An online place for some friends to get together and argue about what they care most about.

The "b" is silent.


At the seminar table:

Stephen Webb
Rodney Clapp
Trevor Bechtel
David Cunningham
Margaret Adam
A. K. M. Adam

Can't resist trying to get the last word in on pacifism. I guess I hesitate in calling myself a pacifist for the same reason that I don't want to call myself or try to be a vegan. Vegans assume that there is such a thing as a pure diet, and they claim it proudly. But as I argue in my book, all diets are implicated in violence. No diet is pure. And I think the same is true of our lives; to live is to take advantage of the police state (especially to live in Chicago!). Nobody's life is not implicated in violence, especially those who call themselves Americans! (I mean, our very lives here are made possible by the destruction of the Native Americans, etc. etc.)

So I do want my life to be a witness for peace, but I can't say that I have abjured all violence, just as I can't say that my diet is absolutely nonviolent. To say that would be to speak in self-righteousness, that is, it would make claims about purity that are utterly impossible in this life, especially as an American college professor whose serene life is made possible by our police state. Work against violence--yes; hope against violence--yes; hope that I will not be put in a situation where I will be violent--yes; claim that I am nonviolent??--No!

Moreover, I think much of the pacifism crowd talks about it in terms of the dignity or absolute value of human life. I think that rhetoric is all wrong. Hauerwas himself talks about life in Suffering Presence in terms of the end of worshipping God; Christians certainly shouldn't cling to life as an absolute end in itself. God does not do that; God gave up his life, and God takes life throughout the Bible. I can imagine situations where it would be better for all involved to take a life--killing someone before they commit murder would not only spare innocent victims, it would also keep the would-be murderer from becoming a murderer, and surely that would be a good thing as well.  

In other words, I think pacifists too quickly take this liberal line that God loves everyone equally, and thus wouldn't want us to choose between killing a madman or letting him kill our family. Well, God doesn't love everyone equally-- God was and is in love with Israel in a unique way, for example. And letting a madman fulfill his desires to be a madman by doing mad things like killing people is hardly working for the kingdom of God. It is best for that madman to be stopped, with the minimal amount of violence, but still to be stopped.

Finally, I think pacifism is just too often cheap rhetoric. It comes too easy to those of us who are over the draft age and who take advantage of the wealth and benefits of America and its police protective powers. It doesn't have much cost to it, unless one refuses to pay that portion of one's taxes that go to the military.

Moreover, it is based on a naive literalism with regard to the Gospels. If one wants to go down that route, then one should go the whole way and, along with the Franciscans, say, renounce wealth as well, because wealth = power = violence, and unless one embraces voluntary poverty, then pacifism has no punch, so to speak. Without being put in the context of a live of poverty, pacifism too easily becomes self- righteous, and since it has little pragmatic effect in the world, it needlessly causes schism in the church, leading some Christians to believe that they are more pure than other Christians. It becomes a mark of spiritual elitism. That is the real danger for me. I can see its attraction for those who are seeking a more radical and committed Christian lifestyle, but I think it also has its dangers, not least the way its rhetoric inevitably and necessarily reflects and echoes the tired cliches of a warm hearted liberalism. I say all this while coughing but the great thing about email is that you can't hear me coughing! Best to you all, and thanks for the conversations!!!!

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posted by David Cunningham at 2:58 PM

Some arguments with Steve, for fun:

>trying to get the last word in on pacifism.

Don't worry, Steve, you won't. Not with this crowd. And not with arguments like yours.

>>Vegans assume that there is such a thing as a pure diet, and they claim it >>proudly.

Not all do so, and in fact, I've never met one who has. Most of them just want to further reduce the amount of violence inflicted on animals. For example, the milk and beef industries are closely related; the stimulation of bovine lactation is clearly related to the number of calves being born. Consumption of less milk means less demand for calves, particularly if the beef market is falling (as it is now in many places, particularly outside the U.S.). Similarly for shellfish, etc.; one can make a pretty good argument, on the level of sentience, that something like an oyster or scallop is only marginally other than a vegetable. But the harvesting of one pound of shellfish typically kills ten pounds of other marine life, including tortoises and fish. One can decide against consumption of such animals for other reasons than the mythical search for a "pure" diet.

>to live is to take advantage of the police state (especially to live in >Chicago!).

Again, there are greater and lesser degrees of "taking advantage." One can actively call on the police, or one can refrain from doing so. One can (as Trevor pointed out in our conversation) do what one can to diminish violence, either by the police or against them, and therefore reduce the need for police protection. There is no pure space apart from violence, but that doesn't mean that one need embrace all forms of it. Surely the logic of your own position demands this.

>I do want my life to be a witness for peace, but I can't say that I have >abjured all violence, just as I can't say that my diet is absolutely >nonviolent.

But there are better and worse witnesses, aren't there? Someone who eats no shellfish is responsible for less animal death than someone who hasn't. Someone who eats no dairy products is helping to reduce the demand for more calves. And so on. No one can do everything, of course; but everyone can do something, and some do more than others.

>Work against violence--yes; hope against violence--yes; hope that I will >not be put in a situation where I will be violent--yes; claim that I AM >nonviolent??--No!

You have, of course, left out the most important option: develop habits and work toward processes of formation such that, when I am put in a situation where the more common forms of cultural formation would expect violence, I nevertheless respond without violence. Again, please read Yoder's What Would You Do? before you make any more arguments that sound silly to people who have digested and agree with that book.

>much of the pacifism crowd

May I suggest that one way that you, Steve, could be a more effective witness for peace would be to stop lumping highly diverse people into a single group so that you can argue against the weakest position contained within the crowd. There is no "pacificism crowd"; that's a social construction erected by people who are more heavily implicated in violence in order to justify themselves. You should certainly know better than to assume that anyone to whom you addressed your e-mail is arguing for pacificism on the basis of some banal conception of "dignity or absolute value of human life."

>God takes life throughout the Bible.

But of course, since you made it clear the other night that you reject any form of imitatio, you would not possibly want to argue that we should imitate God in this respect. And of course, there's general scholarly agreement on the theological point of these claims of divine violence and even divine vengeance: they remind Israel that their earthly success is not due to their own strength, but to God. See Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, and various other works, passim.

>I can imagine situations where it would be better for all involved to take a >life--killing someone before they commit murder would not only spare innocent >victims, it would also keep the would-be murderer from becoming a murderer, >and surely that would be a good thing as well.

Of course, the problem, as frequently rehearsed in such arguments, is that one rarely knows the details before one acts. So in imagining that we have completely discerned the situation, we may make a mistake that will lead to more death. I'm waiting, for example, for the moment when, seeing a person of middle-eastern descent pull a gun on an airplane, some well-meaning hero-type takes him out, only to discover that he was actually a federal marshall and that his act was the last chance to stop the guy who actually blows up the plane. All of this is well rehearsed, with more examples than necessary, in Yoder's What Would You Do?

>this liberal line

See comment above on "the pacificism crowd." Nuance is a virtue, especially when arguing with smart people like Margaret. Flailing about and assigning people to generic, socially-constructed categories that they would not themselves accept is really of no help whatsoever.

>God doesn't love everyone equally--God was and is in love with Israel in a >unique way, for example.

Acts 10:34.

>Finally, I think pacifism is just too often cheap rhetoric.

Steve, this may be true, but I'm not quite sure what it's doing in this e-mail to us. Is your claim that our pacificism is this? That the arguments that we use to justify it fall into this category? Or is this just another attempt to avoid the specifics of the argument by lumping us into a category that you know how to handle, so that you can wipe it off the page in a single blow and thereby clear your conscience from having to think seriously about it in the future?

>Moreover, it is based on a naive literalism with regard to the Gospels.

And again, are we to assume that you are accusing us of living with this naive literalism, hermeneutical simpletons that we are?

>it needlessly causes schism in the church

The word needlessly begs the question, of course. If it is a matter of significant ethical important, it will cause division and strife, and it probably needs to. One could say the same thing about abortion, the ordination of women, and the Nicene Creed. How "needless" the schisms are will depend on how important you think the practice or belief is for Christian identity.

>leading some Christians to believe that they are more pure than other Christians

OK, OK, you don't have to yell. It might have that effect, but it might not. Do the women who have carried their unwanted pregnancies to term feel that they are "more pure" than the women who have had abortions? And if they do, so what? Does that make their decisions wrong? Your own claims about the moral problems of other practices (like abortion) make your worries about self-righteousness a little hard to embrace without creating odd disparities.

>inevitably and necessarily reflects and echoes the tired cliches of a >warm hearted liberalism.

Again, I do wish you would differentiate between the people you are actually talking to and the straw figures that you construct in order to make your arguments. You know that none of us are going to argue from the standpoint of liberalism, whether warm-hearted or otherwise. While your position might make perfect sense on the op-ed page, it will make little sense to any of the people to whom you've sent this e-mail.

Looking forward to your (nuanced) responses!

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posted by Margaret Adam at 4:51 PM

I give thanks to God for this conversation--for this small example that faithful conversation about differing approaches to eating habits does not necessarily lead to schism.

I thank you, Steve, for setting some things down in writing, so that we can continue to talk, after leaving the  Hittner-Cunningham's living room.

And, I thank you, David, for responding so helpfully.

However, I'm not one be left out, so here are some more thoughts:

Steve: Vegans assume that there is such a thing as a pure diet, and they claim it proudly.

David: Not all do....

Margaret:  
I don't understand how "purity" comes into the conversation. I have never mentioned it on my own, and it's certainly not anything you, Steve, recommend in your book. So I gather you see purity as an attribute of vegans--which none of us is, just now, for the record. The people you are talking to (those of us who are vegetarians--Trevor and Rodney are not) do not aim for vegan purity or any other sort of purity. We don't eschew eating dead animals because we think it will gain us a new level of character or a clean stamp of goodness. Rather, we are vegetarian in order to reduce the violence inflicted on animals (as David notes), and to form our interactions with the rest of creation in ways that respond to Christ's last sacrifice, to God's peaceable trinitarian interactions, and to the coming of the Kingdom (isn't it tough to eat animals during the Advent lectionary, for those of you who are into Isaiah and lions and lambs now?). This is, perhaps, an example of the caricatured RC/Protestant, works/faith argument--which argument, of course, misrepresents each "side." In this case, you would be on the faith side, recognizing that our works (our eating habits) in no way insure our righteousness, since that lies in God's hands. And you are suspicious of the idea that any particular habits really matter. But I reply that I do not look to my acts to determine my righteousness, no matter how hard you throw interest in purity at me. Rather, my eating habits are my response (yes, I am raising my voice) to the gift of Christ, to Christ's peaceable actions, to Christ's suffering for and with all those who are hungry (see David on use of resources), to God's peaceable creation, and to the promise of the peaceable kingdom. Thus, my eating habits matter, but not because of what they grant me, but because of that to which they respond. And, we have formed our children to eat vegetarianly as part of forming their response (I'm all in favor of formation--and it seems to work!).

Steve:: to live is to take advantage of the police state (especially to live in Chicago!).

David: Again, there are greater and lesser degrees of "taking advantage...."

Margaret:
To live is to "take advantage" of a lot of things, I'd say, including God's creation. How we relate to, use, abuse, "take advantage" of the earth, other creatures, each other, reflects our response to God and God's gifts. We don't have to kill creatures and people in order to live in God's world, and there are some reasons for avoiding such killing, as witnessed to us by the saints before us (see Steve Webb's book, Good Eating).

Steve: I do want my life to be a witness for peace, but I can't say that I have abjured all violence, just as I can't say that my diet is absolutely nonviolent.

David:But there are better and worse witnesses, aren't there?

Margaret: Again, why this obsession with purity, perfection, all or nothing? Of course none of us claims to be perfect, as none of us is Christ. Witness, as I understands it, involves acting as if God's truth might really be true, as if violence is not necessary for survival, as if peaceable, mutual existence is possible--even if in small moments, in small ways.

Steve: Work against violence--yes; hope against violence--yes; hope that I will not be put in a situation where I will be violent--yes; claim that I AM nonviolent??--No!

David: You have, of course, left out the most important option:  develop habits and work toward processes of formation such that, when I am put in a situation where the more common forms of cultural formation would expect violence, I nevertheless respond without violence....

Margaret: And, we could focus on the formation of children again. My kids know that fighting back is not the only, or the normative, response to bullies. They were not born with this, and they did  not learn it from TV, school, or peers. They learned it at home and in church. Should they run for public office (Lord help us) they would vote against war. OK, maybe that's a bad example, since it brings up the whole state thing. Instead, picture yourself following Nate and Si around in their social lives for a week--the last one included they each making persuasive witnesses at their respective youth groups in favor of adoption over abortion, in the name of peaceable relations. Their peers know that their positions are backed up by their practices of living lives that try to avoid violence whenever they can. At camp all summer, Nate has been sitting at the vegetarian table (with mostly girls), which serves as an unintended witness. And you should hear the three girls, Pippa, Monica, and Emily, when the subject of eating dead animals comes up--perhaps we should have you talking to them. . .  Hey--what about the opening anecdote in your book about witnessing to people who ask casually when eating in public? This is all about claiming God's peaceable nature, not our perfected non-violence, and about following Christ toward that peace to which we are created, and to which God draws us, through the Holy Spirit, when we are not resisting too stubbornly.

Steve: much of the pacifism crowd

David: [S]top lumping highly diverse people into a single group so that you can argue against the weakest position contained within the crowd....

Margaret: I don't know any of those people as it turns out. They all vanished on September 11.

Steve:  God takes life throughout the Bible.

David: But of course you would not possibly want to argue that we should imitate God in this respect....

Steve: I can imagine situations where it would be better for all involved to take a life--killing someone before they commit murder would not only spare innocent victims, it would also keep the would-be murderer from becoming a murderer, and surely that would be a good thing as well.

David: Of course, the problem is that one rarely knows the details before one acts. . . .

Margaret: First of all, I'm not ready to accept any differences between "innocent" and "guilty" victims. This is the bullshit that encourages us to care for some AIDS patients and not others, or to sanction the murder of people depending on within which the imaginary geopolitical lines they live. Murder is murder, as you must have learned in your abortion discussions. However, death is not the worst thing, as scripture and the saints teach us. Dying isn't the problem; death that isn't witness to Christ's death and resurrection is. (See Torture and Eucharist.) So, how could it possibly be better for many people to become murderers in order to (possibly) prevent one murder. Here, I also think the problem is poor formation, of actions and of imagination.

Steve: this liberal line

David: See comment above on "the pacificism crowd."

Margaret: I'd be interested to see you  make any connections between what I am saying and a "liberal" line. Otherwise, let's not resort to name calling. Or is it that when you call me liberal, you are trying to tell me I'm really just like you? The extent to which we are similar has to do with our love of Christ, and Christ's love of us, not our "liberalness."

Steve: God doesn't love everyone equally--God was and is in love with Israel in a unique way, for example.

David: Acts 10:34.

Margaret: AKMA, the Bible guy, says that God's impartiality is in Romans and James too.

Steve: Finally, I think pacifism is just too often cheap rhetoric.

David: Is your claim that *our* pacificism is this?

Margaret: If I were inclined to rise to the bait, I would say F*** You! Fortunately, I'm not. I will note that you do not know me well enough to call the practices that form my life cheap rhetoric. You're getting there, but not yet. I will receive that sort of criticism from you when have logged in quite a few more hours of listening and quite a bit more reassurance that you are not dumping me into the same basket as those offensive, purist, vegans you abhor.  David supposes that you didn't really mean that I'm a cheap rhetoric pacifist, but I'm sure you wouldn't have written what you did the way you did if you meant something else. . . .

Steve: Moreover, it is based on a naive literalism with regard to the Gospels.

David: And again, are we to assume that you are accusing *us* of living with this naive literalism, hermeneutical simpletons that we are?

Margaret: Anyone who uses this terminology should have to offer an account of "naive literalism" and your sophisticated alternative that enlightens us rubes with your superior knowedge--and do so quickly, as AKMA might want to retract some of his books and I certainly want to know the answer before I submit my paper on Frei and de Lubad, biblical interpretation, and ecclesiology.

Steve: it needlessly causes schism in the church

David: The word needlessly begs the question, of course....

Steve: leading some Christians to believe that they are more pure than other Christians.

David: OK, OK, you don't have to yell....

Margaret: Can you have this conversation without the word, "pure" ? I don't think I'm more pure than you, although I'm not sure I ever use the word. I do think you might make a better argument without it.

Steve: inevitably and necessarily reflects and echoes the tired cliches of a warm hearted liberalism.

David: Again, I do wish you would differentiate between the people you are actually talking to and the straw figures that you construct in order to make your arguments....

Margaret: Steve, I firmly believe that part of the reason we are having this conversation at all is that you are intrigued and a little drawn by the account of vegetarianism you are hearing. It's too bad that we all did not have this conversation before Good Eating, as I  feel somewhat accountable for not having made my witness more clear earlier. I don't feel that guilty, however, but just motivated to open your awareness a bit to those of us who live outside your caricatures. Please keep asking questions and trying out ideas (although, the more nuanced the better) so that we can make some headway here.

An anecdote: Generally, when someone I have just met finds out that we homeschool (I do not advertise this, but "where do your kids go to school" is a big question around here), the person immediately launches into defensive arguments whey they could not possibly homeshool. This is sad, because I do not tell people they should homeschool, and I do not like to serve as the punching bag for their discomfort about their schooling practices. It seems clear in these cases that the presence of a radical option unlocks the anxieties, confusions, and unhappy feelings that these regular schoolers carry around with them all the time. I usually try to recast the conversation in terms of decisions we all make for our children's education. Obviously, for me, that conversation led to homeschooling, and maybe it will for some people. Maybe it will lead them to be more intentional about doing the same thing they have been doing. Do I think I am doing the right thing? Yes. However, I do not lord it over people and I do not suggest we are purer for doing it. And I definitely know people with kids in school who do a phenomenal job of educating their children.

The fact that I am a vegetarian and that we have formed our children to be vegetarians does not mean that we cause divisive relationships with other people who eat dead animals. It does mean that we open possibilities for people who didn't see those possibilities. (Our vegetarian contributions of church pot lucks are always finished first, and eaten by people who are not vegetarian--it's one small witness.)  It also means that we open ourselves up as the souding posts for people who are not as sure why they eat what they do.  You have access to lots of reasons for being a vegetarian, and you are a vegetarian, and yet you still seem to harbor much concern about whether that's a sufficiently good idea not to feel apologetic about it. I hope this conversation begins to address that concern.

Looking forward to more, and giving thanks for friendship, vegetables, and God's peace,

Margaret

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posted by Steve Webb at 10:31 AM

Just a quick note! I didn't mean to offend anyone. I assumed that you all are sufficiently assured of my affection and love that you wouldn't mind me venting about pacifism a little bit, and I was mainly arguing against the kind of pacifism I find up here at Wabash, not the kind your folks articulate. But I also was trying to get a reponse because I am in the midst of really thinking about it (and even reading the Yoder book everyone tells me to read, which I so far have not found all that interesting). After all, one of the sections of Good Eating is called "Dietary Pacifism." So I am trying to take some of the analysis from that book and see how far it can stretch to be applied to the problem of pacifism proper. So please be patient with me! I don't think any of you are _________ (fill in the blank with a negative term). Indeed, I respect you too much, which means I feel a need to test my ideas in front of you.

Only a couple of quick points: 1) I think vegans do make claims to purity, because most of the ones I talk to realize that their efforts to change the world are very insignificant. The meat industry will change due to health scares, and my own lack of meat consumption won't make any difference. Therefore, much of the rhetoric of veganism is symbolic, which is okay, of course, as long as it is recognized as such. But the problem with symbols, of course, is that they can turn groups against each other, can become flags, markers of purity. I do think that is a bigger problem than either of you admit, although perhaps I am more classically reformed than David is in the sense that I think we remain sinners after salvation, and that sanctification has to do with how God uses our gifts, not how we make progress with our giftedness. So again, the whole issue goes back to original sin for me.

2) Nobody addressed my point that to renounce violence one, to be totally consistent, would have to renounce wealth as well, since the two are so closely tied together. Jesus renounced both, but I think it is very hard to renounce wealth nowadays (and much easier to say that one renounces violence). Also, to renounce violence to me suggests that one would not pay that portion of taxes that goes to support the police state and the military.

3) Yes, there are biblical passages about God's love for everyone, but unless we are supercessionists, we must deal with God's special love for Israel (of which there are also abundant passages), as well as any doctrine of election that seems to suggest God's freedom to choose those whom God wants (most?) to save. But I probably have a higher doctrine of election than you folks.

4) I do think there is a problem with the term pacifism. I would rather use a term like peace witness, or Peace First Christians. I would call myself that. I guess why I don't like pacifism is that it seems so dogmatic to me, so either-or. I think if I accept police protection for my home, and if take advantage of the many ways in which the threat of violence makes my life comfortable, then it is hypocritical of me to say that I renounce all violence. I work toward peace, but even that language bothers me, and in fact, David himself urged me to tone down such language in my Good Eating book. We don't "work toward the Kingdom of God" by being vegetarians; we witness God's own intentions to restore the world to peace and love. That's a big difference. I want to witness for peace, but I don't want to turn that into some sort of absolute principle because I know that God works through violence all the time in the Bible to achieve God's ends and that even Paul says to respect the authorities, etc.

5) The Pope just came out with a statement that reflects my beliefs too: that seeking justice through warfare is acceptable in God's sight, but it should always be done with an emphasis on compassion and forgiveness. I think that is a radical statement, and if we were to take the just war tradition seriously, we could really shake up America; as it is, nobody much listens to pacifism, but the just war tradition has a better chance of prophetic witness, in my opinion.

6) I return to David's comments that one should do as much as one can, and that some people do more than others. Call me a conservative, but the image of people out demonstrating against hamburgers or in favor of peace strikes me as full of wishful thinking, pride, and self-flattery. I don't think we can change the world much with our petitions and demonstrations. That just emphasizes the capacity for human goodness and historical progress in ways that make me uncomfortable.

7) To me, violence is necessary here and now. To act otherwise is to be overly eager about the eschaton. Peace is thus an eschatological virtue; it can be practiced as part of one's personal piety, but it cannot be held up as a virtue for nation states or any communities charged with the responsiblity of protecting the welfare of their members. If this sounds like I am privatizing and individualizing the virtue of pacifism, then I stand so charged. Peace is not the most fundamental truth of our human situation; violence is. Peace is yet to come; we glimpse it now, but only through the lens of hope. After all, even Niebuhr ends his Interpretation book with a chapter on forgiveness, so I think he would completely agree with Margaret (as would I) that we must teach our children not to strike back at bullies and not to escalate violence. But I still want my children protected from madmen if they break into the school.

8) I don't think murder is murder. The Bible gives no grounds for that reduction. Thou shalt not kill was never taken as a ban against all forms of violence. The rabbinical tradition is pretty clear on that, as are the early Fathers.

9) I talked to a crowd of 200 people at Butler on terrorism the day after I saw all of you and they were the Indianapolis leftist peace crowd. They were very vocal, very dogmatic, very liberal. So there is a crowd like that out there, still doing their thing, believe it or not.

Well, I am intrigued, as Margaret has suggested, and I am also horrified that I could have upset her and David and made her think that I did not respect her or that I was simply picking a fight. Thank you Margaret for your generous hermeneutic that assumed rightly that I need conversation partners on this topic and that I am really struggling with it and want to write about it. Sorry that I came off so poorly--I tend, in emailing close friends, just to let everything fly that is in me without worrying about nuancing it in the hope that people know I am letting go and that I like a good argument but never mean to question someone's integrity.(Always keep in mind my context here, fighting against very real liberals!) I must say, though, that I am glad that you both are pacifists because for a moment there I was wondering if you had rocks in your hands or a rope behind your back! If we were in the same room, it sounded like you wanted to kill me!!! (ha!) Hey, thanks for putting up with this. I wish I lived closer. You have my deepest affection and respect.

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posted by Margaret Adam at 1:04 PM

Dear, Dear Steve:

You wrote:

Just a quick note!

And I reply: Relax, I have not been losing sleep over your name-calling. I recognize that you are venting and throwing out thoughts somewhat carelessly. And I recognize that you assume a relationship here commited enough to handle such venting. So do I. I do, however, respond to such communication directly and as it comes across precisely because I am concerned about practicing peaceable communication and about working against schism. I do not think that I am likely to cause schism simply because I am a vegetarian. I would worry about it if I were calling non-vegetarians names. With that in mind, I'm concerned about rhetoric, style, and accountability. I care enough about you and about the topic, that I'm impatient with and a bit worried about careless name-calling.  That said, I'm very pleased to be in this conversation, and I'm delighted to have troubled you enough to evoke such energetic responses!

Steve: I think vegans do make claims to purity....

Margaret: Again, I'm more worried about turning groups against each other with careless rhetoric than I am worried about turning people away with my eating practices. I'm not sure if we need to make a distinction in this conversation between vegans (which we aren't) and vegetarians (which some of us are).

Clearly, you are presenting a distinction between bad-purity-symbolic vegans and vegetarians like you. However, I think that some vegetarians may opt for the symbolism you abhor, just as some vegans may have different agendas altogether. So, perhaps we could focus on the way in which people identify and understand their eating practices. (For example, some non-vegetarians who eat only organic seem closer to your purity argument than some vegetarians or vegans.) So, if we are focusing on how people understand and present their eating practices, we are firmly within the conversation of Good Eating, in which politeness ranks higher than eating practices. Here, you identify this problem as having to do with symbolism.

Since I am currently wallowing in de Lubac's exploration of medieval exegesis and fourfold senses, I'm tempted to ask just which sorts of symbolism you are engaging with, but I'll hold on that. At any rate, can the use of symbols turn people against each other? Sure, most things can. Should we decline to engage with the meaning of our actions? Probably not.  I am a vegetarian at least in part as a sign of my faith in the Prince of Peace, in the peaceable trinitarian interactions which define God, and in the peaceable nature of the kingdom to come. I gather that you are saying that this vegetarianism as sign is ok as long as I keep it to myself. Presumably, the potential for symbol-agonism comes when I talk about my practice with other people. So far, I hope, my talking about vegetarianism isn't turning any of these conversation partners against each other. And it hasn't yet turned anyone else I know against me or the church. So far, so good, it would seem.

Clearly, you are more Reformed than I am. No argument there, and I'm just fine with that, thank you. However, ecclesial formation noted, I don't understand why you would think that I am arguing I am not a sinner, or that God sanctifies. Unless you are arguing that God does not care in the least what we do with our lives, I'm confused about why talking about what we do must mean inflating our role or dismissing God's. I am in the practice of confessing, individually and corporately, on a regular basis, for example. Why would I bother if I thought that my efforts of vegetarianism were taking care of my sinfullness. So, in the part of the conversation where you are talking to me, and not some other people elsewhere, I wonder if there is any room for us to talk about a relationship between our actions and God's will, or between our gifts from God and what we do with them.

Steve: To renounce violence one, to be totally consistent, would have to renounce wealth as well....

Margaret: I am totally ready for you to call me on not having sufficiently renounced violence. And, you are equally welcome to critique  me on my engagement with money. I look forward to more detailed conversations on these points. I guess at the moment I am curious about A) how we can talk about the value of renouncing violence (and wealth) if we don't think it's worth recommending to other people, and B) why we would want to suggest that people who can't do it all, perfectly, shouldn't try.

Is it hard to renounce violence and wealth as Jesus did? Yes, of course. It is a little bit easier to try, however, when one recognizes such renouncement as a call to the body of Christ (rather than a personal, optional, austerity measure), and when one feels the critical support of the rest of the body of Christ (in the form of the witness of the saints, the liturgy, and the presence of neighbors, far and near). Should we be paying taxes? It's a good question, and a live one here, along with whether or not to vote, and what to do with registration age teenage boys. I hope that you are not arguing that, since I am not perfect about my renouncing of violence and wealth, and since I am not yet sure how to proceed with taxes, I am denied the chance to try to witness to peace through my practices. If you are, try harder. If you are not, what is it that troubles you?

3) Yes, there are biblical passages about God's love for everyone, but unless we are supercessionists, we must deal with God's special love for Israel (of which there are also abundant passages), as well as any doctrine of election that seems to suggest God's freedom to choose those whom God wants (most?) to save. But I probably have a higher doctrine of election than you folks.

I suppose you must have a higher doctrine of election than I do, and I probably need some remedial work in such doctrine (and why I should pay more attention to it in this conversation). I guess I thought that even within the highest doctrine of election it was still possible to talk about behaviors that befit or do not befit those who do not know if they are elected or not. Otherwise, if it doesn't matter what we do, aren't we like the early heretics who so distanced their spiritual nature from their bodily nature and claimed it didn't matter what they did? God especially loved Israel. God also loves the Gentiles (that's me), and God surely maintains the freedom to save at God's will. What little I know of God's will, which I know through scripture and the witness of the saints, leads me to think that it matters what I do with my body, because God cares about my body  (whatever else God may have in mind for me) and about the other bodies of creation. Expressing that awareness of God's will and God's care manifests in my attempt to live without utter dependence on violence for my sustinence. Is this possible? Not completely. Does my awareness of that impossibility lead me to humility? Yes, and to thanks for God's gifts of life and of the possiblity of peaceableness.

Steve: 4) I do think there is a problem with the term pacifism. I would rather use a term like peace witness, or Peace First Christians. I would call myself that. I guess why I don't like pacifism is that it seems so dogmatic to me, so either-or.

Margaret: I'll think you'll notice that we don't use pacifism much either. This might be a point of agreement.

Steve: I think if I accept police protection for my home, and if take advantage of the many ways in which the threat of violence makes my life comfortable, then it is hypocritical of me to say that I renounce all violence.

Margaret:Lord knows I do not pretend effectively to renouce all violence. I name it as counter to God's will, and I struggle to live as if it's not necessary (as witness to God's peaceble creation), but I don't think I have to receive the charge of hypocrisy if I'm not claiming to live apart from or above violence.

Steve: I work toward peace, but even that language bothers me, and in fact, David himself urged me to tone down such language in my Good Eating book. We don't "work toward the Kingdom of God" by being vegetarians; we witness God's own intentions to restore the world to peace and love.

Margaret: What I know about witness involves practices, prayer, and accountability. This means that my witness to God's intentions to restore the world to peace and love includes living as if God's intentions are not absurd or "impractical"; praying for that peace; and not dismissing by actions as optional or a matter of choice or not worth other people considering. No, my actions will not cause the kingdom to come. Yes, I can hope that my practices will keep me and others from turning the other way when it comes, or from rejecting the possibility of that kingdom.

Steve: That's a big difference. I want to witness for peace, but I don't want to turn that into some sort of absolute principle because I know that God works through violence all the time in the Bible to achieve God's ends and that even Paul says to respect the authorities, etc.

Margaret: Is Christ's death and resurrection the last sacrifice or what? Sometimes I feel as if I am arguing your book's points back at you. Does God call us to continue sacrifices after Christ's? I don't think so. Does God work through violence? I have to hope that God's work is not limited, and that nothing is too far from the effects of God's love. But this does not mean that I am about to argue that we go out and rape and pillage just because there's some of that in the biblical narrative. Perhaps we need to add some conversation here about biblical interpretation (since I have Frei and de Lubac on the brain on that topic).

What is this concern about absolute principles? Are you saying that if I want to talk about how vegetarianism might be a good idea for others to consider as part of their witness to God's peace, I am thereby establishing an "absolute principle"? Are the only options do whatever you want, or do exactly as I recommend? How do you parse this sort of thing out with our pro-life friends? Is that a bad absolute principle or something else? I know that you don't think abortion and carnivory are the same, but can there be some similarity in the form of the argument?

Steve:  5) The just war tradition has a better chance of prophetic witness, in my opinion.

Margaret: More Reformed and more Roman Catholic!  Well, I suppose it's helpful to name our differnces! I decline to understand what a compassionate war looks like. Nor do I think that it's a radical statement. It sounds like a wimpy way to try and point toward peace without upsetting any nation states.

Steve:6) I don't think we can change the world much with our petitions and demonstrations. That just emphasizes the capacity for human goodness and historical progress in ways that make me uncomfortable.

Margaret: I'm pretty humble in my ambition. I'm out to convert you to Christian, peaceable vegetarianism. I'm hoping it won't be too hard as your eating practices are (pretty much) already there. But, perhaps more to your point, we witness to God's love and care for us and for creation not because we think we will change the world--God does that--but because we think God's gifts are worth responding to in our praise, action, and identity. Sure, it's not practical or necessarily effective by standards we can judge, but that's not the point.

Steve: 7) To me, violence is necessary here and now. To act otherwise is to be overly eager about the eschaton.

Margaret: I'd rather be over eager than obstructionist, and I think I can cite a few saints whose witness confirms my position.

Steve: Peace is thus an eschatological virtue; it can be practiced as part of one's personal piety, but it cannot be held up as a virtue for nation states or any communities charged with the responsiblity of protecting the welfare of their members. If this sounds like I am privatizing and individualizing the virtue of pacifism, then I stand so charged.

Margaret: Charge affirmed. Or perhaps confounded:  What does private peace look like, anyway?

Steve: Peace is not the most fundamental truth of our human situation; violence is.

Margaret: Since when do the sins of our "human situation" count as more truthful than God's presence. Isn't that something of the point of Christ's life, death, and resurrection?

Steve: Peace is yet to come; we glimpse it now, but only through the lens of hope.

Margaret: I don't think we can glimpse peace if our practices cloud our lens of hope.

Steve: Even Niebuhr ends his Interpretation book with a chapter on forgiveness, so I think he would completely agree with Margaret (as would I) that we must teach our children not to strike back at bullies and not to escalate violence. But I still want my children protected from madmen if they break into the school.

Margaret: I don't want my children killed by madmen or by nation state armies. You will note that they are not in school or in the army.  They have not been home to protect them so much as to form them how to be when they are threatened. I do not want them to escape death by their own violence, since Christ defines life and death a bit differently than does "our human situation."

Steve: 8) I don't think murder is murder. The Bible gives no grounds for that reduction. Thou shalt not kill was never taken as a ban against all forms of violence. The rabbinical tradition is pretty clear on that, as are the early Fathers.

Margaret: So, again, how to you work this out with abortion? And, we can talk for a long time about what the Bible does and does not give grounds for. If you will use the Bible as your authority, then perhaps we need to come clean about our differences in interpretation. The Bible read by members of warring nation states indeed authorizes all sorts of atrocities. Thankfully, however, the Bible is not bound to those interpreters.

Steve: 9) I talked to a crowd of 200  people at Butler on terrorism the day after I saw all of you and they were very vocal, very dogmatic, very liberal...

Margaret: Fine. But we note that they are there and we are here (argument-wise). Thanks for making the distinction.

Steve: Well, I am intrigued, as Margaret has suggested, and I am also horrified that I could have upset her and David and made her think that I did not respect her or that I was simply picking a fight.
Hey, thanks for putting up with this. I wish I lived closer. You have my deepest affection and respect.

Margaret: Peace indeed. I have to believe that there is much peacemaking to be done in conversations like this, or in this one anyway. Again, don't take my reaction as horrified offense, so much as asserting the terms on which I think it makes sense for us to talk--peacealby, respectfully, and with accountability. If I were to dismiss you or feel wounded by your rhetoric, it would have happened a long time ago, believe me. Now that we're in this conversation that matters so much, I'm going to weigh in on the tone now and then.

It's good to be reminded of the context you feel yourself in, "fighting against very real liberals." I might want to suggest that fighting is not the best rhetorical move to make against liberal pacifists or the radical crew you are in conversation with now! And, in this conversation you are not in Kansas anymore, or Indiana.

And, yes indeed we are not inclined to throw rocks. Some of what we send out instead might be harder to deal with, but there you are.

Grace and Peace, and much love,
Margaret

PS I must add that, after Pippa explained to me that you explained to her that in Indiana you have can openers that really work, I did figure out how to work ours.

PPS I have gone ahead and added Phil to the conversation without asking any of you, because I thought it was a good idea.  So much for democracy. . .

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posted by Steve Webb at 3:05 PM

What a blessing Margaret. Please do continue working on me. Convert! Convert! I need continual conversion to God's grace, that's for sure.Your arguments/responses are so clear and balanced that it almost makes you sound too reasonable for one who is advocating such a radical position! I feel like the lines of our positions are converging in all sorts of places, and also wiggling away from each other in odd configurations. I am very grateful for being pushed to be more clear about my hesitancies in claiming a witness to peace in more explicit terms--I need to be pushed hard, and you've done it, or started it. At the same time that I am talking to you folks, I am increasingly in dialogue with some conservative Christians, both RC and Prot., who are taking the natural law tradition more and more seriously, and of course that leads, on war issues, in a very different direction than pacifism. I've always been a critic of natural law tradition, but I find myself drawn to it in inexplicable ways just as you Dukies are drawing me out on pacifism--will I stretch or will I break? Thanks again Margaret for this helpful diversion from my grading duties. And tell Pippa that our can openers in Indiana not only work, but that they are electric too! She can come down and see ours anytime she likes! That's a standing invitation. It is good to be held accountable for one's words; I need more of that.

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posted by Rodney Clapp at 10:29 AM

Puritans fell into the hands of an angry God--Steve is now in the hands of a very capable and persistent Margaret. I have appreciated this phase of the conversations from the sideline. Now a few hastily put points . . .

Steve is right that a profession of Christian pacifism can in some ways be made without costs. But in other ways it is not so easy. My own conversion in that regard happened over at least two years' time, with wrestling of sufficient depth and anxiety that I often had dreams in which I vividly faced violent situations and struggled to respond nonviolently. I'm also aware of few other Christian convictions/witnesses so that so consistently and intensely draws response and reaction from others, Christian or non-Christian. Somethin' deep goin' on here; Xn pacifism throws primary issues into stark relief. But I was and am persuaded that peacemaking is close to the heart of the faith (in a manner vegetarianism is not), something that Jesus and the early church faced directly and persistently. I'm not comfortable with the imitatio language, as I said in our live conversation--it is too easily, as Steve says, naive, and perhaps more seriously can downplay the uniqueness of Jesus as the God-Man (and/or trivialize it--think Sheldon's In His Steps). I don't think Jesus expects us to be like him in various and sundry manner. But what if he does call us to fall on God's grace and try to live nonviolently? We haven't argued specific texts and the overall narrative arc of Scripture and the NT, but I think that's where they/it takes us.

The language of absolutism isn't very helpful here. I am not and none of us in this dispensation can be absolutely nonviolent. But so do I fail to absolutely resist lust, and yet think it worthwhile (to put it to weakly) and faithful not to commit adultery actually and in the flesh. Margaret puts it best when she talks about trying in grace to live peaceably to the degree that she (that we) will be able to recognize and accept the peaceable kingdom when it arrives.

A commitment to Xn pacifism cuts deep and wide--I think that's a key reason we naturally find ourselves resisting it. War is in some senses the extreme case, but it does throw into relief allegiances to the nation-state in general, whether or not our lives and deaths really belong to God or ourselves, whether or not loved ones are first God's creatures or "mine," etc. I deeply respect theologically serious just war thinking and witness (oh that we had more of it--most is crusaderism euphemized as just war). Seriously and rigorously and institituionally applied, it just might (MIGHT) be the most faithful and adequate embodiment of and witness to Christian peacemaking we could expect before the eschaton. But in my lifetime, right up on through the latest conflict in Afghanistan, it is applied piecemeal, half-heartedly, and if at all largely after the fact. (See the December U.S. Catholic interview with Mike Baxter and Lisa Cahill, and note Cahill saying flat-out that she doubts we can know whether or not the U.S.'s Afghan offensive was just war until later, when we have more information.) And so far as I can tell from reading, that's been the case through most of Christian history.

So the hard exigencies of unfolding history may at times and lamentably involve some pacifist Xns (Bonhoeffer and WWII and all that) in the employment of lethal violence. But at least a pacifist commitment is more likely to push the church toward being serious about resisting the use of lethal violence. [Digression: while it's salutary to recognize there is such a thing as non-physical violence and it can do tremendous damage, we need to keep a line drawn between physical violence and other sorts--physical violence harms or kills the body and also, like non-physical violence, maims the spirit. If I'm physically assaulted I am both bodily damaged and spiritually/psychically humiliated. So physical violence is comprehensive and radical in a way "spiritual" violence is not.] That is the best repsonse to Bonhoeffer's dilemma--how different things might have been if the German churches related the kingdom and peacemaking clearly and closely enough to have refused to follow Hitler from the start. We have to be about forming and sustaining (among other things) institutions and character that will enable the church so to see and to do--to witness to peace consistently in a way that there are alternatives before we are faced with the crisis points of kill Hitler/Hussein/Bin Laden/etc. or have great evil roll over the face of the earth. Something like a Xn pacifist witness, I think, is most likely to make such a thing feasible and real.

Along such less-than-absolute lines, I'm not at all decided on the should-Xns-be-policemen question. At the least I want to keep a strong distinction between policing and police action, and war. E.g., except in Philadelphia, police don't bomb neighborhoods . . .

That's my quick two cents at least for now. I admire your spirit, Steve, and the spirit of the discussion overall. Merriest Christmas to all. And if you haven't already, don't delay long to take the whole family to see The Lord of the Rings. Here I will be absolute: absolutely wonderful film; really, not just a movie; primal in its power and connections (think Jungian archetypes, think the blues--"I'm in the mud and the mud's in me"); uncanny in how much it resembled your imagination of the book (daughter and I were both struck by this) . . . I've gotta quit before I'm so carried away I run off to a matinee and neglect work this afternoon.

Rodney

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posted by Margaret Adam at 8:25 AM

Dear Rodney,

Thanks much for weighing in. I've been eager to hear what you might say, and I'm very grateful for your input, which helps clarify lots for me. Just a quick note now to follow through on one of those clarification:

You write: "But I was and am persuaded that peacemaking is close to the heart of the faith (in a manner vegetarianism is not), something that Jesus and the early church faced directly and persistently.

And I am struck by the fact that our family does not understand our vegetarianism as in any way separate or distinguishable from peacemaking. Becoming vegetarian was the first practice we started working toward when we began to articulate peacemaking (followed by homeschooling and adoption), as a primary way we would engage in formation towards peacemaking. I wonder if one of the confusions in this conversation has been this difference, that we haven't seen a distinction where others did. I'm not sure how this will help, but it seems worth noting.

As we head into 4th Advent, I give thanks for such wonderful conversation partners as we wait (actively, not passively) for Christ....

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With this, the vegetarianism/pacifism discussion wore down. But Steve quickly revived the conversation with his provocative comparison of Stanley Hauerwas with Reinhold Niebuhr, which I will work on formatting for the Web next.