Christian pacifism and human nature
by Peter Mommsen
In our special new issue on violence, Peter Mommsen makes the case for Christian pacifism—not just as an admirable worldview but one that is core to Christianity. But that doesn’t mean it’s a simple commitment to make, or to recommend to others: in his essay, Mommsen traces his own upbringing in the pacifist tradition, his youthful rejection of the practice, and the long journey toward truly understanding it.
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Growing up, one of the first things I learned from the Bible was the commandment Thou shalt not kill. This makes sense considering that the religious community I belong to—the Bruderhof—is rooted in Anabaptism, a Christian tradition that, with occasional exceptions, has been pacifist since 1525. (The Anabaptist movement, which also includes the Amish, Mennonites and Hutterites, celebrates its quincentenary this year.) Over the sixteenth century, thousands of Anabaptists were executed as traitors to Christendom by Catholic and Protestant rulers. No doubt that’s why their signature virtue was Gelassenheit—“self-abandonment,” “submission,” “readiness to suffer.” It’s an ethic Nietzsche would have hated.
For a long time, I didn’t like it either, even after taking lifelong vows to become a Bruderhof member as an adult. Christian pacifism irritates because it demands what the biblical scholar Richard Hays calls “the conversion of the imagination”—the overturning of certain assumptions that modernity lives by. One of these is that humans are wired for violence. Another is that a world without bloodshed is an impossible ideal that dreamers may yearn for but can never realize in history. The story I am about to tell is partly a story about how I came to agree with Christian pacifism that both of these assumptions are wrong.
The case for pacifism that Anabaptists make, however, is not based on these philosophical postulates. It starts, rather, with the creedal affirmation that Jesus of Nazareth is “very God of very God.” During his earthly life, what did this incarnate God tell his followers about using force? According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus taught: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” “Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will die by the sword.”
The word “pacifism” is notoriously slippery; I’m using it here as shorthand for a commitment to nonviolent peacemaking, including a refusal to kill. By that definition, the New Testament depicts Jesus as a pacifist.
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