Myths of Pacifism Series

Due to the barrage of straw men arguments and attacks I and other pacifists have received recently (I’m mostly talking about my experience on the PuritanBoard; you can see the thread here), I thought I would try and make a constructive effort and dispel some of the prevalent myths surrounding the practices and beliefs of those who believe our imitation of Christ as his followers includes his radical nonviolent life and teaching.

I will handle these one by one, bit by bit, one here-one there, as time allows. Please, keep in mind that when I say we in the list below I am somewhat generalizing; I do not speak for all individual pacifists, only for what I understand to be the nonviolent way. Some of the myths that I’ll cover and do my best to clear the muddy air on are:

• we never own weapons
• we quote Jo. iii.16 when an intruder enters our home
• we sit and do nothing while someone (including ourselves) is being beaten, raped, harmed in some way
• we don’t like the Old Testament
• we cannot explain away Jesus beating the money traders in the temple
• we skip over the passage where Jesus told his disciples to buy swords
• we mishandle the Sermon on the Mount, focusing on a surface reading of a few verses and do not properly study or interpret the entire message
• we do not respect, care for, love those who serve in the military
• pacifists are naturally nonviolent

That’s only a quick five. There are more. Feel free to supply your own as well. While I don’t suspect I will cause the Earth to shift as the collective of anti-pacifists immediately erase the myths they’ve written, and delete those awful straw men posts and threads, and stand upon their respective soap boxes to declare aloud, “I was mistaken! I will return when I have prepared a more reasoned and substantial response…or have changed my ways.” Not all that likely. I do, however, do believe those who are more interested in dialogue and engaging in a discussion would appreciate a simplistic statement on how certain presuppositions have been wrong this whole time.

Sure. This has been done before. But, I maybe a refresher of this nature will make some impact…somewhere…with someone. God changes the heart. I remember where I used to be. It wasn’t an overnight, lightning storm event that turned me into who I am today.