to respond to evil in a way that is consistent with loving them. But he’s not by any means saying do nothing. As Wink notes, “Jesus…abhors both passivity and violence.”2

  Still, the teaching is problematic, for most of us would instinctively use violence, and feel justified using it, to protect our family from an intruder.

  The most common way people resolve this dilemma is by convincing themselves that the “enemies” Jesus was referring to are not our enemies—for example, people who attack our family (or our nation, our standard of living, and so on). Jesus must have been referring to “other kinds” of enemies, less serious enemies, or something of the sort. We tell ourselves that when violence is justified—as in “just war” ethics—Jesus’ teachings do not apply.3 This approach allows us to feel justified, if not positively “Christian,” killing intruders and bombing people who threaten our nation—so long as we are nice to our occasionally grumpy neighbors. Unfortunately, this common-sensical interpretation makes complete nonsense of Jesus’ teaching.

  The whole point of Jesus’ teaching is to tell disciples that their attitude toward “enemies” should be radically different. “If you do good to those who do good to you,” Jesus added, “what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same” (Luke 6:33). Everybody instinctively hates those who hate them and believes they are justified killing people who might kill them or their loved ones. Jesus is saying, “Be radically different.” This is why Jesus (and Paul) didn’t qualify the “enemies” or “evildoers” he taught us to love and not violently oppose. Jesus didn’t say, “Love your enemies until they threaten you, until it seems justified to resort to violence, or until it seems impractical to do so.” Enemies are enemies precisely because they threaten us on some level, and it always seems justified and practically expedient to resist them, if not harm them when necessary. Jesus simply said, “Love your enemies” and “Don’t resist evildoers.” Note that some of the people he was speaking to would before long confront “enemies” who would feed them and their families to lions for amusement.

  The teaching could not be more radical, and as kingdom people we have to take it seriously. At the same time, what do we do with the fact that most of us know we would not take it seriously, let alone obey it, in extreme situations such as our family coming under attack?

  As with all of Jesus’ teachings, it’s important to place this teaching in the broader context of Jesus’ kingdom ministry. Jesus’ teachings aren’t a set of pacifistic laws people are to merely obey, however unnatural and immoral they seem. Rather, his teachings are descriptions of what life in God’s domain looks like and prescriptions for how we are to cultivate this alternative form of life. In other words, Jesus’ isn’t saying, “As much as you want to resist an evildoer and kill your enemy, and as unnatural and immoral as it seems, act loving toward him.” He’s rather saying, “Cultivate the kind of life where loving your enemy becomes natural for you.” He’s not merely saying, “Act different from others”; he’s saying, “Be different from others.” This is simply what it means to cultivate a life that looks like Jesus, dying on a cross for the people who crucified him.

  How does this insight help address our dilemma? A person who lives with the “normal” tit-for-tat kingdom-of-the-world mindset would instinctively resort to violence to protect himself and his family. Loving his attacker and doing good to them would be the furthest thing from his mind. As with the Jerusalem that Jesus wept over, the “things that make for peace” would be “hidden from [his] eyes” (Luke 19:41–42). Indeed, from this kingdom-of-the-world perspective, Jesus’ teaching seems positively absurd.

  But how might a person who cultivated a nonviolent, kingdom-of-God mindset and lifestyle on a daily basis respond differently to an attacker? How might a person who consistently lived in Christlike love (Eph. 5:1–2) operate in this situation?

  For one thing, such a person would have cultivated a kind of character and wisdom that wouldn’t automatically default to self-protective violence. Because he would genuinely love his enemy, he would have the desire to look for, and the wisdom to see, any nonviolent alternative to stopping his family’s attacker if one was available. He would want to do good to his attacker. This wouldn’t be a matter of him trying to obey an irrational rule to “look for an alternative in extreme situations,” for in extreme situations no one is thinking about obeying rules! Rather, it would be in the Christlike nature of this person to see nonviolent alternatives if they were present. This person’s moment-by-moment discipleship in love would have given him a Christlike wisdom that a person whose mind was conformed to the pattern of the tit-for-tat world would not have (Rom. 12:2). Perhaps they’d see that pleading with, startling, or distracting the attacker would be enough to save themselves and their family. Perhaps they’d discern a way to allow their family to escape harm by placing themselves in harm’s way.

  Not only this, but this person’s day-by-day surrender to God would have cultivated a sensitivity to God’s Spirit that would enable him to discern God’s leading in the moment, something the “normal” kingdom-of-the-world person would be oblivi
ous to. This Christlike person might be divinely led to say something or do something that would disarm the attacker emotionally, spiritually, or even physically.

  For example, I heard of a case in which a godly woman was about to be sexually assaulted. Just as she was being pinned to the ground with a knife to her throat, out of nowhere she said to her attacker, “Your mother forgives you.” She had no conscious idea where the statement came from. What she didn’t know was that her attacker’s violent aggression toward women was rooted in a heinous thing he had done as a teenager to his now deceased mother. The statement shocked the man and quickly reduced him to a sobbing little boy.

  The woman seized the opportunity to make an escape and call the police who quickly apprehended the man in the park where the attack took place. He was still there, sobbing. The man later credited the woman’s inspired statement with being instrumental in him eventually turning his life over to Christ. The point is that, in any given situation, God may see possibilities for nonviolent solutions that we cannot see, and a person who has learned to “live by the Spirit” is open to being led by God in these directions (Gal. 5:16, 18).

  Not only this, but a person who has cultivated a kingdom-of-God outlook on life would have developed the capacity to assess this situation from an eternal perspective. Having made Jesus her example on a moment-by-moment basis, she would know—not just as a rule, but as a heartfelt reality—the truth that living in love is more important than life itself. Her values would not be exhaustively defined by temporal expediency. Moreover, she would have cultivated a trust in God that would free her from defining winning and losing in terms of temporal outcomes. She would have confidence in the resurrection. As such, she would be free from the “preserve my interests at all costs” mindset of the world.

  Of course it’s possible that, despite a person’s loving wisdom and openness to God, a man whose family was attacked might see no way to save himself and his family except to harm the attacker or even to take his life. What would such a person do in this case? I think it is clear from Jesus’ teachings, life, and especially his death that Jesus would choose nonviolence. So, it seems to me that a person who was totally conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, who had thoroughly cultivated a kingdom mind and heart, would do the same.

  At the same time, I have to confess that I’m not sure this is what I’d do. I honestly admit that, like most people, I don’t yet quite see how it would be moral to do what I believe Jesus would do. Yet I have to assume that my disagreement with Jesus is due to my not having sufficiently cultivated a kingdom heart and mind. If I felt I had to harm or take the life of another to prevent what clearly seemed to be a greater evil, I could not feel righteous or even justified about it. Like Bonhoeffer who, despite his pacifism, plotted to assassinate Hitler, I could only plead for God’s mercy.

  What we must never do, however, is acquiesce to our worldly condition by rationalizing away Jesus’ clear kingdom prescriptions. We must rather strive every moment of our life to cultivate the kind of mind and heart that increasingly sees the rightness and beauty of Jesus’ teachings and thus would naturally respond to an extreme, threatening situation in a loving, nonviolent manner.

  2. WHAT ABOUT CHRISTIANS IN THE MILITARY?

  Do you think Jesus’ teaching about not resisting evildoers implies that Christians should never serve in the military?

  Some soldiers responded to the preaching of John the Baptist by asking him what they should do. John gave them some ethical instruction, but interestingly enough, he didn’t tell them to leave the army (Luke 3:14). Likewise, Jesus praised the faith of a centurion and healed his servant while not saying a word about the centurion’s occupation (Matt. 8:5–13; Luke 7:1–10). Another centurion acknowledged Christ as the Son of God at the cross (Mark 15:39) without any negative comment being made about his military involvement. And the first Gentile to receive the good news of the gospel was a centurion described as a God-fearing man (Acts 10:22, 34–35). Clearly none of these texts endorse military involvement. But just as clearly, neither do they condemn it. For these and other reasons, most American Christians accept that the New Testament does not forbid serving in the military.

  While I respect that people will have differing convictions about this, I must confess that I find it impossible to reconcile Jesus’ teaching (and the teaching of the whole New Testament) concerning our call to love our enemies and never return evil with evil with the choice to serve (or not resist being drafted) in the armed forces in a capacity that might require killing someone.4 The texts cited above show that the gospel can reach people who serve in the military. They also reveal that John the Baptist, Jesus, and the earliest Christians gave military personnel “space,” as it were, to work out the implications of their faith vis-à-vis their service. But I don’t see that they warrant making military service, as a matter of principle, an exception to the New Testament’s teaching that kingdom people are to never return evil with evil.

  The traditional response to the tension between the New Testament’s uniform teaching, on the one hand, and taking up arms to defend one’s country, on the other, is to argue that fighting in the military is permissible if one’s military is fighting a “just war.” As time-honored as this traditional position is, I’m not at all convinced it is adequate.5

  For one thing, why should kingdom people assume that considerations of whether violence is justified or not have any relevance to whether a kingdom person engages in violence? Jesus is our Lord, not a human-constructed notion of justice. And neither Jesus nor any other New Testament author ever qualified their prohibitions on the use of violence. As George Zabelka remarked, the “just war” theory is “something that Christ never taught or even hinted at.”6 Indeed, as we saw above, Jesus goes out of his way to stress that his radical teaching on loving enemies sets his disciples apart precisely because it is not common-sensical (Luke 6:32). His disciples aren’t to love and bless those who persecute them when it makes sense to do so and to fight back and perhaps kill them when it makes sense to do so (that is, when it’s “just”)—for, as a matter of fact, it never makes sense to love and bless a persecutor, and it always makes sense to fight back and kill them if you have to!

  No, however much we might wish it were otherwise, there is no plausible way to insert a “just war” exception clause into Jesus’ teachings. We are not to resist evildoers or return evil with evil—period. We are to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, bless those who persecute us, pray for people who mistreat us, and return evil with good—period.

  Now, many have argued that they found grounds for a “just war” exception to Jesus’ teachings in Romans 13. Since Paul in this passage grants that the authority of government ultimately comes from God and that God uses it to punish wrongdoers (Rom. 13:1–5), it seems permissible for Christians to participate in this violent activity, they argue, at least when the Christian is sure it is “just.” Unfortunately, this argument is strained in several ways.

  First, while Paul encourages Christians to be subject to whatever sword-wielding authorities they find themselves under, nothing in this passage suggests the Christians should participate in the government’s sword-wielding activity. Second, as John Yoder has noted, Romans 13 must be read as a continuation of Romans 12, in which Paul tells disciples to (among other things) “bless those who persecute you” (v. 14); “do not repay anyone evil for evil” (v. 17); and especially, “never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (v. 19). Leaving vengeance to God, we are to instead feed our enemies when they are hungry and give them water when they are thirsty (v. 20). Instead of being “overcome by evil,” we are to “overcome evil with good” (v. 21).

  In the next several verses, Paul specifies that sword-wielding authorities are one means by which God executes vengeance (13:4). Since this is the very same vengeance disciples were just forbidden to exercise (12:19, ekdikeo) it seems to follow,
as Yoder argues, that the “vengeance” that is recognized as being within providential control when exercised by government is the same “vengeance” that Christians are told not to exercise.”7 In other words, we may acknowledge that in certain circumstances authorities carry out a good function in wielding the sword against wrongdoers, but that doesn’t mean people who are committed to following Jesus should participate in it. Rather, it seems we are to leave such matters to God who uses sword-wielding authorities to carry out his will in society.

  Thirdly, even if one were to concede, for the sake of argument, that a follower of Jesus may participate in violence if it is “just,” we have to wonder how a kingdom person could confidently determine whether or not any particular war is in fact “just.” Few wars have been fought in which both sides didn’t believe their violence against the other side was justified. The reality is that the criteria one uses to determine what is and is not “just” is largely a function of where one is born and how one is raised. How much confidence should a kingdom-of-God citizen place in that?

  For example, unlike most other groups throughout history and even today, modern Americans tend to view personal and political freedom as an important criteria to help determine whether a war is “just.” We kill and die for our freedom and the freedom of others. But why should a kingdom person think killing for this reason is a legitimate exception to the New Testament’s command to love and bless enemies? Can they be certain God holds this opinion?