Holding Space for Violence

Progressive Christians often profess pacifism at all costs. Are there any circumstances in which we shouldn’t?

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Before I begin, you should know that personally, I am a pacifist. Not because I’m better than most people, but because I’m worse. I have borderline personality disorder, which makes me prone to emotional volatility. I avoid conflict with people unless they’re very close to me, like romantic partners or family (or if it’s online, where, for better or for worse, it feels less personal). I specifically practice peaceful and nonviolent parenting methods with my children. I try not to even yell at them. My partners would likely tell you that I am a great person, but capable of frustration and rage that they have successfully learned to diffuse and navigate. Sometimes my anger is righteous, but sometimes it’s not.

So, in order to maintain my own personal mental, spiritual, and emotional health, I vow a life of relative pacifism in the Leo Tolstoy anarchist Christianity way. This is the philosophy that most aligns with my values and my abilities.

When I first began to deconstruct from evangelical Christianity, I was drawn to the nonviolent appeal of progressive Christians. They were kind to people that evangelicals mocked and rejected; they welcomed all people in their pews and they were wholly nonjudgmental of the broken, the meek, the poor — the same people that the heretical capitalist Christians attempt to crush.

In my politics, I hated the unfettered gun violence against innocent people at malls and schools. I hated the endless war and militarism of the United States, and the mindless patriotism of people who support it. I hated the fascist authoritarian police officers who would gleefully kill another human being in the course of a mere traffic stop. I hated the history of genocide against indigenous people and the slavery white people supported, and still support via capitalism and the U.S. criminal justice system with its highest percentage of imprisoned people per the population, by far, than any other country.

I thought I hated violence. But it turns out to be more complicated than that. What I actually hate is capitalism, imperialism, racism, and above all else, oppression.

Malcolm X, likely one of the figures of recent history most subjected to white propaganda, knew that to face oppression, you sometimes had to fight it head on. He wasn’t scared to arm Black Panthers with guns. This scared white people — the same people armed with guns themselves, of course, and armed with nooses for lynching, whips for cracking, federal badges for abusing, and immense wealth for hoarding.

Extraordinarily misguided white people today, who clearly haven’t studied his actual letters and speeches on the horrors of capitalism and racism and how to stand up against it, like to call out “nonviolent” MLK Jr. was in comparison to the “evil”Malcolm X. Of course, BOTH men were considered extremists by the majority of white people during their time, were followed and harassed by the U.S. government and wiretapped by the FBI, and were both ultimately murdered for their beliefs, despite their differences. Neither lived to see an antiracist United States, as we can tell through statistics and voting patterns of white people — racism is still alive and thriving and well, no matter what Candace Owens tells your conservative parents.

I believe there are instances in which violence is not only acceptable for progressive Christians, but may in fact be the only option. Jesus’s call to turn the other cheek wasn’t just him being nonviolent — it was an act of defiance. Roman soldiers would often slap citizens in their petty punishments; Jesus wanted you to stand back up straight against them and look them right in the eye.

And of course, there’s always the story of Jesus beating the money changers in the temple. I can’t think of a clearer evidence that we are intended to keep corruption and capitalism away from the church, but alas… so many have not similarly drawn that conclusion.

People experiencing oppression have a right to stand up for themselves. Progressive Christians have a right to throw out the money changers in their temples — indigenous people have the right to throw out colonizers from their native lands and demand their land back. Black people have the right to riot when their people are being murdered by cops. And frankly, we all have the right to revolt against forces of evil that control and oppress us. I see no gradual moving forward away from capitalism without such a revolution.

Progressive Christians often like to espouse nonviolence as their ultimate virtue that separates them from their bigoted theologically conservative siblings in Christ. I would like it if what separated us from them was our commitment to fighting oppression while they actively participate in it; anything to uphold white supremacy and their own influence and power. Christians have increasingly found fascism and theocracy (the same kind they deride Muslim countries for) acceptable in their politics. This is no coincidence.

I will be part of a nonviolent revolution. But not everyone will. Some will have to be on the ground, holding the forces of cruelty and bigotry and oppression accountable. Even if I do not join them, they have my whole support.