Pacifism and Pentecostals in South Africa: A new hermeneutic for nonviolence (Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies) [1 ed.] 9781138587182, 9780429504112, 1138587184

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Pacifism and Pentecostals in South Africa

Most of the early twentieth-century Pentecostal denominations were peace churches that encouraged a stance of conscientious objection. However, since the Second World War Pentecostals have largely abandoned their pacifist viewpoint as they have taken on a more literal biblical hermeneutic from their interaction with Evangelical denominations. This book traces the history of nonviolence in Pentecostalism and suggests that a new hermeneutic of the Bible is needed by today’s Pentecostals in order for them to rediscover their pacifist roots and effect positive social change. The book focuses on how Pentecostalism has manifested in South Africa during the twentieth century. Much of the available academic literature on hermeneutics and exegesis in the field of Pentecostal Studies is of an American or BritishEuropean origin. This book redresses this imbalance by exploring how the Bible has been used amongst African Pentecostals to teach on the apparent paradox of a simultaneously wrathful and loving God. It then goes on to suggest that how the Bible is read directly affects how Pentecostals view their role as potential reformers of society. So, it must be engaged seriously and thoughtfully. By bringing Pentecostalism’s function in South African society to the fore, this book adds a fresh perspective on the issue of pacifism in world Christianity. As such it will be of great use to scholars of Pentecostal Studies, Theology, and Religion and Violence, as well as those working in African Studies. Marius Nel is a Research Professor at North-West University, South Africa. He has written numerous articles on Biblical Studies and hermeneutics and contributed to several collections including the Oxford Dictionary of the Bible and Ethics. His own books include Aspects of Pentecostal Theology (2015).

Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies

The Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies series brings high quality research monograph publishing back into focus for authors, international libraries, and student, academic and research readers. This open-ended monograph series presents cutting-edge research from both established and new authors in the field. With specialist focus yet clear contextual presentation of contemporary research, books in the series take research into important new directions and open the field to new critical debate within the discipline, in areas of related study, and in key areas for contemporary society. The Soul of Theological Anthropology A Cartesian Exploration Joshua R. Farris The Church, Authority and Foucault Imagining the Church as an Open Space of Freedom Steven G. Ogden Israel, the Church, and Millenarianism A Way Beyond Replacement Theology Steven D. Aguzzi The Liquidation of the Church Kees de Groot Myth and Solidarity in the Modern World Beyond Religious and Political Division Timothy Stacey Pacifism and Pentecostals in South Africa A New Hermeneutic for Nonviolence Marius Nel For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/religion/ series/RCRITREL

Pacifism and Pentecostals in South Africa A New Hermeneutic for Nonviolence Marius Nel

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Marius Nel The right of Marius Nel to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Nel, Marius, author. Title: Pacifism and Pentecostals in South Africa : a new hermeneutic for nonviolence / Marius Nel. Description: New York : Routledge, 2018. | Series: Routledge new critical thinking in religion, theology, and biblical studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018004304 | ISBN 9781138587182 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780429504112 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Pentecostalism—South Africa. | Pentecostal churches— South Africa. | Pentecostal churches—Doctrines. | Nonviolence— Religious aspects—Pentecostal churches. | Pacifism—Religious aspects—Pentecostal churches. Classification: LCC BR1644.5.S6 N45 2018 | DDC 261.8/73208828994—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004304 ISBN: 978-1-138-58718-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-50411-2 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

The work is dedicated to Professor Stanley Hauerwas of Duke Divinity School.

Contents

Prefaceviii Forewordix

By way of introduction: motivation for study

1

1 Church and war: a change in hermeneutical stance among Pentecostals

8

2 The Bible and violence, and Christians

62

3 Ideology as violence: apartheid as a case study

135

4 A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic?

153

5 The theory and theology of just war: a Pentecostal reflection

167

6 Synthesis

194

Bibliography199 Index 223

Preface

The purpose of this book is to describe Pentecostal hermeneutics in terms of its viewpoint toward pacifism. Most of the academic literature in the field of Pentecostal studies in hermeneutic and exegesis is from American or British-European origin. The African context is fairly absent in this discourse, although Pentecostalism is thriving on the continent and presents unique and relevant challenges. This book was written by a theological scholar from Africa, focusing on Africa’s need for a well-grounded theological model for exegeting narrative texts. Pentecostals’ interpretation of the biblical narratives provides them with the necessary equipment and motivation to contribute to important needed social change. Written from the science of the exegesis of Old Testament and New Testament as well as a survey of literary studies, the book is aimed at scholars across theological sub-disciplines, especially those theological scholars interested in the intersections between theology, Pentecostal hermeneutic and African cultural or social themes. It addresses themes and provides insights that are also relevant for specialist leaders and professionals in this field. Marius Nel Unit for Reformed Theology and Development of the South African Society North-West University South Africa

Foreword

God, it seems, never tires of surprising us by showing up where we did not expect God to show up. This trait of God is profoundly off-putting because often the surprise confounds our most cherished illusions and stereotypes. But God showed up for me in an obscure Pentecostal South African who has written this extraordinary book on Pentecostals and pacifism. I did not even know there were Pentecostals in South Africa. Even if I had known that there were Pentecostals in South Africa I would have assumed they had little use for the kind of theological work on display in this book. Even if I had assumed they may have done some work in theology, or at least biblical exegesis, I could not have anticipated that they would be pacifist. Yet Marius Nel’s book has challenged every one of the stereotypes I cherished about Pentecostals. As a result, he has written a book that deserves to be widely read not only in South Africa but anywhere. Professor Nel had prepared me not to be completely taken aback by the quality of scholarship in Pacifism and Pentecostals by giving me a copy of his book, Aspects of Pentecostal Theology: Recent Developments in Africa. In that book Nel develops an account of the distinctive character of Pentecostal theology that is surprisingly quite close to the kind of theology we find in the early Church fathers. That should not be surprising given, as Nel suggests, how modern Pentecostals as well as the Church fathers did their theology under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as scriptural commentary. Of particular interest I think readers will find that Nel’s exegesis of the Old Testament about violence is at once candid about the violence of God there present and how best to read those texts. Nel argues that the Pentecostal movement from the beginning was pacifist. It may have been such because it seems, as Nel tells the story, Pentecostals were from their origins more a movement than a church. That way of putting the matter can be quite misleading, however, suggesting as it does that the church itself is not integral to the movement we call the kingdom of God. Yet Nel helps us see that at least as far as Pentecostalism is concerned, the distinction between church and movement makes little sense from a scriptural point of view. One of the other surprises, or at least a well-developed theme, in Nel’s work is a precise and illuminating account of the violence that was apartheid. I suspect that most of us reading this book will find Nel’s description of life under apartheid extremely troubling because he makes clear that often proponents of apartheid

x  Foreword had what seemed to be persuasive arguments for that terrible system. Nel argues, moreover, that apartheid was largely the result of pressure from outside South Africa. I had no idea the role of Nazi propaganda played for the justification of apartheid. Nel is not one to take for granted what may seem to be extremely hopeful developments after the end of apartheid. Violence remains a sobering reality in South Africa between Africans and whites. Nel, however, shows how aspects of apartheid were and how the country remains a society in which a generalised violence toward women is a stark reality. Nel helps us see moreover that the end of apartheid in no way means that pacifism is any less relevant to South Africa. I dare not fail to mention that one of the other surprises Nel’s book represents is his stunning defence of pacifism. That I should be surprised by the depth of his account and defence of pacifism may but reveal the arrogance from which many of us who are Americans suffer. Nel has read everything pertaining to issues of violence and pacifism. While he may regard his scriptural exegesis to be the centrepiece of his argument, I found his discussions of the philosophical and theological issues surrounding pacifism extremely clear and persuasive. Which brings me to the final surprise I discovered by reading Nel’s book, that is his use of my work. Others have noticed both positively and negatively I am a declared pacifist, but seldom do those who employ that description explore in detail what pacifism means for me or why I think it incumbent on every Christian to be so committed. But Nel attends closely to the arguments I have made and, in particular, he rightly sees the significance of Christology for my defence of nonviolence. That he does so is important because quite literally the devil is in the details. Accordingly, I am extremely grateful to him for the care with which he has read as well as used my work. Reading Nel’s account of the work of the Spirit to sustain Christians in the battle against lies that are the breeding ground of violence is preparation to live surprised by a God who defeated evil on a Roman cross. We are in Nel’s debt for not letting us forget that. Prof. Stanley Hauerwas American theologian, ethicist, and public intellectual, retired professor at Duke University, serving as the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School with a joint appointment at the Duke University School of Law

By way of introduction Motivation for study

Introduction The formulation of doctrine and development of creeds are not so important for Pentecostals who rather prefer to tell stories about their encounters with God1 based on the biblical narratives of characters who witnessed of their own eventful journeys of faith. For this reason, biblical narratives play an important role in their worship and witness and they interpret and model the present reality at the hand of these narratives. Especially Luke-Acts are important for them (Hollenweger 1972:336) because it contains a description of the ‘history’ (in the first century ce sense of the term) of Jesus and the early church in terms of the work of the Spirit. Luke-Acts serves as the model (Yong 2011:27) or template to enter the world of the earliest Church, allowing the contemporary Pentecostal church to encounter the Spirit and the Spirit’s work in their lives. Research shows that Pentecostal circles give extraordinary attention to biblical narratives, and especially the narratives of the early Church (cf., e.g., Bruner 1970; Lederle 1986; Dunn 1998; Jacobsen 1999; 2003; Mittelstadt 2010). They also use the language of these stories to verbalise their experiences with the Spirit; testimonies play an important part in Pentecostal worship services and life. Pentecostals have long been aware that the power of the Spirit is unleashed through orality and the stories that characterise orality, much more so than through mere intellectual argument. The biblical witnessing and telling about God’s love and listening to stories of God’s interventions in people’s lives determine Pentecostals’ expectations of God as well as their descriptions of personal experiences of similar interventions. Pentecostals believe that propositional truth as found in the explication of doctrine and creed is not able to report the whole truth. By engaging in narrative theology, Pentecostals create a theology and orthopraxy that informs their spirituality (Land 1993:27). Pentecostal and charismatic Christians constitute approximately twenty-five per cent of global Christianity (around 600 million of 2.4 billion). This remarkable development has occurred within the last century and has been called the ‘Pentecostalization’ of Christianity. Pentecostals and charismatics experience Christianity and the world in distinctive ways in terms of their own spirituality. The Pentecostal movement is especially flourishing in the South, including

2  By way of introduction Africa, making a discussion about pacifism even more relevant in terms of a continent that is characterised by the wide incidence of violence. The majority of early twentieth-century Pentecostal denominations were peace churches that encouraged conscientious objection (Pluess 2014:119).2 Denominations such as the Church of God in Christ (a Mennonite church influenced by the Holiness movement, as Beaman 2013:43 explains, although the church is Baptist and Wesleyan in its origins) and the Assemblies of God said ‘no’ to Christian combatant participation in war.3 What is proposed here is that Pentecostals should explore this history of just peacemaking, peacebuilding, conflict transformation, nonviolence, forgiveness and other peacemaking-related themes and work for a recovery and expansion of this witness. Some early Pentecostals also confronted the injustices of racism, sexism, nationalism and economic disparity in their struggle for nonviolence and justice (Beaman 2016:11).4 Others perpetuated the problems. Yet the Holy Spirit leads us now, as then, to confront injustice prophetically and work to redeem and restore. Peace and justice are not separate concerns but different ways of talking about and seeking shalom, God’s salvation, justice and peace. This book is addressed to Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal theologians, philosophers and believers interested in the existentialist phenomenon of violence and the church’s response to it. It is written from a Pentecostal perspective that endeavours to demonstrate that their different hermeneutical stances determine the way Pentecostals respond to the evangelical perspective on violence and it argues for a hermeneutic that takes Jesus’ call to nonviolence seriously.

Research question The research question of the study is as follows: classical Pentecostals supported pacifism until the Second World War and then changed their viewpoint in general. What caused this change in perspective, should the early perspective be regained and how can it be done?

Theory South Africa strikes many observers as a country riven by excessive and widespread violence (Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation 2008:9). Interpersonal and structural violence is a daily reality for many, while several studies of crime statistics indicate that poorer people are more likely to be subjected to such violence (Fick 2014:1). As a violent society, South Africa is characterised by domestic violence;5 robbery and other violent property crime; conflict between groups over territory, markets and power; xenophobia; attacks on farmers and farm workers; vigilantism and the abuse of excessive force by law enforcement; and resistance to law enforcement intervention, to name a few (Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation 2008:5). Levels of public violence also remain disconcertingly high, even if one remembers the country’s colonial and apartheid history. The rituals of violent protest against the apartheid state have

By way of introduction  3 not been fully exorcised from communities. There are daily engagements with law enforcement officers when community members revolt against officials’ performance at the level of local and central governments, poor service delivery or perceived wrongs of civil rights (Lancaster 2013:1). Protests against poor service delivery have accelerated dramatically (Fick 2014:1) and in many instances end in violence. The South African context poses the question to Christians whether it is allowed to utilise violence, for instance, as a means of self-protection against crime or to participate in protest actions against the perceived lack of services provided by the state or against other wrongs.6 The supposition here is that the meaning of Scripture for believers is the ‘ruling principle of Christian morality’ (Collins 1979:237). The above question is complicated by the Bible’s ambiguous depiction of violence, leading, inter alia, to Crossan’s (2015) question how one can read the Bible with all its ambiguity surrounding divine violence and still be a Christian. Matthew’s depiction of Jesus, for instance, provides seemingly conflicting data about Jesus’ attitude towards violence. The nonviolent Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5–7) seems annulled and dismissed by the rhetorically violent Jesus who argues with the religious leaders by denigrating their motives and intentions and by destroying their character and integrity when he stereotypes them as exacting casuistry without practising what they preach (e.g., Matt 23:1–36). And the physically violent Jesus who has brought the sword rather than peace (Matt 10:34) predicts violence in his notion of God’s justice that damns some people to a place of pain where they will be found weeping and grinding their teeth (Matt 13:41–42; 13:49–50; 22:12–13; 24:50–51; 25:30). And he violently and seemingly in a fit of anger overthrows the tables of the money changers and the seats of the dovesellers (Matt 21:12–13; Hays 1996:282; Crossan 2015:9). Pentecostals read the Bible and believe it is the Word of God; their expectation is that God would reveal himself to them in an encounter that corresponds to the experience of the people in the Bible. The Bible becomes the means to inform them of how God had involved and still involves himself with people. In other words, the historical and other narratives in the Bible are read from a perspective that expects that the historical events would be duplicated in contemporary times. For Pentecostals, the Bible does not serve primarily to present information about God or doctrine but rather to form their expectations of experiences with God. And when they witness about their experiences they normally utilise biblical language, because it was in and from the Bible and the simultaneous interaction with the Spirit that their experience was born. At the same time they ascribe their encounters with God (also in reading the Bible) to the Spirit and they expect that the Spirit who inspired the biblical authors will also inspire them to understand what God is telling them through Scriptures. In this way, they find words of encouragement, enlightenment or warning for their individual lives as well as for the life of the community. Their explication of what they perceive to understand of the Spirit’s revelation does not always agree with the letter or literal meaning of what the passage in the Bible says. And they interpret the passage from what they experienced when they read the passage. In

4  By way of introduction this way, the scopus of their hermeneutic is formed by the revelation of Christ through the Spirit, and with the Bible in their hands. In other words, they do not read the Bible with the aim to understand the words; they expect to encounter Christ while reading and in that experience their daily lives would be transformed in some sense. In the early days, most Pentecostals rejected the use of violence based on their reading of the Bible even though they acknowledged that some parts of the Old Testament actively promote violence, even in God’s name and ascribed to him. By the 1940s and 1950s, this viewpoint had changed and most Pentecostals started supporting their countries’ military involvement in a patriotic manner. Some Pentecostal churches even encouraged their pastors to join the army as chaplains. The question asked in the research is: Why did their viewpoint change? How did their hermeneutical perspective change to such an extent that their view about violence would also change?7 Since the 1970s, an academic movement started developing within the circles of the classical Pentecostal movement when many pastors opted for a theological education at a university. Now several academic scholars in their theological endeavours also described the different hermeneutical angles used by Pentecostals and some of them formulated a ‘new’ hermeneutic that describe what they perceive to be the Pentecostal impulse. Interestingly enough, their ‘new’ hermeneutic was closely connected with the early Pentecostal movement and the way early Pentecostals interpreted the Bible. In the final part of the research I will ask how such a ‘new’ hermeneutical perspective would change the way Pentecostal look at violence when it is applied in a consequent manner, and whether they should exercise the option to think anew about violence in terms of evidence found in the Bible. In order to reflect about pacifism it is also necessary to develop a theology of violence and of evil as the underlying motives of a pacifist endeavour.

Hypothesis The hypothesis of the study is: the way Pentecostals think about violence is inter alia related to the way they interpret the Bible, their hermeneutic. When their hermeneutical angle changes, it can be expected that Pentecostals would redefine the way they view violence and war. When Pentecostal churches abandoned its historical position as a pacifist church it was a grievous error; in the words of Dempster (1990:30), it was a ‘funeral service’ for the conception of the church associated with it. In making official the transition from a pacifist church to a nonpacifist church, it is argued here that Pentecostal churches ceased to exist in a way consistent with the radical eschatological vision which energised it from its beginning (as Shuman 1996:71 demonstrates). This research suggests that the Pentecostal movement consider visiting its roots of nonviolence and pacifism because, in the words of Hauerwas (1983:xvi), nonviolence is the hallmark of the Christian moral life . . . not just an option for a few, but incumbent on all Christians who seek to live faithfully in the kingdom made possible by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.8

By way of introduction 5 When one discusses violence and peace in theological terms, it requires that one looks at the God of the Bible and the Bible itself. Questions that need to be answered are: Does the Bible describe God as a God of genocide or a God of love? How do we reconcile the depiction of God found in some parts of the Hebrew Bible as a violent, angry and revengeful God9 with Jesus’ remarks that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? (Matt 5:44).10 What do we believe, the command to show no mercy to enemies and to kill everything that breathes in their midst (Deut 7:2; 20:16) or the command to love our enemies? By way of summary, Pentecostals read the Bible in the expectation that God still wants to speak to them and reveal himself to them as in biblical days, and they apply biblical prescriptions in a normative manner and way to determine their moral behaviour. The question is then, if they view the Bible as sacred Scripture and the Word of God that reveals God’s character and will, how do they relate to the two seemingly contrasting visions of God? What do they hear when they read the passages that describe God as a violent actor demanding of God’s people to exercise God’s wrath upon the heathen? Before biblical evidence is discussed, it is necessary to describe the various hermeneutical angles that Pentecostals used to formulate their viewpoint about violence and war.

Argument The argument presented here consists of the following elements: At first, Pentecostals’ stance toward violence is discussed, with emphasis on the changes that Pentecostal churches experienced in their stance. This is brought into relation with hermeneutical developments and changes within the Pentecostal movement to indicate the relation between hermeneutics and practice. A case is made for restoring pacifism among Pentecostals on hermeneutical grounds. Next, the problem is stated that the Bible does not present a unifocal view on violence, including war, presenting a hermeneutical challenge. The various traditions and views found in the Old and New Testaments are discussed before the early church’s stance on pacifism is also investigated. Third, a case study, the ideology of South African apartheid between 1948 and 1994, is used in order to describe some of the implications, practices and effects of the theological justification of apartheid on Africans. Fourth, the hermeneutical angles within the Pentecostal movement are discussed in order to explain the differences found in the movement toward violence and peace. What are the distinctives of the various hermeneutical narratives found in the movement? And how are they related to a pacifist sentiment? The alternative to pacifism with regard to the violence of war is the theory and theology of the just war. This forms the content of the last chapter. Most other churches support one form or another of this theory and it is discussed in more detail before a reflection is given of the theory from the perspective of a proposed Pentecostal hermeneutic.

6  By way of introduction The theme is Pentecostal churches and their stance toward violence, that is challenged by conflicting evidence found in the Bible. It is argued that the issue of pacifism and nonresistance is primarily a hermeneutical problem. The alternative to pacifism is the just war theory, that is refuted by Pentecostal hermeneutic.

Notes 1 For the sake of briefness and clarity and in imitation of most English translations of the Bible, ‘God’ will be used in a masculine sense, although it should be stated immediately that the biblical depiction of God in masculine terms is a part of the problem where the Bible has been influencing the church toward violence. It is qualified here that God is without gender, as the One who falls outside the frame of reference of humanity. 2 Important names of early leaders who organised, taught and led their believers into conscientious objection to war were Charles H. Mason (Church of God in Christ), A.J. Tomlinson (Church of God), Stanley Frodsham and Donald Gee (Assemblies of God) (Beaman 2016:13). Only seven-tenths of one per cent of the draft pool for the First World War in the United States claimed religious objections or conscientious objection (Beaman 2013:8). They were deemed ‘slackers’ or ‘conchies’. Beaman (2017:1) estimates that in the United States, between five per cent and ten per cent of all conscientious objectors in the First World War were Pentecostals or Holiness men. This is all the more astounding since Pentecostalism as a movement was about ten years old, and was quite small. Beaman (1989) states that thirteen of twenty-one, or sixty-two per cent, of American Pentecostal groups formed by 1917 show evidence of being pacifist sometime in their history. 3 A 1917 statement by a Church of God in Missouri states, ‘We are forever opposed to war . . . we are opposed to our members training or in any way preparing to kill, we refuse to be trained or drilled for combatant military service in any nation, Heartily approved’ (Peachey 2013:x). 4 One of the earliest outspoken critics of nationalism, commercialism, war profiteering and systemic violence was Charles Parham, champion of the Apostolic Faith and pioneering classical Pentecostal doctrine commonly known as speaking in tongues. William J. Seymour was a student at his college when he was sent to preach in Los Angeles, eventually leading to the Azusa Street Revival. Parham embraced AngloIsraelism and eventually became racist in his views that culminated in his support of racial segregation (Pipkin 2016:10). He was eventually rejected by the new Pentecostal movement for his radical views. 5 Rinderer (1994:6) warns that the phrase ‘domestic violence’ itself is a softened-up phrase for the more graphic ‘wife-beating’, ‘battering’, ‘wife torture’ or ‘wife-murder’. 6 Violence can be defined as a behaviour which is intended to hurt or kill people, for example hitting, kicking or using guns or bombs (Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Essential English), including oppression, injustice, systemic unfairness or mental cruelty. There is violence of a political nature used either for maintaining or disturbing the status quo. Then there is violence committed by individuals, consisting of violence within people by way of inner conflicts and violence outside them in the form of external social conflicts. Outer violence can take three forms: ‘hot’ violence refers to the use of guns and bombs; ‘cold’ violence refers to abuse of economic power to dominate or destroy others who lack it; and ‘cool’ violence which gives apparent legitimation both to the hot and cold violence (Cullinan 1987:17, 21). At the source of all violence are all sorts of inequalities which have to do with economic, social and political life that characterise specifically the South African society for historical reasons: inequalities in

By way of introduction 7 food, shelter, land, health, freedoms and lack of them, self-determination and demands for equality between peoples. 7 There were also other changes in viewpoints that are related and that will be discussed. 8 Green (2015:66) explains that the Hebrew prophets’ words are outbursts of violent emotions in reaction to the evil and complacency of society. However, it does not imply that the prophet (or the Spirit inspiring the prophet) is in any way contributing to the violence of the society. The Pentecostal movement along with other traditions should regain its prophetic witness, is the contention of this research. 9 The contrast is not between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as the Hebrew Bible also contains commands of compassion and mercy apart from the commands to vanquish enemies, while the New Testament provides some material that supports slavery and state violence. The answer can therefore not lie in the rejection of the Hebrew Bible in favour of the New Testament, as Marcion did. 10 Cf. Vanier’s (founder of L’Arche) loaded definition of enemies as ‘wounded people who are loved by God’ (Swinton 2008a:19). Until we learn to see our enemies as wounded people who are loved by God, gentleness toward them will not be possible, argues Hauerwas (2008b:80–81).

1 Church and war A change in hermeneutical stance among Pentecostals

Introduction1 For the first forty years of its existence, Pentecostalism was mostly a pacifist movement proclaiming that disciples of Christ should support nonviolence and nonretaliation. Then it changed its stance, in many instances without officially taking a decision on formal platforms, due to the changes that occurred when its members became socially and economically mobile and the movement strove to be accepted in society. These changes were, however, essentially due to a change in its hermeneutical viewpoint. After the 1970s, several theologians within the Pentecostal movement formulated a hermeneutic that concurred to a large degree with the way early Pentecostals viewed and interpreted the Bible, leading inter alia to Pentecostals’ rethinking their nonpacifist stance. In the nuclear age such a reconsideration has become imperative. It is argued that the movement should change its ethical stance on and discourse about war and violence due to its renewed hermeneutical viewpoint, making the church more relevant in a society where most Christians seemingly accept the Augustinian just war doctrine.

A case study Christians can in broad terms accept one of three basic positions regarding the believer’s involvement in war and military service: activism, the just war view or pacifism (Clarke & Rakestraw 1996:489–494). Activism holds that Christians are to support a military effort whenever their country declares war because governments are ordained by God and Scripture (e.g., Rom 13:1–7; 1 Pet 2:13–14) tells Christians to submit to their political leaders. Because citizens do not have access to the classified information available to political leaders, they should trust politicians’ judgment that a war declared by the state is necessary. Few Christians would probably admit that they hold the activist view in theory, although a great many follow it in practice. A second option is the just war position or selectivism that holds that Christians may support and fight in some wars, specifically those waged for a morally defensible cause (cf. chapter 5). The theory distinguishes between the conditions necessary for declaring war in the first place (jus ad bellum) and the guidelines

Church and war 9 to be followed once a war is underway (jus in bello). It allows in the viewpoint of some for a preventative war, when an enemy nation is preparing to attack, as well as for a crusade when conditions within another nation are intolerably evil. Christians who support the just war perspective follow several lines of argument. One involves biblical evidence that uses the description in the Mosaic law and the commands to wage wars against the enemies of the elect people. A second line of argument is based on the intuitive sense of justice within most people. A third line of argument is that the just war theory provides a moral basis for foreign policy, where Christians should act as salt and light in the national life of their society. Another position regarding the believer’s reaction to war is pacifism and nonviolent resistance.2 Defenders argue that any war in all circumstances violates many of the criteria of the just war theory. Christian pacifists ground their view on several convictions. One is the argument that Jesus Christ lived nonviolently even when he had just cause for violence. He loved and died for his enemies without retaliation (Matt 5:38–48; Luke 6:27–36). And Christians are exhorted to obey Christ’s example and teachings and to imitate Christ in his nonviolent life (1 Pet 2:18–23). The implication is that war is untenable for them. The way the world tries to solve conflicts differs radically from the way disciples of Christ do it. The Christian glories in the foolishness of the cross and the nonviolent advancement of God’s kingdom (Rom 12:19–21). Christians do not have a duty to make history come out all right; that is God’s business. Their duty is to obey Christ. A second conviction is concerned with the sacredness of all life. Since human life is a sacred gift from God, no one has the right to end another’s life. Since Christ died for all people, Christians cannot kill them and rob them of an opportunity to receive the gift of eternal life in Christ. And when Christians kill other Christians in a war, they kill their own brothers and sisters. A  third conviction supporting pacifism is the concept of redemptive witness. The witness of nonviolent Christians over the centuries won many unbelievers to Christ. Many of these witnesses paid the highest price for their courageous testimony. Because they lived according to the principles found in the Sermon on the Mount, they were willing to die for their faith in a nonretaliatory fashion. Pacifism comes in different degrees (Clarke & Rakestraw 1996:492), representing a continuum of perspectives ranging from the most deontological view on the one end to the most consequentialist view on the other. Deontological positions emphasise the wrongness of war in principle because it violates the fundamental biblical law against killing and the injunction to love all people, including enemies, while the duty of Christians is described as imitation of Christ, also in his nonresistance unto death. Consequentialist or teleological positions focus on the results of war more than on principles and norms. Because of the consequences of war in the form of death, disablement, poverty and hatred between subsequent generations, some pacifists reject war even though they might allow it in principle. One instance is nuclear pacifism that justifies (some form of) conventional warfare, but holds that the use of strategic nuclear weapons is to be ruled out because of its disastrous results. Some nuclear pacifists oppose even the possession of nuclear weapons by states because of the potential and temptation that it

10  Church and war might be used in certain circumstances. A nuclear pacifist such as John R. W. Stott allows the use of tactical nuclear weapons when no other recourse is possible. The early Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM), one of the classical Pentecostal denominations in Southern Africa, did not at first find it necessary to take a stand about Christians’ participation in the armed forces and war.3 Everybody implicitly accepted that Pentecostal Christians do not participate in any violence, including war operations.4 However, in 1914 the then (first South African) president of the church, Pieter Louis le Roux, took the initiative and requested the Executive Council to discuss the issue and formulate a viewpoint. Their decision was communicated in a letter to individual churches and members and explained that the AFM objected to Christians’ participation in war efforts against the enemies of the state. Members of the AFM who were called up for military service were encouraged to serve in a nonfighting capacity and only if it were absolutely necessary (Burger 1987:269). At the same meeting, the Executive Council decided to make representations to the Minister of Defence requesting exemption from military service for members of the AFM (Minutes of the Executive Council, 19 August  1914). The Department of Defence was sympathetic toward the church’s request, allowing members with scruples to receive exemption from military service provided they applied in the prescribed way. In 1923, the Executive Council again discussed the issue of warfare and made representations to the Department of Defence that since their acceptance of Scripture did not permit them to take up arms they asked that the clause in the previous Defence Act that exempted conscientious objectors from carrying arms be included in the present new Law that was then in the process of being considered by Parliament. The church acknowledged its obligations to assist in bearing the burden of the state in times of war and did not object to do so, but then in a noncombatant capacity, requiring also exemption for the church’s young members to undergo military training (Minutes of the Executive Council, 21 December 1923; cf. Burger 1987:270). The Department reacted by providing the church with the declaration that assures that exemption would be granted to members although they are required to register with the Department, and that the new Law would contain the exemption clause. By 1932, the Department of Defence had received so many applications for exemption that it decreed that members of churches applying would be required to present proof if they were previously members of another denomination that did not support exemption (Burger 1987:270). By 1938, it was clear that a world war was imminent and the (white) AFM again discussed its stance. The AFM agreed in its viewpoint with the Assemblies of God in the United States5 that although believers should act in accordance with their own conscience, the AFM believed the Bible prohibits the shedding of blood while at the same time it recognised that the government is of divine origins, giving its assurance that it would support the government as far as the Word of God allows it (Dempster 2001:140). When war broke out in 1939, young members were encouraged to participate in the war effort but only in a noncombatant capacity by applying for nonfighting privileges (Burger 1987:271).

Church and war 11 Shuman (1996:77–78) argues that although the official resolution of the Assemblies of God of April 1917 met the War Department’s requirement by presenting the Assemblies of God as an unequivocally pacifist community with significant theological convictions in that direction, there existed from the outset two closely related strands of thought which mitigated this presentation. These ways of thinking are identifiable as the basis for the ultimate abandonment of pacifism among Pentecostals. The first is the presence of a certain amount of dissenting rhetoric among some Assemblies of God constituents. Most of this dissension took the form of concerns that the resolution was worded in such a way as to lead Pentecostals to engage in blatant expressions of disloyalty to the US government. The second strand of thought that mitigated the denomination’s nonviolent witness, according to Shuman (1996:78), was one which presence was acknowledged even before the War Department’s final approval of the pacifist resolution. In the 19 May  1917 issue of the Assemblies of God’s official publication, The Weekly Evangel, an article intended to explicate the recently drafted resolution appeared that explained that although the resolution’s purpose was ‘to interpret as clearly as possible what the Scriptures teach on the subject’, adherence to it would be voluntary rather than obligatory. Concerning the adherence of church members to the position voiced by the resolution, the article noted that it is not intended to hinder anyone from taking up arms who may feel free to do so, ‘but we hope to secure the privilege of exemption from such military service as will necessitate the taking of life for all who are real conscientious objectors and who are associated with the General Council’ (The Weekly Evangel, 19 May 1917:8, as quoted in Shuman 1996:78). Shuman (1996:78) correctly perceives that what is more remarkable about each of these views is that they are a subtle representation of the very sort of establishmentarian Christianity that Pentecostalism’s restorationist heritage led it to repudiate. Rather than seeing the state as being an agency of the world whose purposes were ultimately at odds with those of the kingdom of God, as did the restorationists of old, this more established way of thinking tended to view and evaluate the state as an agent whose power could be employed in the service of the kingdom of God. The implication is that the state is at the very least the necessary establisher and protector of a cluster of personal and institutional freedoms which are necessary for the good of the church. The church through the ages succumbed to the temptation toward accommodation, a tendency that occurred in even the most radically anti-establishment churches. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is found in the evolution of ethics as a discrete discourse with little attachment to specific theological convictions. All people, including the unregenerated, simply ‘know’ right from wrong as a function of their being human. ‘The realm of the social is accordingly the one where the dynamics of accommodation and the tendencies to sell out are the strongest, as the church lives at the interface with the world of unbelief, its powers and pressures’ (Yoder 1984:37). The church’s legitimation of war reversed the view of Christians on the morality of violence in the public realm and represented a significant departure from the primitive Church’s normative practices. Now the privileged place of the enemy was rejected as the test of whether one loves one’s

12  Church and war neighbour. The cross and the life of Jesus Christ as the way of dealing with conflict was rejected as a norm and civil government was assigned a role in carrying out God’s will that is quite incompatible with the fruit of the progressive relativisation of kingship that characterised Judaism (Yoder 1984:75). That the church accepted church violence is almost certainly related to the fact that during the time of this acceptance the church had gradually come to enjoy a place of privilege in the Roman Empire. When the leader of a government becomes Christian, Yoder (1984:82) argues, the assumption tends to be that in order to continue being a sovereign, he needs to continue to act as the (non-Christian) sovereign ‘naturally’ acts, thereby creating some tension with what the later prophets and Jesus taught about domination, wealth, and violence. This ‘Constantinian accommodation’ had its origins not in newly developed theological positions, but in the perceived need to create a space for the church to occupy a position of relative power and mutual affirmation with regard to the civil authorities. Ironically this is the same factor that caused most of the Pentecostals in the 1940s to change their stance about war and violence, in order to be accepted by the community and government. The fourth-century church experienced several significant theological shifts, in the first place toward a new ecclesiology and a new eschatology (Yoder 1984:82). In the New Testament church, prior to its being accepted as the state religion of Rome, the Christian community was an empirical entity, a visible, confessing gathering whose members were subject to active opposition by the state with some members paying the highest price for their faith. With the establishment of Christianity, however, this situation was reversed. There were suddenly various good reasons to be a member of the church, and it became necessary to postulate the existence of an ‘invisible’ church, operating within the confines of the larger ‘visible’ one and limiting the ‘church’ to those who remained faithful disciples of Christ. The second of these theological transitions was a changed view of history and the way changes within history were regarded. Now the established powers of civil government became the main bearers of the historical movement. A fact of history is that a church enjoying a position of favour with the government tends to adopt that government’s ‘eulogistic’ view of history whereby it is assumed that one reads history from the perspective of the winners. When the relative power of the existing regime increases, it is seen by the established church as a sign of God’s blessing. Ultimate standards of right and wrong are determined by what a ruler chooses. Yoder (1984:142) then argues that American patriotism remains highly religious.6 For nearly two centuries, in fact, the language of American public discourse was not only religious, not only Christian, but specifically Protestant. Moral identification of church with nation remains despite institutional separation.7 In the early Pentecostal movement, the adoption of the resolution on pacifism began not with a statement about the evils of war but about the urgent mission of the fellowship to reach the world with the gospel before the imminent second coming of Christ. From its very inception, the Pentecostal movement has been a movement characterised by evangelism, studiously avoiding any principles or actions which would thwart it in its great eschatological purpose to reach all nations with the gospel of Pentecost.

Church and war  13 In contrast stands democracy as the essential notion underlying the founding of modern states and also the fundamental principle of Christianity, based on the assumption of approximate equality as the foundation, as advocated by Rauschenbusch (1991:247). The problem is that in many instances states had departed from the democratic ideals upon which it had been founded, he argues. A return to these Jewish and Christian democratic ideals could be achieved only through the combined efforts of the church and the presumably democratic state. For instance, when the state supports morality by legal constraint, it cooperates with the voluntary moral power of the church and when the church trains the moral convictions of the people according to the requirements of the state, it cooperates with the state. Then church and state are alike but partial organisations of humanity for special ends and together they serve what is greater than either: humanity. Their common aim is to transform humanity into the kingdom of God (Rauschenbusch 1991:380). The presupposition is that state and church in a combined effort can produce the kingdom of God. It is a historical fact that the growth and subsequent institutionalisation of the Pentecostal movement was rapid enough that the community was unable to continue defining itself in ways consistent with its restorationist heritage. At the same time, many of those entering the fellowship at least tacitly shared sentiments akin to those expressed by Rauschenbusch who influenced Americans over a large constituency with his viewpoints.8 Since the Second World War, the AFM never officially changed its official stance on believers’ participation in warfare, but practice shows that the white division of the AFM did change its viewpoint, because of the rise of Afrikaner nationalism and a new interest and involvement in politics from the side of some prominent Pentecostal church leaders. Today the church has several chaplains serving the different departments of the defence ministry (Burger 1987:272–273). For the Pentecostal movement, it became essential after the Second World War to be accepted by society and government, leading inter alia to an alliance with Evangelicals. In accordance with Reformed theology of the Evangelicals with which they associated, Pentecostals accepted the Christians’ responsibility to partake in actions that serve the welfare of the state, including war, while they also created a professional pastorate in place of the democracy of members participating in early Pentecostal ministry and worship services, and they cut out women from the official ministry of the church while from the founding of the Pentecostal movement they played an integral role in leadership and ministry (Archer 2009:23–24; Cargal 1993:165–166). What is needed is that theology is recaptured as a form of discourse that is meant to help us live more faithfully as Christians who are part of that community called ‘church’, argues Hauerwas (1993:8). In addressing American Christians, Hauerwas (1993:9) states that their fundamental problem with hearing the Bible can be attributed to their having accommodated their lives to the presuppositions of liberal democracies. Christians are in some instances trained to believe that they are capable of reading the Bible without spiritual and moral transformation.9 They read the Bible not as Christians, not as a people set apart, but as ‘democratic

14  Church and war citizens’ who apply the emphasis on human rights that forms a major part of liberal democracy to understand the Scripture.10 And as result, Hauerwas (1993:15) claims, the Bible inherently becomes the ideology for politics quite different from the politics of the church provided by the New Testament.11 The AFM is part of the Pentecostal movement12 and followed in its wake. Before discussing some of the reasons for the change in viewpoint about warfare, it may be beneficial to briefly discuss the Christian church’s different views of war through the centuries.

Different theological views of war and violence The Christian response to war should begin with a consideration of what the Bible teaches on the subject.13 The teaching of aggressive war in the Hebrew Bible has served as justification for many Christians to engage in armed conflict (Hershberger 1953:20–22). The New Testament broadened the believer’s understanding of the kingdom of God but does not contain specific instructions about the subject of war (Clouse 1981:11), although it states explicitly that human vengeance belongs to sinful society and Christians are forbidden to exercise it (Hershberger 1953:22).14 The early church in the first three centuries took a pacifist view toward violence (Bakhuizen van den Brink 1933:49), followed later by the humanists and Anabaptists. Early Christians refused to serve in the Roman army; there is no evidence of a single Christian soldier after New Testament times until about 170 ce (Clouse 1981:12). Roman soldiers who converted immediately cast their weapons to the ground, turning soldiers into pacifists (Dempster 1991:65). Roman soldiers were denied holy communion if they engaged in the immoral practice of killing other human beings (Bartleman 1915:83). Tertullian argues that Christians cannot take the life of a person God purposes to redeem (Augsburger 1981:92). The Romans did not enforce universal conscription and there was little need to discuss the issue in the church; Christians saw an incompatibility between love and killing. Toward the end of the second century ce there are records of Christians in the army despite most theologians’ and church fathers’ condemnation of participation in war. Origen discusses the problem of Christians who participate in warfare rather than spiritual conflict, quotes Matthew 26:52 and concludes that taking up the sword is not allowed for believers by evangelical teaching (Clouse 1981:12).15 Half a century later, the Roman Empire was threatened with annihilation by destructive groups such as the Vandals. A Roman general who commanded troops in North Africa asked Augustine whether he should retire to a monastery or lead his troops in warfare against the barbarians (Holmes 1981:128). Most Christian groups agree with Augustine’s answer that certain wars were justified, and at times even necessary (Kwast 1995:30).16 A just war consists of rules of warfare developed by classical thinkers such as Plato and Cicero, interpreted from a Christian perspective. It was Cicero, and not Augustine or Aquinas, who invented the expression ‘just war’ (Vaillant 1993:171). War should be fought to restore peace and to obtain justice, under the direction of the legitimate ruler and motivated by Christian love. Some churches such as the Church of the Brethren, the Quakers

Church and war 15 and Mennonites maintain a pacifist stance (Bakhuizen van den Brink 1933:76– 77), but most of the major denominations, such as the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Roman Catholics, Methodists and Reformed adhere to the just war interpretation (Kwast 1995:35–52).17 Constantine the Great was proclaimed emperor in 307 ce, converted in 311 to the Christian faith and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313. This is a turning point for Christians. Before Constantine, Christians were liable to persecution at any time, but since 313 Christians had not been liable to persecution as the official policy throughout the civilised world for many centuries. The changed circumstances influenced the spirituality of the church and led to the gradual and steady growth of moral laxity.18 The church lost the battle to redeem the world, and rather conformed to it, losing the power of the Spirit to overcome evil in the world with good.19 The situation in Europe changed due to the breakup of the Empire and the influx of Germanic tribes from the fifth century ce. A new militant attitude was formed in the church in accordance with political needs. The Germans’ greatest virtues centred on devotion to gods of battle and the desire to die in conflict and eventually a fusion of the Germanic religion of war and the religion of peace among the Christians of Western Europe took place, leading to the conviction of the absolute evil of the enemy and the necessity of a Christian crusade, for instance, toward the Turks from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries.20 The Protestant Reformation gave rise to various peace churches, among them the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Amish, Mennonites and Church of the Brethren.21 The humanist writer Desiderius Erasmus was one of the most outspoken pacifists of the Renaissance, arguing strongly against warfare in his essays The Praise of Folly (1509) and The Complaint of Peace (1517) (McAinsh 1986:293). Erasmus (c. 1466–1536) was a humanist, textual scholar and translator of the New Testament and he contributed to the Protestant Reformation (Holmes 1975a:177). He believed that truth advances by persuasion rather than by force and objected to the emerging divisions within Christendom, many times based on force and violence. He appeals less to authority than Luther and Calvin and more to a humanitarian concern for the tragic consequences of war, based on his realist views of war. In contrast, Anabaptist leaders like Thomas Münzer (c. 1489–1525), enthused with the idea of a Christian state, called for an apocalyptic war against heretics and infidels that would introduce the eschaton. Although Münzer was executed in 1525 for his role in the Peasant War, he had created an image of Anabaptists against which Menno Simons (c. 1496–1561) and others were forced to protest. Menno was influenced by Zwingli when he taught the separation of church and state (Armstrong 2014:222).22 He rejected the ideal of a Christian empire in favour of the separation of the heavenly and temporal kingdoms. Members of the kingdom of God have a higher loyalty and calling than to this present world (Holmes 1975a:185). They give themselves to spiritual activities and support civil government by their prayers, but they engage in no political activity, take no oaths and use no force. Even under persecution and attack they remain nonviolent. Nonviolence does not seek to humiliate the adversary but to

16  Church and war convince them of a higher and more common good than can be attained by bombs and blood. Nonviolence does not try to overcome the adversary by winning over them but to turn them from an adversary into a collaborator by winning them over (Merton 1968:12). The word of peace is the consoling gospel, Simons (1975:185– 186) writes. Christians have committed themselves to the Prince of Peace in his kingdom of peace and under his reign and are incorporated into his body. They look and work for his promised inheritance and reward of peace. The Quakers were prominent advocates of pacifism, who as early as 1660 had repudiated violence in all forms and adhered to a strictly pacifist interpretation of Christianity. Throughout the many wars in which Britain participated during the eighteenth century, the Quakers maintained a principled commitment not to serve in the army and militia or even to pay the alternative £10 fine. The English Quaker William Penn, who founded the province of Pennsylvania in the New World, employed an anti-militarist public policy. Unlike residents of many of the colonies, Quakers chose to trade peacefully with the Indians, including for land. The colonial province was, for the seventy-five years from 1681 to 1756, essentially unarmed and without an army, and experienced little or no warfare in that period (Chatfield 1996:41). As late as 1924, the Peace and Service meeting of the Quakers resolved, This meeting desires to reaffirm its belief that the primary loyalty of all Christians is due God, our Father, and all His human family. We believe that the whole system of determining right by violence and destruction rather than by friendly conference and negotiation is fundamentally wrong, inefficient and unchristian. We call upon Christian people of whatever sect or creed to join in renouncing for the future all participation in war, and to seek through our national representatives such international organisations as will supply peaceful methods of dealing with all international differences. We also urge upon Christians considerations of inter-class and interracial problems and an effort to solve them through good will and understanding. (quoted in Frodsham [1924]2016:171) As mentioned, Christians react toward war in three ways, as Christian pacifism23 or nonresistance, the just war, and the crusade (Sölle 1983:29). The stance of nonresistance toward war is deduced from Matthew 5:39; Luke 6:27–36; Romans 12:19–21,24 13:8 and 1 Peter 2:18–24. Hoyt (1981:32–34) bases the stance on the Christian’s separation from the world in Paul’s advice not to be conformed to the world (Rom 12:2), resulting in a separation between church and state that belong to separate kingdoms and spheres of operation, with different methods of offense and defence.25 The implication is that physical violence is forbidden to believers as a method to accomplish any purpose (1 Pet 2:21–24), not even to propagate the Christian faith (2 Cor 10:4). The doctrine of nonresistance rests upon certain principles, that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world and therefore that the subjects of this kingdom should not employ force to maintain it (John 18:36); the Spirit of Christ is not of this world and therefore those who possess the Spirit

Church and war 17 cannot use carnal methods (Gal 5:22; Matt 5:9); the purpose of Christ is not of this world for he came to save people and not to destroy or kill them (Luke 9:56); and his methods are not of this world and he does not use carnal weapons in his warfare (2 Cor 10:3–4) (Hoyt 1981:42–44; Bartleman [n.d.]2016:68).26 The implication is that Christians may participate in war only as noncombatants. Yoder (1971a:60–61) argues that nonresistance is not a matter of legalism but of discipleship, not ‘thou shalt not’ but ‘as he is so we are in this world’ (1 John 4:17). And it is especially in relation to evil that discipleship is meaningful. Every strand of New Testament literature testifies to a direct relationship between the way Christ suffered on the cross and the way the Christian, as a disciple of Christ, is called to suffer in the face of evil. Solidarity with Christ will frequently be in tension with the wider human solidarity. The novelty of Christ was his willingness to sacrifice, in the interest of nonresistant love, all other forms of human solidarity, including the legitimate national interests of the chosen people. In this way, Christians are offered the possibility of a different history through participation in a community in which one learns to love the enemy and embrace the stranger, as demonstrated by the meal shared together in the presence of the crucified and resurrected Lord (communion), making them a people who believe that God will have them exist through history without the necessity of war (Hauerwas 1985:196–197). However, it can also be argued that while nonviolence is a vocational calling for the church and not for society as such, and while the total world stands under the moral demands of a sovereign God, it is also true that living in society requires one to operate ‘outside the perfection of Christ’ (Augsburger 1981:58–59). This is not enough reason that Christians participate in the wars of this world (Mic 4:3; Luke 6:27–36; John 18:36) because their highest loyalty should be to the kingdom of God. Since that kingdom is global, a Christian in one nation cannot honourably participate in war, which would mean taking the life of (among others) a Christian in another nation, or perhaps more importantly, the life of a person who has not accepted Christ as personal Saviour. Their separation from the world is not simply a negative separation (from the world), but a positive separation to the community of Christ and to building the kingdom by evangelising efforts, contends Augsburger (1981:61). They are not simply to refrain from participating in war but should risk their lives for the extension of the kingdom. Martin Luther King Jr’s (1958:81–83) pacifism consisted of active nonviolent resistance that asks one to stand for love rather than to strike back. Its resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent but to win friendship and understanding because the attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against the people doing evil. The resistance avoids not only external physical force but also internal violence of the spirit.27 Pacifist American Negroes said to their white brothers, We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. We will not hate you, but we cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities and drag us out on some wayside road, beating us and

18  Church and war leaving us half dead and we will still love you. But we will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And in winning our freedom we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process. (De Graaf 1960:58)28 The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect and calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had. And finally, it reaches also to the opponent and stirs his or her conscience so that reconciliation in the end may become a possibility (Ramsey 1975:344). In this way, Christians use the power of powerlessness which is the power of love because ‘there is no way to peace; peace is the way’ (an old Quaker proverb; De Graaf 1960:60). Early Christians sacrificed themselves willingly for their faith without offering any resistance. This is the ultimate weapon in the hands of the powerless, but it can easily become a dangerous weapon, warns Bakker (2009:297).29 Christians should be excellent citizens, respect the government and pray for those in authority, but their citizenship in each nation is second to their primary citizenship in the kingdom of Christ.30 For this reason they are pacifists, refusing to support any military enterprises, even noncombatant service that still supports the function of war and at best only releases the individual from the responsibility of directly taking a life.31 In contrast, the just war theory does not allow retaliation, nor does it sanction every war and every military action but allows believers and Christian governments to participate in limited defensive wars that can be justified according to certain norms (Holmes 1981:115).32 It accepts that war and its causes are evil. The issue is not whether war is good but whether it is in all cases entirely unavoidable (Holmes 1981:117). The church should resist evil but not by violent means. It should rather do so by preaching and teaching, by ministering to the needs of those who might be tempted to erupt violently against society, by supporting just and compassionate government and by protesting social evils and injustices (Martin 2015:39). However, Holmes (1981:116) writes that proponents sometimes argue that Matthew 5:39 (and related texts) supporting nonviolence refers not to governments or churches but to individual Christians, changing the meaning of the text. Individuals are not to take the law into their own hands but instead of carrying out retributive justice (lex talionis), they should turn the other cheek and go the second mile. The implication is not that justice does not matter but that the individual believer does not have a stake and part in law enforcement. Nonresistance calls for love to replace hatred and for just and limited punishment to replace kangaroo courts, blood feuds or lynch mobs. The government is God’s means of justice, and retributive justice may at times require of the government to participate in or even initiate a just war. This does not imply that war is justified, but rather that it tries to bring war under the control of justice so that, if consistently practiced by all parties to a dispute, it would eliminate war altogether (Holmes 1981:119–120).

Church and war 19 If Christians and the church are parts of a larger community, as citizens it may be expected of them to assume responsibility for and participate in the business of the state. Reformed theologians accept the ‘political use of the Law’, that is, the doctrine that scriptural principles should guide not only the church, but also the secular state and civil society (1 Tim 1:8–10) (H.O.J. Brown 1981:174–175). Waging war can be justified in the case of a defensive war against an unprovoked act of aggression, the only just cause for going to war, provided that the defence has some chance of succeeding and the means chosen are proportionate to the end to be achieved.33 Most of the actual war situations that arise in history do not fit this category (H.O.J. Brown 1981:153), while the atrocious and enduring nature of the oppression caused by some dictatorships and tyrannical enemies require that they be stopped forcefully.34 A preventive war or crusade is begun not in response to an act of aggression, but in anticipation of it. This is not a holy war because it is not religiously motivated but serves as an attempt to prevent an anticipated act of oppression (H.O.J. Brown 1981:162);35 Sölle (1983:29) correctly calls it un-Christian and unacceptable.

Pentecostals and pacifism Early Pentecostals viewed its origins in restorationist terms where they read the New Testament in the service of conceptualising the presence of God in the faith community, resulting in a return to the ecclesial forms and practices of the early church, as described in the book of Acts (Shuman 1996:72). Yoder (1983:307) acknowledges that Pentecostals perpetuated the restorationist communities of the nineteenth century that were pacifist due to its literal obedience to Scripture, especially Jesus’ command and example of love for the enemies and turning the other cheek (cf. May  2017:1345). This unique hermeneutic clearly plays a role in determining the four characteristics of restorationism identified by Blumhofer (1989a:18) as having ‘particular significance for Pentecostalism’. The first of these, she says, was the restorationist call for Christian perfection, which ‘tended to advocate purifying religious forms and examining practices and beliefs against the New Testament standard’ (Blumhofer 1989a:19). Second, Blumhofer (1989a:19) argues, was the restorationist tendency to view the true church as being united, to look past the turmoil and heterodoxy that had marked Christian beginnings. An emphasis on shared origins promoted hope of renewed ‘family harmony’. The third of these characteristics was the restorationist tendency to see itself as a church on the cusp of the eschaton; this aspect of restorationism, like the preceding two, arose primarily from the way these communities were trained to read the New Testament. Finally, restorationists supported a flight from denominational Christianity, which they saw as irreparably contaminated by the world. From this perspective, restorationist views moulded the subculture in which Pentecostalism flourished; its participants had already separated from the mainstream. Their attitudes about the world were shaped by their conviction that cultural values necessarily opposed true faith; they interpreted persecution as a measure of spiritual strength. They volubly opposed much of their culture

20  Church and war and the sense that they offered a viable, satisfying alternative to this-worldliness was instrumental in attracting new adherents (Blumhofer 1989a:19). Shuman (1996:74) adds that what is common to each of these characteristics is the tendency of those who embodied them to see themselves as being part of a tradition with very direct ties to the apostolic church represented in the first chapters of the book of Acts. This association became increasingly overt among Christian leaders from a wide variety of traditions at the end of the nineteenth century, all of whom expressed an extraordinary dissatisfaction with the level of commitment demonstrated by Christians of that day. And the early Pentecostal movement attracted its first converts from those ranks. The Pentecostal moral commitment to pacifism should be appreciated against this restorationist understanding of church history (Dempster 1990:27). Pentecostals of the early twentieth century saw themselves as being the contemporary restoration of the New Testament church, a community that had become increasingly unfaithful in the time between the Pentecost of the first century and that of the twentieth. Central to the church’s fall during that interim era was its entry into political establishmentarianism: ‘Militarism entered the church’s life, from the Pentecostal perspective, when it backslid and forged a political alliance with the Roman state’ (Dempster 1990:27).36 A general attitude of social and political disestablishment was consequently seen as an integral part of the Pentecostal renewal. This disestablishment was accentuated by the initial rejection of Pentecostals by the evangelical mainstream, enforcing their tendency to see themselves as being citizens not of any earthly nation but of the kingdom of God (Shuman 1996:75). Booth-Clibborn ([1910]2016:26–27) asks, what are the laws of the kingdom of heaven? These laws are summed up in one word, love, that is the fulfilment of the law. A  Christian should not fight, Booth-Clibborn argues, because through the blessed experience of regeneration they have been baptised into the ‘body of Christ’ and are called as members of the body of Christ to love the other members irrespective of their nationality. They should not fight because Christ sent his disciples into all the world, neither to improve society by means of laws nor to settle international disputes by means of war, but to save all people from the consequences of their sinful lives. They should not fight because Christ instituted one supreme test whereby his true followers would always be known, that they have love one for another (John 13:35). Booth-Clibborn ([1910]2016:28) continues that although his arguments sound like sedition to some it certainly is not, for it applies only to Christians and not to all citizens of a country. Pentecostals do not desire to undermine ‘good and wholesome governmental authority’ or to show disrespect and contempt for the law of the land, but they deplore the lawlessness of the very war and the reign of terror and anarchy that is bound to follow the First World War. We firmly advocate a righteous and peaceful government as ordained by God (Rom 13), but we equally strongly denounce the wretched idolatry of nationworship where parents sacrifice their young men on the bloody altars of the modern ‘Moloch’ of Patriotism. (Booth-Clibborn [1910]2016:28)37

Church and war 21 To the objection that Christ in Matthew 22:17–22 advises his disciples to render tribute to Caesar while Paul in Romans 13:1–3 orders them to be subject unto higher powers, implying that Christians should subject themselves to the government’s regulations regarding military service, Booth-Clibborn answers that while the Pharisees try to trap Jesus he answers them that they should pay their dues because his rule over the Jews was not political but spiritual. Yet as his kingdom was of heaven, they should also render to God his dues. Booth-Clibborn ([1910]2016:30) notices the utter lack of patriotism in Jesus. He surrenders his body to Caesar and his spirit to God. If he were to go to war for Caesar, he would have surrendered his body and soul to Caesar (Booth-Clibborn quoting from his father’s book, Blood against Blood).38 And in Romans 13, he argues, Paul enjoins obedience to rulers before he describes what types of rulers Christians should obey. Rulers are not supposed to be a terror to good works, yet rulers plunged nearly a dozen nations into ‘a veritable hell’. And Christians should owe no man anything but love, while the nations hate each other. Love works no ill for the neighbour so that Christians cannot obey the laws of war. Seymour ([1915]2016:50) emphasises that God’s claims are supreme and annihilate all claims that contradict or oppose them. Participation in war was regarded as incompatible with such citizenship not simply because the violence inherent in war was wrong, but because the allegiances demanded by war were trivialised by comparison to the allegiance demanded by God.39 ‘Pentecostals considered themselves engaged in a conflict infinitely more important than any earthly struggle’ (Blumhofer 1989b:345). Nationalism was consequently regarded by many Pentecostals as a sin of no little significance: ‘Pride in nation and race was an abomination’ (Blumhofer 1989b:350–351). However, not all Pentecostals agreed on the issue of pacifism.40 Beaman’s (2013:35) categorisation explains the complicatedness of Pentecostal difference of opinion. In terms of pacifism, it is possible to distinguish between absolute pacifism as defined by the Church of God at its meeting in Tennessee in 1917, Beaman explains. They represented a high mistrust of the government. Then there were those who were against killing in any form and who supported a noncombatant stance, such as the Assemblies of God in 1917 and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World who framed their viewpoint in 1918. They viewed the government as legitimate but with limited authority over the lives of Christians. Then there is the viewpoint that allows room for each individual to exercise their own choice and follow their own conscience, such as expressed by the Assemblies of God in 1967. This attitude toward the government is loyal because they view the government as legitimate. Thirteen of twenty-one, or sixty-two per cent of American Pentecostal groups formed by 1917 show evidence of being pacifist sometime in their history with a gradual shift away from pacifism in the American Pentecostal churches to military support and chaplaincy (Beaman 1989:117). The major organisation today for American Pentecostal Christians who believe in pacifism is the Pentecostal Charismatic Peace Fellowship.41 Early Pentecostals did not partake in politics for several reasons: due to their socio-economic position, mainly as part of the lower classes who do not have

22  Church and war money, training or leisure they were disqualified to be social leaders; due to their expectation that the second coming is so imminent that time should rather be used to preach the gospel to the lost;42 and due to their notion of sanctification that defines holiness in terms of separation from the world, consisting of differentiating itself from its social, cultural and political environment with a view to live a holy life (Nel 2016a:158). In the end, however, it was their way of interpreting the Bible, their hermeneutic that led nascent Pentecostals to maintain that it was wrong for one human being to kill another (Yoder 1971a:41). And even when the Bible presents contradictory information about violence, war and vengeance they interpreted Scripture in close association with the Spirit who revealed the love of Christ for them and all people, motivating them to evangelise the lost with the gospel of love.43 The emphasis is on the principles found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7), characteristics like love, forgiveness, reconciliation and tolerance determining the behaviour of Jesus’ disciples44 and the promise of a new earth and heaven where justice will rule while the church is a reflection of that kingdom (Kwast 1995:57–58).45 ‘You cannot rightly read the Sermon on the Mount unless you are a pacifist’ (Hauerwas 1993:64). It presupposes the existence of a community constituted by the practice of nonviolence, and it is unintelligible if divorced from such a community. It contains a description of the virtues of a community that embodies the peace that Christ has made possible among those who have been baptised into his death and resurrection (Hauerwas 1993:67), and it only makes sense in the context of a people committed to the process necessary for reconciliation to one another (Hauerwas 1993:68).46 Peace has been brought by Jesus’ life, death and resurrection (Hauerwas 1985:193). Forgiveness and reconciliation form the practice through which the church acquires a history that makes it God’s alternative to the hatred of the world around it, fuelled by a lack of acknowledgement of its sinfulness. The church serves as a community that is part of a new way of resolving conflicts and disputes through confrontation, forgiveness and reconciliation. Peacemaking is not an abstract principle but rather the practice of a community made possible by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus (Hauerwas 1993:71). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does not generate an ethic of nonviolence; a community of nonviolence is rather the precondition for understanding the Sermon because such a community presupposes the actualisation of the demands of Jesus’ Sermon. And without such a community, the world would not know that God intended his creation to live in peace.47 Blumhofer (1989a:18) argues that their hermeneutic determined Pentecostals’ view of themselves as a church awaiting the imminent second coming of Christ, fleeing from denominational Christianity that in their perception became irreparably contaminated when in the fourth century ce church and state joined forces to establish an earthly kingdom that could never accommodate the reign of God envisioned by Jesus.48 By joining Pentecostalism, early participants had separated themselves from the mainstream, and when they faced discrimination and persecution from the establishment and its churches they interpreted it eschatologically as a sign of their faithfulness and readiness for the eschaton (Blumhofer 1989a:19).49 They were now persecuted as the early church was persecuted by the

Church and war  23 Jewish religious establishment and Roman state because they were citizens of the kingdom with allegiance only to God. They were pilgrims and strangers in this world (Heb 11:13) who refused allegiance to earthly authorities. To participate in war was regarded as incompatible with their citizenry of the kingdom because violence inherent in war was wrong but also because allegiance to God requires one to love the enemy (Zink 1983:62). Christians should busy themselves with spiritual warfare (2 Cor 10:3–5) in a struggle infinitely more important than any political war between nations (or, more correctly, nation-states). Nationalism was a sin and pride in race and nation was an abomination (Blumhofer 1989a:351).50 The Pentecostal worldview shared some apocalyptic elements with the church of Acts51 that views Jesus not only as risen Saviour but also as ascended Lord of the universe, and earthly powers to be under the control of Christ (Yoder 1984:72).52 The state acts as an agency of the world whose purposes will always be at odds with those of the kingdom of God. Earthly wars form part of a cosmic dispensational drama that involves the judgments of God on earth, leading to the rapture and uniting of the church with Christ and the destruction of the Antichrist when Christ returns to reign for a thousand years on Mount Zion (in the words of Mary Boddy in Lenz 2008:293). Pentecostals ascribed the decline of the early church from its Jewish roots to its accommodation when it encountered the Hellenism of Asia Minor and southern Europa as well as political privilege when Constantine was (supposedly) converted, leading to the eventual establishment of Christianity (sometimes called ‘Christendom’ to differentiate it from earlier Christianity). The state religion and the church’s implicit acceptance of state violence eventually was also utilised against the church’s ‘enemies’ (Yoder 1984:82). For the church to occupy a position of relative power it had to affirm the civil authorities; the price it had to pay was its abandonment of the particular and unique ethical convictions that defined the Christian faith. Yoder (1984:136–137) states that it led to a theological shift toward a new ecclesiology and eschatology as well as a changed view of history and the way changes within history were regarded, adopting the state’s eulogistic view of history, and a morality defined by the ruler’s ability to meet its standards.

Pentecostals and nonpacifism While the Pentecostal movement started out mainly as officially pacifist, certain events and developments in the 1940s and 1950s triggered a basic shift in Pentecostal belief about Christians bearing arms and partaking in battles, as mentioned already (Dempster 2001:140). It happened against the background of worldwide stigmatisation and criminalisation of any peace-talk by governments (Pipkin 2016:9). In a certain sense, Pentecostals repeated history; in its quest to shed its image as a sect and the accompanying discrimination at the hand of established denominations, Pentecostals like the church in the fourth century ce started seeking for acceptance and approval by the state and community. Predominantly this happened due to Pentecostals’ assimilation into the cultural and religious mainstream during and following the Second World War (Beaman 1989:140).53

24  Church and war Pentecostals from the 1940s experienced social and economic mobility (Beaman 1989:107),54 requiring them to gain acceptance as a denomination and leading to cultural accommodation. For this reason, they became part of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in 1942 (Robeck 1988:635).55 The NAE of that day was characterised by what Blumhofer (1989b:27) rightly calls a ‘reverent patriotism’, fuelled by then-president Harold John Ockenga’s ‘grand vision for American culture’. Ockenga’s vision reflected a ‘Christian’ America, and his rhetoric which was both highly patriotic and strongly anti-Catholic was a product of his conservative Reformed theological heritage (Blumhofer 1989b:29–30).56 Without much discussion, pacifism was left out of Pentecostals’ agenda and in some cases this was worded to give members the freedom to act according to their conscience and choose for themselves whether to be a combatant, a noncombatant or a conscientious objector (Statement accepted at the General Council of the Assemblies of God in 1967, quoted in Dempster 2001:137).57 The nature of its growth also contributed to the blunting of Pentecostalism’s radical vision of the kingdom of God as the establishment of a peaceful community of the church. Many new converts joined the movement while their views were still conditioned by the ethic of a nominal Christian (Reformed) culture, leading to a spiritual downturn among Pentecostals (Burger 1987:311).58 The loss of pacifism in the Pentecostal movement was the consequence of the movement’s gradual loss of identity as an eschatologically driven church and its eventual captivity to nationalism and the conceptual categories of democratic liberalism, and in the South African context democracy was further limited by the apartheid policy to white people. This accommodation, Shuman (1996:72) argues, was to a significant extent the consequence of two closely aligned factors. The first of these is the insidious presence of an incorrect understanding within Christianity which held that the specific country (in Shuman’s case, America), based on its democratic polity, was a nation structured according to Christian principles which, therefore, enjoyed a position of particular favour with God. The implication is that the government of the country should be supported as of divine origin. The second factor, which is closely related to the first, is the eventual complete acceptance of Pentecostalism into the highly nationalistic evangelical mainstream. In South Africa, the Nationalist Party was elected into government in 1948, handing political power into the hands of Afrikaans-speaking people and leading to a new patriotism in their ranks (Giliomee 2004:438).59 In the AFM, pastor G. R. Wessels, vice president of the church, was elected as a senator for the Nationalist Party after acquiring fame among Afrikaans-speaking citizens for speaking about the dangers of communism.60 Some members and pastors saw this move as incompatible with the AFM’s vision of the church and kingdom of God, and left the AFM to establish the Pentecostal Protestant Church in 1958 (Burger 1987:324, 345). At the same time, Pentecostals took significant steps toward an establishmentarian ecclesiology (Shuman 1996:85) with a professional pastorate that reflected the practices of Evangelicals. Their new patriotism was a typical mainstream Christendom response, unworthy of the nonconformist originality and spiritual

Church and war 25 independence with which the movement began (Yoder 1989:lv), and their view of the state conformed to Evangelicals’ view, with liberal democracy as an underlying assumption undergirding both Christianity and the present authorities.61 This principle is even more important and significant than the gospel, which is but a historical manifestation of the principle, so that military action can be justified by the church if needed to preserve the principle of democracy (Blumhofer 1989b:212; Hauerwas 1985:122–130). Ethics also changed accordingly because now the church must aim its behaviour to strengthen the regime (Yoder 1984:136). The established powers of civil government and not the average believer praying and partaking in the establishment of the kingdom of God were viewed as the main bearers of the historical movement (Yoder 1984:138).62

Restoring pacifism among Pentecostals: a moral alternative Post-1994 South Africa saw how the powerful whites lose their grip on political power (however, to a significant extent not on economic power) and the AFM unified in 1996 and reaffirmed its loyalty to the government (Burger & Nel 2008:439). The 1997 Workers’ Council of the AFM decided to unconditionally accept responsibility for the fact that the (white) church was not the voice of God of reconciliation in the country for the period when the community was separated by racism (Burger & Nel 2008:439). History now repeated itself when Frank Chikane, elected as vice president of the unified AFM in 1996, was appointed as the director-general in 1999 in the office of the presidency under Thabo Mbeki (as Gerrie Wessels was appointed in the Senate in 1955; Burger & Nel 2008:131).63 During the years of the democratic South Africa the AFM has been issuing statements, articles and press releases about several political and economic issues that challenge the government and other organisations to change several legal and practical issues, demonstrating its involvement as a church in political issues.64 Since the 1970s, a debate has been recurring in Pentecostal circles about the early hermeneutic of the Pentecostal movement and its relevance for interpreting the Bible. If this debate is considered seriously the movement should also consider placing pacifism on its agenda, as it has done with other issue. If Pentecostals are interested in reading the Bible in the light of their restorationist heritage it will have to consider its position as the contemporary manifestation of the ‘last days’ community founded on the book of Acts (Shuman 1996:90). The way early Pentecostals had been trained to read the Bible by their restorationist heritage gave them the sense that they were the contemporary manifestation of the early church founded in Acts. Although this imminent eschatological sense has been diminished by the passage of time and the relative institutionalisation of Pentecostal communities, the privileging of Acts remains as a contemporary characteristic of Pentecostalism (Shuman 1996:90). The first Christians interpreted the Pentecostal arrival of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts as an eschatological event because Jesus’ promise of the imminent and powerful advent of the Holy Spirit was made in the context of his followers’ questions concerning the final

26  Church and war restoration of Israel (Acts 1:6–8), a promise sealed by the angelic assurance that he would ‘come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’ (Acts 1:11). This same eschatological aspect of the Pentecostal experience was a significant part of the way the earliest Pentecostals understood themselves (Blumhofer 1989a:2–26). Central among these was the sense that the Pentecostal coming of the Holy Spirit was an empowerment by which the Christian community was made a radical community of witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and served as the implicit basis for the Pentecostal social ethic that included a strong commitment to pacifism (Shuman 1996:91). Even though Pentecostalism has been institutionalised, its privileging of Acts should remain a contemporary characteristic to preserve its essence and identity. In my opinion the self-understanding of early Pentecostals which made possible their pacifism has not totally disappeared from the movement. A space, albeit a narrow one, still exists within the beliefs and practices of the movement from which a return to that community’s pacifist heritage might be initiated.65 The Pentecostal testimony is an inherently eschatological one and the moral ramifications of the doctrine of Spirit baptism is still understood in eschatological terms (as they initially were) to undergird a restoration of Pentecostal pacifism (Shuman 1996:73). There are two reasons for making the story of Pentecost central to the recovery of a nonviolent Christian social ethic. In the first place, Hauerwas (1983:25) argues that the Christian life has a particularly narrative character, and that this narrative mode is neither incidental nor accidental to Christian belief. There is no more fundamental way to talk of God than in a story. Stories are theologically fundamental because God’s self-revelation is specifically narrative in its character; God has revealed himself in the history of Israel and in the life of Jesus. Christians are ‘justified’ and ‘sanctified’ through their participation in this story. However, these terms may never become abstract concepts for Christians. ‘Sanctification’ is but a way of reminding of the kind of journey we must undertake if we are to make the story of Jesus our own story and ‘justification’ is a reminder of what God has done for us by providing us with a path to follow. Pentecostals understand, by their privileging the story told in the book of Acts, that in baptising the disciples in the Holy Spirit, God was acting definitively to create a new world and a new people capable of living in that world. Hence the remarkable change in the disciples’ demeanour after Pentecost, with everything becoming new for them (2 Cor 5:17). Second, Hauerwas (1988:48) argues that we see the restoration of that which was destroyed at Babel in Pentecost. This destruction, which consisted in the scattering of humanity into separate peoples who are no longer able to cooperate, was God’s judgment on a people who believed they were capable of living without the acknowledgement of their own creatureliness, and hence without God. One of the consequences of the divisions created at Babel was the birth of war, as the fear of the other became the overriding passion which motivated each group to force others into their story or to face annihilation (Hauerwas 1988:49). However, after the tragedy of Babel comes the redemptive call of Abraham, through whom God creates a ‘rainbow people’ so that the world might know that despite our

Church and war 27 sinfulness God has not abandoned humankind (Hauerwas 1988:49). The story of Israel is thus born, and through Israel comes Jesus, whose life bears witness to the existence of a new possibility of human, social and therefore also political relationships (Yoder 1972:63). Pentecost therefore represents the culmination of the story begun with the call of Abraham, a story of God’s gracious response to the tragedy of Babel (Shuman 1996:95).66 The glossolalia that occurred when the disciples received the Spirit was heard by each of those present in his or her own language, a sign that in Pentecost God had begun the final work of gathering together the world’s scattered people into one new people. The hostilities arising from the divisions established at Babel were overcome. Hauerwas (1988:53) then states that the glossolalia of Pentecost represents the Spirit’s creation of a new language that gives rise to a new community whose memory of its Saviour creates the miracle of being a people whose very difference contributes to their unity, the community called the church. The church really does have (and is) an alternative to Babel, to the fear people have of each other and finally then to war. Insofar as we are the church, we do not just have an alternative, we are the alternative. We do not have a story to tell but in the telling we are the story being told, contends Hauerwas (1988:54). Pentecostals, of all such people, ought to be faithful embodiments of this story, concludes Shuman (1996:96), because it is their distinctive testimony that at Pentecost God made possible the existence of a community whose willingness to live ‘filled with the Spirit’ makes present to the world the reality of God’s kingdom. And a reality so centred around so peaceable a vision certainty precludes any level of participation in killing. As far as the Hebrew Bible is concerned, Pentecostals need to address several issues if they wish to recover their heritage of pacifism. Especially the Hebrew Bible poses challenges, as explained earlier, because of its many portrayals of YHWH as a violent God (‘YHWH of the armies’) who commands his people to eradicate their enemies in Canaan. In the first place, Pentecostals should note the negative effects of a fundamentalist view of the Bible as the ‘Word of God’ that implies that the Bible contains a unified and monolithic view on war and violence (or other issues).67 The net result of patiently comparing the different traditions found in the Bible indicates and demonstrates that the Bible does not speak in a monosyllabic way (Cox 2015:177). That the Hebrew Bible contains conflicting views on violence that cannot be systematised into a clearly uniform ‘biblical view’ on violence that could function as a prescriptive norm for Christians today should be emphasised. ‘The Bible should be exegeted according to its true nature: various books that contain a kaleidoscopic diversity of different and even contrary views on war and violence that dialogue with one another. Such an approach would facilitate tolerance’ (Scheffler 2009:15). Scheffler also observes that the Bible should be studied in its Weltbezogenheit, that is, the reality of mundane life with all its complexities including individual feelings of love and hatred and physical, social and material needs that determine how people and groups react. It should be kept in mind that the views encountered in the Hebrew Bible are the product of historical circumstances in which the texts originated and

28  Church and war that it correlated with the needs of a community at a stage in history. The issue of war and violence should be fully recognised as part of the condition humana, especially in the sense of its predicament. The human dynamic and psychology behind texts that discuss war and violence should be understood to ensure that the texts do not serve mindlessly as normative for conflicts found in the modern day. Niditch (1993:155) argues that different attitudes on war may be representative of the internal psychological struggle within individuals as they grapple with the internal conflict between compassion and enmity. She refers to Freud’s distinction between the eros and thanatos instincts in humans; war should be understood in its psychological dimensions to exegete references to it in the Hebrew Bible in a way that will contribute to Pentecostals’ continued building up of the society in which they live. All forms of glorification of violence in the national dialogue, including in parents’ telling of war stories or in education departments’ curricula for the history of countries, should be rooted out. The church should also become actively involved in building awareness of the dangers of simulation of violence found on television, computer games and ordinary toys. Violence in televised sport should also be opposed, such as in boxing and kick-boxing. History should be presented to children and other citizens in all its gory cruelty and children should be made aware of the dangers lurking in politicians’ abuse of power. Instead of describing war in terms of politics or heroism it should be presented as the mass murderer that it is. Pentecostals’ tendency to read the Bible in a historicist sense, in other words, as though it were written for their own day and circumstances, should be exposed for what it is, as a potentially dangerous hermeneutic that could cause them to become embroiled in inhumane behaviour. Washington (1997:326) argues that a historicist reading of Joshua may lead believers to resonate with the ancient Near Eastern martial values inscribed in the Hebrew Bible, where a capacity for violence is synonymous with manliness and violence against a feminine object consolidates masculine identity. Historicism is defined as ‘a critical movement insisting on the prime importance of historical context to the interpretation of texts’ (Hamilton 1996:2).68 The language of war in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern literatures is acutely masculinist and the discourse of violence is closely imbricated with that of masculine sexuality defined by prowess in battle and the ability to sire children (Hoffner 1966:327). Manhood entails the capacity to exert violence; ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are mobile constructs, a complementary pair of signifiers reciprocally determined by their relation to violence (Washington 1997:331). The biblical representation of sexual violence, too, demonstrates that violence against a feminine object is elemental to normative masculinity. In this sense, gender becomes a crucial articulator of the experience of violence and gendered discourse becomes a means of producing relations of violence and domination, authenticating a violent male prerogative that remains culturally potent into the present where the Bible is read, believed and applied in a historicist sense. The result is, for instance, that the Deuteronomic war laws are regarded as salutary

Church and war 29 attempts to curb violence or to protect people from its effects, rendering intelligible and acceptable both warfare (20:1–20) and an institutionalised form of rape (21:10–14) and valorising violent acts, construing them as essential to male agency (Washington 1997:344). It bases male subjectivity in violent relation to a female object and creates a field of power where social relations based on a violent masculine prerogative are inevitable. And as foundational texts of Western culture, these ‘biblical’ laws authenticate the role of violence in the cultural construction of gender up to the present day, demonstrating the danger in reading the Bible in this way. Rape and rapability are central to the very construction of gender identity (Higgins & Silver 1991:2). And it can be argued that the prevalence of rape in biblical narrative suggests that ancient Israel should be designated a rape culture.69 The biblical Law of War (found in Deut 20:1–20; 21:10–14) is read in historicist fashion in association with the contemporary Critical Legal Studies (CLS) movement, where law is viewed not as an objectively intelligible moral order but rather as a site of contested power while the poststructuralist views of language and subjectivity advanced by Foucault, Derrida and Lacan eventually figured prominently. The biblical discourses of gender and configurations of violence and gender insist on the contingency of these cultural productions and validate the reciprocal constitution of masculinity as violent and femininity in terms of the practices of warfare and violence against women. Attention needs to be given especially to the ‘suppressed voices’ found in the Hebrew Bible that condemn violence and advocate love for the enemy as proactive intervention. This includes a study of shalom as a concept in the Hebrew Bible that shows the intended reality for which God created the world. The ‘silent voices’ of women and children who died as sacrifices of the herem (consecration) or as victims of famine and plague as a side effect of male wars should also be recognised and verbalised. As noted, Yoder (1983) counts contemporary Pentecostalism as one of the many inheritors of nineteenth-century restorationism, noting that many of the restorationist communities were pacifist from their beginning. He identifies a general tendency toward the avoidance of unnecessary attachments to the world and a ‘literal obedience to a word of scripture without rationalizing it’ (Yoder 1983:307–308). Among these communities there was the absence of a cultural commitment to social responsibility that correlated with forming part of the lower classes who did not have the money, leisure or the training to be social leaders in the traditional elite ways. Yet, it was not their socio-economic location per se that led the first Pentecostals to be pacifists. ‘The simplest reason [for their pacifism] is that they take the whole Bible straight’ (Yoder 1983:308). It was their hermeneutic, their way of reading the Bible that led nascent Pentecostals to maintain that it was wrong for one human to take the life of another. Hauerwas (1988:48–49) notes that war originated when human beings at Babel believed that they were capable of living without the acknowledgement of their creatureliness, and hence without God, leading to the fear of the other becoming the overriding passion which motivated each group to force others into their

30  Church and war story or to face annihilation. Pentecost, however, restored what was destroyed at Babel, which consisted in the scattering of humanity by the confusion of different languages (Gen 11:5–9). Jesus bore witness to a new possibility of relationships based on peace and love; he characterised it as the reign of God, a community consisting of the restructuring of relationships achieved by the intervention of the same Spirit who anointed the Christ (‘anointed one’; Yoder 1994:39). And the fundamental principle of peace is a belief that each person is important (Vanier in Swinton 2008b:102). For this reason, Christians believe that God, through Jesus Christ, has inaugurated a history that frees all people from the assumption that there is no moral alternative to war (Hauerwas 2001a:397). The reign of God represents a social ethic; the story of Jesus is its social ethic (Hauerwas 1981:40). Spirit baptism engendered glossolalia as a sign that in Pentecost God had begun to gather together the world’s scattered peoples into one new people (Hauerwas 1988:50). Babel’s divisions and their resultant hostilities have been overcome. The church as an actual way of living among a concrete group of people has become an alternative to Babel, the way this world operates. In telling their story the church becomes the story, of peace, love and justice (Hauerwas 1988:54). Where the absence of any authority above governments to prevent or adjust conflicts leads to the inevitability of war, the restoration of the kingdom of God on earth in the shape of the church establishes God as the highest authority (Hauerwas 2001a:407), making peace a possibility amid a world at war. The kingdom is not only yet to come but has also been made present fully in Jesus Christ and through the baptism in the Spirit in the church.70 The miracle we call the church is God’s sign that war is not part of his providential care of the world (Hauerwas 2001a:424). The eschatological aspect of Spirit baptism should be appreciated as an empowerment that changes the community into a radical witness to the story of Jesus (May  2017:1345). An important aspect of its radical nature is Pentecostalism’s social ethic that serves as the basis for pacifism. Their social ethic is not primarily to be found in the statements by which it tries to influence the ethos of those in power, but rather the church’s social ethic, as Hauerwas (1985:12) argues, is to be found first and foremost in its ability to sustain a people who are not at home in the liberal presumptions of our civilisation and culture. This serves as a definition of the church. Instead of further deepening and strengthening its alliance with the government (or opposition parties), Pentecostals should rely on the principles and ideals of the biblical accounts of Jesus and the early church. This would inter alia require that Christians share in God’s kenosis; though Jesus was God, he did not cling to his equality with God but gave up his divine privileges and took the humble position of a slave in order to be born as a human being (ἀλλὰ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών, ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος; Phil 2:6–8). The commitment to nonviolence is therefore not primarily an ethic but a declaration of the reality of the new age, where a direct relationship exists between the way Christ suffered on the cross and the way his disciples are called to suffer in the face of evil (Matt 10:38; Mark 8:34–38; 10:38–45; Luke 14:27; Yoder 1971b:60). Christians are called to nonviolence not because they believe

Church and war  31 nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, though they certainly want to rid the world of the horrors that accompany wars. Rather, as Hauerwas (2008a:55) suggests, as faithful followers of Christ in a world of war they cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent. They want to make war less likely, but their nonviolence is a sign of hope that there is an alternative to war. And that alternative is called ‘church’, the place where God has made it possible for Christians to learn to hope in a world where there is no solution.71 Beaman (1989:211) concludes his study about the origin, development and eventual rejection of pacifism among the Pentecostals by stating that modern-day Pentecostals need to ponder whether they can maintain their distinctive views about the church and the Holy Spirit, while conforming to mainstream evangelical socio-religious views. By asking in what ways their earlier pacifism formed a part of their whole belief system, Pentecostals may come to see that this loss signalled other losses too. It may be time to ask in what way this movement, founded upon a desire to be open to the renewing ministry of the Holy Spirit, can continue to have a prophetic role in the life of the church. Pentecostals should become the embodiment of the new humanity whose Spirit-filled lives present to the world the reality of God’s kingdom (Shuman 1996:96),72 realising the fatal flaws in the contemporary materialistic culture (Merton 1971:140). In the kingdom, no one participates in killing as a means of vengeance; they live in peace with one another as far as possible (Heb 12:14) because the peace of the Christ rules in their hearts (Col 3:15). Violence and war is fundamentally immoral (Hauerwas 2001a:410). Especially in the atomic age where a war may claim the lives of millions of people and even destroy the earth (Kwast 1995:94), the pacifist voice needs to be heard urgently.73 In the words of Pope John Paul II, Today, the scale and the horror of modern warfare – whether nuclear or not – makes it totally unacceptable as a means of settling differences between nations. War should belong to the tragic past, to history; it should find no place on humanity’s agenda for the future. (United States Catholic Bishops 1983:21) Pentecostals should base their ethics of pacifism on Scripture. Current times see difficulty in appreciating the moral role of the Bible because in Hauerwas’ (1981:53) words, Christians have forgotten that the authority of the Bible is a political claim characteristic of a very particular kind of polity. This does not imply that the authority of the Bible should be used as an ideology for justifying the demands of the oppressed, but rather that it derives its intelligibility from the existence of a community that knows its life depends on faithful remembering of God’s care of his creation through the calling of Israel and the life of Jesus. Failure to appreciate how the biblical narratives have and continue to form a polity is part of the reason that the ethical significance of the Bible currently seems so problematic (Hauerwas 1981:54–55). To claim the Bible as authority is the testimony of the church that this book provides the resources necessary for the

32  Church and war church to be a community sufficiently truthful so that their conversation with one another and God can continue across generations.74 Scripture forms a community and sets an agenda for its life that requires the church to trust its existence to God found through the stories of Israel and Jesus, and the moral use of the Bible lies in its power to remember these stories for the continual guidance of the community (Hauerwas 1981:66).75 Being a community of the forgiven allows it to become an agent of forgiveness and grace, disqualifying its members to partake in any form of violence or war. Only in this way does the church become worthy to continue carrying the story of God that it finds authorised by Scripture with an enthusiasm that cannot be defeated, because it knows that as a community of peace it nurtures habits of peace that might be able to see new opportunities not otherwise present because it represents a kind of people who have been freed from the assumption that war is our fate (Hauerwas 2001a:424). At present, however, most Christians probably do nothing. They look away and remain calm and take refuge in the hope that war would not cause a holocaust as some predict in the nuclear days that we live in. What is needed is that they shake off their lethargy and fatigue and begin to act, to change the climate and bring the world to its senses before it destroys the world with its capability to dominate nature and invent war machines that can change the world and its climate to such an extent that the survival of a part of humanity may be threatened.76 In the words of W. H. Auden, ‘We must love one another or die’ (Schell 1982:230). Schell (1982:193) writes that when nuclear weapons were invented, it was as though the battlefield on which two armies had been fighting for as long as anyone can remember had suddenly been bisected in an earthquake by a huge chasm, so that if the armies tried to rush at one another to engage in battle they would plunge into this chasm instead, pulling their nations in with them. The potential and possibilities inherent in nuclear warfare have changed the playing field irrevocably.77 What is now needed is the disabling of war because the ultimate purpose of military forces in the system of sovereignty, which consisted of the defence of one’s nation by combating and defeating the attacking forces of the enemy, was nullified in a stroke because there is no defence against nuclear weapons. The world now had to decide whether to reject sovereignty and ‘war’, which was not war anymore but calculated extinction, and institute global political arrangements that would arbitrate international disputes or to try to shore up sovereignty with the use or the deployment of nuclear weapons. The present-day United Nations is the empty husk of those irresolute good intentions where, in effect, the world had chosen another course, of attempting to refashion the system of sovereignty to accommodate nuclear weapons (Schell 1982:194).78 The resulting doctrine is nuclear deterrence, the forbidding political and intellectual product of the attempt to live simultaneously in the two worlds, the nuclear world and the pre-nuclear military and political world. The central proposition of the deterrence doctrine is that a nuclear holocaust can best be prevented if each nuclear power, sovereignstate or nation-state, or bloc of powers, holds in readiness a nuclear force with which it ‘credibly’ threatens to destroy, and can prove to destroy the entire society of any attacker, even after suffering the worst possible first strike that the attacker

Church and war  33 launched (Hauerwas 1985:147). The point is that a potential attacker must believe that our assured-destruction capability is in fact actual, and that our will to use it in retaliation to an attack is in fact unwavering.79 Deterrence must mean the certainty of suicide to the aggressor. Now, however, two irreconcilable purposes clash, to permit the survival of the species by way of the doctrine’s aim of frightening everybody into holding back from using nuclear weapons at all, and to serve national ends as expressed in the doctrine’s permitting the defence of one’s nation and its interests by threatening to use nuclear weapons. You cannot both threaten yourself with something and hope to avoid that same thing by making the threat – both intend to do something and intend not to do it, creating a contradiction (Schell 1982:197).80 The current political situation in the world poses a new threat, that irrational and uncontrollable forces may acquire (or have already acquired) nuclear weapons, such as Iran, North Korea and even the Islamic State (IS).81 This might lead to a slippery slope over the nuclear abyss that poses challenges for the United Nations and the great powers such as has not been seen in the history of the world. The peril of complete human extinction looms if this threat is not handled in a careful way. Nuclear weapons implied the effective removing of the limits on human access to the forces of nature. It ruined war which depended for its results, and therefore for its usefulness, on the exhaustion of the forces of one of the adversaries (Schell 1982:195). In the end, the outcome of war was determined by the weakness of human powers. Now nuclear weapons brought about a divorce between violence and politics because violence was fashioned into an instrument that was useful in politics but now lost its power. The implication is that politics must now shape a world that does not rely on violence, requiring two aims, to save the world from extinction by eliminating nuclear weapons from the earth and to create a political means by which the world can arrive at the decisions that sovereign states previously arrived at through war. These two aims are intimately connected. If disarmament is not accompanied by a political solution, then every clash of will between nations will tempt them to pick up the instruments of violence again, with its destructive potential and leading the world back toward the danger of complete extinction. If a political solution is not accompanied by complete disarmament, then the political decisions will not be binding because they will be subject to challenge by force.82 Today there is neither a political solution nor any possibility of disarmament, keeping the world perpetually at the edge of doom. Terrorist attacks remind the world continuously of the threat that large-scale terrorist organisations hold for the world; if these organisations should obtain nuclear weapons, the outcome would be unpredictable. At present the task is nothing less than to reinvent politics (Schell 1982:226). Our world must be reinvented. It should start with each person to make known, visibly and unmistakably, the desire that the species survive. Voters should state clearly to politicians that they realise the seriousness of the danger of nuclear war, and that they expect them to work for total global disarmament, both nuclear and conventional, and the invention of political means by which the world can

34  Church and war peacefully settle the issues that throughout history it has settled by way of warfare. The world is (in the metaphor used by Schell 1982:227) a busload of passengers speeding down a mountainside toward a cliff. The passengers do not have the luxury of convening a seminar to discuss the dangerous situation or to appoint researchers to provide different solutions. They rather need to see to it that the bus driver applies the brakes, quickly and very effectively. To survive, the world needs to change its actions of endeavour from violence to nonviolence. Christians can show the way because their Master taught them how to love, even their enemies. Gandhi (in Schell 1982:299) remarked that in the dictionary of nonviolent action, there is no such thing as an external enemy.83 With the world at stake, all differences would by definition be ‘internal’ differences, to be resolved on the basis of respect for those with whom one disagrees. If the aim is to save humanity, human beings should learn to respect the humanity of every person. The ideological construct of ‘the enemy of our nation’ has become a luxury that the contemporary world will find too costly. Merton (1968:21) emphasises that nonviolence should be aimed above all at the transformation of the present state of the world and it must therefore be free from unconscious contrivance with an unjust and established abuse of power. Nonviolent resistance should be focused on the interests of the poor and underprivileged. Christian nonviolence is convinced that the manner in which the conflict for truth is waged will itself manifest or obscure the truth.84 What is needed from Christians is the perichoresis85 of mercy and compassion (Louw 2016:6). Refugees are the victims of war who fled to guest countries where instances occur where they in some instances experience rejection and xenophobia, perhaps even from Christians. And in some cases, the Christian church remains silent when such attacks occur. What is needed is a ‘theology of the intestines’, in Louw’s (s.a.:18) terms. He refers to Ludwig Feuerbach (1904:126–136), an atheist philosopher, who warned the church against the idol of a God with brains but without any passion or heart (Louw 2016:8). Feuerbach distinguishes between the God of abstract philosophy, or God as pure action, and the God of Christendom, the God of pure passion and suffering. The suffering of God means that Gott ist eine Herz (Feuerbach 1904:131). A god without heart is an idol. The secret of the suffering God is the secret of existential experience, implying that the Christian religion is in essence a religion of suffering and compassion for those who suffer. Due to globalisation and the influence of the media, world citizens are constantly exposed to the inflation of compassion, indifference and apathy, causing a crisis of compassion deficit in the light of the enormous needs posed by poverty, the migrant crisis, victims of wars and so forth. For instance, the Syrian war and ethnic conflicts in Africa have driven worldwide displacement and global dislocation, draining the world’s emotional capacity for compassion. The continuing crisis drains emotional resources and is becoming a crisis of compassion fatigue (Louw s.a.:10). Instead of xenophobia, Christians should employ the metaphors of ‘host’ and ‘hospitality’ in pastoral caregiving. Their inbred fear for the stranger should be

Church and war  35 exchanged for philoxenia, the mutuality of brotherly love.86 Christian hospitality counteracts the social stratification of the larger society by providing an alternative based on the principle of equality, creating faith communities where everyone is welcome regardless of background, status, gender or race (Louw s.a.:16). Xenodocia should be created as safe havens and places of refuge, where threatened and traumatised people can become whole again. ‘To be moral is to be hospitable to the stranger’ (Ogletree 1985:1). The church should serve as the hospitium of God, communicating a sharing, welcoming, embracing and all-inclusive communality. It should be in the forefront of efforts to house and relocate the alienated, according to Louw. Former Archbishop Desmond Tutu (2004:33) speaks about the costly struggle against apartheid that eventually led to the creation of a new kind of society. However, many people in South Africa are still living in gruelling, demeaning and dehumanising poverty. Tutu describes South Africa as a powder keg that could explode at any moment because the violence of poverty is destroying ties that bound families and communities together. To create a caring, compassionate society, South Africa should radically eradicate poverty. And that would need more than the revision of government economic policies; it will require of every citizen to share with those who have not. The initiative for such an endeavour can and should not come from nongovernment organisation but from the Christian church. Compassion gives meaning to life; without compassion life becomes an unbearable toil (Dostoyevsky 1973:263). Institutionalised religion of the state church projects in many instances a powerful imperium rather than the vulnerable ecclesiology needed to confront the challenge that the victims of violence pose to the survival of order in the world. Louw (s.a.:18) proposes that the church should employ verbal categories and the infinitive tense to confront its presumed preference for power categories and a fixed past participle. As Davies (2001:20) explains, the Hebrew name for Israel’s God in Exodus 3:14 can be translated as ‘the God who will always be where God’s people are’, the acting God who shows a definitive preference for people moved to the periphery of society where they are easily forgotten, and their rights abused by powerful figures and institutes. YHWH is then understood to be ‘I am who I am becoming’. The church should deal in gerunds, words that look like verbs but function as nouns with an infinitive sense of being. These nouns presuppose action, they are verbs used as nouns (Louw s.a.:18 refers to Miller-McLemore 2012:8). And their function in terms of the victims of violence can be summarised with the Greek splanchnizomai (σπλαγχνίζομαι),87 that explains the unbounded mercy of God made visible by Christians in their unqualified praxis of hospitality and diakonia. In theopaschitic theology the moving of the intestines function as the church’s practice of the theology of the cross. Then the theology of glory (theologia gloriae) and omnipotence can develop into a theologia crucis of weakness, suffering and praxis. This praxis will interpenetrate and infiltrate within the antinomy and paradox of fear that paralyses many Christians when they have to deal with the victim as well as the perpetrator of violence. It requires an unqualified grassroots encounter with all stakeholders in the refugee and migrant crisis, moves to mutual understanding

36  Church and war and promotes negotiation with all parties involved and applies a pastoral polity of presence and practices hospitable perichoresis that creates room for the homeless (Louw s.a.:22).88 This is the only viable alternative to xenophobia, and Christians are ideally equipped to take the lead in communities such as predominantly black South African squatter camps where xenophobia surfaces regularly.89 At the end of the twentieth century, a group of twenty-three American theologians and international relations theorists met at regular intervals with the purpose to produce a systematic approach to peacemaking in the world; their conclusions were published in Stassen (1999). They share a common conviction that both pacifist and just war Christians should make a sustained attempt to actively promote strategies of peacemaking; Pentecostals may benefit by listening to their advice. They identify ten practices for abolishing war which specifically include arms reduction. They suggest that Christians: • • • • • • • • • •

Should support nonviolent direct action; Take independent initiatives to reduce threat; Use cooperative conflict resolution; Acknowledge responsibility for conflict and injustice and seek repentance and forgiveness; Advance democracy, human rights and religious liberty; Foster just and sustainable economic development; Work with emerging cooperative forces in the international system; Strengthen the United Nations and international efforts for cooperation and human rights; Reduce offensive weapons and weapons trade;90 Encourage grassroots peacemaking groups. (Stassen 1999)

What is necessary is that Pentecostals work hard for radical decommissioning and peacemaking, promoting a world with fewer weapons and highlighting the present arms trade and transfer as deeply questionable. And they should refuse to personally own arms as their contribution to counteract the proliferation of weapons that has led to a heavily armed and dangerous civil population (especially in crime-ridden South Africa).91 Crook (1999:260) proposes some further practical steps to realise the dream of a world community of peace. It requires of people not to think of themselves primarily in terms of their skin colour or economic status but as members of the world community. Politicians should search for nonmilitary approaches to the resolution of international conflicts. Christians should work for the relief of disasterstricken areas in the world. Nations should cooperate in the spread of resources and technology for the improvement of the economy of developing nations. Civilians should encourage their governments to base their military posture on sound domestic and foreign policies. Believers should deal with the reality of sin as part of the social structure and not merely as an individual matter. And they should

Church and war  37 work for changes in the structure of society that perpetuate human problems. Just peacemaking is the calling of Christians. Christians should also be involved with promoting the creation of a new ‘Peace Order’ to be established in such a way as to embody the new peace theology.92 An important initiative is that armies of civilians trained in nonviolence are deployed in conflict areas. The late Bishop Tonino Bello demonstrated the principle when he led five hundred nonviolent interveners into the former Yugoslavia shortly before his death (Wicker 1993:19). Bishop Bello was the president of Pax Christi-Italy, an international Catholic peace movement with the aim ‘to transform a world shaken by violence, terrorism, deepening inequalities, and global insecurity’.93 His peace corps was composed of an unarmed contingent of conscientious objectors as a human buffer to border areas. This could become a great force of peace that would invade the war zone, Bello argues. Egan (1993:61) writes that the concept is an idea whose time has come. Christians should oppose any military service even if they must pay a price for it.94 A model for conscientious objectors is Marcellus, a centurion in the Roman army. It was required of him to venerate Caesar at his birthday festivities in 298 ce. Throwing down his belt and weapons in front of his troops he declared, ‘I am a soldier of Jesus Christ the eternal king. From now on I cease to serve your emperors . . . For it is not fitting that a Christian, who fights for Christ his Lord, should fight for the armies of the world’. Marcellus was tried and executed on 30 October 298 ce (Peachey 2013:xiii). Another example is Telemachus, who came from the Eastern church to Rome to witness against the gladiatorial games in 400 ce. He was appalled at the spectacle of men killing each other for the entertainment of the public and he walked into the arena where he attempted to separate the combatants. The spectators stoned him to death. Emperor Honoris was so moved by Telemachus’ action that he abolished the games.95 Another important aid is the possible effects of mass television coverage of war in all its terrible reality. Experience showed that it can alter attitudes of great masses of people more drastically than the advent of mass-destruction weaponry, in its turn transforming the character of war. Television is not just another way of picturing war, or recording it. It is not just an extension of the work of the war artist or the photographer or the poet. What is seen on the television screen is part of the war itself. Television mobilises us, sometimes conscripting us as arm-chair combatants, sometimes as would-be diplomats demanding a cease-fire and a political settlement. (Wicker 1993:20) Without abandoning its ministry and witness to soldiers, the Pentecostal church should actively encourage its members not to become engaged in the military in any capacity, and certainly not as part of combat units. At the same time, they should abandon their participation in the compromising system of chaplaincy (Scheffler 2009:17).96

38  Church and war It is a sad truth that church leaders and pastors have been implicated in cases of sexual abuse, a form of violence that is destructive to its victims. One can refer to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and its report on Vatican mishandling of sexual abuse cases;97 the Pentecostal movement as such had been rocked time and again by similar scandals. Attention should be given by churches where these abuses have been reported, to prosecute the guilty ones but at the same time to look at structural reform to prevent its occurrence. The church should also take responsibility for adequate compensation in cases where guilt has been proven and provide meaningful and healing support to the victims. The church should also create more efficient systems for identifying, reporting and isolating abusers (Traina 2014:50). And to learn about abuse, the church should also consult the experts, the victims of trafficking and sexual commodification. Collaboration with these people is essential as evidence of the solidarity of powerful people with the marginalised, as a strategy for mutual edification and empowerment. Traina (2014:51) suggests that a victim-centred ethic that seeks to preserve human dignity while trying to solve the problem of sexual commodification necessarily calls for structural change and self-awareness. Another important observation is that contemporary humanity is committing violence to the earth on an unprecedented scale. Forests, seas and rivers are dying from human throwaway plastic and other garbage. And while some human beings suffocate on their surplus of white bread, others are dying from hunger (Zink 1983:108–109). What is necessary is that human beings start behaving in a new way toward the world. Strength is necessary for moral behaviour, and so is a consciousness of the dignity and worth of all created beings. It will not help to make moral appeals on people to start behaving in innovative ways to try and save the world. What is necessary is that human beings acquire a consciousness of their own worth and dignity that will release them from their previous compulsive behaviour. A new understanding of human existence and mission must precede a new ethic (Zink 1983:111). Human beings must learn that they are tied to the roots of the creation. When we have laid waste the earth with our violent actions, we are laid waste along with it.

Nonviolence as an alternative The supreme obligation of every Christian that takes precedence over anything else is to work for the abolition of war and thereby to do their bit to preserve humanity from the threat of total annihilation (Merton 1971:181). An alternative to reach this goal is by way of nonviolence. Gandhi (2007:63) emphasises the moral obligation to act. He writes that the greatest sin is to fail to act. Violence is any day preferable to impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become nonviolent; there is no hope for the impotent. Merton defines contemporary times as a ‘post-Christian era’ and defines the Christian’s contribution to the world in terms of the eschatological perspective that the world is no longer Christian. Christians live in exile and alienation; in a postChristian world, the appropriate relationship between the secular and religious

Church and war  39 communities would be one which would define for the citizen-believer a position closer to their counterpart in pre-Constantinian Rome than to the Christians of the intervening centuries who might have had an excuse, if not justification, for blindly acquiescing in whatever calls to service might be issued by their temporal lords and masters (Merton 1971:181). The implication is that individual Christians ought to look upon the acts and demands of the nations’ leaders with intense suspicion, recognising in them a highly probably challenge to their personal spiritual responsibilities and wellbeing. The Christian’s attitude toward war must be fundamentally eschatological, with the ‘kingdom’ interpreted in terms of John’s Apocalypse as consisting of saints and martyrs,98 priests and witnesses, whose main function is to bide their time in faith, loving one another and the truth, and suffering persecution in the furious cataclysm which marks the final testing of earthly society.99 They will take no direct part in the struggles of earthly kingdoms. Their life is one of faith, gentleness, meekness, patience and purity.100 They depend on no power other than the power of God, and it is God they obey rather than the state, which tends to usurp the powers of God and to blaspheme him, setting itself in his stead as an idol and drawing to itself the adoration and worship that are due to him alone (Merton 1971:201). Merton celebrates the lives and sacrifices of three ‘authentic Christian witnesses’, Alfred Delp, Max Josef Metzger and Franz Jägerstätter, who dared to defy the totalitarian power of the rulers of Nazi Germany and died as martyrs. They refused to submit to a force which they recognized as anti-human and utterly destructive. They refused to accept this evil and to palliate it under the guise of ‘legitimate authority’. In doing so they proved themselves better theologians than the professionals and the pontiffs who supported that power and made others obey it, thus cooperating in the evil. (Merton 1971:211) Being Christian would always contain a protest dimension because Christians may not keep silent in the face of enormous social evils. That the church has been silent in the past with an almost total lack of protest on the part of religious people and especially church leaders should be ascribed not to inherent wickedness or perversity, but simply to the fact that they are no longer able to see and evaluate certain evils as they truly are, as crimes against God and as betrayals of the Christian ethic of love (Merton 1971:222). Instead, Christians should develop ways to translate their inescapable moral obligation to work for peace into effective and practical steps, for instance, by refusing to vote for ‘belligerent politicians’, working to promote and support the Peace Corps, freeing themselves from the crusading spirit that thinks our problems can be solved by nuclear war (Merton 1971:241), giving heroic witness to God by a meek, unquestioning obedience in submission to Christ even unto death and experiencing persecution because as a conscientious objector the Christian refuses to partake in battle, even when ordered by church and civil authorities to do so.101

40  Church and war ‘Nonviolence is the greatest power humankind has been endowed with’, explains Mahatma Gandhi (quoted in Nagler 2014:32). When people hear of nonviolence, many think of nonviolent resistance. This can be construed as Jesus’ command to turn the other cheek applied on a corporate scale. Beginning in the 1980s, for the first time in human history nonviolent resistance campaigns successfully toppled multiple oppressive regimes across the globe, often in the face of overwhelming military power, oppression and brutality (Flood 2014:199). In a recent study (Stephan & Chenoweth 2008:7–44), the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 were compared. Its findings show that major nonviolent campaigns were effective fifty-three per cent of the time, whereas violent ones only showed positive results twenty-six per cent of the time. While nonresistance does not always work, it is twice as effective as violence. Fact is, violent dictators do not only respond to violent force; nonviolent resistance appears to be a more powerful force. Why is it so effective where violence fails? In their study, Stephan & Chenoweth (2008:11) find that one notable factor is that an unjust act, often consisting of violent repression, recoils against its originators, often resulting in the breakdown of obedience among regime supporters, mobilisation of the population against the regime and international condemnation of the regime.102 Military action undertaken by the United States to resolve political issues in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen had disastrous results. Most people, including political leaders, presume that there are only two responses to an attack, to give in or to fight back, the fight-or-flight response. Either approach will only serve to increase violence. However, it is possible to confront violence in an alternative way, called ‘a way out of no way’ by Nagler (2014:151), consisting of struggle by means of nonviolent action (Sharp 2013:150). Violence as deliberate harm to another’s person or dignity has become so common as to seem ubiquitous. This includes structural violence that consists of the exploitation or dominance built into the system. The seeming ubiquity of violence is the result of how most people look at the world rather than with the way the world really is. Science, for instance, was practised for the most part of the twentieth century from the perspective of materialism, separateness and competition. It is only recently that science has undergone a remarkable shift toward a more balanced vision of human nature and evolution in general. This development needs to be amalgamated into the prevailing worldview because it has significance for the way conflict is handled (Nagler 2014:140). Nonviolence often seems ineffectual.103 The term itself presents a problem; it implies that the real thing is violence and that nonviolence is just its absence, as some consider peace as the absence of war. Nonviolence offers a way out of the fight-or-flight response, backed by twentieth-century discoveries of relativity and quantum reality that demonstrates that nothing is as separate as it seems, and evidence in evolution that empathy and cooperation are the dominant forces in evolution, that human beings and other primates are equipped with ‘mirror neurons’ that enable them to share what another is feeling, that self-sacrifice can produce intense rewards in the nervous system and that nonviolence is an extremely effective tool for social change

Church and war  41 (Nagler 2014:151). However, it is true that empathy and care for the well-being of someone who is against us do not come easily. This very struggle is the source of nonviolent power, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr (Nagler 2014:162): The phrase ‘passive resistance’ often gives the false impression that this is a sort of ‘do-nothing method’ in which the resister quietly and passively accepts evil. But nothing is further from the truth. For while the nonviolent resister is passive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive toward his opponent, his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade his opponents that he is wrong. Most of the time it is presumed that power flows from violence and can only be controlled by violence. However, power is inherent in practically all social and political relationships. Political power refers to the total authority, influence, pressure and coercion which may be applied to achieve or prevent the implementation of the wishes of the power-holder.104 The fact is that power derives from sources within society that people can restrict or cut off by withdrawing their cooperation. The concept and foundation for political struggle by means of nonviolent action rests on the belief that the exercise of power depends on the consent of the ruled who can, by withdrawing their consent, control and even destroy the power of the opponent, thus making nonviolent action a technique that can be used to control, combat and destroy the opponent’s power by nonviolent means of wielding power (Sharp 2013:164). The power of dictators can be destroyed by the withdrawal of human help that makes the existence of the regime possible. By using nonviolent action, people have achieved higher wages, broken social barriers, changed government policies, frustrated invaders, paralysed empires and dissolved evil regimes.105 Nonviolent resistance (turning the other cheek, in Jesus’ parlance) uses a contextspecific application which is not always appropriate in every situation. For instance, Flood (2014:201) refers to a prison guard seeking to apply the principle of turning the other cheek as a way of dealing with prison violence. It would be morally irresponsible for a prison guard to place himself in a defenceless position between fighting inmates. The power dynamic is completely reversed. In nonviolent resistance, the power dynamic is one of an oppressed people struggling for social justice against those in power. In a prison setting the guards are the ones holding the power. The principle of loving one’s enemy would rather in a prison setting consist of a focus on moral and emotional development of prisoners, using psycho-education and corrective experiences to build empathy, reflection, selfesteem and impulse control. While the two approaches differ in their specific methods, they are both examples of love for the enemy, with several similarities between the two examples. Both act to reverse the cycle of harm; both do this by unmasking and exposing violence; and both ultimately result in social repair to the extent that it is successful and effective. Both nonviolent resistance and the education of prisoners are examples of restorative justice that seeks to make things right, as opposed to retributive justice that seeks to inflict harm. In both, the goal is

42  Church and war to break the pattern of violence and harm by identifying actions that would break the cycle rather than feeding it (Flood 2014:201). The context requires different methods, based on the social dynamic. What is important in both cases is to get past the reactionary responses and to learn to engage our reflective social brain to find solutions to our problems. In many instances, we should first have to fight and overcome our fear-based reactive emotional responses. Conflict typically spirals into patterns of hurting and being hurt, with both parties alternating in the roles of aggressor and receiver. The goal is to determine what is needed to break the cycle of harm, rather than fuelling it. What can we do to repair rather than adding to the injury and perpetuating the cycle of harm, violence and retributive justice? Simple moral repudiation of violence, denunciation of one’s enemies and exhortations to love and be peaceful have not contributed much to do away with wars and other political violence. Only by adopting peaceful and efficient forms of sanctions and struggle will Christians be able to reduce political violence compatible with liberty, justice and human dignity because it constitutes a real alternative to violence.106 It must be added that nonviolent alternatives alone will not necessarily lead to the change in circumstances that is looked for. What is necessary is that nonviolent alternatives should be at least as effective as violence. The nature, capability and requirements of nonviolent actions should be studied carefully to determine which course should be taken while the adversary should be known, and weapons, targets, terrain and time of day should be considered carefully while impetuous recourse to provoked or purposeless violence should be avoided. Political violence usually has as its purpose making somebody do something, or not do something, or stop doing something, like political nonviolence also intends to achieve. Violent action attempts to influence behaviour mainly by intimidating people. The violence cannot compel them to act or behave or perform in a certain way, it can only hurt them if they do not participate as desired. Violent and nonviolent actions are different techniques of trying to make it unrewarding for people to do certain things, and safe and rewarding to do other things. Both can also be misused or misapplied, for evil or misguided purposes (Sharp 2013:218).

Notes 1 A condensed version of this chapter was published in Nel (2017a). 2 Sometimes a distinction is made between pacifism and nonviolent resistance. Both views then agree that war is immoral. But nonviolent resisters take an active role against war while pacifists are passive. The question underlying the distinction is, is it the Christian duty to work actively against war or merely to withhold support from war? Both positions use the same sort of arguments in their opposition towards war (Clarke and Rakestraw 1996:493–494). 3 This is written from the perspective of a white male member of the AFM of SA. Early on, the AFM divided along racial (and language) lines and the black AFM’s consideration of pacifism differs in many respects from the white AFM before 1996. The theological convictions and resultant ethical considerations of the mostly black AFM assemblies need to be recorded; no research has been published from that perspective. 4 Because with the application of violence nobody wins except to lose everything in despair, as Rutgers (1933:133) argues.

Church and war  43 5 Cf. Alexander (2009) for a study of pacifism within the American Assemblies of God tradition. Alexander draws on the work of Beaman (1989). Cf. Cartledge (2014:290) for a discussion of Alexander’s viewpoints. 6 Cf., e.g., Veith’s (2017) question whether the celebration by a specific Baptist church in Texas of Freedom Sunday on 4 July 2017 was idolatrous. The author does not think that the worship service with its singing of ‘God Bless America’, ‘It’s a Grand Old Flag’ and ‘This Is My Country’, an armed honour guard and recognising veterans during worship was idolatrous but describes it as a problem when contemporary worship testifies little about Christ or the reception of his gifts. The overwhelming patriotism that marked the worship service is no problem for the author because it is acceptable in his view that the church should reflect the political ideology underlying the patriotism. 7 Hauerwas (2011) writes that the ‘glue’ that holds America together as one nation is not civil religion or a Judaeo-Christian ethic; it is rather war itself. War has become the American religion; America is now always at war somewhere and Americans celebrate their current wars religiously and they criticise war’s critics as if they were heretics. American soldiers are honoured as saints and martyrs and their generals are high priests. Their sacraments are missiles and their rituals are celebrations of wars past and present. In contrast, according to Hauerwas, the church’s public, social and political ethic ought to be prophetically witnessing by example, word and deed to the world, calling it to repentance and peace. That is the way of Jesus Christ regarding social ethics (Olson 2017). 8 Walter Rauschenbusch  (4 October  1861–25 July  1918) was a Christian  theologian and Baptist pastor who taught at the Rochester Theological Seminary. He was a key figure in the Social Gospel. 9 A related argument is that the development of democracy has so changed the context of social responsibility that the biblical position of the relation between the church and state and the early church’s stance about nonresistance is not only wrong but, in fact, irrelevant and inconceivable in a society where every citizen must affirm that he or she is the state. Yoder (1964:26) calls this the mythological explanation of democracy, as a fundamentally new kind of social order, while democracy in fact leads to immensely increased possibilities which it provides by speaking to those who exercise power, with its decentralisation of authority, the election of legislators by a local constituency and the constitutional and judicial controls on abuse of authority. Men and women in power are obliged to listen to criticism with more seriousness than in the age of absolutist monarchists. What is needed is that for Christians the decision about how to vote should be the expression of a careful evaluation of what needs to be said to the authorities; the decision to abstain from voting is likewise to be evaluated with a view to its communicating something (Yoder 1964:27). 10 Yoder (1964:18) remarks that Paul has frequently been reproached for his social conservatism, as evidenced in his willingness to accept for the time being the institution of slavery and the subordination of women. Yet it was the Christian community’s experience of the equal dignity of every member of the congregation which ultimately, by detour of secular post-Christian humanism, laid the groundwork for modern conceptions of the rights of humankind. However, Hauerwas (1991:47) argues that the current emphasis on rights and justice as the primary norms of liberal democracy, including ‘political’ liberties such as freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of thought and conscience, freedom of persons along with the right to hold private property and freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as defined by the rule of law, is in fact a mistake as far as Christians’ participation in the state goes and should be subjected to critical review. In terms of rights and justice, MacIntyre (1988:1–11) correctly asks, ‘whose justice and whose rights?’ 11 This motivates Hauerwas’ (1993:9 and discussed in the rest of the book) claim that the Bible should not be accessible to merely anyone, but rather it should only be made

44  Church and war available to those who have undergone the hard discipline of existing as part of God’s people. This radical proposal seems to be in line with medieval Catholic theology that defended the interpretation of Scripture by members of the church by limiting it to the episcopal structures of the Church It is not necessary to take the Bible from the hands of Christians; on the contrary, they should be empowered more and more to interpret the Bible by supplying them with what is needed to do so in a meaningful way, with a worldview and view of God that is biblical. In the end, Hauerwas’ (1993:17) problem is the presumption that communities can exist without authority; it is this presumption that he is challenging in his book. 12 An analysis of Pentecostal groups is complex because of the substantial number of Pentecostal bodies. Here we follow what is now a commonplace categorisation of Pentecostal denominations, found in David W. Faupel’s 1972 essay, ‘The American Pentecostal Movement: A Bibliographic Essay’. Faupel gives a three-fold categorisation of Pentecostalism: (1) those denominations which hold a Keswick view of sanctification; (2) those denominations which hold a Holiness view of ‘entire sanctification’; and (3) those denominations which hold a ‘Jesus Only’ view of the Godhead. A Keswick understanding of sanctification, following the Keswick Convention in England and the Dwight L. Moody revival meetings in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century, was baptistic in its view of sanctification. This model collapsed the crisis of sanctification with the conversion experience. In this view, the major work of sanctification was progressive throughout the Christian life. Pentecostals who followed this perspective believed that conversion is followed by the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The Assemblies of God is the prototypical denomination of this grouping. A Holiness view of sanctification, ‘entire sanctification’, derives from the Holiness Movement at the end of the nineteenth century. Those adopting this view believed that the work of sanctification was a crisis experience and a second work of grace following conversion. Pentecostals of this variety simply added the third step of the baptism in the Holy Spirit accompanied by glossolalia or speaking in tongues. The Pentecostal Holiness Church and the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) are prototypical of this grouping, as is the Church of God in Christ, the largest black Pentecostal denomination. Another division of the Movement led to a third grouping of Pentecostals. This division was over Christology. In 1916, several of the Keswick variety of Pentecostals took a unitarian view of God centring on a ‘Jesus Only’ interpretation of the baptismal formula. These came to be identified as the Oneness Pentecostal Denominations or the Jesus Only Pentecostals. The United Pentecostal Church has become prototypical of this grouping (Beaman 1989:22–23). Beaman (2013:5) concedes that the Holiness movement differs from the Pentecostal movement about the speaking in tongues but asserts that it is a unitary movement due to the commonality of their aversion to participation in war. 13 Yoder (1971a:8) states that there is a growing awareness in churches that the problem of war is at the heart of much of the sickness of modern society, and a growing recognition that the traditional Christian approaches to this problem, namely the just war and crusade, are becoming increasingly inadequate as sources of moral guidance. Technically, war is hostility and violence for the sake of asserting oneself (Rutgers 1933:123). It can also be defined as ‘legitimized murder on a mass scale’ (Hauerwas 2001a:394). ‘War’ should be defined in broad terms, as a particular war between nations where ‘enemies’ attack one another, that implies the arrogance that a given nation (represented by a clique of political rulers who claim to bear the interest of the nation at heart) presumes to impose its vision of the future on the rest of the world, claiming some more right or duty by virtue of its power, success or philosophy, and which is idolatry in that it makes of one’s own nation’s welfare an ultimate value to which, if necessary, that all else must be sacrificed (Yoder 1971a:55–56). War can also originate from ethnic disagreements. But ‘war’ can also refer to the positive rejection of a racist, exploitative, dehumanising ‘system’, the unequal and unjust distribution of wealth, the

Church and war  45

14

15

16

17

18

distribution of drugs among exploited peoples or of systematised world injustice (Sölle 1983:125). Hauerwas’ (1985:113) remark is relevant, that Jesus is the meaning and content of the kingdom. That the kingdom is present in Jesus is known not only by Jesus’ power to renew our spirit and nature, but also in the rehabilitation of his people. Among God’s people, the poor, the oppressed and the underprivileged play a particularly prominent role, as their reversal of fortunes proclaim that all is not well with the world. Their unencumbered reception of God’s forgiveness and grace sets them apart as God’s people, and they have learnt to forgive and show grace, even to their enemies. The kingdom consists of and creates a peaceful space (Hauerwas 1985:115–116). Johnson (2001:4–5) remarks that modern interpreters have still much to learn from this church father. Origen, for instance, shows how much more passionately Scripture is engaged when the reader is persuaded of its divine interpretation, which implies that God’s wisdom is somehow seeking to be communicated even through the impossibilities of the literal sense. If interpreters were today to learn from Origen, they would not rest easy with the practice of excising or censoring troublesome texts, but would wrestle with them until they yielded a meaning ‘worthy of God’, in Johnson’s opinion. It should be remembered that Augustine’s theology of war was formed by his reaction to the Donatist crisis, forcing him to change the persecuted church into the persecuting church (Küng 2006:78–79). Augustine’s view about war can only be understood if the authority he accorded to the Catholic church is considered. He subordinated the individual to the church as an institution, establishing the church as the form of salvation and means of grace. He reasoned that the one true church could in no way be represented by a particular church which had split itself off, but only by a universal church, in communion with Jerusalem, Rome and the Eastern communities. The Ecclesia catholica is ever expanding and absorbing the world, endowed with sacraments and led by orthodox bishops (Küng 2006:78), and those outside the church should be forced (instead of compelled; Augustine read the Latin translation, Coge intrare, in Jesus’ saying about the great supper) (Küng 2006:81). The church must accept that it is part of an imperfect world, as expressed by Augustine’s catchphrase, semper tolerans terram, sperans coelom (‘carrying or enduring the world while awaiting heaven’; Bakhuizen van den Brink 1933:83). At the same time, Augustine emphasises the ‘not yet’ dimension of the kingdom; he views war as both the result of sin and a tragic remedy for sin and the life of political societies in the sense that it restrains evil and protects the innocent (Hauerwas 2001a:411). It implies that as long as Christians live in history there must exist an unresolved tension between justice and nonviolence. This tension requires the Christian to use violence in the cause of justice, as law enforcers experience in the execution of their tasks. However, in practice wars are seldom fought to protect the people but rather for the advancement of political leaders’ ambitions cancelling the logic of the just war theory from the analogy of self-defence of the innocent (Hauerwas 2001a:412). Ambrose of Milan (340–397), who was bishop of Milan at the time of Augustine’s conversion, also wrote about the justification of war alongside Augustine (Elford 2001:178). Cf. Thyen’s (1972:104–105) discussion of the important relation between ecclesiology and morality, and pacifism. The church lives from eternal principles that accompanies its call and that should determine its independent character and relation to life in general and the authorities in particular (Severijn 1933:86). Eventually this led to what Kwast (1995:9) calls the ‘dieptepunt’ (deep point) of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), at the same time a civil and international conflict involving Austria, the Netherlands, France, Denmark and Sweden, costing the lives of more than a third of the population of Europe and ruining Central Europe politically and socially. The tragedy was that the Christian church was the initiator of the war.

46  Church and war 19 For this reason, Heering (1952:5) writes about the ‘nachkonstantinische Kriegstheologie’, growing from the panic to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s while ignoring the necessity of a healthy distance between church and state to protect the church’s prophetic task toward the state. Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 deals with the state in the most direct way as God’s instrument for the maintenance of order in society. The root taxis (‘order’) is indicative in Romans 13. It speaks of an order of the reign of Christ, where he reigns over humanity’s disobedience, through the ‘powers’ including the state, side by side with the order of redemption where Christ rules in and through the obedience of his disciples (Yoder 1964:12). Romans 13 has been interpreted in European theology in a positivistic sense, that whatever state now exists in any given time and place is the state which God desires to exist then and there (in the most extreme form in some Lutheran traditions) and in a legitimistic sense by Karl Barth and the Confessing Church, that when a government is not committed to Christian moral standards, it is not really a government, and its rules are not to be obeyed because it does not hold moral authority over Christians (Yoder 1964:74–75). Lienemann (2001:153) argues that Barth was ‘ein leidenschaftlicher Verteidiger des Rechtsstaates und zögerte nicht, den Feinden von Recht und Freiheit mit den ihm zu Gebote stehenden Mitteln und oft grossem taktischen Geschick entgegenzutreten’, although there also was development in Barth’s thought when he later emphasised the responsibility of individuals in improving the justice system and when he judged the statehood of the state in terms of whether it honours, defends and develops human rights (Lienemann 2001:154). The inadequacies of the assumptions of both viewpoints can be solved when it is accepted that Romans 13 affirms that God has established or instituted the state by a specific providential or creative act. The debate is whether he has thus instituted the ideal state or the empirical one. Paul simply argues that Christians in Rome should not rebel against a government which threatens to persecute them and that could lead to their annihilation. The state is not instituted but rather accepted in its empirical reality, as something that God can overrule toward his ends. The implication is that in the divine acceptance of the state there is not implied any ratification of its moral standards or political purposes, or of any theory of the proper state. The Christian is called not to obey the state but simply to be subject to it, which means simply that he shall not rebel or act as if the state were not there (Yoder 1964:75). Revelation 13 depicts the vision of the diabolical beast from the abyss as an image of the Roman state, showing the early church’s attitude toward the state that persecuted them. Romans 13 and Revelation 13 may represent two dimensions of the life of any state. No state can be so low on the scale of relative justice that the duty of the Christian is no longer to be subject; no state can rise so high on that scale that Christians are not called to some sort of suffering because of their refusal to agree with its self-glorification and the resultant injustices, in the words of Yoder (1964:77). 20 Against this context, Houtart’s (1997:1) remark that the roots of violence can be found in the religious should be understood. Religions can easily serve as vehicles for violent tendencies by way of features such as its sacrificial system (René Gerard reminds of the fundamental nature of violence and the role of sacrifice as a means of escaping from violence), the struggle between good and evil as can be seen par excellence in the descriptions of violent judgment in the prophets of the Hebrew Bible and the book of Revelation, and religious expansion where the church authorised to conquer, dominate politically and reduce to slavery the people met on voyages. Nothing of human violence is absent from the Bible. Or rather, God is constantly involved in it, and often as an agent (Houtart 1997:2). Three main mechanisms seem to play a part in the association between religion and violence in the functioning of societies: the ideological function of religion that provides a reading of social relationships, religion as a cultural factor of identity and religious support for an ethic of social relationships (Houtart 1997:4–8). What should be emphasised is that religion does not necessarily lead to

Church and war  47 violence; it may be the exception when it does although Houtart does not recognise that as a fact. 21 In the 1930s the usage arose of grouping the Brethren, the Friends, and the Mennonites under the label ‘historic peace churches’. Each of them bore the legacy of origins in the radicalising of a renewal movement within Protestant Europe and had been formed by the experience in colonial Pennsylvania. All three had retained an explicit official pacifist commitment despite ambivalences in the consistency of its practice by their members in times of war. The term seems to have arisen as a self-designation when a few of their leaders gathered in the mid-1930s to face the threat of war to come. Each of them counted about two hundred thousand members in North America; despite repeated schisms each had a respectable denominational organisation (Beaman 1989:lii). 22 The Scriptures teach that there are two opposing princes and two opposing kingdoms: the one is the Prince of peace; the other the prince of strife. Each of these princes has his particular kingdom and as the prince is so is also the kingdom . . . The regenerated do not go to war, nor engage in strife. They are the children of peace who have beaten their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and know of no war. (Menno Simons, quoted in Beaman and Pipkin 2013:43) Luther was the first European Christian to advocate the separation of church and state. God, he argued, had so retreated from the material world that it had no longer any spiritual significance. He yearned for spiritual purity and concluded that church and state should operate independently, each respecting the other’s proper sphere. Religion is a discrete activity, separate from the world as a whole (Armstrong 2014:220). 23 There is not a single position that can be called ‘pacifism’ held by all pacifists and to which a clear definition can be given. There is rather a congeries of varied kinds of opposition to war; while some of them run parallel, others are very different from one another in accent and sometimes even in substance. By labelling them together one does violence to the one or the other, warns Yoder (1971a:10). Pacifism is essentially opposition to war, militarism, or violence. The word pacifism was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud (1864–1921), and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901 (Robbins 1976:10). Taylor and Bilheimer (1961:39) emphasise that the abolition of war is the goal to be achieved because of the ability of warring parties to destroy life on the planet with the powers introduced by the atomic age. 24 However, cf. Stendahl’s (1962a:144–145) remark that Romans 12:19–21 has more to do with the perfection of hatred than with disinterested love: ‘With the Day of Vengeance at hand, the proper and reasonable attitude is to forego one’s own vengeance and to leave vengeance to God. Why walk around with a little shotgun if the atomic blast is imminent?’ The theology in Revelation is also determined by the expectation of vengeance. 25 Cf. the remark of a Mennonite (quoted in Yoder 1971b:98) that his family have never taken part in war ‘because we have nothing to do with the world and its ways. It has nothing to do with us what the world does’. 26 In its Barmen Declaration of 1934, the Confessing Church under the leadership of Karl Barth, Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer declared a status confessionis, implying that one cannot be a Christian and at the same time support the Third (Nazi) Reich of Hitler (Zeldenrust 1988:37). The same can be said of the support of nuclear weapons, argues Zink (1983:89). 27 Gandhi speaks of the nonviolence of the weak, the reaction that submits to evil without resistance, and effective nonviolence or nonviolence of the strong which opposes

48  Church and war evil with serious and positive resistance, in order to overcome it with good (Merton 1968:83). 28 The immense price paid by the American Indians in the process of colonialisation should be kept in mind. Nearly all American Indians died during the colonisation process, due to the illnesses carried into the colonies and violent wars against any form of resistance against the Western colonisers. 29 That it can become a dangerous weapon is seen in the devastating consequences of suicidal terror as demonstrated by fundamentalist Muslim terrorists. 30 In the words of Bartleman ([1919/1920]2016:146), ‘The Christian is a “man without a country”, as far as earthly citizenship is concerned. He renounces his earthly citizenship in this world when converted’. 31 Pacifists contribute in three ways to their world, writes Elford (2001:175). They often help to politicise peace issues and thereby keep them in the public area. They often contribute to ongoing scholarly debate about war and peace. And they constantly and importantly reminded the nonpacifist world that war is the terrible thing that it is. 32 Cf. Johnson (1975:150–254) for a discussion of the development of the philosophical principles of a secularised just war doctrine, in contrast to the holy war rationale. The peace movement, it is argued, threatens the peace because peace can only be guaranteed by strength (Hauerwas 2001a:393). Violence is that to which individuals, whether they be persons or foreign states, resort in order to challenge the legitimacy of power. The argument continues that when power breaks down, violence is often the result (Hauerwas 2001a:404). 33 The application of justice to war requires a just cause, a just intention, war as a last resort, a formal declaration by the highest authorities, limited objectives, proportionate means and noncombatant immunity (cf. discussion in Holmes 1981:120–121 as well as more comprehensive discussion in chapter 5). 34 This is a related question, whether Christians are allowed to participate in revolt against a tyrannical ruler. The issue requires and justifies a study in itself; it is complicated due to the aspirations of those who participate in such a revolt that cannot always be brought to light due to the fact that participants are not always aware of their motives (‘ihres dunklen Dranges kaum bewusst ist’, in Goethe’s words). The South African Boers reacted to British occupation by opposing it through warfare (in 1880–1881 and 1899–1902). And in 1914 the British rulers compelled South Africans to participate in their attack on the then German South West Africa although the people of that territory did no harm to South Africans (Van Schelven s.a.:54). Van Schelven (s.a.:56) refers to the right to resistance that was formulated in the sixteenth century ce as a kind of safety valve within constitutional law, a regulation that does not hold any value for an ideal constitutional state but that requires further reflection in states where tyrannical forces rule. 35 Valliere (1983:6) opines that a holy war should not be defined as a war which God approves of, a war fought for God or in the name of God, least of all as a war of religion. Holy war is a war which God fights. God presides over holy war not as arbiter of the justice of the cause or the policy maker whose decisions are carried out by others, but as the Presence encountered in the action. The goal of holy war is rest from war in the Promised land (Valliere 1983:7). 36 Cf. the argument of Bartleman ([1919/1920]2016:150), ‘Can we imagine Jesus or the Apostles going to war at the behest of the Roman government? Converting men by the power of the Gospel, and later killing these same converts, across some imaginary boundary line?’ 37 Parham ([1914]2016:40) also describes patriotism as a Moloch-God worshipped by Christian nations and individuals. He describes his amazement that while thousands of men will volunteer and suffer hardships and privations of an earthly war for glory, few will volunteer and endure the slightest privations for the Master’s kingdom and eternal glory.

Church and war  49 38 Booth-Clibborn’s ([1910]2016) work was widely read by Mennonites during detention in Leavenworth for refusing to participate in the US war efforts so that surveillance from the FBI mistook the author for a Mennonite (Pipkin 2016:10). 39 Richard Davis (quoted in Peachey 2013:xiii), a former chaplain the US Army who became a conscientious objector to war in the 1990s, writes: I realized that the type of allegiance that the military calls from young people is an idolatrous type of allegiance. It calls you to a different God . . . to the god of war. Ultimately, I just had to say I have given my allegiance incorrectly to the United States of America. I need to retract that . . . and then give it back to Jesus Christ because He is the only one that has the right . . . to call from us this kind of allegiance. 40 Alexander’s (2000) historical study found that in the United States during the First World War, Pentecostals wavered between pacifism and participation in the war effort. They were not unanimous in their viewpoints although it is probable that the majority supported pacifist sentiments. For instance, in 1914, two days before the declaration of war, the bishop of Durham, Handley Moule, and superior of the vicar of All Saints’ Church Alexander Alfred Boddy (1854–1930) in Sunderland, England, sent a letter to each of the parishes in his diocese stating that it was the ‘plain duty’ of the British to defend Belgium, then under attack by Germany. Boddy had experienced Spirit baptism with accompanying speaking in tongues but he never left the Anglican fold. Many Pentecostals accepted Boddy as a leader in the Pentecostal fold. Boddy stated that ‘Belgium had been guaranteed protection. She was cruelly invaded and ravaged, contrary to treaty. England was compelled, in honour, to do all she could’ (Alexander 2009:287). He revealed his understanding of the just war tradition when he stated, ‘Awful as war is, it would be worse to stand by and make no effort to protect the weak. Better to fall as a nation than to stand by and see those crushed whom we have promised to help’. He argued that in some cases – he clearly indicated that each war must be assessed on its individual merits – ‘war is not only inevitable, but the only possible way to peace’ (Alexander 2009:288). Donald Gee (1891–1966), a pacifist Pentecostal, opposed Boddy’s support of the war and argued that his views that coincided with that of his Anglican tradition eroded his credibility, spirituality and leadership. Gee penned what has become the most widely accepted view of Boddy’s role among postwar British Pentecostals when he writes, ‘The first World War brought a surge of national patriotism, and as a State Church clergyman A. A. Boddy was caught up in the tide. Even Pentecostal meetings were closed with the singing of the National Anthem’ (Alexander 2009:298). 41 PCPF; https://pcpj.org/; accessed 3 May  2017. The United Pentecostal Church, the largest Apostolic/Oneness denomination, takes an official stand of conscientious objection. Its Articles of Faith (2012; www.upci.org/resources/historical-resources/ profile/upci-order-of-the-faith; accessed 3 May 2017) read, We are constrained to declare against participating in combatant service in war, armed insurrection . . . aiding or abetting in or the actual destruction of human life. We believe that we can be consistent in serving our Government in certain noncombatant capacities, but not in the bearing of arms. 42 Before the American Civil War, the Holiness movement believed that the millennial reign of peace would result from human efforts to educate and reform society. After the painful realities of the war, late nineteenth-century holiness advocates became more pessimistic about reforming society, and opted for a premillennialist vision which saw peace coming only after the second coming of Christ and his inauguration of the millennial kingdom of God (Beaman 2013:21). The turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century added dramatic flavour to apocalyptic expectations of the imminent second

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coming of Christ, adding to the importance of the role eschatology would play in the new movement of the twentieth century, the Pentecostal movement. Shuman (1996:79) suggests that the evolution of ethics among early Pentecostals showed little attachment to specific theological convictions. They were informed by the gospel message, but it did not inform their ethical stance. They simply ‘know’ right from wrong as a function of their being human. I do not agree and rather suggest that their ethical thinking was informed by their sanctified conscience, as a result of the quickening of their conscience by the Spirit in their regular reflection on Scriptures. Yoder (1971a:36–51) helpfully summarises the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount as an ethic of repentance (Matt 4:17, 23–25), referring to metanoia as a transformation of the understanding, a redirected will ready to live in a new kind of world; an ethic of discipleship guided not by the goals it seeks to reach but by the Lord it seeks to reflect; an ethic of testimony (Matt 5:13–16) where the deeds of the church are its witness; an ethic of fulfilment where Christ fulfils the law by carrying on to full accomplishment the intent of the earlier moral guides; an ethic of perfect love (Matt 5:44–48), a special measure of love demanded by concern for the redemption of the offender; an ethic of excess, going beyond what could be expected, the setting aside what one would have a right to, which is itself the norm; and an ethic of reconciliation (Matt 5:22). Cf. Hauerwas’ (1993:43) remark, that the church’s acceptance of war as a necessary feature of Christian life makes it impossible to hear the Sermon on the Mount as people who are, or who compose, the church The Sermon on the Mount is an attempt to help us see how the practice of reconciliation is a crucial political practice for rightly hearing and living the Sermon’s demands. Peace is much more than the absence of war, or the time of rest between wars, as is presumably assumed by many who use the word ‘peace’ (Zeldenrust 1988:11). Peace that translates the Hebrew shalom refers to wholeness, the fullness of human happiness and welfare. In the Bible, war is the absence of peace and not vice versa. For that reason, one cannot speak of ‘peace’ without referring to justice and love. The Greek eirene refers to a gift of God to people and the assignment to people to live responsibly together in justice and love (Zeldenrust 1988:11–12). Peace is thus a dynamic process where a righteous society or social, economic and political order is created and where conflicts are solved without the use of collective violence (Bopp, Bosse and Huber 1971:108, 112). Some pacifists follow principles of nonviolence, believing that nonviolent action is morally superior and/or most effective. Some however, support physical violence in some cases such as emergency defence of self or others, especially those entrusted to their care. Others support destruction of property in such emergencies or for conducting symbolic acts of resistance like pouring red paint to represent blood on the outside of military recruiting offices or entering air force bases and hammering on military aircraft designed to carry nuclear weapons. Not all nonviolent resistance (sometimes also called civil resistance) is based on a fundamental rejection of violence in all circumstances. Many leaders and participants in such movements, while recognising the importance of using nonviolent methods in particular circumstances, have not been absolute pacifists. Absolute pacifists among early Pentecostals used several arguments to justify their pacifism: believers have the moral requirement to separate from the dominant values and practices of human culture and express the moral value that God places on all human beings; in the light of its restorationist understanding of the history of the church, militarism is seen to have entered the church’s life when the church backslid and forged a political alliance with the Roman state; pacifism was the normative position on military service within the early church; Christians were heavenly citizens and pilgrims on earth with no allegiance to civil authorities; and to live completely separated unto God, a position of separation from nationalism is required (cf. Dempster’s

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2001:141–146 discussion of popular theological tracts of the early period). Dempster (2001:162) adds that Pentecostal pacifism restores a vibrant apostolic faith, resists assimilation into an exploitative, war-ridden world, affirms the value of human life, critiques the existing sinful social order, and affirms the universal value of humanity. The different theological convictions and ethical principles used to justify Christian pacifism led Dempster (2001:163) to typify a sectarian, dispensationalist, prophetic and ethical-humanitarian pacifism among early Pentecostals. An absolute pacifist is generally described as a person who believes that human life is so valuable that no one should ever or in any circumstances be killed; thus, war should never be conducted, even in self-defence. Merton (1971:300) emphasises that it cannot be considered licit for him as a monk ever to kill another human being even in self-defence. The principle is described as difficult to abide by consistently, due to violence not being available as a tool to aid a person who is being harmed or killed. It is further claimed that such a pacifist could logically argue that violence leads to more undesirable results than nonviolence. Hauerwas (1985:160) makes the perceptive observation that eschatology refers to the reminder that there is no significance to human effort and, strictly speaking, no history unless life can be seen in terms of ultimate goals. The last things (or last thing, the endevent) imparts to life a meaningfulness which it would not otherwise have. Bishop C. H. Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ, the largest black Pentecostal group, was jailed in 1918 in Lexington, Mississippi, because ‘[he] took a scriptural stand against the ungodly deeds of the various races, about how many souls were being hurled into eternity without chance of seeking God for their soul’s salvation’. He preached ‘against trusting in the power of the United States, England, France or Germany, but trust in God’. Like some pacifists in the First World War, he was accused of being a German sympathiser. It appears this motivated him to preach a sermon in Memphis later that year against the German Kaiser. The sermon reflected his pacifism in condemning the Kaiser for his militarism in contrast to Christ the ‘Prince of Peace’ (Beaman 1989:100). In another sermon, C.H. Mason (reprinted in Mason 2006:215) refers to national pride as the cause of war that pollutes the land and causes blood to touch blood and that inter alia results in God’s punishment in the form of storms and earthquakes. Schoolchildren of all nations are in many instances nurtured in national pride in the prescribed history books, writes Frodsham ([1915]2016:86). From a Christian perspective, however, national pride, like every other form of pride, is abomination in the sight of God. Pride in nation and race should pass away when one becomes a new creature in Christ. Hauerwas (1985:165) notes correctly that Christian biblical scholars and theologians have spent the last century trying to explain Jesus’ and/or the early church’s apocalyptic pronouncements in a manner such that we do not have to take them seriously. After all, it is argued that the world did not come to an end during the generation of the people who knew Jesus, and Christians have had to try ever since to live in a world which seems to go on indefinitely. Early Christians did look for God’s reign immediately to become a reality for all people, but that did not qualify their dedication to live in that reign here and now (as Hauerwas 1983 conclusively argues). A smaller group of Christian fundamentalists, including some Pentecostal groups at the fringe of the movement, take their apocalyptic expectations to such extremes that they view the nuclear holocaust that politicians at times threaten to unleash as the Armageddon threatened by God in the Bible. This identification between a prophetic pronouncement and the contemporary situation arrogates to itself not only God’s knowledge but also his will (Schell 1982:125). However, it is not God who threatens humanity but human beings themselves. Although some Pentecostal groups with apocalyptic expectations identify extinction by nuclear arms with the final Day of Judgment, in which God destroys the world and raises the dead to mete out justice to everyone who has

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ever lived, in fact such extinction would be nothing else that human folly leading to the destruction of mankind by men. God will not guide a nation-state to destroy his creation. On the contrary, to take responsibility for creation is our God-given task. The historicist way of reading biblical ‘prophecy’ that supposes that the prophecies were written in the first century ce with a view of people living in the first half of the twentyfirst century occurs among quite a large number of Pentecostals. Pentecostalism’s changes have become a classical specimen of the ‘sect cycle’, making within barely two generations some fundamental accommodations to establishments like those which took early Christianity centuries. The prima facie biblicism did not mature into a solid ethical hermeneutic, argues Yoder (1989:liii). The prophetic discernment of the evils of social stratification yielded with astonishing ease to personal prosperity and institutional respectability. The millennial hope no longer functioned as existential grounds for nonconformity to the world, but can in fact flip over into an especially naive form of anticommunism (and sometimes Zionism). The ministry of women and ‘laity’ subsided behind the credentialing of ministers (partially for military purposes). This parallels the loss of Pentecostalism’s initial interracial character. For some reason the sell-out was slower in the British churches than in the United States. Max Weber found that groups who practise self-denying lifestyles characterised by discipline and ascetism (he indicated these groups with the term ‘Protestant ethic’) experience upward social mobility in capitalist societies. The social mobility tends to have an ironic outcome because succeeding generations have greater financial opportunities, are better educated and adopt a worldlier approach to their faith. In general, they become less sectarian in their religious practice (Beaman 2013:31–32). This model succeeds in describing the transition the Pentecostal movement experienced in the 1940s. Their commitment to pacifism was vulnerable to the worldly success that drew them to a new feeling of belonging to the larger society because it conformed with societal mores. Despite the protests of right-winged Carl McIntire, who rigorously opposed membership of the Assemblies of God in the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), membership was granted in 1942 (Beaman 1989:111). Several factors contributed to Evangelicals’ invitation to the Pentecostals to share in the NAE. One was the role of the Assemblies of God in the Second World War. Soldiers from the Assemblies of God served alongside members of evangelical churches in the military services, creating a mutual feeling of respect between Evangelicals and Pentecostals. Without question, the contact of Pentecostals with the larger church world occasioned by the grim circumstances of the war broke down many barriers on both sides (Beaman 1989:111). In contrast to Ockenga’s rhetoric the early Pentecostal leader, Samuel Booth-Clibborn, can be cited. He ([1910]2016:32) writes that a reason for the extraordinary hold patriotism had on people’s minds and affections, as proved during the First World War, was the careful and constant training of the youth of all countries in heroism, history, nobility, beauty and achievements of their own countries. History as taught is nothing else than a glorification of the Fatherland, he contends. And it is connected with citizens because of their universal longing for an exalted, proud and noble ideal. But a Christian may not be patriotic according to the world’s standards of patriotism because the aim of present-day patriotism and the aims of true Christianity are diametrically opposed and because present-day patriotism, whilst appealing to the highest in humankind, is very earthly. Nowhere are we told in the New Testament to be patriotic while we are clearly taught to have nothing to do with the ideals, aims and methods of the present evil world (Gal 1:4). Patriotism as practiced nowadays in the world is nothing less than rank idolatry (Booth-Clibborn [1910]2016:35–37). The tragedy is that the national civil life of Europe was so closely associated with Christianity that it became customary to refer to the European nations as the ‘Christian civilisation’. The First World War demonstrated that only a civilisation built upon the basis of the teachings

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of Jesus can bear the name ‘Christian’. ‘Europe is plunged in war today because its civilization was unchristian, because it was preeminently and glaringly pagan’ (Bartleman [1915]2016c:75). Beaman (1989:xiii) relates that more than a hundred thousand Christians have emigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union, who were themselves Pentecostals. These immigrants wished to join with established Pentecostal denominations in the United States. Apparently one difficulty in that potential merger was the fact that the immigrants perceived the standard form of Pentecostalism in the United States as to be nationalistic and militaristic, while they, on the other hand, were Pentecostal pacifists, and to their way of thinking, always had been so. Gee ([1930]2016b:184) notes with concern that the Pentecostals who had taken a strong patriotic attitude during the First World War had most gone backwards in spiritual power and influence ever since, while those who put Christ and his Word before all had advanced by divine grace to positions of spiritual leadership. His remark probably was concerned with those leading the prominent Pentecostal denominations in Britain before the Second World War and although it is only a subjective observation it is probably true that those churches did not forget who from their fold supported British war efforts. ‘Undoubtedly patriotism, so called, is the gravest danger to which civilization is at present exposed, and anything that increases its virulence is more to be dreaded than plague, pestilence, and famine’ (Russell 1957:124). On the Witwatersrand he drew audiences as large as five thousand. His speeches about communism’s dangers appealed to white South Africans from all walks of life (Burger and Nel 2008:130–131). De Tocqueville’s remark in Democracy in America has become classic, that military greatness was pleasing to the imagination of a democratic people (Elshtain 1993:60). This can easily be exploited by politicians for their own personal gain. Beaman (2013:2–3) tells of his visit to the archives of a very small Pentecostal denomination where the archivist assured him that the denomination never in its history supported pacifism. Beaman remembered that he had read a doctrinal statement of the specified denomination that expressed pacifism but the elderly gentleman accompanying him denied the existence of such an expression. Beaman then recovered in the archive a statement issued during the First World War that supports pacifism. It was clear that the denomination had forgotten its early stance and the archivist was shocked to read it. He then asserted that the denomination did not support conscientious objection, but a list of names revealed draft cards for members and a clear majority listed their religious objection to war. That denomination had completely forgotten its early doctrinal history. Chikane was elected as a member of the African National Congress’ National Executive Committee in 1997. He was also consulting for Presidents  Kgalema Motlanthe  and  Jacob Zuma. He is currently the president of the AFM International,  an international religious body intended to coordinate fellowship between AFM churches established in several countries. Cf. www.afm-ags.org/media for some of these statements (viewed on 9 February 2017). Cf. also Barth’s reaction on Good Friday 1957 to the declaration of eighteen atomic physicists of Göttingen on 12 April 1957 that civilians of all governments should bypass the authorities and take matters in their own hands to impress on the government that it would not stand idle and watch how they are destroyed in the power games between power blocs (Van Dijk 1988:71). Contemporary Pentecostals cannot go back and live in the early twentieth century in the same sense that early Pentecostals could not have gone back and live in the first or second centuries. However, as Beaman (2013:22) contends, conversations with their forebears can help Pentecostals see what (the majority of) the early generation stood

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for and they can benefit from honouring their forefathers afresh, by seeing them for the people they really were and for what they tried to stand for. Pentecostal scholars have an ongoing debate about the purposes of Spirit baptism (Nel 2016c:165–180). An interesting perspective on tongues is found in Macchia’s (2006:45) remark that Babel represents humanity’s failure to design a homogenous and centralised security, leading to the confusion of languages and scattering of peoples. In Acts, Luke focuses upon the scattering of the peoples throughout the world as a reversed providential fulfilment. Now followers of Christ scatter across the face of the earth to carry the message that humans can encounter God (Acts 17:26–27) to serve the symbolic significance of the remarkable linguistic miracle of speaking in languages, to cross every linguistic and cultural barrier in the church’s quest to bear bold witness for Jesus to the ends of the world (Macchia 2016:34). At Babel, God destroyed the oppressive, monolithic unity; on the Day of Pentecost he created the potential for a higher and more differentiated unity in diversity. Pentecost thus serves as protest against domestication of the gospel to a single idiom or culture (Macchia 2006:43). Everts (1993:9) concurs when she understands speaking in languages as the new spiritual language of the new community created by the Spirit when he removed long existing social, cultural, national and linguistic barriers, allowing Jews, Gentiles and followers of John the Baptist (Acts 19) to become one community of faith. Shuman (1996:95–96) argues in this context that glossolalia symbolises new possibilities for social and political relationships in stark contrast to Babel-like violence. The import of glossolalia must not be restricted to utterance; it is rather a community whose memory of its Saviour creates the miracle of being a people whose very differences contribute to their unity. Mittelstadt (2010:73–77) gives a summary of the debate and concludes that an early consensus shows that the purposes of tongues speech are that it breaks down barriers between people, protests racism, models a culturally diverse yet is a common witness to the gospel, presents a transformative experience and provides empowerment for witness (cf. also Nel 2017b for further dimensions of Babel as a motif in the experience of the Day of Pentecost). Sacks (2015:207) warns, ‘Fundamentalism reads texts as if God were as simple as we are. That is unlikely to be true’. Archer (2009:181–191) argues that Pentecostals use ‘the Bible Reading Method’ and not the more restrictive literalistic fundamentalist interpretive method often assumed of Pentecostal hermeneutic. However, his definition of ‘Bible Reading Method’ agrees with what is normally assumed as a biblicist and literalist interpretation of the Bible, invalidating his argument to distinguish between Pentecostal and fundamentalist hermeneutics. Cf. argument in Noel (2010:13, 74). Washington (1997:327) explains that the New Historicism, a body of critical work that began with the English Renaissance studies of Stephen Greenblatt, Louis Montrose and Jerome McGann in Romantic literature, influenced a wide range of literary and cultural studies and promises to invigorate methodological discussion among biblical critics. Now historical research utilises the poststructuralist theoretical turn to stimulate creative engagement with critical theory and an unprecedented level of methodological self-awareness. Cf. Hagar (Gen 16:3–4), Dinah (Gen 34:2), the Midianite young women (Num 31:18), the Levite’s wife (Judg 19:25), the young women of Jabesh-gilead and Shiloh (Judg 21:12–14, 19–23), Rizpah (2 Sam 3:7), Bathsheba (2 Sam 11:2–4), Tamar (2 Sam 13:11–15) and David’s wives (2 Sam 16:21–22), where sexual assault and coercion are considered commonplace and the so-called rape laws of Deuteronomy 22:23–29 demonstrate. These laws do not in fact prohibit rape; they institutionalise it and confirm men’s control of women. Rather than ‘rape laws’, the rules of Deuteronomy 22:23–29 are best classified as a subset of the general law of adultery preceding them in Deuteronomy 22:22. The Deuteronomic laws clearly intend to protect a patriarchal household against the theft of a marriageable woman without the paying of a bride price. It does

Church and war 55 not prohibit sexual violence but rather stipulates the terms under which a man may commit rape, provided he pays reparation to the offended male party. Rape is also a prominent figurative device in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the metaphorical depiction of the conquered city as a raped woman and of the punishing God as a vengeful rapist. One instance is Jeremiah 13:20–27 that envisions the Babylonian attack on Jerusalem as a divine rape (Washington 1997:354–355). 70 The notion that the early Christians were pacifists only because they had a mistaken apocalyptic idea that the world was soon to end, and that direct political involvement would in any case be fruitless and that when the end failed to arrive Christians reluctantly took up the means of violence in the interest of justice is mistaken. The early Christians did look for God’s reign immediately to become a reality for all people but that did not disqualify their dedication to live in that reign here and now (Hauerwas 2001a:419). Christians are a people who believe that they have in fact seen the end; that the world has for all time experienced its decisive crisis in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. Decisive to Jesus’ message is that the old world has passed away and a new moral order has therefore been made possible (Hauerwas 1985:165). In the church era, the two ages overlap and exist simultaneously although they differ in nature and direction with one pointing backwards to human history outside of Christ and the other pointing forward to the fullness of the kingdom, of which the church is a foretaste (Yoder 1971a:58). The Bible depicts human affairs to be dominated by superhuman powers (thrones, principalities, powers, archangels and dominions), which are grouped together as either angelic or demonic (Yoder 1964:8). The essential difference between the two ages or aeons is not temporal because they coexist; it is matter of direction. The present age is characterised by sin; the coming aeon is the redemptive reality which entered history in an ultimate way in Christ. The present paradoxical state of the world is well expressed in 1 Corinthians 15:20–28 – Christ is reigning as Lord, yet not all his enemies have been subjected to him (Yoder 1964:9). 71 The commitment to nonviolence includes that capital punishment (as well as corporal punishment; cf. Webb 2011) is not accepted. In terms much like those of BoothClibborn, John Alexander Dowie of the Zion Christian City for instance contrasted warfare with Christ who shed his own blood that no other blood should be shed anymore. Christians do not participate in any shedding of blood. Like Booth-Clibborn, he was sad that England was sending out thousands to murder rather than to serve as missionaries (Beaman 2013:25). He said: ‘I believe, therefore, that capital punishment is always wrong, and that war is always wrong, except it be a war for protection’ (Beaman 1989:45). 72 Father George Zabelka, the spiritual adviser of the pilots who flew the atomic bomber over Hiroshima and Nagasaki and who today actively calls for peace and nonviolence, suggested in 1982 that ‘it is urgently necessary to call an ecumenical council with the specific goal of clearly stating that war is absolutely incompatible with the teachings of Jesus, and that, from now on, no Christian can or may take part in any war’ (Zink 1983:21). 73 The first nuke on 6 August 1945 above Hiroshima released twenty thousand tonnes of TNT (trinitrotoluene) or a 20 KT bomb, as the nominal or standard bomb. On 1 November  1952, the first hydrogen bomb above the Marshall Islands was followed in March  1954 with a second bomb with an energy release of 15 megatons above Bikini Atoll. Hydrogen bombs vary between five hundred and a thousand times that of the nominal nuke (De Kam 1960:5). Mankind is now faced with the fact that human conflict, whatever its forms and manifestations, may erupt into a destruction which in the full sense of the word is indiscriminate, with an overall effect utterly disproportionate to any issue or claim for which fighting can be justified. Taylor and Bilheimer (1961:17) emphasise that all-out nuclear war is uncontrollable, save by its result which consists of mutual exhaustion.

56  Church and war 74 Bonhoeffer (1956:168) notes that ‘There can only be a community of peace when it does not rest on lies and injustice’. At an ecumenical conference in Fan, Denmark (1934), Bonhoeffer stated that the task of the church stands opposite to the threats of violence. Only an ecumenical council of the holy church of Christ representing the entire world can state it in such a way that the world will hear the word of peace because it is this church of Christ who commands her sons to take the weapon out of the hand, who forbids war and declares the peace of Christ over a furious world (Zeldenrust 1988:44). Sensing the approaching catastrophe, Bonhoeffer reminded the churches: ‘Peace on earth is not a problem, but a commandment given at Christ’s coming’ (Wille 2007:238). 75 Christians believe that the true history of the world is not carried by the nation-state; the history of the world is one of godlessness. The church knows what war is; the world is too broken to know what lies behind wars. For war is the desire to get rid of God, to claim for themselves the power to determine the meaning and destiny of humankind, writes Hauerwas (2001a:421). Humanity demonstrates its hatred of God by the way it eliminates the enemies in the name of protecting the common history they share. Christians share the possibility of a different history through their participation in a community in which one learns to love, even their enemies. The world’s true history is not that built on war but that offered by a community that witnesses to God’s refusal to give up his creation. 76 Whenever violence damages Christians’ relationships with one another and with unbelievers, what is needed is that they recognise the wrong that has been done, repent of their wrongdoing, forgive the person that offends and the one who has been offended, not just pray but reconcile and tolerate (Nzacahayo 1997:18–20). It is imperative that Christians become involved in solving the problem instead of remaining a part of the problem. When Nelson Mandela was elected as the first president of the democratic South Africa in 1994, many of his fellow-citizens promoted a ‘one white, one bullet policy’ but Mandela’s ability to forgive and reconcile saved the day and reconciliation became the foundation of a new South Africa (Cassidy 1995:5). Pacifist theory and practice should include nature, including animals. If violence is unacceptable for Christians they should probably extend nonviolence to all life, including land animals and sea life, and desist from killing anything to sustain their eating habits. 77 Nuclear war was made possible when humankind split the nucleus of the atom, unleashing into terrestrial nature a basic energy of the cosmos, the energy latent in mass, which had never been accessed in any major way on earth (Schell 1982:9). Schell (1982:93) describes the unimaginable destructive power of nuclear weapons: Bearing in mind that the possible consequences of the detonations of thousands of megatons of nuclear explosives include the blinding of insects, birds and beasts all over the world; the extinction of many ocean species, among them some at the base of the food chain; the temporary or permanent alteration of the climate of the globe, with the outside chance of ‘dramatic’ and ‘major’ alteration in the structure of the atmosphere; the pollution of the whole ecosphere with oxides of nitrogen; the incapacitation in ten minutes of unprotected people who go out into the sunlight; the blinding of people who go out into the sunlight; a significant decrease in photosynthesis in plants around the world; the scalding and killing of many crops; the increase in rates of cancer and mutation around the world, but especially in targeted zones, and the attendant risk of global epidemics; the possible poisoning of all vertebrates by sharply increased levels of Vitamin D in their skin as a result of increased ultraviolet light; and the outright slaughter on all targeted continents of most human beings and other living things by the initial nuclear radiation, the fireballs, the thermal pulses, the blast waves, the mass fires, and the fallout from the explosions; and considering that all these consequences will all interact with one another in unguessable ways and, furthermore, are in all likelihood an incomplete

Church and war 57 list, which will be added to as our knowledge of the earth increases, one must conclude that a full-scale nuclear holocaust could lead to the extinction of mankind. 78 The International Court in The Hague seems to be somewhat more independent of the United States than the United Nations, and whenever there is a conflict within the international community the Court should be entitled to recognise the international community’s right to intervene in the affairs of the country or countries involved (Vaillant 1993:176). 79 The assumption is not necessarily that individual nations themselves are just, but rather that the nation-state system is the best means we have to secure what justice and peace are possible in this world. Such justice and peace no doubt will always be less than the idealist desires; nevertheless, it is better than the violence legitimated by those who would have us kill in the illusion of eradicating war from our lives (Hauerwas 1985:147). 80 Cf. Van der Bruggen’s (1993:22–26) description of the theory of justified deterrence that allows for the right to create a situation of deterrence (a policy of deterrence may be carried out only by a legitimate authority; deterrence must be aimed only at preventing military aggression by other states) and for the rights and duties in a situation of deterrence (the strategy and means of deterrence must be such that the effect of the threat of deterrence is maximal; the strategy and means of deterrence must be such that after a possible failure of deterrence the level of violence is minimal or at least is proportional to the goals of the war to be fought; quantitatively and qualitatively the means of deterrence have to be minimal or at least proportionate to the goals of deterrence; in any threat of deterrence a distinction should be made between military and nonmilitary targets and civilians may not become the target of a threat; and the threat of deterrence may not be misleading or ambiguous). Van der Bruggen (1993:29–30) also discusses what he terms the two important moral prescriptions for the post–Cold War era: measures should be taken to make the chance of intended or unintended use of nuclear weapons as small as possible and such measures are the prevention of the further spread of nuclear weapons and the development of a new supra-national deterrence structure; and active measures should be taken to prevent or stop actual wars. 81 The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Islamic State (IS) and by its Arabic language acronym Daesh, is a Salafi jihadist unrecognised proto-state and militant group that follows a fundamentalist, Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. ISIL gained global prominence in early 2014 when it drove Iraqi government forces out of key cities in its Western Iraq offensive, followed by its capture of Mosul and the resulting Sinjar massacre. This group has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and many individual countries. ISIL is widely known for its videos of beheadings of both soldiers and civilians, including journalists and aid workers, and its destruction of cultural heritage sites. The United Nations holds ISIL responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes, and Amnesty International has charged the group with ethnic cleansing on a ‘historic scale’ in northern Iraq. In 2005, the entire lay leadership of St. George’s Memorial Church, the Anglican church in Baghdad, was presumed dead after the group went missing in mid-September. They were traveling in the Sunni Triangle, a 100-mile swath from Baghdad north to Tikrit, where eighty per cent of insurgent attacks occur. The team of five Iraqi-born Christians had been visiting Amman, Jordan, for a church conference. If they had been kidnapped, Handford speculated, there would have been a ransom demand. Maybe insurgents were involved (Stricherz 2005:19). The Anglican church affirmed at its Lambeth Conference the statement of its conferences in 1930 and 1968 that ‘war as a method of settling international disputes is uncompatible with the teaching and example of our Lord Jesus Christ’. The use of the modern technology of war is the most striking contemporary expression of corporate sin and of the prostitution of God’s gifts, the Lambeth Conference (1978:382; cf. Kempster 2008:9) proclaims.

58  Church and war 82 Cf. McPherson’s ([1932]2016:191) logical conclusion, ‘The only way to disarm is to disarm’. 83 His argument is based on his belief that everybody shares the same sacred core. Violence goes against the metaphysical bias of the entire universe (Armstrong 2014:280). 84 ‘Men cannot be brothers if they are not humble. No matter how justified it may appear, pride provokes tensions and struggles for prestige, domination, colonialism and egoism. In a word, pride shatters brotherhood’ (Pope Paul in October  1965 before the United Nations Assembly; Merton 1968:23). The pope asserted that attempts to establish peace based on violence were in fact a manifestation of human pride. ‘If you wish to be brothers, let the weapons fall from your hands. You cannot love with offensive weapons in your hands’. 85 ‘Perichoresis’ comes from the Greek peri, which means ‘around’, and chorein, which means ‘to give away’ or ‘to make room’ and describes the relationship between each person of the triune God and as an indication of how the spirituality of compassion as outcome of Christology and pneumatology presents the interpenetration of the Spirit of God in cosmic events and systemic networking of human relationships (Louw 2016:7). It serves as an indication of exchange to make room and space, as a kind of mutual intersecting or interpenetration (Louw s.a.:17). 86 Important to note is the Hebrew Bible’s emphasis on Israelites’ treatment of strangers in their midst as well as the motivation for the provisions in the Mosaic law. Cf. Ex 12:43– 45, 48–49; 20:10; 22:21; 23:9, 12; Lev 17:8–13; 19:10, 33–34; 22:10–13, 18–19; 24:16, 22; 25:44–45; Num 35:15; Deut 1:16; 10:18–19; 14:21, 29; 17:15; 23:7, 20; 24:14–22; 25:5; Jer 22:3; also Matt 27:7; John 10:5; Eph 2:12; Heb 11:13; 13:2; 1 Pet 2:11. Consider also the important injunction found in Deuteronomy 10:19, ‘And you shall love the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt’ (‫ִיתם ְבּאֶ ֶ֥רץ ִמצ ָ ְֽרי ִם׃‬ ֖ ֶ ‫) ַו ֲא ַהב ְ֖תֶ ּם אֶת־ ַה ּ֑גֵר ִכּֽי־ג ִ ֵ֥רים ֱהי‬. 87 The term refers to ‘to experience great affection and compassion for someone’ (Louw and Nida 1996:1:293). 88 Pixley (2003:579) argues that the interpretation of the Bible must be pastoral in some sense if it is to be useful. The justification for devoting one’s limited energies to learning biblical languages and exegeting the Bible is that the result will offer guidance to persons who believe that the Bible is Scripture. If our world is characterised by wars that kill innocent victims, as all wars do, and which destroy buildings and land making them useless for human purposes, as modern wars do, a realistic understanding of our world must propose directions for moving toward a world without war. The Bible can help in defining this world. Wars are human creations, though it is arguable that they derive from genetic impulses to aggression, and like all human creations they can be undone and replaced by a different sort of world without war. 89 The history of refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa dates to the 1980s when the country was home to an estimated 350,000 Mozambican refugees, of whom approximately twenty per cent have since returned home. South Africa did not officially recognise anyone as refugees until 1993 and when it became a signatory to the United Nations (UN) and Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Conventions on Refugees in 1994. The number of refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa has increased in the past years. An estimated ten per cent of South Africa’s fifty million population is made up by foreigners from other African countries, from some of the continent’s most troubled nations such as  Somalia  and the  Democratic Republic of Congo,  as well as its poorest such as  Malawi  and  Mozambique (www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/11547118/Xenophobic-attacks-on-therise-in-South-Africa-We-were-drinking-beer-with-these-people-last-week.-Nowthey-want-to-kill-us.html; accessed 24 September 2017). South Africa is Africa’s most industrialised country, and it attracts thousands of foreign nationals every year, seeking refuge from poverty, economic crises, war and government persecution in their home countries. While most of them are from elsewhere on the continent, such as Zimbabwe,

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Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Ethiopia, many also come from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Xenophobia is generally defined as ‘the deep dislike of nonnationals by nationals of a recipient state’. This definition is also used by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC). Xenophobia is also a manifestation of racism. Racism and xenophobia support each other, and they share prejudiced discourses (www.sahistory.org.za/article/xenophobic-violence-democratic-south-africa; accessed 24 September 2017). ‘Come you masters of war / You that build all the guns / You that build the death planes / You that build the big bombs / You that hide behind walls / You that hide behind desks / I just want you to know / I can see through your masks’, sings Bob Dylan. In his ethical evaluation of weapons research, Forge (2013) builds the case that it is not justified under any circumstances. If nation-states are allowed to defend themselves, surely they are allowed to obtain the means to do so, namely weapons, and hence must do the research needed to come up with them. There must therefore be occasions when weapons research is not merely justified, but something that must or should be done. However, he denies that weapons research is justifiable at all once it is accepted that weapons research aims to design the means to harm. If is morally wrong to harm (without justification), it is also morally wrong to provide the means to harm (without justification; Forge 2013:302). Weapons make war, which makes organised violence possible; without weapons there could be no war. If it is morally wrong to design weapons, then it is morally wrong to design how wars have been fought in the past, and which all present (and future) wars are (and will be) fought. Not every weapon has been the product of weapons research. However, nearly all artillery weapons have been, since the torsion catapult, as have all weapons that make use of chemical or nuclear energy. If it is not possible to make the case that war is morally wrong, for instance because of the possibility of there being just wars, then the next best thing is to make the case that providing the means to fight wars is morally wrong. If this is the case, then this will not have the consequence that weapons research will come to an end, argues Forge (2013:308), but the intuition that there is something wrong with designing the means to harm will have been vindicated. Some Pentecostal pacifists established an organisation, Pentecostals and Charismatics for Peace and Justice (www.pcpj.org), a multicultural, gender-inclusive and ecumenical network that helps enable Spirit-empowered peacemaking with justice, as a successor of Pentecostalism’s early peace tradition (Pipkin 2016:9). The Oxford Research Group report, Global Responses to Global Threats (Abbot, Rogers and Sloboda 2006), identifies four groups of factors as the root causes of insecurity in today’s world and the likely determinants of future conflict: climate change; competition over resources; marginalisation of the majority world and global militarisation. www.paxchristi.net/; accessed 26 July 2017. In 1992, a young Pole was sentenced to prison for eighteen months when he objected to the performance of military service because of his convictions (Egan 1993:63). Gee ([1940]2016:206–207) remarks that conscientious objectors do well to study the book of Daniel that provides an inspired pattern. Daniel and his three friends were reasonable and considerate where the scruples and interests of others were concerned (Dan 1:12–13). Their courage was superb in that their deliverance, even by divine intervention, was quite secondary to their loyalty to the dictates of conscience (Dan 3:17–19). They found a new fellowship with God through their suffering for conscience’s sake (Dan 3:25). They were ready and willing to serve the very state that had persecuted them once their rights of conscience had been established (Dan 3:30). Scheffler (2009:17) remarks that since chaplains are required and compelled to wear the uniform of the army to which they minister, they are co-opted for the cause of the country waging war. The churches providing chaplains are ‘extremely naive with regard to their co-option’.

60  Church and war 97 www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRC/Pages/CRCIndex.aspx; accessed 9 August 2017. 98 Martyrs were nonresisters in times of religious persecution who endured the most exquisite suffering, setting the seal of God’s approval in the most striking way on the doctrine of Christian nonresistance (Booth-Clibborn [1917]2016a:104). 99 A strain of thinking in Pentecostalism and especially neo-Pentecostalism contains an eschatology based on violence that is inter alia found in the Revelation of John. The Left Behind Series, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, speculates that Jesus upon his return will wreak more violence on the earth than anything the planet has ever seen. More troubling, the Left Behind Series encourages its readers to join in the fun of God’s violence, to be God’s Green Berets as a Tribulation Force that rises above all the moral questions about war and violence precisely because this is God’s war, and war is God’s will (Johns 2005:206). Johns then contends that while this judgment centres on the beast (the Roman Empire) and the false prophet (the emperor cult; see Acts 19:20), it certainly does involve judgment on humans who follow them. In the Apocalypse of John, judgment is coming. But the coming judgment is intended primarily to inform and support the believers’ faithful witness through consistent resistance to the emperor cult, to the various idolatries it entails, and to the economic and cultural values of the Roman Empire more broadly. 100 Meekness is defined by Merton (1968:17) as a characteristic that is essential to nonviolence and consists in refraining from self-assertion and violent aggression because it sees all things in the light of the eschatological great judgment. It accepts being ‘without strength’ (gewaltlos) not out of masochism, quietism, defeatism or false passivity, but trusting in the strength of the Lord of truth (Merton 1968:18). 101 Merton, a Trappist monk who became famous for his publications about mystical theology, was silenced by the Roman Catholic Church in April 1962 when he was forbidden to publish any material dealing with the issues of war and peace because of his audacity to depart from the official ‘just war’ morality and the ‘orthodox’ Catholic position that rejected pacifism. He was criticised as a ‘Communist menace’ for his consistent criticism of Catholic willingness to accept the Cold War rhetoric as the only acceptable response. Fact is, Merton (1971:271) was not favourable toward Communism either as a political system or as an ideology but he questioned the ideologies of his day that he calls ‘the great illusion’, and that regarded the United States as a paragon of virtue, lover of peace and always right while the Communists were the embodiment of everything evil and base. He described this as an oversimple, saintversus-demon dichotomy and warned that it is rooted in emotion and not reason. He encouraged American citizens to apply moderation, rationality, objective thought and a form of reliance upon constitutional processes of government, respect for rights, rational discussion, freedom of opinion and a deep loyalty to inherited ideals (Merton 1971:281). Peachey (2013:ix) tells how his great-uncle was drafted into the US Army in 1918. Many young Pentecostal conscientious objectors were separated from their families and communities of faith and sent to military camps. Some were imprisoned for their convictions at Fort Leavenworth or Camp Meade (Peachey 2013:xi). Two Hutterite brothers from South Dakota died from extreme mistreatment at Fort Leavenworth in 1918, while Emanuel Swartzendruber, a Mennonite from Michigan, was lowered head first into a latrine pit for refusing to wear a military uniform (Peachey 2013:xi). As a Mennonite, Peachey’s great-uncle declared himself a conscientious objector to war, and was sent off to Camp Meade to serve his time. Once he and a fellow prisoner, as part of the Army’s intimidation campaign, were taken out by two men with guns. ‘I think an officer went along. There was a Dunkard boy with me too. I was ordered to turn my back. The gun’s hammer snapped but no harm was done. I had no fear. The Bible says not to fear them that can kill the body, but should rather fear God’ (Peachey 2013:ix). 102 Bernal (2013:153) calls this political jujitsu.

Church and war  61 103 Many probably regard Gandhi’s nonviolence as noble but impossible. Gandhi (2007:75) in 1931 reacted to this viewpoint by stating that whether mankind will consciously follow the law of love or not, the law still works, just as the law of gravitation will work whether we accept it or not. And just as a scientist will work wonders out of various applications of the laws of nature, even so a man who applies the law of love with scientific precision can work great wonders. Armed with ‘the law of love’, Gandhi overthrew the British Empire in its most coveted colony. Gandhi was not successful because his adversary was the kindly British; the ‘kindly’ British did not hesitate to shoot children point blank in a public square and to spray crowds with machine-gun fire (Gandhi 2007:86). In the second half of the twentieth century, Vaclav Havel demonstrated that passive resistance can even influence the Soviet Union. Most of the many successful nonviolent campaigns of the late twentieth century were in some degree influenced by the life and practice of Gandhi, and his success. 104 Sharp (2013:258) describes two main views of the nature of power. On the one hand is the monolithic view of power that views people as dependent upon the goodwill, decisions and support of the government. Power emanates from the few (the politicians) who stand at the pinnacle of command; their power is not easily or quickly controlled or destroyed. On the other hand, is the social view of power that views governments as dependent on the people’s goodwill and support. Political power in this view is always fragile and dependent for its existence upon the support of a multitude of institutions and people. Political power can be controlled at its sources, but rulers have no power intrinsic to themselves. The ruler may use sanctions or punishments to supplement voluntary acceptance of their authority and to increase the degree of obedience to their commands. However, if they overplay their hand it can lead to a loss of authority and the disintegration of the ruler’s power, in Sharp’s view. 105 Sharp (2013:183) lists 198 specific methods of this technique, which are classified in terms of three categories as nonviolent protest and persuasion; social, economic, and political noncooperation; and nonviolent intervention. Four mechanisms are explored by means of which nonviolent action can bring about victory: conversion (the least frequent), accommodation, nonviolent coercion and disintegration. Massive noncooperation can paralyse and disintegrate even systems of oppression. And another feature is that the nonviolent action of a resister group also undergoes changes, in self-respect, confidence, ability to act and power. 106 Cf. Vorster (2007:18–29) for a perspective on human dignity from a biblical viewpoint and from a South Africa constitutional viewpoint (2007:8–18).

2 The Bible and violence, and Christians

Introduction For the average Bible reader, it is disconcerting to find that the most prominent anthropological theme in the Hebrew Bible is that of violence (Peels 2009:19).1 Violence is ascribed in some parts of the Bible to God while human violence is also actively promoted as God’s will, representing what Lüdemann (1997:50) has called the dark side of the Bible.2 How should a believer evaluate these descriptions? Does it serve as normative for their behaviour? Or should it be relegated to a description of sinful human behaviour, as early Pentecostals seemed to do?

The Old Testament and violence ‘Violence and bloodshed committed in God’s name is a major theme of the Old Testament’ (Flood 2014:11).3 Various forms of violence existed in the Hebrew Bible world, including interpersonal physical assault and murder (e.g., Cain and Abel, Moses and the Egyptian, violent coups d’état, psychological violence such as giving false witness to the neighbour), the death penalty, and, of course, war (Scheffler 2009:1). When Israel entered the Promised land they were commanded to commit mass genocide, described in terms of a holy war or crusade.4 They should devour all the people in the land and show them no pity because they are a people holy to YHWH their God (Deut 7:5–16), separated from the other nations to live exclusively in faithfulness to YHWH. ‘This is a directive for so-called “holy war,” a conflict led by the Lord against hostile and irredeemable foes who have an implacable resistance to God and His people’ (Cabal et al. 2007:278).5 Out of love for his chosen people, God demands absolute obedience, partly inciting violence against other people and partly threatening violence to the Israelites themselves if they break the covenant. This line of thought determines Deuteronomic historiography, with defection from YHWH being severely punished and obedience being rewarded with victory over and the annihilation of the enemies along with the blessings of prosperity and good health, linking Israel’s God in many places in the Hebrew Bible to violence (Nielsen 2013:209). The theologising of the difference between ‘us’ and ‘the others’ is the real and actual problem, argues Assmann (2003:31)

The Bible and violence, and Christians  63 correctly, for God is thereby made the guarantor of who are on the right side, and who are therefore his (and ‘our’) enemies.6 Schwally (1910) introduced the term ‘holy war’ into biblical scholarship.7 ‘Israel’ means ‘El is battling’ and YHWH was viewed as the warrior El, after whom Israel was named. Schwally associated warfare in Israel with the notion of YHWH as a covenant God who defends the federation. In the covenant theology, YHWH was worshiped as a warrior; corporate worship was the context in which war was conducted and which made it a holy war. War could be regarded as a kind of sacrificial service and as worship.8 Von Rad (1951:39–40) reacted to Schwally by developing a theory of holy war based on the embedding of war in rituals that made it a cultic performance, the decisive intervention of YHWH in the human conflicts and the defensive role of the Israelites in these conflicts.9 The view became universally accepted among Old Testament scholars during the latter half of the previous century (Scheffler 2009:3). The term ‘holy war’ does not exist in Hebrew (as the terms polemos ieros and jihad do exist in Greek and Arabic, respectively), but the characteristics of the phenomenon are deduced from various pieces of information scattered in the texts.10 These characteristics that sanctify and justify a war effort as ‘holy’ are that the war starts with a trumpet call with its association with the sanctuary service (Judg 6:34), the army is called the ‘people of YHWH’ (Judg 5:11, 13; 20:2),11 the soldiers are consecrated before going into battle (Deut 23:9; Josh 3:5; 1 Sam 21:6), sacrifices are offered to YHWH before the battle (1 Sam 7:9; 13:9), the priests or prophet consult YHWH on the outcome (Judg 29:23, 27; 1 Sam 7:9; 1 Kings 22), the holy oracle (‘YHWH has given into your hands’) contains YHWH’s answer that ensures victory (Judg 2:24; 6:2), the fearlessness of the people is ensured (by YHWH’s oracle and sending fear in the hearts of their enemies (Judg 4:14; Deut 20), fear and divine terror fall on the enemy (Ex 15:14; 23:27), often involving natural phenomena as well, and the final divine ban of the enemy (herem)12 ensures that the enemy is totally eradicated (Judg 6:18; 1 Sam 15) and ‘sacrificed’ to God (cf. Scheffler 2009:3–4). The fact that no booty is to be taken (the exception is found in Deut 20) is an indication that the war belongs to YHWH and is holy.13 As in Israel, through the centuries it was ensured that ordinary people who in normal circumstances were expected by law to refrain from killing, engaged in war by means of the propaganda that portrays war as something that God expected and commanded. War was glorified as a holy activity that honoured God and the participants of the war were also glorified, their dead were honoured as martyrs and they were buried in the heroes’ acre. Soldiers were praised for their courage and valour. Scheffler (2009:5–6) speculates that children at an early age in ancient Israel were probably told entertaining stories about Israel’s leaders that ensured that the children would one day comply with the example of the leaders, including the willingness to participate in the wars conducted by the leaders (cf., e.g., the story of David and Goliath, 1 Sam 17).14 The function of the stories is to establish an ideology of holy war as the bias of political propaganda. In the process, own successes were exaggerated, and the enemies’ victories were negated.

64  The Bible and violence, and Christians Von Rad (1991:71) states that the concept of faith or confident trusting in the action of YHWH had its actual origin in the holy war, and that from there it took on its own peculiar dynamic. Holy war was thus a sacred institution. The emergence of kingship and of mercenaries serving the king meant the end of sacral warfare but the tradition lived on in prophecy, especially among prophets who were in opposition to the monarchy and its conduct of war. Smend (1966:20–21) does not agree and argues that early Israel’s war was not a function of any cultic institution; one should not speak of ‘holy war’ but rather Jahwekrieg. Kang (1989:2) agrees and argues that YHWH’s wars in the Hebrew Bible is not a Glaubenskrieg like for instance the jihad in Islam,15 meaning a fight to spread the community’s faith, but a war that was conducted to ensure the Israelites’ existence as a people in a country of their own. Weippert (1972:460) shows that the motifs of holy war also appear in other ancient Near Eastern war accounts; he concludes that there is no basis in these ancient texts for maintaining a distinction between holy and profane wars. The gods in the ancient Near East were involved in all wars. Stolz (1972:73–74) suggests that the very theory of YHWH war was first invented by Deuteronomistic theologians; it represents a literary and theological fiction that was influenced by the cultic traditions of Jerusalem.16 Israel did experience YHWH wars early in its history and the belief of YHWH as a warrior who fights in defence of Israel goes back in time to the Judges and is attested in earliest traditions. But these experiences were diverse, and the development of a uniform holy war schema can be traced in the history of the biblical literature, and in Deuteronomy specifically. The Deuteronomists reworked earlier war traditions from their own theological perspective. In their view, the holy war concept expressed a basic principle that was developed when the cultic traditions of Jerusalem and the historical narratives of the Israelites were conflated and connected with mythological and liturgical traditions at home in Jerusalem. The function of YHWH war was to restore order that has been fractured (Cross 1973). Crouch (2009:5–11) thinks that the interaction between history, society and ideology provides the essential source material for ethical thought and is fundamental in order to understand what warfare was all about. It should be kept in mind that the biblical texts are not historically reliable accounts of early Israelite history but ideological fictions from a much later time (Collins 2003:14).17 The texts are not naïve reflections of primitive practice but programmatic ideological statements from the late seventh century bce or later. It cannot be accepted as presenting what happened but rather what a later interpreter wanted to demonstrate by using the information to address a new situation. These war texts present expansionist policies of King Josiah or fantasies of powerless Judeans after the exile, argues Collins. In whatever way, they were used to construct the identity of ‘Israel’; what they reflect is not Israel as such but Israel as the authors thought it should ideally be. Israel’s identity is defined negatively by a sharp differentiation from the surrounding peoples, and positively by the prescriptions of a covenant with a jealous God (Collins 2003:15). Rowlett (1996:12–13) makes the provocative statement that neither Deuteronomy nor Joshua was intended originally in the historical context of their composition to incite literal violence against ethnic

The Bible and violence, and Christians  65 outsiders, but both books were rather directed at insiders who pose a threat to the hierarchy that is being asserted.18 The war traditions should be interpreted as a concern for maintaining the cosmic order: warfare was part of the cosmic battle against the threatening powers of chaos. The king represents the divine world and his actions as warrior belong to the context of cosmic order versus chaotic disorder. War violence was thus justified via literary allusions to a creation myth in which the divine king defeated the waters of chaos in battle. It is in this context that the ethics of war in the Hebrew Bible should be evaluated, argues Crouch (2009:15–32).19 Otto (1999; 2006) is also interested in the ethics of war, and he asks how ancient Near Eastern texts as well as the Hebrew Bible can contribute to peaceful human relationships in the modern world.20 He finds that both conflicts and strategies to overcome them are recurrent elements in texts that he researched. The deity is depicted as a triumphant god who defeats the powers of chaos that symbolises reduction and extermination of life, and through this triumph the deity becomes king. The enemies are in principle all nations who do not accept the king and his deity. Not war contra peace, but peace contra chaos is at stake, he contends, and this legitimates the king’s function as warrior. It is only in the literature of Israel and Judah, after the fall of Samaria in 722 bce, that a God is introduced who suffers and defeats himself, and thus breaks the relationship between violence and contra-violence (revenge). The triumphant divine warrior is replaced by a God whose grace is stronger than his wrath, as developed in the fourth ‘Servant Song’ in Isaiah 52:13–53:12.21 Gross (2009:120–123) emphasises that according to Deuteronomistic theology, Israel was only allowed to exterminate foreign people because they worshiped other gods, and that this permission was limited to the conquest of the land in early history. The idea of ‘holy war’ or YHWH war should thus be viewed in the context of sin and punishment, and not seen as carte blanche to participate in a holy war. The Hebrew Bible shows a positive attitude to war. However, with the prophetic movement a situation was established in ancient Israel where the king did not have the only or final say about such matters. Other voices of criticism were also heard (although they were not always appreciated). Critical thinking about war and Israel’s participation in war against the super powers started to develop. Examples can be found in 1 Kings 22 where Micaiah ben Imlah warned King Ahab of Israel, contrary to the advice of four hundred court prophets who prophesied victory for the Israelite king, ‘I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep that have no shepherd; and the Lord said, “These have no master; let each one go home in peace” ’ (1 Ki 22:17; NRSV). Ahab responded by throwing the prophet with his unwelcome message in prison, and Ahab died on the battlefield as a fulfilment of the prophecy about the shepherd’s death. Another example is Isaiah’s advice as expressed in Isaiah 2:2–4; 30:15–17. That Ahab did follow Isaiah’s advice and did not engage in the Syro-Ephraimitic war, offered the desired tribute to Assyria and called for help meant that the southern kingdom lasted a hundred years longer than the north (Scheffler 2009:10). Jeremiah also criticised

66  The Bible and violence, and Christians King Zedekiah’s war effort against the Babylonians toward the end of the sixth century bce. His criticism differed from Isaiah’s. According to Jeremiah, speaking to his king who was involved in a defensive war that was usually justified, Nebuchadnezzar’s onslaught on Jerusalem should be interpreted as a chastisement for the injustices that prevailed within Jerusalem, as described in 2 Kings 23:27; 24:3, 20; Jer 4:3, 6; 21:5; 34:22. YHWH sided with the enemy; to participate in war against the enemy was equivalent to fighting against YHWH. Jeremiah opened a new perspective on war. Whether to go to war or not should not be seen in isolation: the people cannot practice social injustice and idolatry among themselves and then expect Yahweh’s blessing in war. Inner reflection and self-reflection are needed, even repentance (of course on a social level, not to be confused with individual piety). (Scheffler 2009:11) Some of the prophets represent a hermeneutic of love. Brueggemann (2005) refers to the testimony and counter-testimony that one finds here. The primary mode of articulation is disputatious and permeated with contrariness, indicating difference of opinion between various authors. Isaiah 1 provides an example of such a counter-testimony, when the prophet addresses rebellious Judah who are loaded with a burden of guilt (1:4). Their rebellion caused them to be battered from head to foot, covered with bruises and welts (1:6), their country lying in ruins and foreigners plundering and destroying everything (1:7). What God desired from them was not sacrifices: ‘your sacrifices and incense is detestable to me . . . I cannot bear your assemblies and feasts’. The sacrifices and feasts were prescribed by the law of Moses (testimony), but God did not want it, proclaims the prophet. What God desired from his people is that they learn to do good, seek justice, help the oppressed, defend the cause of the orphans and fight for the rights of widows (counter-testimony) (1:17). The prophet superseded the prescriptions of the law regarding sacrifices to describe what is important to YHWH, that people treat each other justly and show compassion to those in need. The testimony in the Hebrew Bible is that if one is sick or experiences mishaps it is because one has sinned. Those who suffer are evil and deserve their suffering. Job’s friends echo Deuteronomy 28, insisting that his suffering is deserved as a punishment for his sins; Job insists that he is innocent, and that God acts unjustly (Job 19:7). And when God reveals himself to Job he is angry at Job’s friends because they have not spoken the truth about God (42:7). The Hebrew Bible contains the testimony of the powerful, the victors who demonise and dehumanise the vanquished. But it also contains some voices of counter-testimony, a minority voice of the victim who insist that their suffering is unjust. Girard (2001:145) remarks that it is exceptional that the Hebrew Bible also represents this voice as the voice of the victim is seldom heard in world literature (cf. also discussion in Sacks 2015:74).22 Hopkins and Koppel (2013:212) refers also to the multiplicity of God and argues that it does not mean that God encompasses only those attributes that

The Bible and violence, and Christians  67 support compliant readings or core testimony. While it is important to speak for the tradition and defend God (core testimony), one must always at the same time speak and advocate for fellow human beings (counter-testimony). Considering the Shoah (Holocaust), to do theology is ‘to remember, in pieces, in horrible pieces’ (Blumenthal 1993:9). Blumenthal insists that ‘given Jewish history and family violence as our generations have experienced them, distrust is a proper religious affection, and a theology of sustained suspicion is a proper theology to have’ (1993:257). He urges us to learn to accept the reality of God having an abusing as well as a good side and then to develop a relationship that offers up our laments and protests, our praise and worship, as the situation warrants. Another aspect of critical thinking about war found in the Hebrew Bible is that some war efforts were initially justified but then subjected to review and criticism at a later stage. In the case of David, the Deuteronomist regarded his imperialistic war efforts to enlarge Israel’s territory as successful because YHWH made him victorious ‘everywhere he went’ (2 Sam 8) while the Chronicler, normally a proDavid propagator, holds another perspective on David’s wars. His David reflected on the bloodshed and wars he had been involved in during his lifetime and then told Solomon, But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood in my sight on the earth. See, a son shall be born to you; he shall be a man of peace. I will give him peace from all his enemies on every side; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for my name’. (1 Chron 22:8–10; NRSV) Solomon’s hands were anything but clean after he had usurped the throne and killed all other claimants, but he was at least not involved in the many wars that seemingly characterised his father’s reign. He relied on a large military strength, partially based on forced labour and a mercenary army, to maintain his political power. Scheffler (2009:11–12) argues that Deuteronomy 17:16–17 has Solomon in mind when it states, Even so, he must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You must never return that way again’. And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself. A few other texts in the Hebrew Bible provides for pro-active deeds as the opposite of violence. Exodus 23:4–5, 9 states that one should help your enemy’s donkey and not ill-treat a foreigner, an injunction that is (again) confined to the compatriot in Deuteronomy 22:14. Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3 relate how Israel would hammer their swords and spears into ploughs and pruning-knives, contra

68  The Bible and violence, and Christians Joel 3:10. And Proverbs 25:21–22 suggests that one should give your enemy food and drink. ‘These “suppressed” voices in the Old Testament need to be raised, to cause the “Scheitern” of the one-sided “marcionitic” perspective of violence in the Old Testament’ (Scheffler 2009:14). Kunz-Lübcke (2006:267–289) discusses the eschatological dimensions of war and peace and what the role of YHWH’s people will be in the predicted future, according to the detailed description in Zechariah 9–14 and the Gog texts in Ezekiel 38–39 that describe the severe punishment of foreigners. YHWH will annihilate hostile peoples and protect Israel, and the description of the events at the end of the time (Dan 11:40) expresses the hope that YHWH alone will bring shalom to his people (Dan 11:14, 34). These texts present different strategies of YHWH war in the last days. In his important article, Müller (2003:11–23) confirms that the idea of holy war changed during time, and that the prophets launched severe criticism against it.23 Holy wars in ancient Israel in his opinion were neither religious wars in the modern sense of the word nor missionary wars but rather wars undertaken for the sake of survival in the continuing conflict with neighbouring groups in a small land. On the other hand, Schmitt (2011:4–6) argues that the war laws in the Hebrew Bible were not rooted in actual practice but functioned to demonstrate the theological principle of obedience. He argues for a postexilic date for the Deuteronomistic texts (a consensus of most scholars of the Hebrew Bible) and contends that war texts offer a hopeful perspective for the Jewish exiles. They serve as kind of a utopian memory, as a reaction in contrast to the present situation of the addressees, when it was impossible to go to war. War serves to conceptualise the principle of absolute fidelity to the law. Schmitt’s study warns of the dangers involved when these different traditions are uncritically accepted and applied to situations in the world of today, providing a bridge between biblical hermeneutic and modern politics (cf. also Weyde 2013:251). The genocide is justified by some modern commentators and preachers as necessary to prevent Israel from being infected by the degenerate religion of the Canaanites, a theme that recurs again and again.24 Pure faith and worship of Israel could only occur when it coincides with the complete elimination and annihilation of the Canaanites (Walvoord & Zuck 1984:342). The Canaanite religion was a cancer that had to be removed in absolute terms before God’s people would be able to live in the land (Ortberg 2003:36), justifying the large-scale genocide described in the Hebrew Bible,25 leading to Dawkins’ (2006:280)26 harsh judgment that the ethnic cleansing begun in the time of Moses is brought to bloody fruition in the days of Joshua, with the biblical text remarkable for the bloodthirsty massacres it records and the xenophobic relish with which it does so.27 Ethnic cleansing is the way to ensure cultic purity, a precautionary measure against false worship (Collins 2004:9). On the one hand, the Pentateuchal passages point to the crucial importance of the notion of expulsion of the pre-Israelite inhabitants of the land, with expulsion more prominent than extermination, while at the same time it should be balanced by the threat found in Leviticus 18:28 that the land will vomit out the Israelites should they behave as the Canaanites before

The Bible and violence, and Christians  69 them did (Zehnder 2013:289).28 Joshua 11:20 presents another perspective, that the theological reason behind the Canaanites’ choice to engage Israel in battle lies in YHWH’s hardening of their hearts. The concept of the ban is firmly embedded in a cultic context, connected to admonitions to abstain from non-Yahwistic cults and to destroy its objects (Deut 13), implying that the main goal in the expulsion and possible extermination of the Canaanites is the destruction of their cult, and the protection of Israelite identity and liberty (Zehnder 2013:289). The ban was not to be used freely by the Israelites; it has its origin in God, and God retains the privilege to decide when it is applicable. The ban can also be applied to apostate Israelites, as Deuteronomy 13 explains, showing that the motivation for the ban does not lie in ethnic otherness per se. The violence associated with the worship of YHWH in antiquity is most vividly illustrated by the ban (Hebrew ḥerem), the practice whereby the defeated enemy was devoted to destruction.29 The Moabite Stone shows that the slaughter of the ban has a sacrificial character; as mentioned; the victims are offered to the god (Niditch 1993:28–55). 1 Samuel 15:3 states that it is sometimes done at the deity’s command, but the ḥerem can also be undertaken by human initiative, as Numbers 21:1–3 testifies. The vow of Jephthah in Judges 11:31 is also relevant; Jephthah clearly intended human sacrifice, though not the sacrifice of his only daughter, as then transpired. There is assumed to be a connection between the fulfilment of the ban and success in battle (Collins 2004:6–7). The enemy is deemed worthy to be offered to God. The problem, however, is that the ban as sacrifice requires a God who appreciates human sacrifice because those who practiced the ban would presumably have something in common with those who believed in the efficacy of child sacrifice (Niditch 1993:50). This helps put the practice in context in the ancient world but increases rather than lessens its problematic nature from an ethical point of view. Deuteronomy 7:1–6 explains that there are two primary factors that are taken as warrants for violence on the part of Israel. One is the demand that Israel should worship only one God, YHWH; anyone who interferes with that demand and Israelites themselves who fail to comply with it may legitimately be killed, and in some cases, should be killed. The second is the claim that Israel received a land by divine grant and that they should drive out or kill the present inhabitants. The legitimation of violence is not based on monotheism as such; the issue is concerned with the status of Israel as YHWH’s chosen covenant partner and the claim of the land as an inheritance of YHWH. There is no demand that other people should acknowledge and worship YHWH; the issue is the advancement of a particular people, the Israelites, and the imposition of the cult within the territory of that people. That the command to slaughter the Israelites forms part of Deuteronomy is ironical because, as Weinfeld (1992:282–297) indicates, the book is one of the great repositories of humanistic values in the biblical corpus. However, the empathy is not extended to the people of the land. The liberation of the Israelites and the subjugation of the Canaanites are two sides of the same coin (Collins 2004:12). What contemporary readers should keep in mind is that biblical denunciations of the Canaanites cannot be taken at face value and that these

70  The Bible and violence, and Christians texts may tell us more about the purposes of their human authors than about God (cf. Lemche 1991). Elsewhere holiness is defined in terms of compassion and mercy shown because Israel is put aside for service to YHWH. Here the opposite is the case: in their service of God the holy people should refuse mercy to the inhabitants of the land. ‘Being holy’ entails mercilessly committing genocide in God’s name (‫ ; ֵּֽם ָנחְת ֹ֥אלְו‬Deut 6:2). Readers of the Bible are in this way confronted with two contrasting and diametrically opposed notions of what holiness looks like. On the one hand, a God of mercy and compassion expects his people to love one another; on the other hand, a God of war is depicted 235 times as ‘YHWH of the hosts’, or the God of Armies. The commander of Israel’s armies, Moses, describes God in the following terms in his song, ‘Yhwh is a warrior; YHWH is his name’ (Ex 15:3: ‫) ֹֽו ׁמְש ֖הָוהְי ָ֑ה ָמ ְחלִמ ׁש ֣יִא ֖הָוהְי‬.30 The problem is that the Hebrew Bible serves for Christians (along with the New Testament) and Jews as performative writings, as a canon, and continue to have practical value and influence. Both killing for God and being killed (or martyred) for God form the extremes for the commandment not to have other gods than the one true God, connecting violence and monotheism (Assmann 2003:48–49).31 The result is that texts on violence had (and still can have) catastrophic consequences if they are read as normative. What is necessary is that these texts are placed in their historical context and that their validity for the present day is thereby limited (Assmann 2003:57). Contextualising texts that incite to violence serves to limit their causative validity elsewhere and these texts should not be allowed to stand alone; it is the responsibility of the exegete to balance the various traditions in the Bible (Nielsen 2013:212). The reading strategy should include that individual traditions are not isolated in order to prevent them from becoming normative.32 Christians must journey far beyond any surface-level appropriation of Scripture to an application of the text that listens intently to its movement meaning as derived from hearing it within its historical and canonical contexts in order to take the ethic of Scripture to a greater fulfilment of the redemptive trajectory or redemptive trend already begun in Scripture itself (Webb 2011:931).33 Hopkins and Koppel (2013:213) concurs and argues that violent biblical texts hold up a mirror to our human ugliness rather than offer a divine ‘ought’. Teachers and pastors need to help Christians distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive biblical texts and modify their behaviour accordingly. Perhaps if we meet one another over biblical texts with a contemplative bow, we can de-centre and re-centre our ‘selfhood’ as mutual and relational, inhabit ‘not-knowing’ and open space for honest receiving and offering which can deny destructive violence a place in our lives, concludes Hopkins & Koppel (2013:215). The books of Deuteronomy and Joshua have as a central theme the defining story of Israel entering the Promised land, with ‘genocide narratives’ constituting a major component. Such violence is however not confined to the narratives of conquering Canaan. Hosea exults in the downfall of Samaria in terms that remind of the command to annihilate the original Canaanites: ‘Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open’

The Bible and violence, and Christians 71 (‫ִּיֹות֖יו י ְ ֻב ָקּֽעּו‬ ָ ‫ֵיה֣ם י ְֻר ָ ּטׁ֔שּו ְוהָר‬ ֶ ‫י ִפֹּ֔לּו ע ֹ ְלל‬ ; Hos 13:16 NRSV; 14:1 in Heb). God is also repeatedly portrayed as a punishing parent in terms of cannibalising his own children. Leviticus 26:27–30 contains the warning to the people of YHWH that if they continue to disobey him in hostility, he will punish them sevenfold for their sins in his hostile fury. Verse 29 states, ‘You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall ׁ ִ ‫ ְוגָעֲלָ ֥ה נַ ְפ‬It eat the flesh of your daughters’ because he will abhor them (34.)‫ש֖י אֶתְכֶ ֽם‬ seems that Israel’s God is a violent God that blesses and keeps those who are willing to kill in his name but at the same time inflicts the most violent suffering on those not willing to obey his commands. Parts of the Hebrew Bible ascribes genocide, cannibalism, infanticide and rape to God.35 Consider Jeremiah 13:22–27 which answers the question, ‘Why have these things come upon me?’ by stating that Israel’s iniquities caused their humiliation. ‘I will scatter you like chaff driven by the wind from the desert’ (‫םֵ֖ציִפֲאַו‬ ‫ ;רָּֽבְדִמ ַחּו֖רְל רֵ֑בֹוע־ׁשַקְּכ‬13:24) because Israel have forgotten God. ‘I myself will lift up your skirts over your face, and your shame will be seen’ (‫ְךִיַ֖לּוׁש יִּתְפַׂ֥שָח יִ֛נֲא־םַגְו‬ ‫ ;ְךֵֽנֹולְק הָ֖אְרִנְו ְךִיָ֑נָּפ־לַע‬13:26) because of their abominations, adulteries and neighings, and shameless prostitutions on the hills of the countryside (‫ְ֙ךִיַ֨תֹולֲהְצִמּו ְךִיַ֤פֻאִֽנ‬ ‫ ;דֹֽע יַ֖תָמ יֵ֥רֲחַא יִ֔רֲהְטִת אֹ֣ל םִַ֔לָׁשּו֣רְי ְ֙ךָל יֹו֥א ְךִיָ֑צּוּקִׁש יִתיִ֖אָרהֶ֔דָּׂשַּב ֙תֹועָבְּג־לַע ְךֵ֔תּונְז תַּ֣מִז‬13:27). Are the prophets using metaphorical language in describing the punishment of those who reject their God? It does not seem only to be meant metaphorically because it happened in Israel’s history. And when it happened, Israel was to remind herself that it was God who brought these terrible and humiliating suffering on her in response to her disobedience and idolatry because her God was a jealous God. Schwager (1987:60) states that approximately a thousand passages in the Hebrew Bible describe God’s anger about the sins of people in violent terms, with punishment consisting of destruction and death.36 YHWH takes revenge and annihilates people like a sweeping fire.37 ‘No other topic is as often mentioned as God’s bloody works’. Another hundred passages state that YHWH explicitly commands people to kill (Schwager 1987:60). There are two sides to the problem: what YHWH does as a violent actor, even if he is only threatening people, and what humans are commanded to do, and actually do in YHWH’s name. Schwager (1987:61) concludes that religiously justified violence is an unavoidable and central theme of the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 137:8–9, to demonstrate it, describes Babylon as a devastator (‫)הָ֥דּו֫דְּׁשַה‬, the one who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and took Judah in exile.38 ‘Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!’ (‫ְךִיַ֗לָלֹ֝ע־תֶֽא ץֵּ֬פִנְו זֵ֓חאֹּיֶׁש ׀יֵ֤רְׁשַא‬ ‫ ;עַלָּֽסַה־לֶא‬Ps 137:9).39 Such texts are not merely a description of what happened; in many instances, they contain the command to commit the atrocities in YHWH’s name. In 1 Samuel 15 the prophet Samuel anointed Saul to be the king of Israel with the express purpose to punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. This is described as a word of YHWH, a command he gave the new king: ’Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they

72  The Bible and violence, and Christians have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey’ (‫ ;רֹוֽמֲח־דַעְו לָ֖מָּגִמ הֶׂ֔ש־דַעְו רֹוּׁ֣שִמ קֵ֔נֹוי־דַעְו ֙לֵלֹעֵֽמ הָּׁ֗ש‬15:3). To kill the children of an enemy nation is celebrated.40 There are also other voices in the Hebrew Bible. Violence is not the only model of behaviour on offer in the Bible, but it is not an incidental or peripheral feature, and it cannot be glossed over. The Bible witnesses not only to the innocent victim and to the God of victims but also to the hungry God (Shulman 1993) who devours victims and to the zeal of his human agents (Collins 2004:31). There is much in the Bible that is not worthy of imitation, or even worthy of humanity. However, this material should not be disregarded, for it is at least as revelatory as the more edifying parts of the biblical witness. The power of the Bible is largely that it gives an unvarnished picture of human nature and of the dynamics of history, and of religion and the things that people do in its name (Trible 1984:2).41 Collins (2004:31) concludes that the biblical portrayal of human reality becomes pernicious only when it is vested with authority and assumed to reflect, without qualification or differentiation, the wisdom or the will of God. The Bible does not claim to tell stories that are supposed to be paradigms for human action in all times and places, leading to Barr’s remark (1993:218) that the command of consecration to destruction (ḥerem) is morally offensive and has to be faced as such. An appeal to the Bible cannot be determinative (Bainton 1960:238) even though historically believers assumed its divine authority, providing an aura of certitude to any position it can be shown to support with ‘God-like certainty that stops all discussion’ (Arendt 1978:398–402). The Bible has contributed to violence in the world precisely because it has been taken to confer a degree of certitude that transcends human discussion and argumentation; the most constructive thing a biblical critic can do toward lessening the Bible’s contribution to violence is in the opinion of Collins (2004:33) to show that such certitude is an illusion. A text that illustrates an alternative view of ‘the others’ is found in the book of Jonah. The prophet is sent to Nineveh to announce God’s imminent judgment and punishment of the godless people of Nineveh. However, they repent en masse and promise to mend their ways. God recalls their judgment and plans to annihilate them, and Jonah reacts by becoming despondent. Jonah has taken delight in announcing the destruction of his enemies’ capital but now God decides to extend his mercy to ‘the others’. God suspends the distinction between ‘his chosen people’ and ‘the others’, leading to Jonah’s complaint that God is a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity (Jonah 4:2). Obviously, this represents another and quite different tradition than the one in the narratives about the conquest of the Promised land, where the decisive criterion for the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ was the differentiation between God and the other, foreign gods (Nielsen 2013:214). The same difference is found in the book of Hosea, where God is portrayed as the husband who chooses to take back his faithless wife, demonstrating that his mercy, love and compassion triumphs over

The Bible and violence, and Christians  73 his righteousness and justice (Hos 2:21). God’s first reaction to his wife’s infidelity is impending violence: I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her naked body. So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands. (Hos 2:9–10) But then he changes his mind: There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. ‘In that day’, declares the Lord, ‘you will call me “my husband”; you will no longer call me “my master”. I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked’. (Hos 2:15–17) Initially, Israelites were reluctant to establish a regular state ‘like the other nations’ but seemed to have lived in independent chiefdoms without a central government. When neighbours attacked them, a leader or ‘judge’ would rise up and mobilise the local population against the attack, or in retaliation against the attack.42 Over time, without strong rule, Israelites however succumbed to moral depravity: ‘in those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did as he pleased’, leading to a story of a judge who made a human sacrifice of his own daughter, a tribe that exterminated an innocent people, a group of Israelites who gang-raped a woman to death, and similar tales in Judges that are being told to demonstrate that the natural proclivity for violence can hardly be controlled in a community without a degree of coercion, in Armstrong’s (2014:99–100) view. Monarchy seemed the only way to restore order although it meant that Israel lost its soul. David expanded Israelite territory on the east bank of the Jordan, united the separate regions of Israel in the north and Judah in the south, and conquered the HittiteJebusite city-state of Jerusalem, which he declared as the capital of the United Kingdom. There was no way that he put the Jebusites under the ‘ban’; on the contrary, he adopted the existing Jebusite administration, employed Jebusites in his bureaucracy and took over the Jebusite standing army (Armstrong 2014:101). He probably taxed only the conquered populations and supplemented his income with booty, making him a warmonger. Even Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba, was a Jebusite and although the idea is created that his name derives from the Hebrew shalom (‘peace’) it is more probable that it derived from Shalem, the ancient deity of Jerusalem (Armstrong 2014:101). His temple was built on the regional model and its furniture showed how thoroughly the cult of YHWH had accommodated itself to the pagan landscape of the Near East. At the temple’s entrance were two

74  The Bible and violence, and Christians Canaanite standing stones (matzevoth) and a massive bronze basin, representing Yam, the sea monster fought by Ba’al, supported by twelve brazen oxen, common symbols of divinity and fertility (1 Ki 7:15–26). The temple rituals also seemed to have been influenced by Ba’al’s cult in neighbouring Ugarit (Kraus 1966:201– 204; Clifford 1972; Ollenburger 1987:14–16; Barker 1991:64). Unlike David, Solomon had to tax his Israelite subjects to finance his lifestyle and building programmes. His building projects also required massive forced labour, and peasants had to serve in the army or the corvée for one month in every three (1 Ki 5:27–32, in contrast to 1 Ki 9:20–21). After Solomon’s death, a delegation begged his son Rehoboam not to replicate Solomon’s harsh tyranny and the structural violence of his political dispensation, and when he contemptuously refused, they attacked the manager of the corvée and ten of the twelve tribes broke away from the empire to form the independent Kingdom of Israel. Situated near important trade routes, the northern Kingdom of Israel prospered. Their capital was Samaria and they had shrines in Bethel and Dan. The southern Kingdom kept Jerusalem as its capital and served YHWH as a warrior god who defended his people from their enemies (Armstrong 2014:103). These two kingdoms emerged when the main imperial powers of the region, Egypt and Assyria, were in eclipse. During the eighth century, however, Assyria regained its strength and weaker kings were forced into vassal status. King Jeroboam (784–746 bce) became a loyal Assyrian vassal leading to his kingdom enjoying economic prosperity. However, the economic status allowed rich people to become richer and the poor to become poorer, leading to the prophets’ condemning the king and the system (e.g., Amos). The old egalitarian ideals of Israel were kept alive by some prophets. King Tiglath-Pileser III abolished the system of vassalage in 745 bce and incorporated the conquered people directly into the Assyrian state. Where states revolted, the entire ruling class were deported and replaced by people from other parts of the empire. When King Hosea refused to pay tribute in 722 bce, Shalmaneser III simply wiped the Kingdom of Israel off the map and deported its aristocracy. Judah survived until the turn of the century because it was more isolated, but then the Assyrian army besieged Jerusalem. The siege was lifted for an unknown reason, perhaps because of a contagious disease, although Lachish was already destroyed and the countryside razed to the ground. King Manasseh (687–642 bce) kept on the right side of Assyria, and Judah experienced peace and prosperity during his long reign. Manasseh honoured the Assyrian and Canaanite gods, placing their effigies in YHWH’s Temple in Jerusalem, as many of his subjects also kept similar effigies in their houses (Ps 68:17; Ahlstrom 1993:734). During Josiah’s reign (640–609 bce), Manasseh’s grandson, some prophets and priests attempted a reform of the religion of Judah. Pharaoh Psammetichus had forced the Assyrian army to withdraw from the area and Josiah supported the Egyptian pharaoh. Josiah began to repair the Temple in Jerusalem and during the construction work the high priest discovered the book of the law (sefer torah). The reformers supposed that the scroll they had discovered contained words that YHWH dictated to Moses. This law required exclusive devotion to YHWH to the

The Bible and violence, and Christians 75 exclusion of all other gods, an exclusivity that would have seemed strange in the seventh century bce (Armstrong 2014:105). Now sacred symbols that were central to the temple cult and the piety of individual Judahites were excoriated because the Canaanite cults were evaluated as detestable and loathsome. The Deuteronomistic reform was not implemented in any permanent sense because Josiah’s bid for independence ended in 609 bce when he died in a skirmish with Pharaoh Neco. The new Babylonian empire replaced the Assyrian and the tug of war between Babylonia and Egypt caused Judah to dodge the powers until its uprising in 597 bce led to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, deporting eight thousand Judean aristocrats, soldiers and skilled artisans. Ten years later, he responded to another uprising, destroyed the Temple, razed the city to the ground and deported five thousand more Judeans. Only the lower classes were left to inhabit the devastated land. In 559 bce Cyrus became king of Anshan (in southern Iran), and twenty years later he invaded Babylonia and without a single battle was met by the population of Babylon as a liberator. He became the master of the largest empire the world had yet seen and modelled a more benign form of empire (Armstrong 2014:108). He announced a new policy that was preserved in the Cyrus Cylinder, where he abolished the corvée, repatriated all the peoples who had been deported to Babylonia and promised to rebuild their temples. Judah honoured him as their messiah, the one anointed by YHWH to end Israel’s exile (Isa 45:1). Most of the Judean exiles, however, chose to stay in Babylon where they had acculturated successfully. And the Pax Persiana created a peaceful world where trade and commerce could prosper across boundaries. By the time the Palestinian Judeans had rebuilt the Temple, Persian Judaea had become a temple-state governed by a Jewish priestly aristocracy in the name of Persia. Their writings were preserved in parts of the Pentateuch and the Chronicles, which elicited a rewriting of the Deuteronomic history while attempting to adapt ancient Israelite traditions to the new circumstances. The Deuteronomist had demonised the foreigner; the new priestly texts developed an inclusive vision where the ‘otherness’ of every single creature was sacred. Nothing might be enslaved or owned, not even the land. The ger, the resident alien, was to be loved rather than exterminated. Now David could not build the temple because he had shed too much blood, and they left out his outrageous order that the blind and lame might not come into Jerusalem. Although the priests were monotheists, it did not make them intolerant, bloodthirsty and cruel. Other post-exilic prophets were more aggressive. They waited for the wonderful day when YHWH would rule the entire world and there would be no mercy for nations who resisted his (read: ‘his people’s’) rule. They imagined Israel’s former enemies visiting Jerusalem annually to bring their rich gifts, taxes and tributes, kissing the feet of the Israelites, their rulers. For some, YHWH was the fierce opponent of the violence and cruelty that characterised the surrounding empires, for others he had been transformed into an arch-imperialist. The problem statement as stated in the introduction is the following: how do Pentecostals reconcile passages that describe God as a violent God who commands

76  The Bible and violence, and Christians his people to kill and pillage with other passages that describe God in terms of mercy, love and compassion? Jean Vanier (2008:28), founder of L’Arche, defines ‘to be a Christian’ as ‘to grow in compassion’. The problem statement is further extended by the observation that the history of the Christian church contains many examples of violence. Christians used biblical texts to justify their genocides and crusades, fighting in the name of Christ and many times with crosses emblazoned on their chests.43 Crusaders sacked Jerusalem and conquered the city on 15 July 1099, slaughtering its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants who were largely unarmed, including women and children.44 Muslim records opine that the crusaders killed at least eighty thousand people in the sack of Jerusalem (Armstrong 1988:1; Peters 1985:286–287).45 Peters (1985:285) relates that the crusaders rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins in the temple and porch of Solomon. ‘The city was filled with corpses and blood’.46 In 1204, the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade attacked the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, and destroyed the city with cruel and immoral brutality (Payne 1984:277–283).47 In this way, they weakened the Greek empire to such an extent that it has never recovered (Armstrong 2001:386–389; 2014:198). The sack of Constantinople was one of the great crimes of history. For three days, the Venetians and Crusaders rushed through the streets, raping, killing and pillaging with a horrible eagerness. Women and children lay dying on the streets and nuns were raped in their convents. (Armstrong 2001:386)48 The Greeks could never forget this humiliation. In the fifteenth century when the Ottoman Turks threatened the Greek empire they repeatedly requested help from the West. However, the pope forbade European kings to offer any help to the Greeks (Latourette 1953:575, 612–613) because the Catholic church had declared the Greeks as unholy heretics who did not deserve the same treatment as the ‘Holy Church’ of the West (Latourette 1953:575). Jenkins (2011:124–141) in a publication with the title, Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses, catalogues how the conquest narrative of genocide in the Old Testament had been utilised to justify violence in Western history. As one example, Oliver Cromwell typified the Irish Catholics as the modern-day version of the ‘Canaanites’ that should be slaughtered without any recourse to the common rule of morality (cf. also Collins 2003:7). In the same way, Native Americans were cast in the role of ‘Canaanites’ and ‘Amalekites’, the original heathen inhabitants of the land, in order to justify their slaughter. No less than ninety-five per cent of the hundred million Native Americans were wiped out through war, starvation and disease at the hands of Christians (Johnson 2005:35). In 1994 a Rwandan pastor preached from 1 Samuel 15 and called upon his congregants to exterminate the Tutsis or face the consequence of being rejected by God (Jenkins 2011:141). ‘If you don’t want to be rejected by God, then finish the job of killing the people God has rejected. No child, no wife, no old man should be kept alive’. The refrain in 1 Samuel 15:3 is clear, ‘Now go and attack Amalek, and

The Bible and violence, and Christians 77 utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey’. The horrendous outcome of obedience to the suggestions of the preacher is well known. In the past, Christians reacted in several ways to the occurrence of the justification of violence in the Bible. Some responded by emphasising that the Bible also contains many passages that encourage believers to partake in the establishment of social justice. Although this is true, it cannot be used to whitewash the other passages that preach and command violent action on the part of the people of God.49 It is a logical fallacy to cite the good parts as if they were representative of the whole, while ignoring the bad parts as if they were not included. This is a way of misrepresenting evidence (Flood 2014:22). Jenkins (2011:205–206) observes that lectionaries in both Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions removed all the violent passages from their reading. The warlike sections of Numbers and Deuteronomy, for instance, are not included, as well as the segregationalist passages contained in Ezra and Nehemiah. The command of the ḥerem is ignored while positive descriptions are included. Readers are brought under the impression that violence is not a problem in the Hebrew Bible that should be addressed. Another way of addressing the violent sections is to justify it in terms of the historical context in which it occurred, as has already been referred to. To preserve Israel’s religious inheritance, it is argued, it was necessary that the original inhabitants of Canaan should be annihilated because their religion with its attractive fertility rites consisting of immoral sexual orgies at high places would always be tempting to Israel. However, the descriptions of violence cannot be viewed in any other terms as profoundly wrong. What is a more truthful way of engaging with the Hebrew Bible would be to acknowledge that the Bible contains contradictory statements about violence, some of which are morally unacceptable and even offensive to the sentiments of most contemporary people. Then it becomes possible to face the issue of violence in Scripture in order to counter the claims of those who continue to use the Bible to justify authoritarian and state violence in our day. What is important is to realise that the Hebrew Bible contains many voices that witness about God and that the diversity of viewpoints reflect dispute. What is needed is that each voice is allowed to stand on its own alongside the other competing and sometimes dissenting voices. What is also important to note is that the misuse of biblical texts concerned with justifying violence consists in selecting a very narrow canon within that canon and making it the whole truth.50 Such misuse can reveal itself in diverse ways, one of the most obvious being the amplification of violent texts into dogmatic statements that become the norm for what God is like and what he demands at any time and all times from humankind, with potentially dangerous or even fatal consequences (Nørager 2008:42). That such descriptions form part of the canon does not allow modern readers to employ it as a legitimisation of violence in God’s name today. But these texts should also not be torn out of the Bible, for they serve to inform contemporary human beings how many people do react in crisis situations where the contrast and clash between ‘us’ and ‘the others’ is sharply delineated. These

78  The Bible and violence, and Christians texts should rather form part of the dialogue with the other texts in which images of God show a different side of the relationship between God and humanity. If the church is to draw normative conclusions from the Bible, the whole Bible should be brought into play, both those passages speaking of the wrath of God and those who depict God as the God of mercy and blessing (Nielsen 2013:214–215).51 If the Christian history of participation in violence and war remains unexplored, the same ethos and logic which has been woven into Western thinking will continue to shape how we perceive God, how we understand justice and violence, and how we read Scriptures (Flood 2014:16). A current way of interpreting the conflicting violence that especially the Hebrew Bible presents is used by fundamentalist-biblicist-literalist theologians.52 Its one assumption is tota Scriptura, that the entire Scripture is God’s Word and represents a unity and authority that is supposed to normatively determine the believers’ lives, including their morality.53 The other assumption is sola Scriptura, that Scripture is sufficient and provides the content of the Christian faith. The implication is that the Bible does not (and cannot) provide any conflicting views about any issue. To justify this claim, specifically regarding the description in the Hebrew Bible that Israel’s God is violent and vindictive, biblicists use a specific theological perspective that consists of the following elements:54 •

•

•

According to this view, the whole narrative setting consisting of the commands and the conquering narratives in the book of Joshua should be respected and attended to within the context of the broader narrative regarding God’s revealed character, his reign and the redemption of his people. In other words, close attention should be given to the canonical context and the events of the book of Joshua should be explained in terms of this larger context. It should be placed along the ‘plot line’ of the Bible, especially in terms of their fulfilment in Jesus Christ (Williams 2012:173). When one evaluates the words the Hebrew Bible ascribes to God, it is essential that the nature and purpose of the acts or commands are considered in terms of God’s character. The commands God gives are underwritten by his character and while Scripture portrays God as holy, just, good and true, his commands will bring about his good and perfect will (Tinker 2017:31).55 Israel trusted him based upon his revealed character. And they had substantial epistemological warrants for carrying out his imperatives. The Bible in a consequent manner shows God as the one who shows compassion to his people and acts in history with miraculous signs and wonders. The ‘immutable non-negotiables’ of God’s character are his gracious holiness (Ex 34:6–7), his reign and his wrath towards those who sin in rebellion against him (e.g., Deut 13:12; Ezek 5:11–17).56 God’s wrath differs from the human emotion which is often driven by feelings of inadequacy (Tinker 2017:41). His wrath is the chosen, measured and proper response to that which is sinful in the light of his holiness. God’s love is a primary attribute while his wrath is a secondary attribute (Morris 1988).

The Bible and violence, and Christians 79

•

•

•

His wrath is an expression of his love, consisting of deep personal abhorrence in the presence of injustice and cruelty. God commanded the slaughter of the Canaanites only with the heaviest of hearts, channelling the human impulse to kill, an impulse which is a sign and manifestation of sin. ‘The book of Joshua makes fatal reading unless it is read as part of the canon of Scripture’, admits Williams (2012:175). In this way, the ‘theological’ perspective reconstructs perceptual notions to accommodate their need to reconcile conflicting views about God in the Hebrew Bible. The command to slaughter children is treated in several ways by biblicists. One way is to argue that Canaanite children were not actually killed since there is no record of this in the biblical text (Copan 2009). That Israel was commanded to kill all the members of their enemy does not imply that they killed any women and children. Another ‘solution’ is to reason, like Goldingay (1976:102), that the women and children had already left when the Israelites arrived at the city. Tinker (2017:65) argues that the corporate and collective nature of sin requires that children also be punished. The consequences of sin are not always discriminating, he argues, and the ‘wages of sin’ always remain ‘death’ experienced by the whole nation. In any case, the wrath of God toward the inhabitants of Canaan is a severe mercy in the sense that the alternative for children who did not die in the war would include abandonment and starvation. The sword would have been a quick and relatively painless means of execution. The principle that Tinker (2017:68) demonstrates is that potential greater evils and hidden greater goods are to be weighed. Some of these children might have grown up to do terrible evils, and the fact that the Israelites killed them while they were young demonstrates a severe mercy. The death of the Canaanite children was also their salvation; they were saved from a life of appalling corruption and saved to be with God, as all little children who die young enter God’s presence (Copan 2009:78). These kinds of arguments demonstrate the futility and ridiculousness of attempts to justify the reconciliation of the biblical views of God as merciful and patient, and revengeful and vindictive. The Hebrew Bible presents several good reasons for the slaughter of the Canaanites. In the first place, it should be understood in the framework of judicial punitive action; the inhabitants were deserving of God’s judgment. They were ripe for judgment (Kidner 1972:41). Second, the commands should be understood as purgative, to eradicate the Canaanites’ abominable practices, described by Jones (2009) as practices of incest, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, bestiality, divination, witchcraft, female and male temple sex, transvestitism, pederasty, sex with animals and incest that had reached a saturation point, from the land (Deut 12:31; Stott  & Edwards 1988:263). ‘Archaeological evidence indicates that the children harmed to death in this way sometimes numbered in the thousands’ (Jones 2009:26).57 A third reason for God’s commands is found in the preparatory role played by the command to annihilate the Canaanites. It prepared the way for a nation from which a Saviour for the entire world would come (Tinker 2017:53). It

80  The Bible and violence, and Christians also serves as an education of Israel not to participate in such practices. The untenability of reading the book of Joshua in this way is clear. By way of concluding, the results of such a biblicist way of interpreting the biblical command to wipe out the entire population of Canaan include that the command does not refer to nationalistic expansionism, that the timing is significant because it coincides with Israel’s conquering the Promised land and that the fundamental framework within which to understand these commands is that of covenant obedience and worship (Tinker 2017:59–61). Longman (2003:185) concludes that the God of the Old and New Testament is the same God and he did not change his mind. The war against the Canaanites was simply an early phase of the battle that comes to its climax on the cross of Christ and finds its completion at the judgment throne of Christ at the end of time. The discussion of a fundamentalist attempt to deal with the violence associated with Israel’s conquering of the Promised land shows that a developed hermeneutical rationale for reading is needed that can stand its ground when it evaluates the occurrence of the justification of violence in the name of God as found in the Bible. What is needed is an approach that can honestly face and confront violence in the Bible, from a perspective of faith that leads necessarily to a developed moral conscience (Flood 2014:26). What is needed is a prophetic spirit that operates from within the faith community, and that lovingly critiques religion and Christians’ reading of the Bible from the inside, not with the purpose to destroy it but rather to ensure that the church’s moral and ethical viewpoints are good and just. The research hypothesises as demonstrated in the first chapter is that early Pentecostalism utilised a hermeneutical angle that allowed them to formulate a pacifist viewpoint to such an extent that most of them did not participate in the First World War, at least not in combatant facility.58 However, in the course of the Second World War the movement in general had adopted a new hermeneutical stance, leading to its abandonment of its pacifist viewpoint.59 The argument is then developed in chapter  4 that the new hermeneutic that characterises theological developments in the classical Pentecostal movement since the 1970s allows and even compels the movement to rethink its viewpoint of violence and war.

Jesus and violence How did Jesus (and the early Church) react to violence? And how did they read the Hebrew Bible?60 Jesus was born in the reign of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus (30 bce– 14 ce). Roman rule implied that a large group of nations coexisted for a significant period without fighting each other for resources and territory. The Roman empire represented a successful imperial ideology consisting of the claims that they had been blessed by the gods (religious justification); all other peoples were barbarians with whom it was impossible to deal on equal terms (exclusivist demand); and that their mission was to bring the benefits of civilisation and peace to the rest

The Bible and violence, and Christians  81 of the world. The Pax Romana was enforced pitilessly (Luttwak 1976:25–26). Its professional army became the most efficient killing machine the world had ever seen (O’Connell 1989:263–271). Any resistance implied a wholesale slaughter; Polybius explains that they did not even spare the animals and the Scottish leader Calgacus described the sole aim of the Roman Empire as to ‘to plunder, butcher and ravage’ (Armstrong 2014:117). Its aim was to strike terror into subject nations, discouraging them to rebel against the conqueror. However, it took Rome nearly two centuries to tame the Jews of Palestine. The Qumran sects and the Essenes, probably two distinct groups, designed an ethical communal life, with meals eaten together, ritual purity and cleanliness that surpassed that presented by the Jerusalem Temple community, and goods held in common. Both were critical of the temple cult which in their opinion had been corrupted by the Hasmoneans. The Pharisees were also committed to an exact and punctilious observance of the biblical law and they sent a delegation in 64 bce to Rome when they judged that Hasmonean excesses had become intolerable, asking that the empire depose the regime. In response in 63 bce, the Roman general Pompey invaded Jerusalem, killed twelve thousand Jews and enslaved thousands more and ruled Palestine through the priestly aristocracy headed by a puppet king, Herod, a prince of Idumaea (Edom) and a recent convert to Judaism (Armstrong 2014:118–119). Herod constructed Caesarea on the coast, a city on honour of Augustus. He also built a magnificent new Temple for YHWH in Jerusalem, flanked by the Antonia Fortress where the Roman troops were housed. He also had his own army and secret police and most Jews hated him. They were effectively ruled by Herod and his house as well as the Sadducees, the Jewish priestly nobility. And as both exacted taxes from the Jews, they bore a double tax burden (Horsley 1999:51–54). Most protests against imperial rule in Roman Palestine were nonviolent. Jews protested continually but they resorted to armed force only under extreme pressure (Armstrong 2014:120). Their main source of complaint was not religious suppression but the demands that taxation put on them. At times mobs attacked the estates of the nobility and raided local fortresses, storehouses and Roman baggage trains to take back the goods that they perceived had been stolen from them (Josephus Ant.:2:57). When Herod died, Rome decided that his realm should be divided among his three sons, with Archelaus being given Idumaea, Judaea and Samaria; Antipas Galilee and Peraea; and Philip the Transjordan. Archelaus’ rule was so cruel that Rome deposed him after a short while and now Judaea was ruled by a Roman prefect, supported by the Jewish priestly aristocracy, from the residence in Caesarea. Coponus was the first governor and he ordered that a census be taken, leading to a resistance movement under the leadership of a Galilean named Judas. The purpose of the census was to improve Roman taxation, Judas argued, and paying Roman taxes amounted to slavery. Typically, peasants did not resort to violent uprising; rather, they used noncooperation, consisting of working slowly or refraining from work altogether, to make their point economically. Most Roman governors were careful not to cause the

82  The Bible and violence, and Christians Jews a reason to rebel. An exception was when in 26 ce, Pontius Pilate ordered the troops in the Antonia fortress to raise military standards displaying the emperor’s portrait. The problem was that the fortress was next door to the Temple, and at once a group of peasants marched to Caesarea, requesting Pilate to remove the standards as it violated their religious injunction not to make images. When Pilate refused to adhere to their request, they lay motionless outside his residence for five days. Pilate then summoned them to the stadium where the Jews found themselves surrounded by soldiers. Once again, they fell on the ground and declared their willingness to die rather than violate their religious law. The Roman governor admitted defeat and took down the standards (Josephus JW:2:26). Twenty-five years later, the emperor Caius Caligula ordered that his statue be erected in the Jerusalem Temple. The Jewish peasants took to the road. When the legate Petronius arrived at the port of Ptolemais with the statue to be erected, he was halted by tens of thousands of Jews accompanied by their wives and children. It was not a violent protest, but the peasants were prepared to stay in Ptolemais, even if it meant that they would miss the planting season, with the implication of a massive famine that would follow their actions, and that the requirements of Roman tribute would not be met. Caligula was however not willing to listen to arguments by conquered people, and he would have retaliated if he was not assassinated. During the fifties of the first century ce, a prophet called Theudas led four hundred people into the Judean desert, convinced that God would send deliverance from the foreign oppressors (Josephus JW:2:260). Another rebel leader marched with thirty thousand people through the desert to the Mount of Olives with the intention to overwhelm the Roman garrison and seize power (Josephus JW:2:260– 261). These movements were ruthlessly put down and all participants murdered. Jewish protest formed the political context for Jesus’ ministry; he lived in a society traumatised by violence and his life was framed by revolts. The uprisings after Herod’s death might have occurred in the year of his birth. As a child he lived in Nazareth, a few miles from Sepphoris which Varus had razed to the ground. And the peasants’ strike against Caligula occurred a decade after his death. While he lived, Galilee was ruled by Herod Antipas who managed an expensive building programme by imposing suppressive taxes on the Jews. Failure to pay the taxes led to confiscation of their lands, forcing many Jews into banditry or menial labour to survive. Artisans like Jesus’ father were often failed peasants (Crossan 1994:26–28). The Gospels recall how Herod slaughtered all the male infants in Bethlehem after Jesus’ birth, commemorating decades after the events the political aggression and cruelty of Roman Palestine. John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, was executed by Herod Antipas (Matt 14:3–12); Jesus predicted that his disciples would be pursued, flogged and killed (Matt 10:17–18); and Jesus was arrested by the priestly aristocracy and tortured and crucified by the Roman, Pontius Pilate. Roman coins and inscriptions referred to Augustus as ‘son of God’, ‘lord’ and ‘saviour’, and announced the good (euaggelia) of his birth, recalling the announcement of Jesus’ birth by the angels (Borg 2006:67–68) and violating Jewish religious sentiments.

The Bible and violence, and Christians  83 Although at least some of the Jews, and Jesus’ followers, expected him to be the Jewish messiah that had appeared to rescue them from the Roman oppressors, there is no evidence that he was planning any form of armed or military insurrection. Rather, he forbade his disciples to injure others or to retaliate in an aggressive manner (Matt 5:39, 44). Luke 9:28–36 relates how Jesus departed from the Mount of Transfiguration and, on their way to Jerusalem, the company wanted to rest and enjoy some hospitality at a Samaritan village (Luke 9:51–56). When the Samaritans would not receive them, James and John were furious and suggested, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ ‘Fire from heaven’ was used by Elijah and Elisha to destroy false prophets and those who wanted to arrest them on more than one occasion. The disciples must have thought that this would be a normal response to the insult they had received from the Samaritans. But Jesus rebuked them and moved on to another village. In Luke’s version, Jesus later tells the story of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37) and turns one of those ‘others’ the disciples wanted to turn into a smouldering pile of rubble into the hero of the story (Peachey 2013:xvii–xviii). Jesus also did not resist his own arrest and rebuked the disciple who cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant (Matt 26:63; cf. Nel 2015b:246–251).61 This does not mean that he did not act decisively under specific circumstances. He fulminated against the rich (Luke 6:20–24), cruelly lambasted the scribes and the Pharisees (Matt 12:1–12, 23) and called down God’s vengeance on villages that rejected his disciples (Luke 13:13). Jesus knew, like his fellow Jews, that any confrontation with the Jewish aristocracy or the Roman ruling class – he seemingly did not distinguish between the two – would be fatal. Jesus also cleansed the Temple and drove the money changers from its precincts (John 2:19; Matt 21:12; Mark 11:15; Luke 19:45).62 It seems possible that such a temple cleansing might have happened twice, at the start and end of Jesus’ ministry or else the Gospel writers utilise it differently. Booth-Clibborn ([1917]2016b:106) emphasises that according to John 2:13–19, Jesus did not whip the people out of the Temple. He used the little whip (a ‘whip of little strings’ is how he translated the term, with some justice) on the cattle for which it was naturally intended. A tradition of reading this passage nonviolently began well before Augustine (13 November  354–28 August  430 ce) first used it to justify violence against the Donatists (Alexis-Baker 2012:96). Whether contextualising the passage in a narrative reading so that it would have spiritual meaning in an allegorical sense as was acceptable in the early Church or seeing the Greek grammar as disallowing that Jesus hit people with the whip, these nonviolent strategies effectively undercut any notion that Jesus’ action could provide a model for Christian violence. A close reading of the Greek text supports Cosmas Indicopleustes’ (sixth century ce) strategy for reading the text, which simply denies, based on the sense of the grammar, that Jesus used his whip on any person. Given the ad hoc character of ώς φραγέλλιον and the fact that by moving them out of the Temple, Jesus did not hit the animals with the whip as well but rather stayed their execution on the bloody altar, at least temporarily. And using lethal weapons is hardly comparable to a makeshift whip. Cosmas Indicopleustes’ close reading of the text

84  The Bible and violence, and Christians denies the logic behind a violent reading that imports an erratic behaviour to Jesus in this instance and his example has been followed by some newer translations such as the NRSV and NIV that have translated the text more accurately, which will hopefully begin to counteract fifteen hundred years of abusing this passage, is the hope of Alexis-Baker (2012:96). It should be remembered that no weapons of any sort (not even sticks) were permitted within the Temple precincts, and this rule may account for the fact that Jesus had to make a whip from cords (Newman & Nida 1993:66). In BoothClibborn’s opinion, Jesus’ behaviour demonstrates an exhibition of divine authority and spiritual force, in comparison with which the mere chasing of cattle and overturning of a few tables sinks into insignificance. Burge (1995:850) argues that Jesus is offended by two things that he witnessed. First, while the selling of sacrificial animals (John 2:14) was necessary for worship, it usually took place in the Jerusalem market area east of the city in the Kidron Valley. Now the high priest Caiaphas had brought the commercial enterprise into the court of the Gentiles. The sanctuary proper (ναός) was surrounded by four courts, that of the priests surrounding the building, that of the men toward the east, that of the women likewise, beyond that of the men. Around these three was an extensive court, called that of the Gentiles, since Gentiles were permitted to enter it. The outer side consisted of magnificent colonnades (Lenski 1961:204). Instead of using the court of the Gentiles to accommodate them in the temple service, the Gentiles’ space was taken up by business enterprises. It is possible that Jesus’ anger was not aimed at the money changers or sellers of sacrifices but rather at the temple establishment’s contempt for Gentiles. Second, money changers converted pagan coinage (with imperial images) for acceptable currency for Jewish men to pay their half-shekel annual tax (cf. Matt. 17:27).63 The cacophony of noise and the spirit of commercial self-interest had little to do with the purposes of the season. At the heart of Jesus’ message, like that of John the Baptist’s, was that the kingdom of God (or of the heavens, according to Matthew) was near. A Christian never approaches ethical questions as if they arose from a purely human system of ethical values and reflections,64 as is the case with Aristotle (384–322 bce), but always as arising from Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God, argue Burggraeve and De Tavernier (1993:33–34). In his preaching of the kingdom, Jesus never proclaims himself but places God in the centre. And he never speaks about God in himself but always as linked to the idea of the kingdom of God. Basileia (kingdom) should be interpreted in the sense of ‘royalty’ or ‘royal sovereignty’, designating the active and dynamic fact of the royal domination of God (Burggraeve & De Tavernier 1993:34). While we normally associate the notion of ‘royalty’ and ‘sovereignty’ with power, majesty, distance of elevation and master and servant, the paradox of Jesus’ message is that it does away with this classical representation of a God-King by immediately associating the reign with liberating service and salvific proximity to humankind. His kenosis implies that Jesus enters human history to associate himself in all humility with the destiny of humankind, with a predilection for the poor, hungry, afflicted, women and children, the marginal

The Bible and violence, and Christians  85 people in society. Jesus’ God is an ‘associated’ God who is touched and moved by the needs and the suffering of humanity, in particular of the humble, powerless, hungry, afflicted and poor, as Matthew 25’s parable demonstrates by its reference to the naked, hungry, thirsty, ill, imprisoned, poor, oppressed and neglected (Burggraeve & De Tavernier 1993:35). Jesus’ revelation implies an ethical orientation required from his disciples, among others in how they deal with conflicts and their absolute predilection for the poor, afflicted and famished. This can be the only starting point and criterion for reflecting on ‘war and peace’, including love for one’s enemies. On political and social level, this requires intercultural and interreligious dialogue in our pluralistic and multicultural society (Burggraeve & De Tavernier 1993:37). At the heart of the love for one’s fellow human beings is the norm ‘Thou shalt not kill’ as the fundamental ethical experience of the other, in Levinas’ term. In the vulnerability of the other’s irreducible difference, the ‘other’ appears as the unconditional exigence of not being neglected, destroyed or instrumentalised in this difference (Levinas & Burggraeve 1992:208–211). No one may take another person’s life or treat them as a simple means because the God of Jesus Christ has linked himself with a radical loving predilection for the ‘least’. Killing, repudiating, hating, oppressing or destroying someone is for a Christian not only a moral evil but, even more importantly, an offence to God. In terms of the emphasis on human rights that enjoys much attention now, each human being as such has a ‘right to life’ (Burggraeve & De Tavernier 1993:38).65 One implication is that Christians have a welcoming attitude consisting of a disinterested devotion to the good of the other person. This also applies to human life in the womb, that is, the problem of abortion where pregnancy is terminated by human means. Another implication is in terms of war and violence where a ‘consistent ethic’ demands that born life enjoys the same respect as unborn life. ‘Pacifism and nonviolence are the primary and fundamental expressions of the duty to love, i.e., of the unconditional respect of the human person, of each human person, starting from the weakest and the most threatened’ (Burggraeve  & De Tavernier 1993:38). Christians opt unconditionally and without compromise for nonviolence. An argument used by many is that Christians, however, live in a world characterised by its brokenness and therefore they can only do what is humanly possible. They should take account of the historical context and practicability on individual and interpersonal but also on social, economic and political plane. This implies that the humanly desirable can only be realised in the form of the ‘best humanly possible’, a concept that Ricoeur uses. The radical choice for God’s kingdom of peace may at times demand that pros and cons be weighed against each other to formulate concrete and practical imperatives for action, requiring in what Burggraeve and De Tavernier (1993:39) term a conditional pacifism, that is, pacifism that is contextual, prudential and vigilant. The authors use the example of the notion of legitimate self-defence when one’s dignity is threatened. The respect for one’s dignity as a human being is indeed a fundamental right and part of the application of the command that one loves all people, including oneself, implying that it includes the right to legitimate self-defence. One should, however, avoid as

86  The Bible and violence, and Christians much as possible the use of violence and especially the killing of one’s aggressor, which is the extreme form of violence. If violence is inevitable, as might happen per chance, it must be of ‘just proportion’. One may not use more violence than necessary to defend oneself efficiently.66 A related question is, what about a just revolution to overthrow tyrannicide? Pentecostals should partake in the politics of their day and when it becomes essential to overthrow an essentially unjust regime they should participate, but then always in a nonviolent manner. The principle of the kingdom of God is so radical and integral that it never ceases to appeal to Christians to continue towards a peace which is always larger and deeper, until everything is led to its perfection by God himself in his eschatological kingdom. Christians must realise the gospel radicalism in a world of sin, with the duty of avoiding and excluding war and violence as far as possible, but also of intervening in favour of rights, freedom and the well-being of those who are the victims of aggression or injustice. Their fundamental and deep-rooted repugnance against all forms of violence that result from their confession that God is their partner must inspire and stimulate their moral creativity so that they can continually discover possibilities to resolve conflicts without violence, or with the least amount of violence possible and to reverse situations of injustice without shedding blood or creating new forms of injustice in its stead (Burggraeve & De Tavernier 1993:45). The message of the nearness of the kingdom joins with the prophecy to Jesus’ mother that Jesus would create a more just world order (Luke 1:51–54). The kingdom of God becomes the symbol of an alternative to the violence and oppression of imperial (and Jewish) rule and would eventually transform the human condition on earth (Armstrong 2014:125). The kingdom was based on justice and equity and was open to everybody, especially those whom the present regime had failed (Luke 14:14, 21–23; Crossan 1994:74–82).67 ‘How blessed are you who are destitute (οἱ πτωχοί), because the kingdom of God is yours!’ (Luke 6:21). The poor were the only people who could be ‘blessed’, because anybody who benefited in any way from the systemic violence of imperial rule was implicated in their plight (Crossan 1994:68–70). ‘How terrible it will be for you who are rich, because you have had your comfort! How terrible it will be for you who are full now, because you will be hungry! How terrible it will be for you who are laughing now, because you will mourn and cry!’ (Luke 6:24–25; ISV). Jesus and his disciples lived like the most indigent peasants a rough, itinerant life. They had nowhere to sleep, and depended for their sustenance upon more affluent disciples, such as Lazarus and his sisters (Theissen 1974:8–14). The kingdom is to be found among those rejected by society, the people shifted to the periphery; Jesus associated himself with these people, the ‘others’. At the beginning of his ministry Jesus announced that the kingdom of God had already arrived (Mark 1:14–15: πεπλήρωται ὁ καιρὸς καὶ ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ). The active presence of God was evident in Jesus’ ministry of healing and deliverance. The significance of his miracles is presented as evidence of the presence of the ‘eschatological age’, which supported the claims for ‘Jesus’ messiahship’ (Bell 2007:97, 107). He perceived that people were harassed and dejected

The Bible and violence, and Christians  87 (ἐκλελυμένοι καὶ ἐρριμμένοι), like sheep without a shepherd (Matt 9:37). The Greek verbs have political connotations, of being beaten down by imperial predation (Carter 2005:93–94). These people suffered from hard labour, poor sanitation, overcrowding, indebtedness and anxiety (Brown 1983:357–377). Those who feared indebtedness must release other from debts; they had to love even their ‘enemies’, giving them practical and moral support. In the words of the Evangelist Luke, Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who insult you. If someone strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other one as well, and if someone takes your coat, don’t keep back your shirt, either. Keep on giving to everyone who asks you for something, and if anyone takes what is yours, do not insist on getting it back. Whatever you want people to do for you, do the same for them. (Luke 6:27–30) Many of Jesus’ parables seem to be clothed in violent descriptions of God’s judgment, emphasising divine retribution and the suffering of the damned with an apparent relish. The question is, what to make of these descriptions? What is important to note is that these descriptions are not characteristic of all the Gospels. Except for the reference in Luke 13:28 (‘In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’), all the passages about ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ are unique to Matthew (8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). The same is true of references about ‘the fire of hell’ (Matt 5:22), ‘eternal fire prepared for the devil’ (25:41) and ‘eternal punishment’ (25:46). The references and the idea of eternal punishment with an emphasis on violent suffering and vengeance are unique to Matthew. The other Gospels use different terms to describe the judgment and condemnation of sinners. Matthew frequently chooses violent imagery, of the unfaithful being ‘tortured’ (18:34), ‘tied hand and foot’ (22:13), ‘cut to pieces’ (24:51; cf. Luke 12:46), ‘thrown into darkness’ (8:12; 22:13; 25:30) and ‘thrown into the blazing furnace’ (13:42, 50). The conclusion is that it reflects Matthew’s own embellishments (Flood 2014:222), resulting in Matthew producing the most troubling parts of the New Testament, amidst all the other beautiful passages. The question that it poses to the modern reader is whether Matthew accurately captures the spirit of Jesus with these embellishments or whether he reflected the religious thought world that Jesus was trying to move away from, of which Matthew was captive to a certain extent. While Aichele and Pippin (1988:121) assume that Matthew was a first-hand witness and Mark was not, implying that Matthew’s Jesus probably presents a better copy of the original Man of Galilee, I do not agree. I believe Matthew’s choice of imagery and language is concerned with his own context and the fact that he writes for a Jewish audience recently traumatised by the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Their exposure to violence and desire for justice determined the perspective of the Jewish Christian readers of the Gospel. Or perhaps Matthew’s focus on violent apocalyptic language may have been a way of dealing with persecution that the early Jewish Christians suffered

88  The Bible and violence, and Christians at the hands of Roman authorities who accused them of ‘atheism’, with Matthew and his community taking comfort that while they were called to forgo retaliation, God himself would in the end avenge them.68 They would witness the final annihilation of their enemies. In this way, the hope of God’s future judgment might have enabled them to remain committed to nonviolence in the face of enduring violence and suffering. As Volf (1996:302) argues, the practice of nonviolence requires and necessitates a belief in divine vengeance. People should not be expected to endure passively in the face of abuse, but that does not mean that their only other options are either immediate violent retribution or deferred and transferred retribution. There should always remain the real possibility of restorative and healing action here and now, involving both victims and perpetrators (Flood 2014:227). Force and passivity do not work; what has been found to work is restorative justice, consisting of developing empathy and self-reflection which in turn changes people’s perception of the world around them, their awareness of themselves and others, and in turn their ability to navigate interpersonal conflict in socially appropriate ways rather than resorting to violence. It seems that Jesus’ way of reading (at least some of the books of) the Hebrew Bible scandalised the religious leaders of his day.69 They judged that he was subversive and blasphemous. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus states that no one should think that he has come to abolish the Law and the Prophets (the first two and most authoritative parts of the Tanakh); he has not come to abolish it but to fulfil it.70 It might seem as if Jesus means that he agrees with what is stated in these books. The next thing he says, however, shows that he blatantly contradicts some passages. In Matthew 5:21–22 he refers to the commandment that one should not murder. He uses the way of reference: ‘you have heard that it is said’, referring to the way his Jewish audience listened to the Tanakh being read to them in synagogues (most could not read themselves; Hauerwas 1993:28). But then Jesus adds, ‘but I say to you’. It is said, ‘you should not murder’, but I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother is a murderer and will be judged for that sin. According to Matthew 5:38–39, Jesus states, ‘You have heard it said that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (lex talionis) but I tell you not to resist an evil person’.71 And in Matthew 5:43–44 Jesus states, ‘You have heard it said that one should love your neighbour and hate your enemies,72 but I tell you to love your enemies and pray for them if they persecute you’. Jesus overturns the clear meaning of some of the laws found in the Tanakh. Why does he state that he has not come to overturn or abolish the law, and then continues to do just that? What does he mean when he states that he has come to fulfil the law? ‘Fulfil’ (πληρῶσαι) can mean both fulfilling in the sense of meeting all the requirements of the law, and fulfilment in the sense of perfecting or completing something. Louw & Nida (1996:I:404) translates πληρόω as ‘to give the true or complete meaning of something or to provide the real significance of it’. Matthew 5:17 then can be translated, ‘I did not come to destroy but to give true meaning to, or to explain the true meaning of. . . .’ Jesus is perfecting the law, lovingly bringing it to its actual intended purpose with his comments.

The Bible and violence, and Christians  89 What Jesus does is to directly oppose the prescribed way of violent retaliation toward enemies and opponents by proclaiming radical and unconditional forgiveness and enemy love. ‘The only way truly to “overcome” an enemy is to help him become other than an enemy’ (Merton 2012:775). The Mosaic regulation of lex talionis served to curb the escalation of retributive violence by limiting it to ‘one eye’ for ‘a lost eye’ instead of Cain’s threat of seven (Gen 4:15) and Lamech’s seventy-seven (Gen 4:24). While Moses limits violence, Jesus takes it to another level, telling his disciples not to retaliate at all. Instead of destroying enemies, they should love and forgive them. In this way, he overturns retributive justice embodied in Jewish law, and replaces it with restorative justice rooted in enemy love. Although the goal remains the same, Jesus changes the way of justice in a radical manner. And he does it in a way that attracts attention from his religious enemies: ‘You have heard what Moses teaches you . . . but I tell you. . . .’ In fulfilling the law, Jesus changes it. Fulfilling Scripture for Jesus means lovingly bringing it into its fully intended purpose (Flood 2014:34). What he expects of his disciples is to waive the right to retaliation in serviceable love (Weterman 1960:63). To become a disciple is not a matter of a new or changed self-understanding, but rather to become part of a different community with a separate set of practices (Hauerwas 1991:107). Jesus did not defend the biblical text as happens in many religious circles today; he was not interested in proving the validity of Moses’ regulations for his own day. He was defending people, specifically the victims of social and religious violence and abuse. This brought him at several instances in direct conflict with the religious authorities who interpreted his behaviour as breaking the Law (Torah). Jesus lived up to his reputation – he heals on a Sabbath (Luke 6:7–11), touches the unclean (Mark 5:25–43; Lev 15:19) and eats with sinners (Mark 2:15). His enemies called him a friend of sinners, implying that he should be associated with such people, a drunk and blasphemer. Some even linked him with the work of Beelzebul (Βεελζεβούλ; Matt 10:25; 12:24, 27; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15, 18, 19). John 8:1–11 relates how Jesus chooses to refuse to keep the law when he refuses to participate in the execution of a woman caught in adultery, and instead offers her forgiveness (John 8:11: ‘Go and sin no more’). The law of Moses does not allow any precedent for forgiving a major trespass such as adultery; the law clearly stated what procedure should be followed (Deut 22:22; Lev 20:10), but Jesus opts to ignore the law, forgives the sinner and restores her dignity. One can imagine how this would have shocked the authorities represented by the Temple and Jewish Council who were responsible for upholding Jewish law and culture. Matthew 23:1–36 contains a long argument with the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees who were the official interpreters of the law of Moses (sitting in the seat of Moses; 23:1). Jesus’ main concern is that they crush people with unbearable religious demands without lifting a finger to ease the burdens (23:4). He announces their judgment, ‘Woe unto you, teachers of the law.’ While they shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces (23:13) by their stringent interpretation of Moses’ law that disqualified nearly all people, Jesus restored hurting people. He refused to be held back by legal restrictions. In this way, Jesus

90  The Bible and violence, and Christians prioritised love over law (Loader 2001:138–146); this is crucial in understanding Jesus as well as the way he exegetes the biblical text. He confronted religion that abuses Scripture and people by interpreting the biblical text with the motive of compassion. The Gospels can be interpreted in terms of the conflict between Jesus and Jewish authorities; it is a major theme that determines Jesus’ ministry and death. And the conflict is based on two diametrically opposed ways of interpreting Scriptures. The Pharisees’ interpretation of Scriptures is based on their rigid observance of laws; Jesus prioritised people and their needs and interpreted Scriptures in terms of what love required. The Pharisees’ reading of Scripture was authoritarian, judgmental, self-righteous and fear-based; Jesus’ reading was loving and accepting of all people, especially those who were rejected by society. The Pharisees’ hermeneutic was determined by unquestioning obedience; Jesus’ hermeneutic was representative of faithful questioning (Flood 2014:40). Unquestioning obedience insisted on adherence to commands, regulations and rituals without considering the potential harm that it did to people; faithful questioning listened to the Bible and interpreted in terms of accepting all people and restoring their dignity. Pentecostal hermeneutic should reflect these values.

Paul and violence Paul discusses the relation of the believer to the law of Moses like Jesus also does. His critique of the law is not however about opposing ‘good works’ (or acts of compassion and mercy), as Luther interpreted Paul. Like Jesus, Paul defined the fulfilment of the law as embodied in compassion (Dunn 1990:240).73 The law as such was not for Paul a problem; he criticised the hurtful way of interpreting the law (and the rest of the Hebrew Bible) that prioritised rules and rituals at the cost of suffering human beings. Paul describes himself as one who was zealous for the law of Moses to such an extent that in terms of righteousness he obeyed the law without fault (Phil 3:6); however, at the same time he was the worst of sinners, a blasphemer, persecutor and violent man (1 Tim 1:13–14), one who does not deserve to be called an apostle because he persecuted the church (1 Cor 15:9). His violent behaviour was committed in the name of religion, as the product of his zeal for God’s honour. His sin was his failure to keep the law; on the contrary, he committed sins by carrying out and defending the law as he saw fit. His conversion was one away from fanaticism; he now rejects his violent behaviour because of his previous interpretation of the law of Moses. He was the worst of sinners because he participated in what he understood as religiously justified acts of violence, motivated by his religious zeal for the religion of his forefathers (Flood 2014:57). He had to convert away from religion characterised by zealous and violent hostility (Dunn 1998:353). Wright (1997:27) defines ‘zeal’ in terms of first-century Judaism as ‘being zealous for YHWH’, in terms of Phinehas, Elijah and the Maccabean heroes who in their zeal for the Torah were willing to use violence in order to overthrow foreign oppression, even at the cost of their own lives. The cause of the ‘zeal’

The Bible and violence, and Christians 91 is the unconditional commitment to maintain Israel’s distinctiveness, to prevent the purity of her covenant set-apartness to God from being adulterated or defiled by slaughtering those who threatened Israel’s distinctive covenant status, in the words of Dunn (1998:131–142). Paul acted in the service of this ‘zeal’ when he persecuted the young Christian church. In his own use of passages from the Hebrew Bible, Paul distinctively omits parts of the text that support violence. For instance, in Romans 15:8–10 he utilises Psalm 18:41–49 and Deuteronomy 32:43, but he removes all references to violence against the Gentiles. He recontextualises the passages to emphasise God’s mercy in Christ for all Gentiles that essentially contradicts what the passages originally stated. Salvation is the restoration of all people in Christ, including the ‘enemies’ of Psalm 18 (‘He is the God who avenges me, who puts the Gentiles under me’). Why does Paul intentionally use the very passages that speak of bloody vengeance and the slaughter of the Gentiles if he could have used other texts from the prophets that allowed for the entrance of Gentiles into the Jewish religion, like Isaiah 49:6? It is suggested that Paul deliberately subverts the passages, converting them from religiously inspired violence as he had been converted from to religiously inspired violence by Christ. Another example can be found in Romans 3:10–18 where in his discussion of human fallenness74 Paul’s list of sins concentrates on acts of hatred of violence, deceit and poisonous words, cursing and bitterness, killing, misery and the behaviour of people who are foreign to the way of peace. He uses Psalms 14:1–3; 5:9; 140:3; 10:7; Isaiah 59:7–8; and Psalm 36:1 consecutively. In his argument in Romans 1, Paul has depicted pagan cultic worship leading the reader to expect him to continue describing their punishment. But then Paul changes the direction of his address. ‘You have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things’ (2:1). While Luther read the letter of Romans from the perspective of people looking for ways to escape God’s wrath, Paul here indicates that his letter is rather written to a religious audience such as a congregation who longed for God to come in his wrath and punish sinners. Paul is addressing people who are in the same position as he previously was when he had appointed himself as an agent for God’s wrath against sinners. Paul then shows that in his forbearance God had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished until the time that he presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement (3:25). Paul is emphasising that all are sinners and in need of mercy. His audience’s need to see God’s judgment and punishment of sinners is what Paul is focusing on. They need to convert away from religious and retributive violence and to God’s restorative justice, and Paul demonstrates it by converting parts of the Hebrew Bible in the same manner. He changes the tenor of his quotations radically: ‘We know what the Bible says about Gentile outsiders, but what it says is actually directed to us, the insiders. We are not better than the Gentiles’.75 Paul reshapes the passages so that the cry for divine vengeance is changed into a confession of personal culpability, leading to the plea for mercy. He redeems the passages with his transformative hermeneutic to ‘fulfil’ them in terms of Christ Jesus

92  The Bible and violence, and Christians and the cross. In this way, he disarms these texts. More examples can be provided from Paul’s letters. While Jesus typically interpreted references to the Hebrew Bible by way of paradox or a clever turn of phrases to re-define terms and concepts, Paul frequently edited violent passages to focus on grace. For both, the scopus in reading the Hebrew Bible is the needs of and love for people. Flood writes, The Bible was never intended to be our master, placing a burden on our back; it was intended to act as a servant, leading us to love God, others, and ourselves. When we read it in a way that leads to the opposite of this, we get it wrong. (2014:74) When the law is read in a way that hinders people from entering the kingdom and finding life, the hurtful interpretations should be resisted. Love is the telos of Scripture. ‘Interpretation is not an objective science because, from beginning to end, it is an exercise in politics’ (Hauerwas 1993:21); strategies of interpretation are not those of an independent agent facing an independent autonomous text, but those of an interpretive community of which the reader is but a member. And such interpretive communities are made up of those who share interpretative strategies not only for the reading but for the writing of texts, for constituting their properties. These strategies exist prior to the act of reading and therefore determine the shape of what is read rather than the other way around, as is usually assumed (Fish 1980:14). It should also be kept in mind that the interpretive communities existed before the canon of the New Testament (and Hebrew Bible) was established. In reality, the interpretive communities created the texts that later was authorised to be read by the church. 2 Corinthians 10:1–6 and 11:21b–13:10 depict Paul as a somewhat of a brute. In his discussion of the passage, Roetzel (2009:97) argues that Paul resists rival, itinerant ‘apostles of Christ’, who demeaned Paul’s body, speech, gospel and fitness for ministry. Most disturbing to Paul was the desertion of his own converts and their scorn for him as their ‘father’. The brutality and menacing tone of Paul’s language of war was aimed at his converts (10:1–6). He intends to hurt, to silence speech and to eliminate opposition and his language allows for no compromise or negotiation. Even Paul himself seems momentarily repelled by its harshness and drew back (10:8), but he soon launches again into a next section stigmatising and demonising his antagonists as acolytes of Satan (11:13–15; 11:3, 4, 23). In 11:21b–12:10, however, Paul’s language takes a significant turn, as if Paul realises the futility of trying to frighten people into obedience (10:10) and the uselessness of demonising and stigmatising his adversary. He employs the fool’s persona in an attempt to persuade his readers about the authentication of his apostleship. Paul’s completion of the letter in which his appeals and reassurances of his love and devotion are linked to bitter sarcasm, shaming and apocalyptic threats, reveals the complexity of his rhetoric (12:11–13:10). It appears then that

The Bible and violence, and Christians  93 in this adoption of the fool’s persona, Paul does not just play the part. His discourse changes him as well.76 In previous centuries, Christians justified slavery by way of the Bible; in the twentieth century ‘Christian’ Afrikaners justified apartheid in the same way (cf. discussion about apartheid theology in the next chapter). Today we are confronted with the immorality of slavery and apartheid, leading one to wonder how these practices could have been sanctioned and unspeakable acts of cruelty and barbarity committed by people submitting to the authority of the Bible. It demonstrates how faithful Christians can be so enamoured by ‘right’ biblical interpretation that they disregard how their behaviour marginalises and devalues other human beings, hurting them in significant ways. The focus of law over love and scriptural fidelity at the expense of grace repeats the behaviour of the Pharisees that Jesus so adamantly opposed. In their desire to be ‘right’, they use the Bible wrongly. What matters is love; Christians’ acts, preaching and biblical interpretation are nothing and gain nothing without love (1 Cor 13:1–3). The heart of hermeneutic in reading the Bible should be that the Bible leads us to love God, others and ourselves. Next a few perspectives from some books in the New Testament are investigated. It is not done in a comprehensive way.

James and violence James’ letter was written, arguably, in the late 40s or early 50s ce. If James the brother of Jesus was the author, then he wrote in troubled times where from his perspective in Jerusalem, he was witnessing conflict and turmoil. Injustice and corruption were rampant from both Roman administrators as well as from wealthy Jews exploiting weaker ones and Jewish Christians were witnessing oppression and injustice. Some of them might have been tempted to respond with violence. Numerous social bandit movements were emerging, seeking revenge for injustice, or plunder for compensation (Reiher 2013:229–230). The letter teaches believers how to avoid using violence when confronted by injustice: they should be slow to anger (Jas 1:19–20), they should avoid adultery and murder (Jas 2:11) as well as bitter zeal and allegiances with extreme political factions (Jas 3:14–16). Wars and fighting due to desires and ambitions should be avoided (Jas 4:1–2) and above all, they should not swear but their ‘yes’ should be ‘yes’ (Jas 5:12) (Reiher 2013:234–244). The historical setting of the letter is Palestine in the 40s and 50s ce, a violent and dangerous community. Reiher (2013:244) suggests that the backdrop of the letter includes growing chaos, violence and unrest as the early banditry movements grew and impacted more and more people that eventually formed into the Zealot movement and a war with Rome that would eventually destroy Jerusalem in 70 ce. James encourages the way of peace, not violence. And he speaks angrily against wars and fighting that are the result of selfish desires and wrong motives. Christians should remain ‘peacemakers who sow in peace, raising a harvest of justice’.

94  The Bible and violence, and Christians

Peter and violence New Christians that joined the early Christian church had to cope with negative consequences because of their new alliance. The unjust suffering that they had to endure as (political) foreigners became ever more severe, since now one more dimension had been added to their ‘otherness’, the fact that they aligned themselves with an obscure foreign sect (Van Rensburg 2009:209). Now they stopped participating in the general lifestyle of the community, consisting of living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing and lawless idolatry (1 Pet 4:3), causing them unjustly to be maligned as evildoers (1 Pet 2:12; 3:16; 4:4) and resulting in ostracisation and discrimination. The ethics of 1 Peter 3:8–12 as the apostle’s advice to new Christians and their response to animosity and unjust persecution can be typified as an ethics of nonretaliation. It is formulated negatively: do not repay evil for evil or insult with insult (3:9a), keep your own tongue from evil (3:10b), keep your lips from deceitful speech (3:10c) and turn from evil (3:11a), as well as positively: repay with blessing (3:9b), do good (3:11b) and seek peace and pursue it (3:11c). The universal principle that can be deduced is: Children of God must not repay evil with evil or insult for insult but rather repay evil with blessing and do good, seeking peace. The basis is: because as children of God the Father (1:3), they are entitled to inherit, and their inheritance is a blessing, God’s final bestowal of eternal well-being (in Hebrew terms, shalom) on his people at the last day (Van Rensburg 2009:229). Ethos is the praxis of the ethics, the way a specific community brings its ethics into practice. In 1 Peter, Van Rensburg (2009:229) then sees the praxis of the ethics of nonretaliation in three exhortations: the code for the relationship of household servant or slave with their masters, of wives with their husbands and in response to threats. The ethos of the first readers of the letter was a specific life situation, where the believers as resident and visiting aliens had no political rights and were caught up in social structures of oppression (Hauerwas  & Willimon 1989:94). They are called to do good in response to animosity. The ethos of modernday society, where fundamental rights are accepted and respected, requires a different praxis of the ethics of 1 Peter, argues Van Rensburg (2009:230). But the fundamental ethics of doing good as the Christian response to animosity is universally and timelessly applicable, with the promise that the outcome of this ethic of nonretaliation is that one loves life and enjoys good days.

The book of Revelation and violence Harris (2013:149) suggests that Revelation’s images of violence77 should be understood in the Bible’s overall context as the culmination of an overarching narrative of God’s ultimate purposes, as revealed initially in Genesis 1 and 2, which describes perfect shalom, expressed in flourishing relationships between human beings and God, each other and the rest of creation.78 Humanity’s rejection of God’s provision (Gen 3) and the murder of Abel by his brother (Gen 4) ruptures the perfect shalom and hence the Bible’s ‘plot’ concerns what God is

The Bible and violence, and Christians 95 doing to restore creation and humanity’s intended purpose within it (McConville 2013:194). The New Testament presents this in terms of reconciliation through Christ (Col 1:20). Violence in Revelation is God’s final response to human sin and effects his ultimate purposes of restoration and eradication of evil. The canonical context as well as the historical context of the persecution of Christians should be used to understand Revelation’s violent images (as Gorman 2011:31 argues). Revelation provides some key themes that the Bible uses, consistently portraying God as good, holy, just and loving while his wrath and judgment are a response to sin and evil, but not essential characteristics of God. The image of God as the divine Warrior who fights for his people against evil and against his people when they reject him, must be understood in the context of violence and sin, and the final eradication of sin and evil is expected in eschatological terms (Harris 2013:156). What should be added is the suggestion by a growing number of scholars and theologians that Revelation’s use of apocalyptic should in fact be read nonviolently (cf. Hays 1996:196–185; Neville 2011; Neufeld 2011:122–135; Kraybill 2010).

The Church and violence79 The early Church set as its standard for living what Jesus taught them, to live kindly, supportively and generously, creating an alternative to the structural violence of imperial rule and the self-serving policies of the aristocracy. Rich and poor joined at the same time when they commemorated Jesus’ death in the Lord’s Supper, and shared the same food at the love feasts. People derived their faith in Jesus from the experience of living together in a close-knit, minority community that challenged the unequal distribution of wealth and power in stratified Roman society (Armstrong 2014:128). In the words of Acts, Now all the believers were one in heart and soul, and nobody called any of his possessions his own. Instead, they shared everything they owned. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was on them all. For none of them needed anything, because everyone who had land or houses would sell them and bring the money received for the things sold and lay it at the apostles’ feet. Then it was distributed to anyone who needed it. (Acts 4:32–35) Although First Clement (80–100 ce) uses military imagery to describe the desired unity of the Christian church, with Christ as the ‘emperor’ and church leaders the ‘governors’ of the church, it does not indicate that Clement was opposed to pacifism. The unified testimony from the earliest extant documents of the Christian church is positive toward avoidance of all forms of violence, including war. This is demonstrated in the nonretaliatory nature and essence of the Christian martyr: Now it is evident that no one can terrify or subdue us who have believed in Jesus all over the world. For it is plain that though beheaded, and crucified,

96  The Bible and violence, and Christians and thrown to wild beasts, and chains, and fire, and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession; but the more such things happen, the more do others in large numbers become faithful, and worshipers of God through the name of Jesus. (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 110)80 Christians even refused to attend the enormously popular contests of gladiators (Bakker 2009:287). Who does not reckon among the things of greatest interest the contests of gladiators and wild beasts, especially those which are given by you? Not we, deeming that to see a person put to death is much the same as killing him, have abjured such spectacles. (Athenagoras, c. 180 ce, A plea for the Christians, 35; Sider 2012:31–32)81 In the First Apology of Justin Martyr (100–167 ce), addressed to Emperor Antoninus Pius and written between 137 ce and 161 ce, the author states, We who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with people of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live according to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the Ruler of all. (14) Justin’s purpose was to correct the widespread slander of Christians and he denies emphatically that Christians are guilty of atheism, immorality and disloyalty (Matikiti 2014:3). He adds that those who proclaimed the gospel made disciples of people, ‘and we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie or deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ’ (39; Sider 2012:24–25). Tertullian was the most important Christian writer to write in Latin until Augustine. He lived from 160 to 225 ce in Carthage. He was born of heathen parents and became a Christian after years of education and practice as a jurist. He argues the case for Christianity with an evident disdain for pagan thought, ascribed to his Montanist ascetism, but his legal profession and exposure to the thoughts of the Roman Stoics shape his view of natural law as a basis for ethics apart from the perversion of sin (Holmes 1975a:39). Helgeland (1979:737) argues that early in his career Tertullian portrayed the Christian as an ideal citizen of the empire, enjoying its benefits and shouldering its responsibilities, including warfare,82 but even in his pre-Montanist days Tertullian emphasises that Christians are defined as those who have turned away from the use of the sword and now engage in peaceful practices (Sider 2012:42; Matikiti 2014:3–4).83 He refuses the emperor divine

The Bible and violence, and Christians 97 honours84 and exempts Christians both from military oaths and celebrations that violate this rule and from receiving the military crown with its idolatrous associations.85 Christians cannot carry the sword without violating the teachings of Jesus (Holmes 1975a:39). Christians define ‘peace’ as the peace of God that comes from the recognition that it is not their task to make history come out right and just. They rather believe that history has already come out right and just based on the profound confidence that God has shown them the way he would have his world governed (Hauerwas 1985:166). Love for the enemies is the principal command (On Patience, chap. 6); Christians cannot even serve in the lower military ranks, where there is no need to participate in pagan sacrifices, because Christ by disarming Peter unbelted every soldier (On Idolatry, chap. 19).86 Helgeland (1973:3) asserts that Tertullian’s problem with Christian military service was idolatry, not bloodshed, an argument that does not hold water when Tertullian emphasises that the Christian’s opposition to military service is based primarily on the prohibition to partake in violence and bloodshed. Marcion raised the problem of violence in the Old Testament, and offered the radical solution that the entire Old Testament should be rejected because it depicts God in violent terms, an image incompatible with Christ. He judged that these pronouncements were incompatible with what Christ revealed about God (Fretheim 2013:108). The early church rejected Marcion’s proposal in 144 ce, making Marcion one of the first people to be labelled a heretic in Christian history. At the time of the Marcion heresy, the church did not react by torturing and killing those who were deemed unorthodox. The early church did not practice violence at all, in contrast to the Constantinian church. It was rather the victim of violent persecution under Rome and the Jews. Only when the church became enmeshed with political power due to its cooperation with political powers did it persecute those who disagreed with its doctrines.87 Although the early church disagreed with Marcion’s proposed solution, they shared his concern with violence in the Old Testament. In his response to Marcion, the Alexandrian church father Origen, for instance, writes in what is in the opinion of Holmes (1975a:48) the greatest apologetic work of the early church, Homilies on Joshua: ‘Unless those physical wars (in the book of Joshua) bore the figures of spiritual wars, I do not think the books of Jewish history would ever have been handed down by the apostles . . . who came to teach peace’ (Homilies on Joshua 15.1), justifying his use of allegory. Origen rejected the literal reading of these Old Testament passages because of its inherent violence. Therefore, he insists that the reader must go beyond the ordinary usage that speech would indicate, to make sense of the accounts of war and genocide in moral terms with the aim to find the ‘meaning of the Spirit’ which lies profoundly buried beneath it (De Principiis 4.9, 14). If the allegorical method is not applied in reading these Scriptures, Origenes suggests that it contributes to a view that some Christians entertain about God (in reference to Marcion) that would not be entertained regarding the most unjust and cruel of men (De Principiis 4.8). This monstrous understanding of God is the result of Scriptures not being understood and interpreted according to its spiritual, but according to its literal meaning (De Principiis 4.9). Origenes agreed

98  The Bible and violence, and Christians with Marcion that the violent picture of God came from a literal reading that was incompatible with Christ and his teaching. Rather than rejecting the Old Testament in its entirety as Marcion suggested, Origen and the early church employed an allegorical reading of these texts. Contemporary preachers do the same when they use a text about Israelite wars in the Old Testament to preach a sermon about the spiritual battles (‘spiritual warfare’ is a popular theme among inter alia Pentecostals) that Christians fight in this world against temptation and sin. However, this way of dealing with the Old Testament holds the ethical implication that the violence inherent in the Hebrew Bible is minimised or ignored. We sanitise these texts rather than transform them. The church utilised allegorical reading as the primary way to read the Old Testament through the ages, up to the modern era. Today biblical scholars reject the allegorical method because it ignores the context of the passage and projects a meaning on to it that it did not originally have. However, it is not appreciated that the church used the allegorical method for ethical reasons, as a way of addressing the problem of violence in the Old Testament (Flood 2014:88). The church has lost with allegorisation also the means to deal with the ethical problem of the widespread justification of violence, without offering something in its place. Flood (2014:90) argues that due to the very definition of how modern exegesis functions, modern biblical scholarship has largely divorced itself from any ethical engagement with the biblical text whatsoever. The Greek ‘exegesis’ means ‘to lead out of’ and refers to the explanation or exposition of a text based on careful, objective analysis. The goal is to understand the original author’s intent, revealing like an archaeologist the ancient artefact buried in the cave. Exegesis is therefore not about evaluating whether a text is good or not; it simply wants to report accurately what the author’s intended meaning was. Once this is discovered, the interpretive task is to work out how it applies in the contemporary context. The exegete asks, ‘what does it say?’ and then, ‘how can we do that?’ This is called the grammatical-historical approach to reading the Bible and its emphasis on the original contexts and meanings is important in interpreting the Bible. However, the problem is that a mere objective reporting of what the text says in its original context can divorce texts from any ethical evaluation of its content, and this is morally irresponsible. In our appreciation for the Bible as the Word of God and as authoritative for our lives, we ignore that some texts contain material that is not fit for Christian consumption. Paul realised the problem when he quoted at times from the Hebrew Bible, and he solved the problem by taking the text out of its context in order to disarm it (as explained above). When Jesus and other authors in the New Testament interpreted Scriptures what they were ultimately doing was an ethical evaluation of the text, based on God revealed in Christ. If one follows in their footsteps, one cannot remove ethical considerations in reading the biblical text. The problem with historical-grammatical exegesis of biblical texts can be found in the attempt to remain ‘objective’, compelling one to limit the exegetical task to describing the meaning of the text in terms of its historical context, without ‘becoming involved’ with the text by way of any sort of ethical evaluation

The Bible and violence, and Christians 99 and application of the text. Exegesis, by definition, does not allow one to evaluate whether the content of a text is good or not, and instead focuses on what it says. Now we know how to read texts in their proper context, but we ignore (and resist) dealing with the ethical issues raised by some texts. In other words, modern exegetes are not equipped to read the Bible morally. One may question the historical accuracy or reliability of some of the biblical traditions (like the exodus tradition, implying that a whole nation moved through the Sinai desert to Canaan), but one shies away from questioning the validity of its moral norms and underlying ethical assumptions. What is then necessary is that the exegete needs to recover moral critique and an ethical appraisal of the biblical tradition. Ethical criticism should form part of the exegetical agenda (Davies 2005:220). Davies argues that the moral engagement with the text should be the single most important task of the biblical interpreter. The gulf between ethics and biblical scholarship should be bridged, employing tools such as reader-response criticism which emphasises the importance of a moral engagement with the text (Davies 2007; Seibert 2012 explain these tools in detail). Ethics may not be divorced from exegesis out of ‘respect for the text’ because how we interpret the text and apply it to our lives is first and foremost a moral question (Flood 2014:94). If we intend to allow the biblical injunctions to shape our lives and form how we see the world, we cannot simply approach the Bible from a distanced neutrality. We must engage on an ethical level if we want to read it responsibly, and indeed if we want to read it as the Word of God at all.88 The exegetical method should be understood as a tool to help us in the more important task of reading the Bible ethically as the Word of God. This entails that a Christ-centred ethical reading of the Bible should be integrated in the exegetical task. The starting point for that ethical engagement is the recognition that moral issues like infanticide, genocide, cannibalism, the ‘legitimate’ marginalisation of women and children (Van Eck 2007:481–513) and violence against women and children are categorically wrong under all circumstances. These moral conclusions are common sense and easy to make. The problem is that many exegetes have been taught to shut off their consciences when they read the Bible; the supposition is that we cannot make sound moral judgments on our own but that we should subject it to the Bible’s authoritative pronouncements about the issues. At a stage when the New Testament did not exist, John writes to the church in the context of the threat of the ‘antichrist, and the many antichrists who have appeared’, that Christian believers have an anointing from the Holy One (χρῖσμα ἔχετε ἀπὸ τοῦ ἁγίου) and they know all things (1 John 2:20). Because the anointing from God abides in them, they do not need anyone to teach them. Instead, because the anointing in them teaches them about everything (ὸ χρῖσμα ὃ ἐλάβετε ἀπ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν μένει, καὶ οὐ χρείαν ἔχετε ἵνα τις διδάσκῃ ὑμᾶς) and is true and not a lie, they should abide in God (1 John 2:27). This reference is important for Pentecostals because of their experience of the daily guidance of the Spirit in their lives in terms of insights growing in their minds about what they discern to be the will of God, but also in terms of the Spirit sanctifying their conscience to be able to discern what is the right thing to do in a particular situation. Spirit-filled

100  The Bible and violence, and Christians believers can make ethical decisions based on a sound moral system imprinted by the Spirit working in them. While many Protestants attest to the doctrine of the total depravity of humankind (based on texts like Jer 17:9; Prov 3:5; Isa 55:9), implying that they are incapable of making sound moral judgments on their own and requiring unquestioning obedience to apply Scriptural injunctions, Pentecostals may question moral atrocity that might be described and condoned in the Bible and even be ascribed to God. For them, it is not a matter that the Bible says it and that settles it; they may read the Bible with a quickened conscience, considering the text in ethical terms because of the hermeneutical angle that they use to read and interpret the Bible (cf. the fuller discussion in chapter 4).89 Jesus’ reading of the Hebrew Bible was also not characterised by unquestioning obedience but rather by a hermeneutic of faithful questioning in the name of compassion, as Flood (2014:94) explicates. Unquestioning obedience justifies violence and atrocity in God’s name because the Bible describes it; faithful questioning prioritises compassion over commands. The exegete must choose which way to follow in reading the Bible; 1 Corinthians 13 explains that love is the more excellent way, providing that love should be prioritised over law. The nature of the Bible does not call readers into a passive acquiescence to the biblical text but, on the contrary, to take part in the dispute and to engage with the text ethically.90 Rather than censoring and sanitising out the undesirable parts, we are called by the text itself to learn to make ethical evaluations. Rather than being dependent on an authoritarian text, the very disputatious nature of the Hebrew canon invites us to engage with the text in the debate as morally responsible adults. (Flood 2014:96) A challenging and revolutionary counter-reading is permitted, evoked and legitimated by the text, in Brueggemann’s (2005:101) terms. Adopting the way that Jesus and Paul read the Hebrew Bible is therefore about learning to think morally, for ourselves, to question and dispute with the aim to discern the will of God. When the Bible presents texts that challenge the ethical standards of Christians the correct hermeneutical question is not, ‘How does this text function?’, but rather, ‘How ought we to function in light of the text?’ (Cole 2017:265). What is needed is not just that the interpretation of readers should be shaped and transformed but that readers themselves should be shaped and transformed in the process of reading the text because the Spirit of God inspires the text by inspiring its readers. These texts are in no way instructional, explanative or encouraging, and it does not contain characters that should be viewed as role models. In order not to get trapped in a hermeneutical process that is constantly hinging on the capacity to explain away the limitations, tensions, complexities, dissonances, incoherencies, contradictions, obscurities and ethical difficulties presented by some Scripture passages, we cannot allow to get ourselves limited to a hermeneutic of orthodoxy and/or orthopraxy. The assumption that what people did according to the

The Bible and violence, and Christians 101 descriptions found in the Old Testament must have been right ‘because it is in the Bible’ is incorrect. They are not God’s way of telling us, ‘That is good’ but rather, ‘You need to know that that is how some people responded because things can go very wrong’ (Cole 2017:266 quoting Rowan Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury). Bergant (1992:52) argues that there are two ways that the teaching of the Bible can operate in the lives of believers. Its message can confirm them in their faith and assure them of the abiding providence of God, or it can provide them with a prophetic challenge that will confront their self-righteousness and remind them of their responsibilities. As they aspire to understand new biblical passages that are familiar to them, such as the violence texts in the Bible, they may find that the real question facing them today is less one of faithful reading of the ‘Word of God’ than of accurate reading of the ‘signs of our times’, he argues. These texts demonstrate that contemporary believers may be like their religious ancestors with violence just beneath the surface of their own apparent composure and just beyond the boundaries that they have established for their ordered society. But because their worldview is radically different from the ancient worldview, they cannot merely imitate the actions or appropriate the religious explanations of their ancestors (Bergant 1994:100). If the ancient traditions are to shape their religious consciousness, they must be critically examined and carefully reinterpreted within the circumstances of the modern world. Evaluating the moral claims of Scripture based on how it reflects Christlikeness can be complex, challenging and difficult; however, in most instances it does not take a great deal of moral insight. There is a clear incompatibility between Jesus and genocide, violence against women and children, warfare against enemies, and related issues of violence. Rather than attempting to justify or explain passages in the Hebrew Bible that describes Israel’s and God’s participation in these atrocities, we should rather own them as part of our religious history. At the same time, it is suggested that we should clearly acknowledge these passages as morally unacceptable to contemporary Christians. These texts should be rejected in an unambiguous way. We need to recognise that these passages are reflective of a primitive and morally inferior understanding of God that Judaism as such gradually grew out of and developed away from. When the multivalent character of the Hebrew Bible is recognised, it becomes possible to understand these developments within the thinking and writings of Israel. In conclusion, what do we do with these texts that glorify violence? Should we toss them out as Marcion proposed? It is proposed that in practice this is the way most Christians deal with these texts. It is the de facto strategy, that we simply ignore them and read over them, denying their terror in an unconscious manner. A large part of the contemporary church is de facto Marcionites because they simply avoid reading and interpreting the deeply troubling parts of Scripture, effectively creating their own canon within the canon of texts they focus on, and texts they prefer to ignore (Flood 2014:112). Instead of ignoring them, it is proposed that Christians should engage with the texts honestly, and consider the ethical problems they raise. While we evaluate

102  The Bible and violence, and Christians the ethical dimensions in the text it is also imperative that we investigate the way the assumptions of religious violence have found their way into our own values and assumptions.91 Religious violence is generated in the sense of a feeling of superiority which Christianity have in fact repeatedly shown and that proves to be one of the greatest obstacles to the human cohabitation of different groupings within the Christian religion but also with other religions.92 For instance, in some countries Christians, Buddhists and Muslims coexist with one another; any sense of superiority would threaten their cooperation (Schillebeeckx 1997:130). The sense of superiority is linked to the belief that ‘God is with us’ and that ‘we are the elect’. Schillebeeckx (1997:132) describes it as a false foundation to assert that a religion is the only true religion. He refers to the concept of religio and pietas that in Latin-Hellenistic law provides for heavy punishment whenever somebody deviates from giving honour to the Hellenistic-Roman pantheon. Although it allows room for many kinds of gods, the first Christians were persecuted because they revealed atheistic behaviour when they refused to bow the knee also before the Roman gods.93 In the Roman persecution of Christians, Jews readily provided help. It is necessary to understand the dynamics of inter-communal competition and, at times, outright antagonism that characterised the emergence, between the second century bce and the seventh century ce, of Judaism and Christianity in their various principal forms. Only then can the social horizons within which these discourses and practices of ‘sanctified violence’ crystallised be understood with the aim to comprehend the social, political, or ideological aims and effects of such discourses and practices and the relationship of discursive and ritual forms of ‘sanctified violence’ to community-formation and maintenance (Boustan, Jassen & Roetzel 2009:2). Schillebeeckx (1997:142) remarks provocatively that only pneumatology can prevent Christology from becoming violent. Only in the Christian confession of the Holy Spirit and his involvement in the daily life of the Christian church does Christology comes to its universal openness for all human beings without any discriminating undervaluing of all other religions. In the power of the gift of the Spirit, which is not bound to the church of Christ, but who keeps the memory of Christ alive in word and celebration in the church, men and women can forgive one another and encounter each other across boundaries of culture, language and religion. ‘The actual history of Christianity and its Christology has its deepest roots in our continual forgetfulness of pneumatology. In it the redemption of Jesus becomes a historical and universal offer without any discrimination or virtual violence’ (Schillebeeckx 1997:142). Without pneumatology, any Christology is false in a way that threatens human beings and is unorthodox. The Logos of the Pneuma blows where it will. In reading these texts supporting violence, it is necessary to ask how Christ and his way of compassion, grace and love for the enemies might point to better ethical alternatives to the ones found in the text (cf. Seibert 2012). A promising idea is to read these texts from the perspective of the victims; Jesus often did it. Read the Exodus story from the perspective of the Egyptians, the entry into the Promised land from the perspective of the conquered Canaanites or the story of Noah’s ark

The Bible and violence, and Christians  103 from the viewpoint of those outside the ark. And then, instead of simply writing off the Old Testament as primitive and useless, we can use those texts to view our own susceptibility to the seduction of violence, dehumanisation and demonisation in the name of ‘justice’. As Solzhenitsyn (2002:75) remarks in the context of his experiences in the Gulag Archipelago, If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? While violence committed in YHWH’s name is commonplace and a central theme in the Hebrew Bible, most of the New Testament can be characterised as a protest-narrative constituting a major critique of religiously justified violence. But is goes beyond mere critique and protest. It also articulates a radical alternative way, characterised by forgiveness and enemy love as the core narrative of the New Testament (Flood 2014:130). However, we cannot stop at the place the New Testament got to, but must recognise where it was heading. For instance, the New Testament takes major steps away from slavery (1 Cor 7:21; Eph 6:9; Gal 3:28; Philemon) but it does not directly condemn slavery or call for its abolishment. If the New Testament is for us a storehouse of eternal principles, representing frozen ethics valid for all times, then we would need to reinstitute slavery.94 By the way, this is the way slave-owners read the Bible for centuries, as though its treatment of the issue of slavery is valid for all times. What is needed is a trajectory reading, consisting of the recognition of the redemptive direction that Scripture is moving in, with the aim to differentiate this from the cultural assumptions of the time (Webb 2011:59). We need to recognise the redemptive spirit of the text leading us to continue to move with God’s Spirit along the trajectory this sets towards an ultimate ethical application. This implies that one realises that the New Testament does not represent an ultimate ethic, but is representative of the first steps in that new direction (in some issues, supported by the witness of the Hebrew Bible, or a part of the tradition of the multivalent Hebrew Bible). Contemporary Spirit-filled believers should recognise the trajectory that the passages are headed in, and then work to continue in cooperation with the Spirit to move in that same direction. To follow Jesus forward implies that slavery be seen for the dehumanising enterprise that it represents, and that Christians oppose it on moral grounds. The Spirit will also bear witness to this viewpoint. The same applies to the practice of homosexuality, gender violence and related issues. Romans 8:14 explains that all who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s children (ὅσοι γὰρ Πνεύματι Θεοῦ ἄγονται, οὗτοι εἰσιν υἱοὶ Θεοῦ), while in the context of the suffering that characterises their stay on earth, believers at times do not know how to pray as they should but the Spirit then intervenes for them (as the Paraclete that John’s Gospel presents; cf. Nel 2016b). And God who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for us according

104  The Bible and violence, and Christians to God’s will (ὅτι κατὰ Θεὸν ἐντυγχάνει ὑπὲρ ἁγίων; Rom 8:26–27). In this way, by praying in the Spirit, many Christians discern the will of God and understand the application of moral truths discussed in the biblical text, as revealed by the Spirit praying in them in tongues. The New Testament is not a final unchangeable eternal ethic, but rather the first steps away from a dominant religious and political narrative which understood violence and oppression, warfare and the ban as virtuous, plotting a course that leads away from justifying violence towards compassion and love for one’s enemies. These last principles are eternal, and they form the basis of the Christian Bible. What is needed is that believers grow and advance in these principles, fulfilling the promise in John 14:12, that the disciples of Jesus will do the works he did, and they will do even greater things than those the apostles saw.95 In reading the New Testament as a trajectory one is exposed to the risk that one may head in the wrong direction. If you read the New Testament as the last word of God’s revelation, one is ‘safe’ because you can justify your ethical decision by quoting a ‘relevant’ text. Many Pentecostals also operate with a fundamentalist hermeneutic where they rely on the Bible for ethical guidance, rather than on the Spirit who animates the Bible to explicate God’s Word for their (new) situation, a situation that biblical times in many instances knew nothing about. The risk of reading the Bible as a trajectory is overcome by the believer’s reliance on the Spirit living in them and who will not lead them astray. What is not ‘safe’ is to read the Bible as authoritative without applying one’s conscience and ethical standards to the text. Then one justifies slavery, apartheid, the subjection of women, warfare and violence in terms of biblical texts without considering the eternal principles of love and compassion, grace and faith in God. Tripp (2005:109) explains how the ‘safe reading’ of conservative Christians today leads them to, inter alia, support corporal punishment of children:96 I would have never spanked them (his children) had I not been persuaded by the Word of God that God called me to this task. It is not my personality. Margy (his wife) and I were exposed to some teaching from the book of Proverbs that convinced us that spanking a child had a valid place in parenting. The author relates how he went against his conscience, doing something he thought is wrong, because he thought that God demanded him to spank his children. ‘You have no choice. You are acting in obedience to God. It is your duty’ (Tripp 2005:32).97 In the process of spanking his children, this parent in presumed obedience to the Bible contributed to create a violent community in which children feel threatened by violence visited on them by the people they should have been able to trust.98 Reddie (2011:187) argues that constructs of faith and assumptions about human nature affect how we engage with and interpret the Bible. These in turn affect how we engage with children and what forms of behaviour toward children we deem to be acceptable, normative, or permissible. The implication is that Christian adults need to be enabled to adopt alternative constructs, which will lead to different

The Bible and violence, and Christians 105 frameworks for reading the Bible so that no Christian adult will ever justify any form of abuse (physical or spiritual) even if ‘it is writ large in Holy Scripture’. The implication of a fundamentalist reading of the Bible is that one should blindly obey the Bible, even if it implied that one should suppress one’s own thinking and conscience. The alternative that is proposed here is that one should thoughtfully work through ethical issues while listening to one’s conscience in the trust that the Spirit is working in us, to sanctify our thinking and conscience, enabling us to discern the heart of God in different ethical dilemmas. How do we discern and identify the direction Jesus (and the New Testament) is going? Do we allow the norms and zeitgeist of our day to determine what is acceptable? As there are multiple competing narratives within the Old Testament, there are multiple competing interpretations of the New Testament in contemporary times, many of them claiming to be the (only) correct one. Should one read the New Testament through the lens of Jesus (Christocentric), as some have suggested? (Smith 2011:93–126; Seibert 2012:183–207; Enns 2005:152–173). The question is, which interpretation of Jesus? Flood (2014:149) suggests that if we wish to read the Bible in the way Jesus did, by recognising the difference between unquestioning obedience and faithful questioning, this means that we need to evaluate everything based on its merit. In practice, this is not based on authority at all. If something is good, then the Spirit would explicate it in our spirit and conscience, and we should be able to demonstrate the goodness in practice. To have the mind of Christ, we who are in Christ are qualified to judge all things (1 Cor 2:15), keeping us from interpreting and applying Scriptures in hurtful ways. Christians are called to a mature, intelligent, responsible and empowered reading of Scripture that is rooted in life and our shared human experience together. When they need to make ethical decisions about situations that are novel to the biblical context the Spirit, Scripture and the testimony of the faith community will provide relevant guidance. The hermeneutical key for ethical decisions is then that interpretation should be evaluated on its merit, the fruit that it bears. If it results in love, then we know that we have reached the aim of Scripture. If it results in harm for anybody or uses people as a means rather than an end in themselves, then we know that we are getting it wrong. Retribution, violent punishment, subjugation and violence of warfare are rotten fruit and cannot be justified by quoting biblical texts. The true text for what we should embrace or reject in the Bible is therefore demonstrated in practice, borne out in the fruit of believers’ lives and relationships and the realisation of the fruit of the Spirit. The question to ask is, does the ethical injunction result in flourishing or harm, peace or devastation? Origen (185–254 ce) was one of the most prolific Christian authors of the early church. He was immersed from an early age in Greek culture and the Bible, being born to a devout Christian family. His Against Celsus, written near the end of his life, is relevant for his viewpoint on violence. Celsus was a well-informed pagan who wrote between 177 and 180 ce a sharp, detailed attack on Christianity. Celsus’ works are not available anymore; the only source is the many quotations provided in Origen’s critique. Celsus presumably argued that if all Romans

106  The Bible and violence, and Christians followed the Christian example of rejecting public office and military service, the Roman Empire would collapse. Celsus is clearly under the impression that the normal Christian practice is to reject military service. In response, Origen argues that God would protect the Roman Empire if everyone became a Christian and refused to kill others.99 Helgeland (1974:149) believes Origen did not oppose war, properly undertaken (see discussion below for further arguments of Helgeland). Origen did state that those who kill a tyrant do well (Contra Celsus 1.1); that in previous times it was necessary to go to war to defend one’s country (2.30); that the ‘former economy’ used violence (4.9); that the bees offer a model to fight wars justly if ever there arises a necessity for them (4.82) and that under an earlier constitution, the Jews would have been destroyed if they had not gone to war (7.26). But several circumstances make it highly doubtful that Origen thought Christians should ever partake in warfare in any form.100 Where he speaks positively about wars, he explicitly refers to non-Christians (2.30; 4.9; 7.26). In no place does he state that Christians should fight wars. He frequently refers to earlier times (calling it ‘constitution’ or ‘economy’) when wars were fought and then contrasts it to the present time when the followers of Jesus are peaceful and love their enemies (2.30; 4.9; 5.33; 7.26). What he does state explicitly about the lifestyle of Christians is that they love their enemies, do not take vengeance and do not go to war (2.30; 3.8; 5.33; 7.26; 8.35; 8.73). He also declares that if all Romans became Christians, they will not fight at all (8.70) because Christ forbade the killing of anyone (3.7). Origen opposes Christian participation in war because Christians do not take vengeance on their enemies, but seek to love them (2.30; 3.8; 8.35) and follow Christ’s clear teaching (5.33; 7.26). He refers to the temptation of idolatry only in 8.65. Helgeland’s (1974:150) remark that Origen’s objection to enlistment is religious, not ethical and that he was primarily opposed to Christians pledging loyalty to the emperor does not fit the data, as Sider (2012:68) shows conclusively. Until recently, a broad agreement existed among scholars and theologians that early Christians were negative about violence, including participation in war and military service. As related, the consensus admits a development in the early church: the earliest Christians who addressed the issue condemned warfare and military service on grounds that were essentially pacifist, out of their aversion to bloodshed. From the end of the second century ce, some Christians participated in the military and the number grew in the course of the third century and by the end of the fourth century a ‘just war’ ethic had developed, largely the result of the writings of Augustine and Ambrose, which provided justification for Christian accommodation to a changed political and social situation.101 From the pacifist side, the new Christian justification of war was interpreted as one of several symptoms of the ‘Constantinian fall’ that characterised the Christian church from its pristine, pacifist purity (so, inter alia, Bainton 1946; 1960; Hauerwas, especially 1991). Others interpreted it as a necessary and inevitable adaptation to life in the new world that was constituted by the emperor’s acceptance of the Christian gospel, leading eventually to the Christian church becoming the state church (e.g., Campenhausen 1968; cf. Hunter 1992:87). Scholars

The Bible and violence, and Christians 107 differed about the extent of Christian participation in the army during the late second and third centuries and how representative the pacifist authors like Tertullian and Origen really were as well as to what extent Christian resistance was toward the ‘Constantinian compromise’; nevertheless, the consensus among scholars was broadly based. Helgeland (1973; 1974; 1978; 1979) raised serious objections to this consensus and promoted the thesis that objections to military service in the ancient sources were the result of religious reasons and not ethical reasons. Those Christians who objected to military service did so out of aversion to the Roman army’s religion and not out of an antipathy to killing. Helgeland in collaboration with Robert J. Daly and J. Patout Burns argue that the pacifist domination among English-speaking scholarship on the subject is due to bias and presupposition, theology and confessional allegiance that affected the perception, interpretation and determination of the significance of data (Helgeland, Daly & Patout Burns 1985:11). They argue that membership in the Roman army implied entry into a religious structure that shaped the entire life of the soldier; the military oath (sacramentum), the cult of the standards and the calendar of frequent military festivals and sacrifices all combined to form a religious world which is a microcosm of Rome itself (Helgeland, Daly & Patout Burns 1985:54; Matikiti 2014:2). This assertion is proved true by reading the ancient sources like Tertullian; Roman army religion was foremost in at least some early Christian objections to military service, as Hunter (1992:88) demonstrates. However, Helgeland neglects other dimensions of the early Christian objection to military service, demonstrating how his own nonpacifist presuppositions and bias determine how he interprets the data. Tertullian emphasises the nonviolent character of the Christian community and their aversion to any form of bloodshed. His remark has already been discussed, that every soldier of later times was ungirded by Jesus when he disarmed Peter in Gethsemane. Tertullian also recalls Jesus’ warning that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword. Writers of the monastic tradition, like Sulpicius Severus and Paulinus of Nola, were hostile toward military service even long after the danger of idolatry had been removed, as Swift (1970; 1983:149–154) shows. Origen was the other great opponent of militarism in the early church. He absolutely rejected warfare and homicide in any form for Christians. Christian ethics calls for prayer and forbids killing; violence is never the Christian response to injustice (Hunter 1992:88).102 Augustine should be read against the background of the Manichean critique of Old Testament warfare, argues Markus (1983) in his nuanced treatment of Augustine’s view of the ‘just war’.103 Augustine lived during the barbarian invasions of the empire and served as bishop of Hippo and died in Carthage while the city was under siege by the Vandals. The city’s defender was Boniface, to whom Augustine wrote in 418 ce that war is not a matter of choice but a matter of necessity, forced on humankind by the twisted dilemmas of a sinful world (Holmes 1975a:61). He wrote The City of God in answer to those who blamed the sack of Rome by the Goths in 410 ce on Christianity’s bad influence and he develops the

108  The Bible and violence, and Christians first Christian philosophy of history. Augustine justified Christian participation in warfare because certain actions, which would be reprehensible if undertaken on individual initiative (like Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac), are justifiable if God commands them. A possible example of a ‘holy war’ would be the struggle of a ‘Christian’ army against a pagan one; he probably was thinking of the recent triumph of the emperor Theodosius over the usurper Eugenius (Hunter 1992:88). While Christians may engage in warfare to achieve earthly peace, they will feel the burden of war since it arises from human sinfulness and they will engage in it with sadness to right wrongs and to secure peace (May 2017:1345). Markus (1983:7) refers to Augustine’s deepening pessimism regarding the rationality of human actions and the collapse within his own mind of the rational myth of the state. Markus (1989) describes two shifts in Augustine’s thinking. At first, he sees war as part of well-ordered society’s means of conforming to God’s universal order and thus rightly sanctioned by law; ten years later, his thinking had shifted so that war is not justified by its relation to some external aeterna lex, but rather as a response to the Manichean rejection of the Old Testament. Augustine was honest enough to describe prophetic sanction in the Old Testament for warfare as well as religious coercion. The second shift occurred when Augustine after 400 ce became increasingly aware of the contradictions inherent in human society and grew markedly critical of the attempt to invest political society (and its wars) with religious significance. Now he could only affirm the ‘justice’ of warfare as one of the tragic necessities to which Christians must at times resort to check the savagery which is liable to break out between as well as within political societies. Although he did not repudiate warfare, he did challenge a more fundamental mood of Christian self-identification with a whole social structure, a system of institutions and functions, including that of war (Markus 1983:12). Markus (1983:11) concludes that Augustine should not be regarded as someone who checked the pacifist inclinations of early Christian thought, despite his clear acceptance of the morality of warfare. Augustine’s ideas of the ‘just war’ should be regarded as subtler and more nuanced than they are portrayed most of the time (Hunter 1992:89). Johnson (1975; 1981; 1984) represents a broader examination of the three major ways of thinking about peace and war: the just war tradition, (sectarian) pacifism and utopianism. He does not disguise his disagreement with the ‘pacifist’ interpretation of early Christianity by many modern scholars. His own argument is that the earliest Christian strictures against violence and bloodshed (including the sayings of Jesus) were issued in a strongly eschatological context (Hunter 1992:90). The earliest Christians expected an imminent end of the world, leading to a ‘sectarian’ relationship with the world; they wished to separate themselves from the world. When their apocalyptic hopes began to fade by the beginning of the second century ce, they had already begun to come to grips with life in the world, resulting in a synthesis that included a positive moral acceptance of participation in affairs of the state, including military service and war, which paralleled the condemnation of warfare expressed in literary sources (Johnston 1987:17). The conclusion is that the development of just war theories in the fourth century

The Bible and violence, and Christians 109 did not represent a ‘Constantinian fall’ of the church but rather a consolidation of elements in the earlier tradition (Hunter 1992:92). Johnson demonstrates something that is important in the study of the early church’s stance toward violence, that the early Christian tradition was pluralistic. He admits that Tertullian and Origen strongly opposed military service;104 however, at the same time many Christians served in the army. However, that is not true when the sources are consulted. Therefore, Johnson’s conclusion that Christians began to come to grips with the world, including the reality of military service, as early as 100 ce is based on a shaky foundation (Hunter 1992:90). Johnston (1987:41) explains helpfully why Christians joined the army during the third and fourth centuries by discussing the social-historical situation of Christians. Changes in the internal character of the Roman army and in society at large led to the rise of the professional soldier and a new ‘aristocracy of service’ that caused Christians to adopt military service as a path of upward mobility, representing a desire to live responsibly in the world and forming a bridge to the later Augustinian doctrine of the ‘just war’ (Hunter 1992:93). Hunter (1992:93) then refers to Swift (1973:370; 1983:18), who accepts the traditional consensus that views early Christians as primarily pacifist although it admits that there were exceptions. He admits that Tertullian and Origen developed strong pacifist arguments and that the reign of Constantine represented a turning point in Christian thinking about the legitimacy of war and violence. But he adds something that is important to correct the perspective on this period, that even before Constantine, based on ambiguous biblical legacy,105 there were two sides (Swift 1979; 1983:27). There were also nonpacifist positions in early Christian thought, although it was not expressed very clearly. This balanced perspective allows Swift to reject the development of ‘just war’ thinking in the fourth century as well as the Christian endorsement of the Roman empire as neither a compromise, as the traditional pacifist position interprets it, nor as a consolidation, as Johnson argues. Rather, the change that occurred with Augustine represents a major shift rather than a reversal in Christian thinking, a shift that was made possible partly by earlier ambiguities and disagreements concerning the use of coercion and made necessary by the altered political circumstances in which Christians now found themselves (Swift 1983:29). Harnack ([1905]1981:65) states that the church of the first three centuries rejected the military profession for several reasons: they rejected war and bloodshed in principle, they objected to the sacrifices, the military oath, emperor worship and the cult of military standards that were integral to military service and they abhorred the lax morality generally associated with military life. Harnack’s ([1905]1981:75–87) discussion of these reasons is based on his interpretation of the works of Tertullian, Origen and Lactantius.106 Harnack ([1905]1981:87) also realises that these instructions of the moralists were in no way followed in the third century with the Constantinian development. Now Christian soldiers could still regard themselves as faithful Christians (Harnack [1905]1981:88). Summarising the argument, pacifism was the normative moral stance of the early Christians and this position had its roots in the teachings of Jesus (Cadoux

110  The Bible and violence, and Christians 1982:244–245). Most vocal opponents of military service in the early church based their objections on a variety of factors, which included an abhorrence of Roman army religion as well as an aversion to shedding of blood. And at least from the end of the second century there is evidence of a divergence in Christian opinion and practice. A next point that forms the new consensus is that the efforts of Christians to justify participation in warfare for a ‘just’ cause (specifically of Augustine) stand in fundamental continuity with at least one strand of pre-Constantinian tradition, reflecting the diversity in early Christian thought. Lastly, scholarly work on this issue demonstrated that there is no such thing as an entirely neutral observer, and the presentation of the evidence involves interpretation whether we like it or not (Young 1989:491). Fretheim (2013:111) emphasises that God freely chooses to be self-limiting in his exercise of divine power to make room for the genuine freedom of creatures within the relationship with him.107 This forms a key element and factor in understanding human violence in the Bible. God’s will for the human world is nonviolence; because there is human violence, that must mean that God’s will for the world is being successfully resisted. Israel’s long story of resistance to God’s will has had deep effects on every aspect of life and the resultant violent reality complicates God’s working possibilities in the world. Although one might wish that God would force compliance and stop the violence, for the sake of a genuine relationship God has chosen not to micromanage our lives but to relate to the world in such a way that constraints and restraints in the use of divine power will come into play (Fretheim 2013:112). It is admitted that Christians may no longer threaten or take away the life and liberty of fellowmen because of the relationship to Jesus Christ which makes them disciples of Christ.108 At the same time, it is true that they cannot expect the social order at large to function without the use of force. What should the contribution of Christians then be to the study and definition of political policy? Yoder’s (1964:7) suggestion is sensible, that the Christian pacifist should serve the useful symbolic function of the gadfly who constantly keeps uneasy the consciences of responsible persons as they accept and manage the compromises necessary for effectiveness in daily political work, without holding their position as the only right one. Their symbolic prophetic ‘irrelevance’ is justified and meaningful. They cannot be expected to establish in our present age a kind of political or economic order that will do away with any kind of violent action. That would be impossible to realise. The post-Constantinian church later focused on enforcing orthodoxy, labelling all dissenting voices as heretical and persecuting, torturing and silencing these voices by force.109 The church became an agent of oppression, suppression, cruelty and violence enacted in supposed faithfulness to the biblical witness. People were ostracised and hurt by the champions of orthodoxy and the ‘right’ reading of the Bible, demonstrating the tendency to religious violence that Jesus and Paul defined.110 The contemporary church should learn from its history how power can tempt it to misuse its influence.

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Notes 1 As noted by Schwager (1978:58), no other human activity or experience is mentioned so frequently as the act of violence, neither the world of labour and economy, nor that of family and sexuality, nor that of the experience of nature and of human knowledge. 2 The context in which the Hebrew Bible originated should be kept in mind. For instance, the Epic of Gilgamesh, set in the middle of the third century ce when Sumer had been militarised, presents martial violence as the hallmark of civilisation (Armstrong 2014:23). Even organised theft as a part of warfare is not only noble but moral, undertaken not just for personal enrichment but for the benefit of ‘humanity’. For the warrior, the enemy is always monstrous, the antithesis of everything good. What drives Gilgamesh to battle is not simply greed but pride, an obsession with martial glory and the desire for a posthumous reputation for courage and daring (Armstrong 2014:24). ‘I will make a lasting name for myself, I will stamp my fame on men’s minds forever’, King Gilgamesh asserts. 3 The ‘New Atheists’ seized upon this observation and accuse the God found in the pages of the Bible as a moral monster. They caricatured religion as the only source of violence (Sacks 2015:15). In the words of Dawkins (2006:51), the God of the Hebrew Bible is arguable ‘the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, blood-thirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully’. In reaction to the aggressive tone of the atheistic parlour, theologians mostly react by downplaying or justifying divine-sanctioned violence in some way. However, this does not answer the objection that the Hebrew Bible in too many places depicts God as a violent actor, requiring violent acts from his children. Imbert’s (2013:52) argument is more reasonable, that the New Atheists’ use of the Old Testament needs to be challenged because their goal is to demonstrate that violence is inherent to the Christian faith. which is not true. 4 Zeldenrust (1988:13) is adamant that Israel knew no holy war, a viewpoint that is very difficult to defend when the account of Israel’s war narratives is studied. The difference between ‘holy war’ and ‘war’ lies in the perspective utilised by those who engage in it. Israel’s political and religious leaders led them to believe that they participated in a holy crusade that realised God’s will for his people. 5 Lilley (1993:169) is correct in his assertion that the term ‘holy war’ is not a biblical one, although his conclusion that it is therefore misleading is not true. Israel in accordance with other cultures did not distinguish between secular and sacred. Everything Israel did was supposed to be in terms of their covenant with their God, including their warfare, declaring it as a sacred activity. 6 The result is that our ‘objective’ accounts of ‘our’ history can conceal effectively the voice of ‘the other’ so that we can justify our own position at all times, writes Hauerwas (1991:137). It is upsetting that most Psalms in the Hebrew Bible refer to ‘enemies’ (Van Rooy 2009:41). Sigmund Mowinckel already in 1921 grapples with the problem of the identity of the Psalms’ enemies. The main question is whether the enemies are external enemies such as Gentiles and foreign rulers or internal enemies such as apostate and unfaithful Jews. Most scholars accept that both kinds of enemies are indicated in the Psalms. Mowinckel distinguished between laments of the community where the enemies were external enemies of the nation such as neighbouring states, and individual laments where the enemies were sorcerers. His reason for indicating the enemies as sorcerers is because in many of the Psalms the author or pray-er is ill. A common view distinguishes between the enemies on account of the different kind of Psalms. The enemies in the communal laments are generally regarded as foreigners while the situation is not clear with regard to individual laments. Perhaps different options should

112  The Bible and violence, and Christians be kept in mind when one considers the individual laments (Van Rooy 2009:42). Cf. Psalm 58, O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, o Lord! Let them vanish like water that runs away; like grass let them be trodden down and wither. Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the untimely birth that never sees the sun . . . The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. Catholic prayer traditions always were very close to the book of Psalms but when the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) generated a process of reform within the church, some thought it not appropriate for modern Christians to say prayers that sometimes resemble curses; so finally, it was decided that in the Liturgy of the Hours some verses had to be omitted, or put in parentheses (Silber 2013:116). Silber provides some helpful ways for understanding the ‘Enemy Psalms’: it should be remembered that Psalms are poetic texts and that the language is full of images and metaphors. In the so-called Enemy Psalms, we find predominantly images of fear in a reality characterised by violence. They represent prayers by human beings who are under real threat while the redeeming factor is that they are addressed to God (theocentricity). The Enemy Psalms are about being saved from the perils of death, an act which is expected of God. And here lies the heart of the matter, reflects Silber: It is not the enemies that are important, the emphasis is on God helping the one who prays to him. 7 Lind (1980:104–105) argues that at the heart of Israel’s holy war tradition is the belief that YHWH himself miraculously intervenes to fight for Israel. When God wanted the people themselves to fight, he summoned them by a prophetic word. Even then it was clear that victory was by divine act (Josh 24:12). YHWH expected of Israel to trust him and rely on him for a miracle for her defence, rather than upon soldiers and weapons, as the narrative of Gideon’s war against the Midianites explains (Judg 7). The human agent in YHWH’s work was primarily the prophet, not the soldier. The miraculous delivery at the exodus from Egypt served as the basic paradigm. Obedience to Yahweh’s word and trust in his miracles are alone decisive. Israel’s faith in Yahweh as warrior led her to reject the military expedience of developing sophisticated weaponry such as horses and chariots even to the time of David, weapons that would have made Israel competitive with her Philistine and Canaanite enemies. (Lind 1980:171) The last remark of Lind, that Israel did not develop sophisticated weaponry due to her trust in YHWH, cannot be historically corroborated. Israel later rejected YHWH’s kingship when they requested that the prophet assign a king for them and the kings eventually militarised Israelite society with standing armies, cavalry and chariots, at least in the perspective of some prophets. They denounced this trust in advanced military technology (e.g., in Ps 20:7; Hos 10:13). Again, this remark should be qualified; it represents the historian’s view of what happened in Israel’s history rather than the actual facts that got lost in history. Lind then concludes that the Old Testament theology of warfare is normative for Christians today, that they should trust in God rather than military solutions. McSorley (1979:61) connects to this way of thinking when he writes, ‘Imagine what an uproar there would be if a United States President announced that God had promised victory for the United States provided we did away with our nuclear weapons and fought only with horns, pitchers and torches’. 8 Hauerwas (2007:80) describes war in terms of a sacrificial system and McCormick (2012:6) then describes the parallels between Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac and war. The language of war is shot through with calls for sacrifice, testimonies praising the lives and blood sacrificed in the conduct of war, and pleas and pledges that these blood

The Bible and violence, and Christians  113 sacrifices will not have been made in vain, reminding of Abraham’s story. Another parallel between Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac and the sacrificial system of war is that in war fathers (and mothers) sacrifice their sons. Reading the story of Abraham’s sacrifice/binding of Isaac as an antiwar parable reminds us that in war one generation sacrifices its children and that fathers declare wars and send their (and other people’s) sons off to die in battle (McCormick 2012:7). McCormick then contends that perhaps the most unsettling parallel between Genesis 22 and the modern call to arms can be found in the similarity between Abraham’s seemingly unquestioning obedience to the command to sacrifice his son and the muted and compliant response of most modern Christians, citizens of liberal democracies, to their leaders’ declarations of war. Pullan (2013:352) writes about violence dominating primary religious traditions in Jerusalem’s holy places; the military content offers the holy places continuing legitimacy and endurance in a secularised world (cf. Martin’s 2017:14 important critique of secularism based on an observed decline in ‘conventional’ religion seen as motivated by social reasons as distinct from religion appropriated in the inner parts and the privatisation of religion that the author argues is difficult to interpret). The hermeneutic circle is completed by the role of sacrifice that emerges from both religious beliefs and military expectations and their exigencies. Sacrifice reinforces the collective, which is demanded of both religion and the military, and in the name of the nation, it is regarded as the justification for violence. 9 It should be remembered that Von Rad was a professor at the University of Jena from 1934–1945 in Nazi Germany when his exegesis led him to describe the role of the holy war in Israel (Levinson 2008:238). The Friedrich Schiller University of Jena – along with its prestigious Faculty of Theology – experienced an extraordinary transformation into a bastion of National Socialism (Hochburg der Nationalsozialismus; https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_von_Rad; accessed 10 October 2017). One sign of the close ties to National Socialism was the appointment of Karl Astel as rector of the university. Astel, a leading medical scientist specialising in eugenics and a ranking officer in Hitler’s SS, served as rector from 1939 until his suicide in April 1945. Jena is in the state of Thuringia, in the former East Germany. An extreme branch of the German Christian movement had gained control in the state of Thuringia in 1930, the German Christian Church Movement (KDC). They worked to install in the Faculty of Theology professors whose primary qualification was party membership or ideological conformity. 10 A distinction is necessary between what the Greeks referred to as polemos, war directed against the enemy or foe external to the body politic or polis, and embraced as the exclusive way for the male citizen warrior to die the sublime ‘beautiful death’ (kalos thanatos), and war as stasis (echoed in Plato’s Republic and Laws) or Bürgerkrieg, civil insurrection, revolt, revolution, or sedition. This war is terrifying not only because it erupts and disrupts from within the body politic but also because in stasis women kill and die. Stasis (whence English ‘static’ but also ‘standpoint’, etc.) originally indicated the locus or Standpunkt (or Ort) on which to take a stand to rebel or revolt: to kill and be killed. Stasis requires standing up from der Sitz der Freiheit. It remains terrifying to the bourgeoisie as it has been terrifying to all rulers since time immemorial. Trans- or omnihistorical instances of stasis began no later than the founding of the justly named demo-kratia (‘the violent power of the people’) in Athenian 403 bce, with the killing of the Thirty Tyrants. Since then, all political states are founded on acts of violence (Waite 2010:223). 11 The Song of Deborah (Judg 5:2–31) is by most accounts one of the oldest poems of the Bible. It celebrates an Israelite victory in war against Sisera. Both the war and the poem are probably to be dated to the twelfth century bce. The text of the poem is difficult and at some places corrupt (Good 1985:396). 12 Cf. the order to King Mesha on the famous Moabite Stone from Diban in Jordan that states that the king fought the enemy from the break of dawn until noon, taking the

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13

14

15

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city and slaying seven thousand men, boys, women, girls and maid-servants, ‘for I had devoted them for the destruction for Ashtar-Chemosh’ because Chemosh drove them out before the king (Scheffler 2000:86–89). It is upsetting that women and children are included in the execution of the herem. Herem means uncompromising consecration without the possibility of recall or redemption (Lilley 1993:174) and formed an integral part of Israel’s worship. It should be understood in terms of the concept of the land as a ‘sanctuary’ of YHWH, as the recreation of Eden that needs cleansing because YHWH lives in this land. This justifies the wiping out of all Canaanites (Beale 2013:10–11), an idea that is foreign to other notions found in the Hebrew Bible. Beale (2013:11) adds that the command of the herem represents a unique and unrepeatable commission, which in no way applies after the epoch of Israel’s theocracy. The conquest of Canaan was never meant to become a model for how all future generations were to behave towards their enemies (Wright 2008:90). Although this may be true the fact is that for at least several decades Israel as a war-mongering machine was executing the will of YHWH when they ‘cleansed’ the land of its lawful inhabitants. Gangloff (2004:18–20) describes the biblical and theological significance of herem as a sacrifice to YHWH, as a part of God’s justice and as an instrument for the propaganda of cultic purification. The herem prompts us to reflect on the function of sacred violence within modern secular societies that represents a reaction to a threat of social order. The threat is defined in terms of a scapegoat who is portrayed as the poisonous, sinful and contagious other who must be cut off to preserve the community of the author. Cf. also the Israel Stela that recalls the war victories of Pharaoh Merneptah who was not in military terms a great victor: ‘Great rejoicing has arisen in Egypt / jubilation has issued from the towns of Egypt / they recount the victories / which Merneptah wrought in Libya / how beloved he is, the victorious ruler / how exalted is the king among the gods / how fortunate he is, the master of command’ (Scheffler 2000:82–85). Houtepen (1988:93) defines jihad as a ‘missionary war’. The word literally means ‘struggle’ and is used in the Qur’an as a verb, urging Muslims ‘to struggle mightily in the way of God’. Most frequently the ‘struggle’ referred to is the war Muhammad was forced to wage against the non-Muslim Arabs of Arabia. Later, by extension, it came to mean ‘holy war’ and in that sense is discussed in the Sharia (Islamic law) in the century after Muhammad’s death (Armstrong 1988:xviii). Cf. Armstrong (2014:334–358) for a relevant discussion of the modern jihad. Silverman (2002:90–91) compares Western concepts of just war with the Islamic concepts of jihad and shahadat (martyrdom) and concludes that the West and Islam’s concepts are both, at their cores, analogous. Both sets of norms of acceptable violence regarding political behaviour incorporate concepts of proportionality, redress, moderation, exploration of other options and defence within their respective systems. Jihad and shahadat strike such a chord in the West because it reminds Westerners of a religious crusade and the concept makes Westerners uncomfortable because it is a clear indicator of what happens when religion and politics are tightly interwoven, a notion that the West rejected some two to three hundred years ago when it was persuaded by the many religious wars of the Crusades and between Christians of Catholic and Reformed conviction. It is also remarked in the West that Muslims who have any form of authority have rarely denounced terrorist acts that are claimed to be Islamic in nature by their perpetrators, in contrast to Irish Catholics or Jews who denounce acts of terrorism by so-called believers. In the Hebrew Bible, the Deuteronomists and the priestly authors (P) all meditated on the same stories, but the Deuteronomists turned virulently against foreign peoples while the priestly authors sought reconciliation (Armstrong 2014:359). The reason for the difference between the two traditions is to be found in their different contexts. The xenophobic theology of the Deuteronomists developed when the Kingdom of Judah faced political annihilation (Armstrong 2014:361).

The Bible and violence, and Christians 115 17 This directional short pamphlet represents an edited version of Collins’ presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature previously published as ‘The Zeal of Phineas: The Bible and the Legitimation of Violence’, 2003, Journal of Biblical Literature 122, 3–21. 18 I think this is a contentious statement that defends the biblical books in an unjustified manner. Perhaps Sharp (2012:152) is more justified in acknowledging that the book of Joshua remains difficult for contemporary readers committed to the promotion of peace and reconciliation, but it has value as a resource for the feminist or postcolonialminded interpreter. It contains insistent rhetoric of genocide concerning the ‘other’ and the justification of ‘us’, but the book of Joshua also acknowledges the subjectivity of those whom it is ostensibly concerned to exterminate. For instance, Rahab the prostitute has lived in Israel ever since her initial submission to the Israelite army, and the trickster Gibeonites, too, are present in Israel ‘to this day’. These outsiders resist their own obliteration and have been inscribed, however marginally, into the sacred metanarrative of Israelite identity, argues Sharp. Joshua may not exactly honour the subjectivity of all peoples but his depiction of the horrific fate of insider Achan does reveal the possibility of shifting statuses within the covenant community, subtly urging the believing subject to construct their identity on the foundation of obedience to God (Sharp 2012:148). 19 Although the concept of divine violence and divine judgment as well as God’s presumed involvement in holy wars is problematic for many today, it does not appear to have been the case for the original biblical audiences. Neufeld (2011:32) perceptively remarks that it is interesting, whereas today it is the violence of judgment and the imagery of a forcefully intervening God that causes offence, in the Bible itself it is at least as often the patience and forbearance of God in view of injustice and violence that puzzles and enrages victims. 20 Cf. Kraft (1994) for an example of the complicatedness of doing ethics in terms of an ancient document such as the Hebrew Bible and a suggestion of what factors to keep in mind. He (1994:165–166) distinguishes between transcultural ethical standards and culture-specific ethical standards and then (1994:171–173) proposes that the Golden Rule should be regarded as a transculturally ethical principle of intervention, that it should be characterised by a primary concern for persons, that any intervention in another society should give careful attention to helping people to maintain their ‘ethnic cohesion’, that any decisions relating to the future of the receiving people be made with their permission and involve their participation both in the decision themselves and in their implementation and that the use of power should be avoided, even if the end seems justified. Hauerwas (2001b) points out that the gap between theology and ethics is recent in origin. In the period from the early church fathers to Luther, questions about how to live could not be and was not separated from convictions about God’s work in Jesus. If our ‘ethics’ are relative to time and place, what if anything prevents our moral opinions from being ‘conventional’? And if they are conventional, some assume they must also be ‘arbitrary’. But if our morality is conventional, how can we ever expect to secure agreements between people who disagree? (Hauerwas 2001b:44) 21 Marcion emphasised that the idea of love for the enemy is absent in the Hebrew Bible, a perception strengthened by Jesus’ remark in Matt 5:43–44, ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy”. But I  say to you, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” ’ (NRSV). Jesus’ reference is to Lev 19:18, ‘You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord’. The Leviticus text does not contain the injunction to hate the enemy although it confines love to ‘the sons of your own people’. If neighbourly love is therefore extended to include people

116  The Bible and violence, and Christians of other nations, the enemy should be loved, even at that level (Scheffler 2009:13). Van Zyl (1979:73–74) distinguishes between two traditions in the Hebrew Bible, Exodus and Deuteronomy. In the Exodus tradition, Exodus 20:1–17 teaches believers about their lifestyle while Exodus 21–23 explains its implications for relationships with others. In this context, Exodus 23:4–5 should be read, within the context of the covenant between YHWH and his people. When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back. When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free. (NRSV) ‘The enemy’ and ‘the one who hates you’ are covered by the same semantic fields. These are the persons whose property is to be defended and in the same terms as for the persons who are kind toward you. If someone leaves a pit open, or digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, the owner of the pit shall make restitution, giving money to its owner, but keeping the dead animal. If someone’s ox hurts the ox of another, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide the price of it; and the dead animal they shall also divide. But if it was known that the ox was accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has not restrained it, the owner shall restore ox for ox, but keep the dead animal. (Ex 21:33–36) A positive attitude toward the enemy is supposed, argues Van Zyl (1979:75), as demonstrated by Proverbs 24:17. In contrast to this tradition, Deuteronomy 22:1–4 contains the same injunctions as found in Ex 23:3–4 except that ‘your enemy’ and ‘the one who hates you’ are changed each time to ‘your brother’, implying a member of the same nation. Van Zyl (1979:76) finds the reason for the change in the Deuteronomistic experience of the ‘holy war’ in that holy war defined and legitimated Israel’s existence in Canaan, the ‘Promised land’, an argument that does not hold water in terms of the functions of the different books of the Hebrew canon. 22 Cf. Girard’s book, Job, the Victim of His People, where he applies his theory regarding violence to a biblical character. Williams (1992) is a disciple of Girard who attempts a thorough reading of the entire Bible from the perspective of mimetic rivalry and the resulting conflict. Society originates in imitative rivalry and endeavours to control the conflict through scapegoating victimisation, argues Girard (1985:12) and Williams. Prohibition, myth, and ritual conceal and delimit social violence, but the decisive escape from the dynamic of violence is foreshadowed by the prophets and ultimately accomplished in Jesus, who shows that God opposes the differentiation of victimisation by submitting innocently to the scapegoat mechanism. 23 Consider, e.g., Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3 which anticipate the time when all the nations shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and nation shall not lift sword against nation, and neither shall they learn war anymore. Isaiah 11:6–9 also predicts the peaceable kingdom (Crook 1999:243). 24 Sider and Taylor (1996:511) quotes Loraine Boettner (1940) who insists that the Old Testament’s endorsement of warfare is still normative for Christians. The Bible teaches one consistent doctrine, argues Boettner; God commands war for righteous ends. The Canaanites’ horrible sexual practices and human sacrifices justified their slaughter by Israel. The New Testament, Boettner argues, is silent on warfare because the Old Testament had already revealed God’s final word about war. This view assumes, contrary to the overwhelming evidence, that Jesus and the apostles said nothing about the problem of violence. And it also assumes, mistakenly, that the Old Testament teaching on war supports the traditional war tradition of the church.

The Bible and violence, and Christians 117 25 It is probable that such a large-scale genocide did not actually happen. The entrance into Canaan happened in stages and by different tribes of the same origin, leading in time to a federation of tribes and the eventual establishment of a kingdom. Extensive archaeological findings in the latter half of the twentieth century have convinced most scholars that the genocide accounts recorded in the book of Joshua are largely fictional (Flood 2014:108). For instance, Jericho was destroyed more than a century before Joshua ever got there and it was completely uninhabited from 1550 to 1100 bce. However, what is at stake is not what happened historically but what was written in Israel’s sacred scriptures and the effect it exercised on the people of God, and even to our day. 26 Richard Dawkins (2006:280) represents the New Atheist viewpoint. He compares the Bible’s story of the destruction of Jericho and the invasion of the Promised land with Hitler’s invasion of Poland and concludes that these two events are morally indistinguishable. Charles Templeton (2007:71) writes in the same vein, that the justice of the God of the Old Testament is, by modern standards, outrageous. The Bible describes him as biased, querulous, vindictive and jealous of his prerogatives. Other vocal New Atheists are Peter Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris who, along with Richard Dawkins, refer to themselves as the ‘Four Horsemen’ of the Apocalypse (Imbert 2013:50). 27 Cox (2015:67) warns readers of the Bible not to be looking for ethical models or moral norms in the historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible. From the perspective of the book of Joshua it is a conquest of attrition and slaughter. Cf., e.g., ‘Joshua who captured Makkedah . . . utterly destroying it along with every person in it, leaving no survivors’ (Josh 10:28). ‘The LORD gave both it and its king into the control of Israel, and Joshua executed both its king and every person in it with swords, leaving no survivors’ (Josh 10:30). ‘Joshua captured it the next day. He declared war on the city and executed everyone in it’ (Josh 10:32). ‘Then Joshua completely destroyed it that day, the same way he had dealt with Lachish’ (Josh 10:35). ‘Captured it, and executed its inhabitants – its king, all of its cities, and every person in it, leaving no one remaining, the same way he had dealt with Eglon. He completely destroyed it, along with everyone in it’ (Josh 10:37). ‘Captured it, its king, and all of its villages. They executed them, totally destroying it and everyone in it, leaving no one remaining’ (Josh 10:39. ‘He left none of them remaining, but completely destroyed every living person, just as the LORD God of Israel had commanded’ (Josh 10:40). 28 The narrative of the exodus and conquest of Canaan is a national epic that helped Israel to create a cultural identity distinct from her neighbours. A stele dating from c. 1200 bce mentions ‘Israel’ as one of the rebellious people defeated by Pharaoh Merneptah’s army in the Canaanite highlands, where a network of simple villages stretched from lower Galilee in the north to Beersheba in the south. As argued, the archaeological record does not confirm Israel’s national epic; however, for the Israelite historians, poets, prophets, priests and lawyers it became the organising narrative around which they constructed their worldview (Armstrong 2014:93). Goldingay (1976:94) traces the ‘trajectory’ of the idea of the exodus as it passes through Old and New Testaments before he arrives at the most significant point on that trajectory’s path, at the exile and at the message of Isaiah 40–55. In Old Testament theology, Goldingay argues, the exodus had been given excessive prominence as the key event of Israel’s experience, whereas that experience moves between these two poles of exodus and exile, redemption and punishment, success and failure, victory and defeat. Isaiah 40–55, addressed to a people demoralised by this situation, pictures YHWH as the warrior and almost amounts to a midrash on Exodus, so systematically does it take up its themes. It speaks to an oppressed people and promises them liberation from bondage and restoration to the land of promise, a new exodus achieved by the violent action of Yahweh, the God who fights on his people Israel’s behalf. The other side is represented by Norman Gottwald (1979) who argues that the ‘Israelites’ never invaded or conquered Canaan.

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The ‘Israelites’ actually were also Canaanites who had been living there all along in dispersed extended family units that eventually formed a coalition that overthrew the ruling elites of the cities. The book of Joshua was written down, in Gottwald’s view, during the reign of the reforming king Josiah, who was threatened by the Assyrian powers and was trying to centralise worship in Jerusalem for political reasons. Armstrong (2014:98) suggest that the ban was the product of the military commander who, before a battle, would strike a deal with his god: if this deity undertook to give him the city, the commander promised to ‘devote’ (ḥrm) all valuable loot to his temple and offer the conquered people to him as a human sacrifice. Brannan et al. (2012:Ex 15:3) translates the Septuagint translation of the text in his translation for a new era as ‘The Lord is one who annihilates wars, the Lord is his name’. Tirimanna (2007:6) reminds that there are some scholars who insist that the three main monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have been mainly responsible for most of the violence in our human history. E.g., Schwartz (1997) argues forcefully for the case that there is an interrelationship between monotheism and violence. She demonstrates how identities bestowed through covenant and exclusivity in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures have led to violence in history. Shadle (2011:86) writes in this regard, ‘War is best understood as originating in a clash of the identities, interests, and norms of states (and certain nonstate actors), all of which are socially constructed by both domestic and international factors’. Accordingly, there is an inherent tendency to violence in monotheistic religions in her view. The notion that monotheism and violence should be identified enjoys much support. Cf., e.g., Stanislas Breton who argues, ‘the name of God is a veritable bomb’ because of ‘the rapport that unites violence and monotheism’ (in Waite 2010:211). To support his argument, Breton states that when God orders the believer to kill (not excluding their son, daughter, father, mother, or sibling), they will have no choice but to obey, though God changes his mind about Isaac, allows his own Son to be killed, and appears to sanction some or all wars. Tirimanna (2007:17) concludes that there are no direct, linear causes for violence; rather the causes of violence are circular and complex. Religion, by itself, is not a cause for violence though it can be a factor of violence that plays an important, unique catalytic role in inflaming violence, once the optimum conditions and right combination of other causes and factors are in place. In this sense, we may say that religion can reinforce violence that is basically caused by other socio-political-economic factors. In other words, one cannot establish convincingly that religions themselves (isolated from other socio-economic-political factors) were directly, invariably and exclusively responsible for violence, even though there have been many wars and events of violence in history that were carried out in the name of religions. Polytheism can be and had been used to legitimate violence just as easily as monotheism (Collins 2004:2). Holmes (1975b:6) in his introduction to ethical texts about warfare through the ages states that what the Bible says about war can be summarised in two statements: the ideal we should strive for in national and international affairs is peace with justice, while war remains a tragic fact of human history. However, by limiting the biblical witness to these two liberal statements the author states his own viewpoint and sentiment; the many other voices in the Bible do not support such a restriction of its witness. Holmes (1975b:7) also asserts continuity and agreement between Old and New Testament moral teachings that ‘are likely to admit the tragic necessity and moral legitimacy of certain wars’. Again, there are different voices within both the Old and New Testament and these voices do not agree on the issue of war and violence. When these voices are equated to each other an important part of the biblical witness is made silent in favour of the author’s own sentiment. Webb argues from the biblical perspectives on corporal punishment, another good example to illustrate the untenability of reading the Bible in a biblicist-literalist manner

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and that requires the modern hermeneut to reapply it to a changed cultural setting. He distinguishes between three areas of meaning within Scripture, a redemptive-movement meaning, abstracted meaning and purpose meaning. Words of Scripture need to be read within its ancient context to hear its ‘redemptive’ spirit. Disciples of Christ are not called to obey the actual words in all their rugged, earthly specificity but to live out its abstracted meaning in better ways today. True biblical authority does not mean replicating the concrete-specific instructions of the Bible, but holding fast to the redemptive spirit within the biblical text and finding contemporary expressions that truly carry its original-setting ethical development to a yet greater level of fulfilment (Webb 2011:2023). Such a hermeneutic suggests that we must dare to read our Bibles differently to wrestle with its contemporary application in a way that captures the underlying redemptive heartbeat, and in so doing we courageously journey toward an ultimate ethical application of Scripture, argues Webb. Jeremiah 19:9; Lamentations 20:2; Ezekiel 5:10; and Isaiah 49:25–26 contain similar language and images. Vestdijk (1952:12) remarks after considering the evidence that Israel was what he calls ‘the most intolerant people’ and that their intolerance to other peoples was an essential part of their belief in the one God that Christians have in many cases inherited this intolerance. Fact is that religion lends itself to intolerance, as Punt (2009:150) explains. Belief in one’s own absolute religious truth leads to intolerance and dissonance which calls forth violent means to destroy religious dissent of ‘the others’. Gutiérrez (1990:135) writes that because sin is the breaking of friendship with God and others, it is the ultimate root of all injustice and all division among human beings. In this sense, theology does not provide an alternative to other explanations of war’s origins. Rather, it shows that in whatever ways human violence is shaped by economic, political and cultural factors, in and through those factors it is also shaped by humankind’s relationship with God (Shadle 2013:302). This leads Reid and Longman (1996:17) to state, we wince at the R-rated scenes of violence cast upon our mental screens. Was this annihilation truly God’s will? Perhaps Israel misheard God. If God required this of Israel, how can followers of the Prince of Peace condone these stories and teach them to our children? What comfort and moral direction can we find in a God of warfare?

Rinderer (1994:6) also writes that movie scripts based on much of the Old Testament would have to be rated ‘R’ for their violent content. 38 The Babylonians who conquered Jerusalem in the sixth century bce followed another policy than the Assyrians who conquered Samaria in the seventh century bce. Inscriptions of Shalmaneser I (1274–1245) explain his martial prowess. He was a valiant hero, capable of battle with his enemies, whose aggressive battle flashes like a flame and whose weapons attack like a merciless death trap. It was he who began the Assyrian practice of forcibly moving people around his empire not simply, as was once thought, to demoralise the conquered people but principally to stimulate the agricultural economy by replenishing underpopulated regions. His son, Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208), made Assyria the most formidable military and economic power of the day. Tiglath-Pileser I (1115–1093) continued to expand the empire, maintaining his domination of the region by continuous campaigning and large-scale deportations, so that his reign was in effect one continuous war. The policy in the end meant the end of the existence of the Northern kingdom or Israel. Warfare had now become a fact of human life, central to the political, social and economic dynamics of the agrarian empire (Armstrong 2014:37). 39 Contemporary commentaries carry on the practice of reading violent texts in terms of their context without discussing its consequences in the current situation. For instance,

120  The Bible and violence, and Christians Grogan (2008:258) states that Psalm 137’s declaration that it is blessed to smash the heads of toddlers against rocks should be seen by the modern reader in more abstract terms. Then they would be less troubled by the statement that it would be a good day when the Babylonian empire came to its divinely predicted end. The implication is that it is less disturbing when the victims of atrocities and violence are seen in impersonal and abstract terms (Flood 2014:21). 40 The academic discussion of passages in the Hebrew Bible concerned with how one should respond to societal problems with a violent book such as the Bible in one’s hand consists of different perspectives. Weyde (2013:235–252) presents an overview of the general discussion as far as the notion of ‘holy war’ or ‘YHWH war’ in the Hebrew Bible is concerned. There are two trends: in comparison to extra-biblical literature, the Hebrew Bible appears to underline the supremacy of divine law in war while also exhibiting a concern for the ones in special need of protection from violence; and ethical problems connected to ‘holy war’ as perceived from a postmodern perspective that is informed by an uneasiness with war attract more attention, specifically in terms of the question whether and how the biblical passages on ‘holy’ war can be used as a basis for promoting peace among the nations and for implementing human rights. Assmann (2003) claims that there is a connection between monotheism and violence and we cannot change that. But we have the power to influence the Old Testament’s Wirkungsgeschichte by placing the ‘violent’ texts in their historical context, and in this way, limit their validity. This viewpoint is opposed by Zenger (2006:35–37) who states that self-reflexive monotheism as found in the Bible has already brought with it an increase of voices critical of violence. Otto (2006:229–266) underlines that the neurotic compulsion to warfare, stimulated by mythological underpinnings of the legitimation of kingship that is characteristic of the empires surrounding Israel is overcome in the Hebrew Bible. Nielsen (2013:207–215) responds by contextualising the violent passages in the Hebrew Bible and in ‘over-reading’ them by the nonviolent ones to make visible the inner biblical dialogue about issues of violence and to participate in it in a respectful way. A similar approach but more problematic is found in Seibert (2009; 2012) who declares violence in all forms, be it human or divine or divinely sanctioned, is always wrong and when the Bible condones violence it has to be critiqued. It may never be used to sanction violence. The Bible is to blame for its misuse by the church, though not God, who is exclusively characterised by ‘grace and goodness’ (Nielsen 2013:214). All texts must be read nonviolently in ways that expose and critique violent ideologies embedded in the Hebrew Bible. Scheffler (2009:1–17) distinguishes between different voices, those that represent ‘romanticising views of war’ and those critical of violence, especially in the prophets. The Hebrew Bible, he states, has a basic nonviolent stance; to use the Bible to justify war is ‘misuse’ of it (2009:13). War should always be opposed by the church; there is no justified war in the world. Ethicists should reflect on war and violence in view of its eradication and not its justification. In the last two instances, biblical texts are not studied on its own terms and brought into dialogue with the challenges of today; rather, sweeping ethical statements dictate the agenda and are used to force the material into pre-established categories, as Zehnder and Hagelia (2013:5) shows. Collins (2004) also generalises and ahistoricises biblical texts when he critiques all forms of religiously motivated violence, based on the sharp antithesis with the Other and the absoluteness of categories guaranteed by divine revelation that serves as the pre-stage of such violence. Müller (2003:21) states the opposite, that it is necessary to estimate the politico-cultural need for a space of a delimitable identity to prevent wars. Dietrich (2006) points to the ambivalence of violence both in the Hebrew Bible and in the extra-biblical ancient world, and abstains from such quick and sweeping pigeonholing as found with Seibert, Collins and others. 41 Armstrong (2014:4) indicates the relation between religion and war that is linked to perennial philosophy that was present in most pre-modern cultures. Every person,

The Bible and violence, and Christians 121 object or experience was a replica, a pale shadow, of a reality that was stronger and more enduring than anything in their ordinary experience but which they only glimpsed in visionary moments or in dreams. By ritually imitating what they understood to be gestures and actions of their celestial alter egos, pre-modern folk felt themselves to be caught up in their larger dimension of existence. Our contemporary cult of celebrity can be understood as the expression of our reverence for and yearning to emulate models of ‘super-humanity’. Feeling ourselves connected to such extraordinary realities satisfies an essential craving. It touches us within, lifts us momentarily beyond ourselves, so that we seem to inhabit our humanity more fully than usual and feel in touch with the deeper currents of life. If we no longer find this experience in a church or temple, we seek it in art, musical concerts, drugs, sex or warfare. Warfare is one of the oldest triggers of ecstatic experience, indicating its relation to religion. The prospect of killing activates the limbic system in the brain and releases serotonin, the neurotransmitter responsible for the sensation of ecstasy that is associated with some forms of religious experience. These violent pursuits can be perceived as natural religious activities while war is also a force that gives meaning to humans’ lives (Armstrong 2014:7). War suspends thought, especially self-critical thought and people willingly accept war as long as they can fold it into a belief system that paints the ensuing suffering as necessary for a higher good, for human beings seek not only happiness but meaning. Tragically war is sometimes the most powerful way in human society to achieve meaning (Hedges 2003:10). War is a means of surrender to reptilian ruthlessness, one of the strongest of human drives and the warrior experiences in battle form the ecstatic self-affirmation that others find in ritual, a self-affirmation that is almost erotic (Armstrong 2014:8). 42 Hackett (2004:356–357) writes that the judges in ancient Israel were not simply judicial characters. The Hebrew word šōpēt describes someone with governing functions over a society, like a king, but without the dynastic implications of an inherited kingship. A judge is a ‘charismatic’ leader, meaning that he or she leads because the people being led see something persuasive and powerful in that person’s self-presentation, rather than agreeing to leadership by a family. Judges were nondynastic governors, in a period before a monarchy had been established in Israel. In fact, ‘there was no king in Israel’ is a refrain heard several times in the book, although it is debatable whether that was meant as praise or damnation by the authors. 43 The original recipients of the Hebrew Bible did not have the opportunity during the first nineteen centuries to act upon the violence instigated by the God of the Bible because they were for the better part a persecuted minority. However, after 1948 Jews justified their forceful occupation of Palestinian lands by an appeal to a religious argument, that God promised this land to the Jews (Nusseibeh 1992:61). Since then they have confiscated sixty per cent of Palestinian land, demolished thousands of homes, uprooted thousands of trees and crops, expelled thousands from their homeland, imposed long and total curfews on villages, towns and even whole areas, shut down schools and universities at random, arrested a quarter of a million people and killed thousands, all behind the mask of religion and morality (Nusseibeh 1992:62). Israel practises collective punishment against people many of whom are civilians. Ateek (2003:66), a Palestinian Christian, states that ‘We condemn suicide bombings because they are trapped with the same violent logic exercised and perpetrated by the Israeli government’. Ateek concludes that Christians believe that when they are confronted by injustice and evil, they must resist it without using its evil methods and for the Christian, the supreme example is Christ (1 Pet 2:23). 44 In his defence of the Second Crusade, Bernard (1090–1153) (The Letters of St Bernard of Clairvaux, Letter 391, transl by B. S. James, 1975:88–91), the famous Cistercian abbot of Clairvaux, writes that the earth is shaken because the Lord of heaven is losing his land, the land in which he appeared to men, a land made glorious by his miracles and holy by his blood. Christian chroniclers reported that the Christian troops

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beheaded ten thousand Muslims in the great Mosque, choking the area with blood and corpses (Sider and Taylor 1996:511). Because of Christians’ sins, the enemy of the cross had lifted his sacrilegious head in that land, overturning the arsenal of redemption and defiling the holy places. He then calls in militant terms upon Christians to give their lives to free Jerusalem from the enemy. For years, the Christians had used the site of the ruined Jewish Temple as the city rubbish dump. The Caliph Omar helped Muslims to clear the garbage with his own hands and Muslims raised their two shrines to establish Islam in the third most holy city in the Islamic world. The Mosque of Omar was built on the Temple Mount to mark the Muslim conquest of 638 ce, together with the mosque al-Aqsa which commemorates Mohammad’s Night Journey (Armstrong 1988:46). During the Crusades, Christians tried to free the Temple site also from Muslim possession. Crusaders called themselves ‘pilgrims’ and they sewed crosses on their clothes because they argued that they were literally obeying Christ’s command to his followers to take up their cross and follow him to death, if necessary. The Crusaders intended to liberate the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which they believed contained the site of Golgotha and the tomb of Christ, but which was at that time in the hands of the Muslims (Armstrong 1988:xvii-xviii). The Greek Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Empire regarded war as unchristian; during a campaign they denied their soldiers the sacraments. The Byzantines preferred to use mercenaries in war rather than allow Greek Christians themselves to fight (Armstrong 1988:25). Today, Eastern Orthodoxy does not view war as unambiguously good or holy. It has neither a crusade ethic nor an explicit just war theory. Instead, the church tolerates war as an inevitable, tragic necessity for the protection of the innocent and for the vindication of justice. Those who have killed in war must undergo a period of repentance according to the canons of Orthodoxy because taking of a life as well as bloodshed is viewed as spiritually damaging and falls short of Christ’s normative way of nonresistant, nonviolent love. Peacemaking is the common vocation of all Christians, but the pursuit of peace in a corrupt world at times inevitably and necessarily requires the use of force, even by Christians. In every Divine Liturgy, the church prays for the peace of the world and all its inhabitants (LeMasters 2011:61). Robinson (2016b:30–38) describes three ‘myths’, that the crusaders were motivated by land, power and wealth, and not religion, that the crusades were wars of conversion and that the crusades initiated conflict between the West and the Muslim world that continued uninterrupted to the present. It is true that today’s church is not directly responsible for the Crusades and after the sixteenth century ce the Western church has fragmented into many denominations. The Crusades, however, influenced our thinking about war and peace, about the role of church and government and about a world divided between Christianity and Islam (Robinson 2016b:38). Ramage (2015:81) warns that the honest believer must beware of whitewashing difficult biblical texts by jumping to their spiritual sense without seriously considering the challenges these texts present on the literal level. Exegesis requires skill, patience and prayer. Above all, it requires us to recognise that the many troublesome passages of the Old Testament ultimately only make sense insofar as they are viewed as part of a progressive revelation by which God gradually prepared his people for the coming of Christ. Ramage compares discussing difficult texts with the example provided by C. S. Lewis: he asserts that explaining Christianity to someone who thinks that the faith should be easy and simple is much like trying to explain quantum physics to someone who conceives of atoms as tiny little balls which constitute everything in the material universe. Arduous work is indispensable if we are to offer a reasonably adequate account of the immense and profound mysteries found in Scriptures. Early Christians explained violent texts away by means of allegory, as Barr (1989:12) indicates. Allegory can be defined as the attempt at the renarration of the text for the

The Bible and violence, and Christians  123 good ends of a community (Dawson 1992:176). It is the way a tradition develops by providing new readings that challenge the accepted readings from the past, a way of using certain readings to reinterpret culture and society. It is not so much a method, but rather names the constitution of fields on which the struggle between competing proposals for thought and action can be worked out (Dawson 1992:2). Barr (1989:14) then states that biblical criticism is also a form of allegory, as ‘close reading’ of the biblical texts also represents (cf. also Hauerwas 1993:41). 51 Another argument used by some is verbalised by the early Pentecostalist BoothClibborn ([1917]2016a:102), that war is wrong for Christians in spite of the depiction of God in the Old Testament who leads Israel into battle and victory against their enemies, because the Israelites in Old Testament times were living in the age of the law and judgment while Christians dwell in the dispensation of grace and mercy. It reminds of Paul’s two ages of the law and grace. The British Pentecostalist Gee ([1930]2016a:178) uses the same argument when he states that the divine government differs with the progressing dispensations, and the Old Testament is never the ultimate ground for the Christians to base their actions upon. The fact that Israelites of old went to war with divine approval affords no basis for Christians expecting the same if they participate in the wars of their country. In the teaching and example of Jesus Christ the disciples find their absolute ground for faith and practice (Gee [1930]2016a:179). However, the argument is not valid because it is the same God revealing himself to people in the time of both the Old and New Testament. 52 Tinker (2017:12) describes its hermeneutical angle as ‘literal-typological’, that is, the commands will be taken literally within their immediate historical context, but their full significance is to be found in their pointing to and preparing the way for Christ who fulfils all the law and the prophets, according to Matthew 5:17. The implication is that the Bible presents a metanarrative that explains the revelation of God to humanity over time in a frame that makes historical and logical sense and that includes all the events and commands contained within the Bible. Research indicates that evangelical doctrine is strongly associated with militarism. On the one hand, it is directly implied (by generating beliefs in the morality of war) and on the other hand it is indirectly involved, by prompting more loyal nationalism. People who confess that the Bible is inerrant are particularly militaristic when it comes to one specific issue, the defence of Israel. Finally, these Christians attach a higher priority to foreign policy in their vote calculi than do nontraditionalistic Christians and non-Christians. They admit that an immersion in evangelical Christian strongly enhances Christian traditionalists’ tendency to advocate an aggressive military defence of Israel (Tinker 2017:14). For that reason, fundamentalist Christians applauded president Donald Trump’s decision on 7 December 2017 to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy to the disputed city. 53 Cf. the argument of Barker, Hurwitz and Nelson (2008:319) that the single most important dimension in an individual’s foreign policy belief system is morality, and religious beliefs appear to play a profound role in shaping a moral posture. 54 In reading the Bible in a literal fashion, one is compelled to accept that God did give commands to wipe out whole populations (Deut 7:1–2; 20:16–17) and that these descriptions are not the work of authors and redactors who served their own ideological and political reasons, and that these commands were taken seriously and quite literally by Israel (Josh 6:21). If genocide is defined as the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a nation or ethnic group, then it seems that God may be charged with genocide. 55 Sacks (2015:208) warns that fundamentalism’s danger lies in its reading texts literally and applying them directly. It goes straight from revelation to application without interpretation. It does not discount the fact that ancient texts were originally directed to times and conditions quite unlike ours. The reason for its discounting interpretation

124  The Bible and violence, and Christians is because it deals with the ancient text as sacred Scripture, texts invested with the ultimate authority of God himself. As Shakespeare said, ‘The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose’ (Sacks 2015:209). Fundamentalists and atheists share, in Sacks’ (2015:219) opinion, the same approach to texts. They read them directly and literally, ignoring the single most important fact about a sacred text, namely that its meaning is not self-evident. 56 There are more than six hundred references to God’s wrath in the Hebrew Bible (Tinker 2017:39). 57 The list of practices as well as the number of children that were supposedly sacrificed is not substantiated in any way by the author and no evidence exists for these assertions. Jones uses the emotional element of mass murder of children to justify the command that Israel should annihilate all Canaanites, including women and children, a move that cannot be justified in terms of historical evidence. 58 During the First World War, a very small number of men were counted as religious objectors. A substantial proportion of these were drawn from the historic peace churches, especially the Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites, with a good representation from the Quakers and Pentecostals, based on their interpretation of the Bible and their claims about the gospel as they understood it ‘in the latter days’. Pentecostals believed that their calling was to love all people and give witness in all the world, by the power of the Spirit (Dayton 1987:43, 76, 78). For instance, in 1917, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) adopted a position ‘against members going to war’, seventh in a list of prohibitions that includes drinking liquor, using tobacco, wearing gold jewellery, belonging to lodges and swearing. The simple prohibition ‘against members going to war’, complete with numerous scriptural citations was twenty-ninth in a list of official Church of God ‘Teachings’ (Beaman 1989:xvii). In 1918, the church in its certificate of membership issued to help members to register their conscientious objection declared, The members of said church are not allowed to carry arms, to shed the blood of any man, and still be members of said church. Scriptures that forbid them in their creed: Matt 5:38–42: there the Lord says resist no evil (Rom 12:17; 1 Thess 5:15; Heb 10:30). Vengeance belongs to God. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed (Gen 9:6; Rev 13:10). (Mason [1918]2016:134) 59 The Pentecostal movement displayed diverse perspectives. For instance, the Latino-led Apostolic Assembly of Faith in Christ Jesus adopted a pacifist stance, limiting military service to noncombatant status for its members while the Church of God in Christ under the leadership of Lillian Brooks Coffey supported the double victory campaigns of democracy in Europe and Asia along with racial equality in the United States (Daniels 2014:97). 60 It is anachronistic to state that Jesus and the early Church read the canonised collection of books later known as the Tanakh (consisting of the Torah, Nebi’im and Ketubim) because the canonisation happened only later, after the first century ce. In the time of the early Christians, the New Testament was not yet written. It could not be their sole source of knowledge. The gospel came to life in the Church, especially in the eucharist. And in the Christ of the eucharist, Christians learned to know the Christ of the Gospels, and his image became vivid to them (Cartwright 1988:270–286). That most books of the Tanakh were known and read by Jesus and the early Church is however true. An overview of central aspects of violence in the New Testament can be found in two collections and a monograph: Matthews and Gibson (2005); a collection of papers and articles in the 2009 editions of Biblical Interpretation; and Neufeld (2011) (cf. Zehnder and Hagelia 2013:3). 61 In discussing the sword passages in Matthew, Nel (2015b:254–255) concludes that the question how Christians should act against injustice and violence, whether nonviolently

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or violently, is answered that Matthew’s Jesus does not endorse or encourage violence as a reaction to injustice or violence, and does not allow the use of violence by Christians contra what was advocated in some apocalyptic and zealot circles. The paradox is that the cross and not the sword, suffering and not brute power determines the meaning of history. However, Jesus allowed that his disciples would need to protect themselves, leaving room for carrying a sword. His commitment to nonviolence demonstrated in, inter alia, Matt 5:22, 38–42, 44–48 is not annulled by what he remarked about swords; for that reason, he did not provide for violent resistance to his arrest and trial. He did not call his disciples to violence, not even to a righteous kind of violence. Alexis-Baker (2012:96) describes the potential danger of the influence of this episode on Christians through the ages. Because Jesus has been thought to have used a whip on the backs of people in a fit of righteous rage, many Christians through the centuries had seen in that action an example for Christians to follow. Thus, schismatics and heretics received not only whippings, but death sentences because of this interpretation. Moreover, the passage continues to be used to justify Christian violence, even in Western liberal democracies. Military service and war are more acceptable for Christians, thanks to this interpretation. John 2:14’s reference to money changers should be read in the context of the time, when each Israelite who was part of the annual poll was expected to provide a halfshekel tax/offering to the Temple (Ex 30:13). And those who came from a distance, instead of bringing offerings of animals or birds, could bring money and purchase them from the temple staff, a practice that developed out of the alternative pattern provided in Deuteronomy 14:25. The payment of these items, however, could not be made in foreign currencies like Roman denarii, which contained pagan symbols and the images of emperors. Therefore, the money had to be exchanged for appropriate temple currency that contained no images. The result was that the Temple also became a major money exchange or bank (Borchert 1996:163). Sacks (2015:41) helpfully describes the values upheld by the contemporary West, the most individualistic era of all time in his evaluation. Its central values are in ethics, autonomy; in politics, individual rights; in culture, post-modernism; and in religion, ‘spirituality’. Its idol is the self, its icon the ‘selfie’ and its operating systems the free market and the post-ideological, managerial liberal democratic state. Cf. Merton’s (1968:94) remark that humankind represents the only species, besides the rat, who wantonly and cruelly turns on their own kind in unprovoked and murderous hostility. Humankind is the only who deliberately seeks to destroy their own kind, as opposed to merely resisting encroachment. McCafferty ([1915]2016:52) writes from an early Pentecostal perspective and does not agree that a Christian may fight in self-defence. He agrees that it is natural to defend oneself against the ‘bully’ but refers to Jesus’ injunction in Luke 22:49–51 and Matthew 26:51 that Christians as followers of the Prince of Peace should disarm themselves because the weapons of their warfare are not carnal (2 Cor 10:4). Christians are called to follow the example of Christ; he did no violence when he was reviled and when he suffered he did not threaten but he committed himself to him that judges righteously. And Paul gives a better way of peace than by gaining it through bloodshed by praying for the enemies. Later, British Pentecostalist Gee ([1930]2016b:184–185) asks the same question, about a Christian’s reaction in self-defence, and adds that it was a favourite test question in tribunals during the First World War for those who held conscientious objections. ‘What would you do if German soldiers were attacking your home, and on the point of killing your wife and children?’ He responds by stating that none dare to say dogmatically what should be done under such circumstances because human instincts are very strong. But he does not doubt what Christians should do. They should show forth the spirit of Christ. When Peter used a sword to defend Christ, Jesus instantly repudiated his action and healed the ear of the servant (Luke 22:51). There

126  The Bible and violence, and Christians ought to be a trust in God to deliver, or else a suffering of whatever his will permitted. Calvary does not point at all in the direction of self-defence, in Gee’s opinion. 67 Armstrong (2014:204) opines, ‘All three Abrahamic faiths began with a defiant rejection of inequity and systemic violence, which reflects the persistent conviction of human beings, dating perhaps back to the hunter-gatherer period, that there should be an equitable distribution of resources’. The history of these religions also shares the establishment of the state based on structural violence in order to defend its own interests; all three of the religions of Abraham contain a fundamental image of extremity (Armstrong 1988:xiv). 68 Wille (2007:236) agrees; he writes that apocalyptic literature developed among the Jews who were politically marginalised under the domination of world empires and it intended to give hope to the oppressed. Those who are faithful to God’s commandments, resisting the imperial powers, were assured in symbolic language that the empires would eventually collapse when God would usher in a new world after a final showdown of cosmic proportions in which the demonic forces producing domination and evil would be destroyed. 69 That Jesus quoted from the Hebrew Bible did not imply that he affirmed everything written in the Scriptures. On the contrary, his teaching and ministry in many cases questioned Scripture and rejected the way it was read and applied by his contemporaries. In this way his voice was dissident, a voice from the margins in the same tradition as the minority voice of the victim in the Hebrew Bible that represented a probing, questioning, insisting, disjunctive faith (Brueggemann 2005:318). 70 The law establishes order, shows people how to live together in peace, and protects them from the violence of others. The main institution to enforce the law is the law court who penalises transgressors of the law. Such penalties are official, institutionalised and controlled force (Wick 2013:253). The legal aspects of the Sermon on the Mount have been interpreted along two lines: the anti-legal and anti-legalistic interpretation denies that Jesus shows any positive relation to the Torah and the law; and the halachic interpretation emphasises that these teachings are interpretations of the Torah. This may imply that Jesus in some sense transcends the Torah and lifts it up on a higher, nonhalachic level, internalising the Law (Wick 2013:254–255). In my interpretation of Matthew 5:21–48, I follow the last line of interpretation. 71 Wille (2007:235) comments that the ominous ‘an eye for an eye’ was never meant to justify revenge, but marks a first step to stop the unbridled spirit of revenge: not more than an eye for an eye! The phrase never referred to proportional corporal punishment but established a rule for adequate material compensation of the injured. 72 It is true that the Hebrew Bible does not contain the explicit commandment that one should hate one’s enemies but the ethos of hatred and violent vengeance against one’s enemies forms an essential part of the Hebrew Bible, e.g., in the Psalm book (cf. Pss 55:15; 69:27–28; 109:9–12; 139:21–24). 73 ‘Only the admission of defect and fallibility in oneself makes it possible for one to become merciful to others’ (Merton 2012:800). 74 There are two classic attempts to understand why the world is in a state of fallen disorder. The first is by Irenaeus, who claimed that God intended it to be so that God’s creatures could live lives of ‘recapitulation’ in which they constantly grew in grace. The second, by Augustine, claimed that human disobedience caused the disorder (Elford 2001:171). Neither of these explanations is satisfactory. Disorder and evil rather represent a mystery that challenges believers to live in faith and not by sight or understanding. 75 Punt (2009:139) argues correctly that the insider-outsider mentality found in the New Testament is a complex matter, revolving largely around matter of identity, but it was also influenced by social, political, economic and other concerns. Besides those defined as outsiders from the outset, there are also others who were at some stage insiders but

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became outsiders over the course of time and for assorted reasons. The erection of borders between people, the construction of ‘us’ and ‘them’, the selves and the others, was within the first-century, agonistic society not seen as complementary as the New Testament attests. Opposition led to competition and, at times, called forth hostilities in a world where violence was part of everyday life, the extent of which emerges clearly from an analysis of New Testament vocabulary (Desjardins 1997:63–64). An ecclesiocentric theology functions within the distinction between the saved community and the unsaved world, we as the insiders owing truth and the rest (some also of the Christian church) who function without truth. The problem it creates exists in the formation of identity (consciousness) and the construction of community (boundaries). Marginalised groups in many instances claim their detrimental status as both an indication of their special status before God and as a warrant for venting anger and violence on their opponents and the rest of society in general. Groups who feel exposed, ignored, abandoned and humiliated and thus having to deal with frustrated expectations are fertile feeding grounds for dissent, anger and violence. Assuming a special status with God, they believe they are endowed with unique rights to punish their victimisers and perpetrators to gain a rightful place in society and to undo their position as a persecuted and stigmatised community (Punt 2009:151). In the afterlife of this text, Roetzel (2009:98) argues, the fool’s language of weakness and power became a core conviction of the Christian martyrological traditions. The Carthaginian Bishop Cyprian used military and wartime rhetoric to frame a martyrdom account, illustrating how a sizable portion of the second- and third-century Christian community contextualised its relationship with the surrounding Graeco-Roman culture. Martyrdom was understood as a war with many ‘soldiers’ necessarily sacrificed to achieve ‘victory’. And those who fell gloriously in battle were given privileged eschatological rewards and taken directly to a celestial abode where they would await the final war to end all wars. Indeed, with a largely unshakable faith in an imminent apocalyptic event, there were, within the first three centuries of the nascent movement, soldiers of Christ who were waging a holy war with a perceived hostile Roman society and empire infected with demonic corruption (Koscheski 2011:101). Cf. for instance the fiery red horse that takes away peace from the earth and the pale horse that receives power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth (Rev 6:4, 7) (Fortmann 1960:149). On the violent imagery of the book of Revelation, cf. especially Marshall (2001:122–73); Frankfurter (2001:403–425) and Yarbro Collins (1983:729–749). Levenson (1988:65) suggest that Genesis 1 is adumbrated by Psalm 104, in which the ‘sea’ is kept within bounds, but the ‘forces of chaos’ persist within the created order, and their persistence qualifies and defines God’s world-mastery. Middleton (2005:269) holds the opposite view, that Genesis 1 does not relativise the creation-by-combat motif but rather depicts God’s nonviolent creative power at the start of the biblical canon, showing the Creator’s original intent for shalom and blessing at the outset of human history, making it a normative framework for judging all the violence that pervades the rest of the Bible, and indeed for judging violence in the contemporary world. Who is the ‘church’? Or rather, who is the true church, the representative (or body) of Christ on earth? The Barmen Declaration of 1934 speaks of the true church as the ‘bearer of the confession’, and in this way declared a small band of Christians who actively resisted the Nazis as the true Christian church, confessing only one Lord, Jesus Christ (Zink 1983:89). This small group is known in history as the Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche), whose best-known leaders were Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth and Martin Niemöller. I believe the status confessionis of a Christian is to reject any kind of violence, including war. In other words, to be a Christian, confessing Jesus as Lord, implies that one opposes violence. The true Church lives in all the denominations because it is Christ, the church’s Lord, who descends to free those who

128  The Bible and violence, and Christians are bound, to bring light to the blind and to set the violent free from the desire to retaliate or to take revenge (Zink 1983:93). 80 A martyr can be defined as one who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce a religious principle; one who makes great sacrifices for a cause or principle; one who endures great suffering (Ateek 2003:63). In Arabic, the verb shaheda means to witness as the Greek martus also refers to someone who has given himself up as a witness. Shahid is a person who has suffered death as a witness to his faith or the principles he stands for. In the Palestinian struggle, it is used to refer to those Palestinians killed by the Israeli army as well as for those who voluntarily sacrificed their lives for Palestine. The death of a shahid including suicide bombers became a cause of pride for the family although that does not lessen the grief over the loss of their loved ones (Ateek 2008:24). Kaplan (2005:47) emphasises the importance that public theology rests on a prior rhetorical conviction; it assumes that a certain kind of language directed to a certain kind of audience will produce the most effective argument. Hence it is an objective rhetoric: it posits that the principal factors in one’s argument are the people to whom one communicates and the positive content of the argument itself. To make an effective argument according to such a model, one must know the content and one must speak to one’s audience. However, Kaplan argues that that although an objective rhetoric is not necessarily flawed, it is incomplete unless it considers the subjective element of rhetoric as well. The person making the argument has as great a role in its persuasiveness as the ‘content’ of the argument itself. The works of Metz, Ricoeur, Vergauwen and Pottmeyer, among others, show not only that truth has a practical element, that Christianity relies on witnesses, that it tells an alternative story to the story of the nation-state. The church can learn from radical Islam that young people with options are willing to suffer and die for what they believe in. This is not a phenomenon limited to the Arab or Islamic world. In the dangerous memories, in the solidarity with the poor, in the reality of being subjects of God, the church already possesses the dynamite for social change and a radical witness to peace. By trusting in the power of these stories and the danger of these memories, the church has the resources to recover a subjective rhetoric and to rediscover a more vibrant public theology (Kaplan 2005:47). 81 Athenagoras was an Athenian philosopher who became one of the church’s early apologists. In 177 ce, he addressed emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodius in A Plea for the Christians refuting charges of atheism, cannibalism and incest (Holmes 1975a:37). He (Athenagoras 34–35, transl. by B. P. Pratten in The Ante-Nicene Fathers I, 1975:37–38) writes that all people know that Christians cannot endure to see a man put to death, even though justly. How can they then be accused of murder or cannibalism? Christians do not support the contests of gladiators and wild beasts because to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him. Some Christians also argue that women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder because they regard the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care. Early Christians for the same reason never supported the exposure of an infant because those who exposed them were guilty of child murder. Abortion and infanticide were widespread in first-century Roman life (Sider 2012:19). The Didache, an anonymous Christian document from 50 to 180 (or 50–120 ce), contrasts the way of life and the way of death. Central to the way of life is loving your neighbour, even your enemy. ‘Bless them that curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for them that persecute you . . . If one gives you a blow upon your right cheek, turn the other also; and you shall be perfect’ (chapter 1). ‘And the second commandment. . .; you shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, . . . you shall not murder a child by abortion nor commit infanticide’. It is confirmed by the Epistle of Barnabas, written probably from Alexandria in Egypt between 70 ce and 135 ce, within the context of the ‘two ways’ of light and darkness in a way like the Didache: ‘You shall not abort a child nor, again, commit infanticide’ (19; Sider 2012:19–20).

The Bible and violence, and Christians 129 82 Helgeland (1978:1473–1476) also refers to the Infancy Gospels where the boy Jesus curses someone who bumps into him, causing the person to die, blinds children that mocks him and curses a teacher who strikes him, causing the person to die, among other incidents. The evidence from popular apocryphal gospels suggests that violence may not have been all that strange to the thinking and feeling of the popular masses of early Christians, concludes Daly (1982:180). However, these references are limited and the influence of these Gospels among early Christians is also debated. Prominent Christians denounced apocryphal writings, they never appear on any extant list of early Christian writings considered authoritative by any group of Christians and they depict Jesus doing things that contradict the picture of Jesus that we see in both the canonical Gospels and the writings of the Fathers (Sider 2012:130). 83 The most serious objections to the ‘pacifist consensus’ that the early Christians who addressed the matter directly during the first three centuries condemned warfare and military service on grounds that were essentially ‘pacifist’, that is, out of an aversion to bloodshed, have been raised by the work of John Helgeland. In a series of publications (1974, 1978, 1979) that followed his doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago (1973), Helgeland has promoted the thesis that objections to military service in the ancient sources are the result of ‘religious’, not ‘ethical’ concerns. Hunter (1992:93) presents an overview of research and asserts that a ‘new consensus’ has grown that maintains that the most vocal opponents of military service in the early church (e.g., Tertullian and Origen) based their objections on a variety of factors, which included an abhorrence of Roman army religion as well as an aversion to the shedding of blood; that at least from the end of the second century there is evidence of a divergence in Christian opinion and practice; that Christian support for military service (first reflected obversely in the polemics of Tertullian) grew throughout the third century; and that the efforts of Christians to justify participation in warfare for a ‘just’ cause (most notably that of Augustine) stand in fundamental continuity with at least one strand of pre-Constantinian tradition. 84 In his Apology (30–38, transl. by S. Thelwall in The Ante-Nicene Fathers 3), Tertullian (1975a:43) writes that he will never call the emperor God, and that either because it is not in him to be guilty of falsehood or that he dares not turn him into ridicule. ‘If he is but a man, it is his interest as man to give God his higher place. Let him think it enough to bear the name of emperor’. 85 In his On Idolatry (19, Tertullian 1975b:46), he writes about the laurel given to military victors as dedicated to Apollo or Bacchus, the former as the god of archery and the latter as the god of military triumphs. When military service is crowned with an olive laurel, the idolatry respects Minerva, the goddess of arms. The superstition of the military garland will defile the Christian and deny Christ. He adds, ‘Is the laurel of the triumph made of leaves, or of corpses? Is it adorned with ribbons, or with tombs? Is it bedewed with ointments, or with the tears of wives and mothers?’ (Tertullian 1975b:47). 86 In his The Chaplet (6, 11, 12, Tertullian 1975b:45) he writes, Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs? 87 The first Christian to be martyred by fellow Christians was one Priscillian of Ávila, a bishop who, following a judgment by his fellow bishops, was beheaded with a small number of his disciples in 385. He was the first, but not the last. Cox (2015:210) reckons that as many ce as some twenty-five thousand Christians were put to death in the three hundred years that followed Priscillian’s death for their perceived deficiency in creedal orthodoxy. John Calvin was one of the esteemed founders of the Reformed

130  The Bible and violence, and Christians tradition in Christianity; he agreed to the execution in Geneva in October  1551 of Michael Servetus. Servetus was burned at the stake although Calvin would have preferred the quicker method, beheading. 88 Fee and Stuart (1994:202–206) provides helpful suggestions for distinguishing between items described in the Bible that are culturally relative on the one hand, and those that transcend their original setting on the other hand and have normativeness for Christians of all times. In the first place, one should distinguish between the central core of the message of the Bible and what is dependent upon or peripheral to it. One should also be prepared to distinguish between what the New Testament itself sees as inherently moral and what is not. One must make special note of items where the New Testament itself has a uniform and consistent witness and where it reflects differences. It is also important to be able to distinguish within the New Testament itself between principle and specific application (Fee and Stuart 1994:206). It might also be important, as far as one is able to do this with care, to determine the cultural options open to any New Testament writer. One must keep alert to possible cultural differences between the sixth century bce or first century ce, and twenty-first century ce that are sometimes not immediately obvious. And one must also exercise Christian charity by opening lines of communication with those that disagree with one and have love for and a willingness to ask forgiveness from those with whom one differs. 89 Olson (2017) describes Reinhold Niebuhr’s ethics of Christian Realism in these terms: Niebuhr believed this world in terms of the social systems developed by humankind and the institutions that express and sustain them, is so fallen and corrupt that responsible and effective Christian involvement in them, no matter how well-intentioned, will always require compromise of Jesus’ ethical perfectionism and reliance on non-Christian philosophies to establish even a modicum of justice. This implies that it is essential for the good of humanity, especially the weak, the vulnerable and the oppressed, that at least some Christians take the risk of soiling their souls with compromise with non-Christian, imperfect, even sinful systems of political life and that, if they do so with eyes wide open and hearts full of repentance, God will forgive them. Niebuhr also defended some wars and conflicts involving violence and argued that they are sometimes regrettably just, necessary and forgivable because they are necessary. Niebuhr almost resurrected the doctrines of original sin and total depravity within a modern, even neo-liberal Christian theological framework. Original sin takes many forms, but the most basic ones are selfishness and pride. Liberal Protestant theology and social and political ethic dominated American Christian social and political ethics from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, called the ‘Social Gospel’ and represented by Baptist minister and theologian Walter Rauschenbusch. Social Gospelers viewed the kingdom of God as a utopian society organised by love that could be brought about by love of enemies which included passive nonresistance to evil. For Niebuhr, Jesus’ love ethic is an ‘impossible ideal’, something to strive for but never to reach because it only serves as a prophetic critical principle for Christian involvement in shaping relatively just social and political systems, but impossible to achieve in human, historical systems. Quaker theologian Rachel Hadley King claims in her 1964 book The Omission of the Holy Spirit in the Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr that the ethics professor forgot about the elevating power of the Holy Spirit in human life. Pentecostals agree with that observation. Olson (2017) explains that Niebuhr’s views should be understood in terms of his social context. Niebuhr experienced the Nazi and other fascist demonstrations and saw what Hitler and others had planned for Jews and other Untermenschen and for the whole of Europe. He was convinced of the inherent evil and violence growing at the heart of Fascism and Communism in the Soviet Union. He believed it was the duty of thoughtful, reflective, responsible, worldwise Christians to work effectively together with non-Christians for the cause of justice even if that meant confrontation, conflict and occasionally violence in response to violence. For Niebuhr, perfect love, agape love, disinterested benevolence and absolute

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nonviolence are all relevant to Christian social and political ethics in every age and every place, but they are relevant as critical principles impossible of actual achievement. Sider and Taylor (1996:509–511) discusses whether Jesus forbids all forms of resistance to evil and concludes that some forms of coercion is fully compatible with love and respect for the other person as a moral agent while others are not. Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:39 not to resist one who is evil does not mean that he forbids all forms of resistance. He constantly opposed evil persons in a forthright, vigorous fashion and he cleansed the Temple, driving the animals out with a whip and dumping the money tables upside down. In describing Pentecostals’ long tradition of pacifism and quiescence, Smith (2014:195) describes their apolitical and otherworldly uncomfortableness with relating to wider society or engaging in worldly issues such as politics, while their pietism, eschatology and evangelism contributed to their political quiescence (cf. Anderson 2004:261; Yong 2010:333). What is necessary is that Pentecostals should balance their dedication to God with their witness in the world. The growing centralism of the Roman church since the Middle Ages increased its effectiveness and cruelty. From 1252, Rome allowed torture in interrogations, specifically of ‘heretics’. This smoothed the way for further cruelty: the state authorities were given the task of burning condemned heretics. In 1542, the Inquisition was formed as the central Roman institution, and its successor still exists today under the title ‘Congregation of Faith’, though with a changed agenda. In modern times, the Catholic Church has developed extremely rigid and intolerant rules. These may no longer affect the physical integrity of victims, but they do affect their psychological integrity. An example can be found in the case of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who was banished to China and died a lonely death in New York in 1955 because as a priest trained in the sciences he developed theories that did not suit the church’s dogma at that time (Häring 1997:83). In this regard, Thistlethwaite ([1912]2016:38) writes that most humans practiced the law of the survival of the fittest where might was always right in personal conflict and national achievements, and the power of brain or brawn was the mark of superiority under a general system of competitiveness. In contrast, Jesus Christ was rejected, crucified and slain because of his perfect obedience even unto death, hence his victory over the law of sin and death through nonresistance, and the living faith which gave him power to lay down his life and the power to take it up again. When enemies from the North and East threatened the survival of the Roman Empire, the pious pagan emperor Decius in 249 ce decreed that a sacrifice was to be made to the gods of Rome by all citizens. The penalty for noncompliance was death. If people complied they received a certificate to show their obedience. Most Christians, including bishops, complied. Other bishops found compelling reasons for taking a holiday in the country. Only a few individuals refused and paid the highest price (Ruston 1993:135). Many Christians read the Bible in this way; they believe it is as simple as to flip open a page in the Bible and find the ‘timeless, eternal’ view of the Bible on the particular issue, and then obey its injunctions. Jones (2004:220) makes the distinction between being a citizen of a nation-state and a disciple of Christ (a peace church) in a time of war. He warns of the danger that Christians have no means to fend off the overwhelming power of the state when it identifies enemies, arms itself for war and then goes to war. The practical reality seems to be that the real lord for Christians, time and time again, is the politics of the nation-state and the maintenance of its dominating power and supremacy in relation to other states and over the lives of its own citizens.

96 Evangelical scholars advocating corporal punishment for children today generally restrict the use of spanking to four measures: it must be the last resort, applied only for the severest offenses, when the child displays wilful defiance and it should be used infrequently (Webb 2011:553).

132  The Bible and violence, and Christians 97 Webb (2011:35–37) quotes from the Old Testament that recommends that children should be spanked by striking them with a whip or rod on the back or sides. This is where the internal organs are situated, and striking these areas with an object as potent as a whip or rod not only leads to welts and bruises, but is also likely to cause internal bleeding. Today these marks on a child’s body would be legal grounds for charges of child abuse, but according to Proverbs 23:30 they scrub away evil and purge the innermost being. In the Ancient Near East, certain law codes prescribed the physical mutilation of children far beyond merely having beatings that left marks and bruises. In the Ancient Near East nothing held back masters from beating a slave to death if they wished (Webb 2001:183–192). However, to call such treatment of slaves abusive is to think anachronistically. 98 For instance, the law in Deuteronomy states that a stubborn and rebellious son should be put to death for what is probably nothing more than juvenile delinquency. Sacks (2015:207) mentions that so incompatible did this seem with the principles of justice that the Talmud records that the law was never put into effect and exists only for didactic purposes and not to be implemented in practice. 99 In the first two centuries of our era, so swordless was the church of Christ, that Celsus, the Gnostic [sic], in the first written attack ever made on the Christian faith, grounds his censure on this very fact, and says, ‘The State receives no help in war from the Christians; and if all men were to follow the example, the Sovereign would be deserted, and the world would fall into the hands of barbarians’. Origen gave this profound answer: The question is – What would happen if the Romans should be persuaded to adopt the principles of the Christians? This is my answer – We say that if two of us shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them by the Father who is in heaven. What, then, are we to expect, if not only a very few should agree, as at present, but the whole empire of Rome? They would pray to the Word, who of old said to the Hebrews, when pursued by the Egyptians, The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. No mortal knows what could not be got, by man, or class, or nation, or world, by substituting prayer for war. (Frodsham [1924]2016:173) 100 Christians should, however, ‘help the king with all our might . . . labour with him in the maintenance of justice, to fight for him’ (as Celsus thinks they do not) in obedience to the injunction of the apostle Paul that supplications, prayers and intercessions be offered for the king and for all that are in authority. Christians, however, decline public offices because they campaign for the salvation of all men (Origen, Against Celsus, 3:7; 8:73–75, transl. by F. Crombie in The Ante-Nicene Fathers 4, 1975:49–50. 101 Ambrose (c. 339–397 ce) was bishop of Milan and best known for his role in Augustine’s conversion but he also anticipates Augustine’s attitude to war. Ambrose had served as the local Roman governor, betraying his loyalty to the political structures and as a preacher of righteousness he used his contacts with the imperial authorities effectively to benefit the church. He recognised the necessity of war for the sake of a secure peace, but he unhesitatingly denounced needless bloodshed, such as happened in the siege of Thessalonica (Matikiti 2014:5). He illustrated the role of the church in the new circumstances that characterised the fourth century, as social prophet with his insistence on justice and compassion in the conduct of war (Holmes 1975a:55). 102 Ovey (2014:7) argues that in reading the Bible, one should be especially aware of the times when you may have so mixed your inner desires and experience with what you claim is God’s word, that God’s word becomes merely a ventriloquist’s dummy

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for your own thoughts. You read your own ethics into the Bible. Ovey writes that we need to ask ourselves more carefully whether we want something we claim God says to be true. At the same time, it is necessary to stress that reading the Bible is a spiritual exercise. We should read with prayer, humility and dependence upon the Spirit but also, in view of the way that violent readings of God’s word still strike a chord within us, we should read repentantly – repenting of our ongoing desire to lay hands on God (and our enemies!). Manichaeism was a major  religious movement that was founded by the Iranian prophet Mani (Latin: Manichaeus or Manes; c. 216–276 ce) in the Sasaninan Empire. Manichaeism taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light, whence it came. Its beliefs were based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements. Manichaeism was quickly successful and spread far through the Aramaic-Syrian speaking regions. It thrived between the third and seventh centuries ce, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire. It was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism. Manichaeism survived longer in the east than in the west, and it appears to have finally faded away after the fourteenth century in southern China, contemporary to the decline in China of the church of the East during the Ming dynasty. While most of Manichaeism’s original writings have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism; accessed 10 October 2017). Origen was embarrassed by the presence of the tradition of ‘holy war’ found in the Hebrew Bible and sought to allegorise these narratives (Grant 1980:183–184). Reference is made to these ambiguities, especially in the Hebrew Bible, earlier in this chapter. In 1921, the ecclesiastical historian Adolf von Harnack published his work, Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God and church history would never be the same again. Overnight, Harnack had turned Marcion from heretic to hero. He managed to paint a portrait of Marcion so lifelike that we almost have the impression we knew him in person, writes Moll (2010:281). The title of Harnack’s first monograph already demonstrates the author’s anachronistic view on his subject: Marcion, the modern believer of the second century, the first Reformer. This title reveals precisely the misconception which characterises Harnack’s entire work on the arch-heretic, the misconception of seeing him as a ‘Martin Luther of the second century’ (Moll 2010:282). It is Harnack’s own critical attitude towards the Old Testament which made him believe that he had found a soul-mate in Marcion, and it is in this matter that Harnack made the mistake in his evaluation of the arch-heretic. Harnack’s critique of the Old Testament is the critique of a liberal German theologian at the beginning of the twentieth century and represents a discomfort with the way God is portrayed in the Old Testament. To modern believers the (negative) anthropomorphic traits of the Old Testament God seem indeed irreconcilable with their own concept of God, which is exactly why Harnack wanted to see the Old Testament deprived of its canonical status within the Christian church. Thus, in a manner of speaking, Harnack had a vision of purifying Christianity by getting rid of unpleasant ballast. This is, however, precisely what Marcion did not do (Moll 2010:282). Anselm of Canterbury defined freedom in terms of justice, truth and rectitude as libertas arbitrii est potestas servandi rectitudinem voluntatis propter ipsam rectitudinem (‘freedom of will is the power of preserving rectitude of will for the sake of rectitude itself’). Man’s moral rectitude, and therefore his freedom too, are based on his reason and will. There are, however, certain difficulties connected with the

134  The Bible and violence, and Christians creature’s freedom, arising from the discrepancy between the phenomenon of evil in the world and God’s sovereign goodness (Deme 2002:170). God justly condemns and judges mankind for sins because he is not taking responsibility for what they have done against him in their freedom. At the same time, he could effectively intervene in their case because his powers are not compromised by the forces of corruption (James 1:13). God is not a creator of ‘good and evil’ nor of the freedom to ‘choose good and evil’. Because evil remains ‘unsaid’ in God’s creation by his only Word, it must remain unsaid after a point in theological reflection too, argues Deme (2002:182). 108 The Synod of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland decided in 1956, ‘Das Evangelium rückt uns den Staat unter die gnädige Anordnung Gottes, die wir in Geltung wissen, unabhängig von dem Zustandekommen der staatliche Gewalt oder ihrer politischen Gestalt’, allowing the church to criticise the state and serve a prophetic role in terms of the state’s involvement in violence. In terms of Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, 1 Timothy 2, Titus 3 and John 18:33–37 and 19:9–12, the Synod supported Gerhard Kittel’s judgment as formulated in his brochure of 1933, ‘Das Urteil der ersten Christen über den Staat’, that this represents the viewpoint of the early church (Hamel 1959:151). 109 The classic expression of this Christian epoch is Constantinianism, referring to the conception of Christianity which took shape in the century between the Edict of Milan and Augustine’s City of God. Church and world identified in the mutual support and approval exchanged by Constantine and the bishops. Now the church received a vested interest in the present order of things and used the cultic means at her disposal to legitimise that order (Yoder 1971a:65). 110 Cavanaugh (2009) refers to ‘the myth of religious violence’ that served Western people well at an early stage of their modernisation, but adds that contemporary people in their global village need a more nuanced view to fully understand their predicament. By 1998, religious organisations made up more than half the US Secretary of State’s thirty most dangerous groups, over half the conflicts going on around the globe had an important religious dimension and every major world religion was implicated in terror (McCormick 2006:144).

3 Ideology as violence Apartheid as a case study

Introduction In this chapter, the apartheid history of South Africa is utilised as a case study to demonstrate the elements of a theology of violence. Information in the first chapter about the AFM of SA should be evaluated against the background of the historical development of apartheid in South Africa.

Apartheid practices Apartheid or segregation served as the practical reality of the South African community since the arrival of the first white settlers in 1652. The indigenous population lived apart from the settlers with their fortified settlement, an arrangement that was maintained for different racial groups. Although the official church at first did not pronounce on the issue, the separateness was upheld in most church services as well. In this way, a people’s theology or civil religion (Zeldenrust 1988:16) developed apart from the church until the 1940s when a theology of apartheid was formally developed.1 The people’s theology was grounded on the ideology of a difference between racial groups in terms of levels of intellectual and emotional development that justified the severance of people from different racial groups in separate communities.2 In general terms there are two definitions of ‘ideology’. Althusser describes the development of ideology as a ‘normal’ continuous process within society where the status quo is justified in terms of certain suppositions. In contrast, some hold ideology rather as a type of social malady, coinciding with Karl Marx’s definition of ideology as a system of ideas by which the relations between people and the conditions of their existence are mystified, as a means by which the ruling class maintains its position by obscuring the conditions of exploitation and oppression that exists at the heart of society and that enrich the ruling class (Pillay 1985:6–7). ‘Ideology’ represents a complex phenomenon that consists of various characteristics. I  believe ‘ideology’ always expresses a distorted and impoverished view of reality, a particular perception of the world that determines inter alia the reporting of news and its interpretation, the writing of history, emphasis in

136  Ideology as violence education, organisation of people and even the nature and essence of belief in God (in the words of Pillay 1985:7), as utilised by existing structures of power to serve their own interests. It also explains to a community that various structures of its social, political, economic, religious and cultural being consist of nonnegotiable fundamentals such as the self-image of the group and the resolution of its major fears and projection of its interests and privileges. This becomes the rigid theoretical framework within which the ‘life-world’ of the group is organised (Pillay 1985:5).3 The ideology normally develops under the moral pressure of and in reaction to outsiders criticising the current practices and consists of arguments that justify these practices. These complex of ideas forms a closed hermeneutical system and eventually acquires a taboo value and operates subconsciously (Loubser 1987:123). It utilises only one historical perspective on reality at the exclusion of all other viewpoints and this view is hailed as the absolute truth. No critical reflection is allowed about the current perspective, making its adherents inflexible and harsher. The ideology is substantiated by a complex of myths;4 for people not initiated in the worldview, these myths and the jargon used to describe it are often incomprehensible. The ideology operates as a closed hermeneutical circuit because it is the result of the group’s self-consciousness while at the same time it perpetuates and determines that self-consciousness. The major part of the ideology is normally submerged under the surface of human consciousness because of human beings’ forgetfulness about underlying patterns of social division and dominance that determine their social relations (Loubser 1987:124). Because ideologies are embedded in institutions and not normally spelled out, it can only be detected by observing the behaviour of its participants. And lastly, because it operates with a closed worldview, it cannot tolerate competition or criticism. It becomes absolutist and utilises religion as a framework to support it. Did the South African policy of apartheid qualify to be called an ideology? At first it represented a romantic notion of nationalism as the main tenet in the development of apartheid theology, although it necessarily implied a racist undertone. The idea of ‘people’ functioned as the main item in terms of the characteristics of ‘ideology’ presented above. The ethnic diversity of South Africa was simplified by means of a specific national concept (Loubser 1987:124) and the model of a diversity of people was used to suggest that each group should contain its own culture and determine itself. The separate groups of people were viewed as independent, homogenous and autonomous units which should only be grouped together in a loose, casual federative relationship. It operated on the principle of one nation per country and one church per group, even though the South African reality and the teaching of the Bible does not allow for such an ideology.5 Even the Afrikaans-speaking group of people does not consist of a homogenous group. They originated from Dutch, French and German ancestors. The so-called Coloureds also do not form an ethnic group but must be defined as an emerging nation of diversity. The same applies to the English-speaking group of South Africans consisting of Jews, Portuguese, English and other groups of people who use English mostly as a second language (like in parts of Eastern Europe).

Ideology as violence  137 The Afrikaner used a European model of nationalism as its ideal. In Europe, however, most populations consist of one group; in Norway, for instance, ninetyseven per cent of people belong to the same ethnic group and church, although there are exceptions such as the existence of the Irish, Basques and the Flemish witness to. The United States, India and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics consist of melting-pot nationalisms and would have served the South African situation better. Nevertheless, the Afrikaners chose the European model of an ideal of one nation in a state. To do so, they had to artificially create different states within one country to accommodate the different ethnic groups and to maintain its position of dominance. The real intention was their own self-preservation and the entrenchments of their privileges and interests; to reach that objective they had to manipulate other racial groups and move them around according to the imperialist slogan of divide et impera. Apartheid was to a significant extent the result of pressure from outside, and specifically to the imperialist ambitions of the British Empire and later the international campaign of disinvestment aimed at white economic power. Apartheid was the neurosis of an attempt to rationalise some traumatic, primitive experience, providing insight into the primal and intimate fears of its subjects (McKeachie & Doyle 1966:493). Its supporters reacted violently to their critics and ostracised them when they were part of the Afrikaner group. The myth of apartheid consisted of several elements, such as the elected nation, separate development and coexistence in justice. While anti-imperialism was the warp, racism was the woof of the myth (Loubser 1987:126). The two enemies were the British Empire with its imperialistic colonialism and the ever-present threat of chaos represented by disorderly blacks (Dubow 1992:210). An important part of the myth was that the white people were sent by God to Africa to carry the light of the Christian (read: Western) civilisation to the dark continent of Africa.6 From the 1930s, neo-Calvinists, an important leading part of the Afrikaner group, initiated ‘Christian-national’ education; under ‘Christian’ they understood the belief in the sovereignty of God and his rule over the world, in which their divine election played an in integral part in the realisation of his purposes with the world and the conviction that faith held consequences for all spheres of life. Under ‘national’ they understood the maintenance of ‘that which is your own’, which was interpreted in terms of the Hebrew Bible’s injunction to the Israelites to isolate themselves from the ‘people of the land’ in order to remain the ‘holy nation’ dedicated to YHWH. The manner in which the history and experience of Afrikaners were cited as proof of apartheid made it a closed hermeneutical circuit; the supposition was that South Africa needed the whites as a necessity in order to carry civilisation into uncivilised Africa. The concept of ‘people’ linked to specific racial groups (and even delineated further by way of language, where most English-speaking whites were excluded from positions of power to preserve Afrikaner rights) functioned subconsciously and was expressed in the establishment of separate churches, neighbourhoods, homelands, class rooms, toilets and coaches in trains and buses.7 From its enforcement of such regulations on other groups, the absolutist notion of apartheid is demonstrated. The alternative for the South African situation was a federalism; that

138  Ideology as violence it was rejected in favour of absolute segregation also demonstrates its absolute character. The conclusion is that apartheid serves as an ideology.8 The ideology of apartheid consisted of several themes that converged. In the first place, it stemmed from a revolutionary trend in Western culture that had its roots in the utopian puritanism of the post-reformation era with its purpose of establishing ‘a heaven on earth’. Apartheid presumed to be a blueprint for South Africa’s radical reconstruction. It was also a product of Western culture’s high-tech design, with whole areas and cities being made ‘separate’ on a drawing-board by ambitious politicians who served as social engineers. An effective bureaucracy carried out these idealistic designs.9 At grass-roots level, apartheid was the result of white people’s reaction to the perceived threat of foreign imperialist ambitions and the indigenous ‘threat’ of blacks. It is a normal reaction for some or most people of one culture encountering people from another culture to withdraw and not to mix. The tendency is balanced by economic necessities compelling people to cross boundaries, eventually leading to acceptance of people of the other culture. However, when a group is threatened by a much larger group it may react by hardening its attitudes. This is the reason for Afrikaners’ laager mentality, to protect themselves from powers from outside and especially from Africans in South Africa who formed the clear majority. Apartheid is also the product of anti-imperialism, in reaction to the wrongs they perceived being done to them by the British Empire. Apartheid was their way of ensuring their own survival as a people in the light of their loss of freedom at the hand of the English. They justified apartheid in terms of providing blacks the opportunity to express themselves after the destruction of the British invasion and colonialisation of the land. Blacks were allowed the ‘opportunity’ to rule over themselves in the new homelands. Lastly, Afrikaners as a deeply religious people were the heirs of the Reformed religion, a progressive religion that reverted to a conservative religion intent on self-preservation in an alien environment. Protestant missionary work of this era consisted of preaching the gospel to unreached groups, translating the Bible into their languages and establishing indigenous churches in the languages of the people of the country. These churches were homogenous due to the barrier of language, allowing white people to worship in their own homogenous churches. After the abolition of slavery in 1834 when 39,021 slaves were freed in South Africa, the slogan ‘no equality’ became important for whites. Slavery was justified by some Christians on the ground that Genesis 9:19–27 determines that Ham’s descendants (presumably the blacks) were cursed to be slaves of Shem and Japheth, and Deuteronomy 23:2 that states that no ‘bastard’ could come into the congregation of YHWH, also leading to legalisation of the prohibition of marriages between whites and people of colour.10 ‘Equality’ was defined in terms of blacks being prohibited to attend white churches, the denial of being equal before the law, illegality of marriages between whites and blacks and denial of anything which could improve the lot of blacks and anything which might seem like compassion or sympathy for their situation (Botha 1984:268).

Ideology as violence  139

Apartheid theology After the 1850s, theological liberalism reached South Africa from England and Holland, leading to a severe reaction of conservatism from the side of the official church. The Dutch Reformed Church now established its own seminary at Stellenbosch while a section of the border population around Hopetown and Strydenburg left the church to form the ‘Church under the Cross’ where they agitated for a stark puritan lifestyle, rejecting the new hymn-book and contributing to the later apartheid theology. Their leader was the Reverend S. J. du Toit (father of Jacob Daniël du Toit, better known by his pen name, Totius). The annexation of the South African Republic (Transvaal) in 1877 by Sir Theophilus Shepstone representing the British Commonwealth and the resulting First Anglo-Boer War (1880–1881) forced the Afrikaners to define themselves as a nation. The church did not assist them in the formation of an identity but individuals such as S. J. du Toit provided them with the theological and political acumen to do so. It was S. J. du Toit who also vehemently appealed against the annexation of the South African Republic. The national awareness of Afrikaners was formed by the ideals of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment. They perceived themselves as the oppressed, the subject of liberation and cherishing a republic ideal. To fulfil its calling, the people had to be unified in its awareness, purpose and responsibility. Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803) developed the notion of a ‘people’ into the theory of the Volksgeist, the spirit of the people, which was defined as the collective, historical personality of each people which gave to it its unique character and coherency, in contrast to other groups of people.11 To each nation God gave such a Volksgeist to realise the unique purpose and function of that group for which it was specifically created. Every individual was seen to be first a member of the people and then an individual person. And individuals could only realise their potential within the national context. The ‘spirit of the people’, its natural genius finds its expression in the language of the people as an expression of their identity. Language taught individuals to think rather than assist them in the thought processes. The language community was the exterior form of a deeper communion of the Volksgeist which tied together the members of a nation in an invisible manner. The people were regarded as a collective individual with a unique identity. These nationalistic ideals were further enhanced by German romanticism with exponents like Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854), Johann Gottlied Fichte (1762–1814)12 and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) who emphasised the right of national states to determine their own affairs.13 A people represents a biological entity; it also distinguishes between peoples with a lower and higher talent or ‘giftedness’, providing for distinctions between groups of people in terms of intellectual and other capabilities in a generalised sense (Kinghorn 1986:66). The development of these nationalistic ideals influenced Afrikaners in their awakening nationalism and they drew inspiration from it when they eventually justified their centuries-long practice of apartheid theologically.

140  Ideology as violence German romanticism with its specific view of history and protest against the overemphasis of rationality in the period of the Enlightenment in the person of Immanuel Kant also influenced Afrikaners, especially through the publications of Abraham Kuyper (Kuijper) (1837–1920). It allowed a certain degree of irrationality by its belief in a life force which encompassed more than what was comprehensible by way of reason. This life force was connected to poetry, painting and religious revivalism, with its focus on intuition and experience. It influenced apartheid philosophers to seek divine principles in the historical experience of their people (Loubser 1987:17). Afrikaner nationalism (like all other nationalisms) presented the ‘people’ as ‘chosen’ for a specific ‘calling’, in the same terms as Israel was called to enter the Promised land and establish a theocratic kingdom by expelling all the other inhabitants of the land.14 The calling of Afrikaners was defined in terms of the spreading of the gospel light in dark Africa, implying that order would replace the chaos of indigenous ‘barbarians’. The equalisation between Israel’s called state and calling and the Afrikaners’ election as God’s instrument in Africa caused initial resistance from the churches to this popular theology of the people (or civil religion). For the elect people to fulfil their calling it was important to ensure its survival and self-determination as a people. In this way, self-determination and calling were linked; the people existed because they were called by God. In this manner, the Voortrekkers identified with Israel trekking from the Egyptian slavery of British rule to Canaan, the Promised land, where they were harassed by the children of Ham, the cursed seed of Noah, of whom the blacks were descendants, in the belief of many Afrikaners. The identification with Israel provided Afrikaners with an intellectual framework for interpreting their history but also with the language and metaphors to describe their lives, for instance, the Blood River catastrophe was interpreted in terms of the people making a covenant with the God of Israel.15 Kuyper was a theologian who later became prime minister of the Netherlands. The most important aspect of his theology that influenced the development of apartheid theology in South Africa was an independent system of principles that he saw as the elements of an all-encompassing worldview where every single atom of reality exists under the sovereign Lordship of Christ (Kuyper 1898:14). Reality consists of different spheres of sovereignty such as state, society, school and so forth, and these spheres are related to each other because each falls directly under God’s sovereign authority, with each sphere having a certain authority of its own, called ‘sovereignty in its own sphere’ (Kuyper 1898:17). In this way, reality is contained within its description. These spheres of authority are ‘creation ordinances’ of God, and not even sin can violate them. Society consists of an organic whole of spheres, comprising the Volkseele (soul of the people). Each sovereignty in its own sphere acts as normative, as Herman Dooyeweerd later declared (Loubser 1987:39). H. G. Stoker, a South African Calvinist philosopher, described each ethnic group as an organism which formed part of humanity as a whole; society cannot be described in terms of individuals but only of the organism of groups. As an organism the group has a rhythm and a law of its own as expressed by its

Ideology as violence  141 language, history, biological composition and locality. Each ethnic group of people was a collective whole; it was conceived as autonomous and sovereign and responsible to God for its own household. God created, rules and determines the creation in its diversity of sovereign spheres of authority by means of creation ordinances. These ordinances give to each different sphere its specific authority and character. In all created life there is embodied a law which God ordained for it. The ordinances act as laws of nature, as it is called by science (Kuyper 1898:61). The moral order consists in the thought and conscience of believers because they live before God and feel him in their existence. From creation to eternity, God had willed and maintained the same consistent moral order in the world (Kuyper 1898:62). The main components are an element of order (God had ordained it in this manner) and an ethical element (because God had ordained it in this manner, people are obliged to respect and obey these creation ordinances). Among people there are however no uniformity but pluriformity (Kuyper 1898:18). The principle of diversity also determines the church, implying that the unity of the church is a dream that will only be realised at the second coming of Christ.16 In its earthly form the church is defined by diversity, in terms of individuals who are like-minded. Because of its participation in the sinful dispensation the church consists of believing and confessing individuals who attempt to live together in subservience to Christ (Kuyper 1898:54). The visible unity of the church is not a priority; the price human beings pay for their further development is that uniformity is exchanged for pluriformity.17 Kuyper’s pamphlet, ‘Uniformity, the Curse of Modern Life’, published in 1869, describes his viewpoint as ‘Christian historical’, a term that was developed into ‘Christian nationalism’ by South African neo-Calvinists. Kuyper describes unity as the ultimate purpose of biblical revelation, an ideal that cannot be realised on earth (Kuyper 1869:6). The powers of evil exhort humanity to strive and work for unity or uniformity, an ideal that God had already frustrated at Babel. All tyrants from the pharaoh to Bismarck who tried to enforce uniformity were frustrated in their attempts because unity can only grow out of the diversity of human groups (Kuyper 1869:8). Since the French Revolution (1789), an external idea of unity was exchanged for a social phenomenon which operated within human beings (Kuyper 1869:9), creating a false unity which will fail again and again because of the indestructible power concealed in the national diversity of the social life of nations. ‘Freedom, equality and brotherhood’ aimed at eliminating diversity where the peculiarities of nations were supposed to be stripped to be made uniform with another. What is needed, according to Kuyper (1869:12), is that diversity should be defended against the ‘grey uniformity of modern life’ with its increasing industrialisation and improved communications. Diversity is to be cherished in all fields. Uniformity and equality make human beings cogs in a machine and this runs counter to the ordinances of God. The greatest law of creation is that each form of life should multiply according to its own sort, according to the peculiar character it received. Even heaven is characterised by a diversity of seraphs, cherubim and

142  Ideology as violence archangels and thus races should be held apart forcibly. Diversity is the great law of creation that attains normative character and divine sanction. Unity can only be found at the beginning and end, only in its origin and purpose and never in the phases of development that precede it (Kuyper 1869:23). False unity is the curse of human life because it frustrates the ordinances of God revealed in Scripture and creation (Kuyper 1869:24). Because of Christ, unity is felt strongly in the church and since the fifth century ce, the church brought about unity in the same manner as Nebuchadnezzar had done on a political level; free expression of life was silenced by means of the sword or pyre and a death-like uniformity was enforced (Kuyper 1898:26). The Reformation rejected this uniformity and the national character of ethnic groups again determined the character of their churches. However, the churches of the Reformation restored unity in the form of national churches where personal freedom did not come to its right and uniformity of creed, spiritual style, liturgy and management was required (Kuyper 1869:27). Uniformity is ‘the mother of all lies’ (Kuyper 1869:29). The ideal is that humanity should not seek to unify. The church should consist of people of good will who are one in mind and spirit, come together and confess their faith, provided that they do not express a stronger unity than that which is truly common to them. Kuyper does not support either congregationalism or clericalism but rather a confederative system that correlates the problem of freedom and unity without infringing upon the truth, and that prepares for a future in which unity will not be artificial anymore (Kuyper 1869:29). His politics consists of a programme of ‘live and let live’, with a strong emphasis on individual initiative and creativity. He criticises the uniformity of political systems; the geographic division of constituencies had to be replaced to accommodate minorities. He links religion to patriotism; where religion was strongest, love of country and people was also strongest. Only religion is an adequate counter-measure to the death of uniformity and a guarantee of freedom of human expression. Where God is believers do not bow to a tyrant (Kuyper 1869:34). Kuyper’s political theology does not allow for many ethnic groups existing within one country. He also defines a nation in terms of its religious origin, heroic past and election within a divine purpose (Loubser 1987:45). He defines the existence of nations in terms of God’s creation according to certain ordinances or principia and attached normative character to them. Kuyper’s conclusions about the existence of nations according to creation ordinances are not deduced from the Bible; his hermeneutical angle rather allows him to use texts in an arbitrary way as ‘proof texts’ without considering their historical placedness, to illustrate his theme of diversity that should be preferred above uniformity. In this way, he reads the narrative of Babel, Pentecost, Acts 17:26 and Revelation’s description of the diversity of nations and peoples on one level without reference to the scopus or central theme of the Bible.18 He elevates experience, nature or creation and history to the status of a normative source of knowledge. He interprets Scripture as the source for allotting nature the potential to supply norms, not the means of rational deduction as Kant did but by pre-scientific intuitive experience, reminding of later existentialism that revolted against Kant’s rationalism (Loubser 1987:46).

Ideology as violence  143 He interpreted unity only in terms of the ethnic group or nation and not in terms of the church, changing the ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ of the kingdom of God into a static opposition of ‘now’ and ‘one day’. Kuyper’s opposition to uniformity influenced South African neo-Calvinist theologians who experienced industrialisation and modernity negatively. He identified with the Afrikaners who in their quest for independence idealised their past. Kuyper attributed the South African Republic’s successful resistance of the British annexation to their pious Calvinist spirituality. By the 1940s, the neo-Calvinists had placed the apartheid paradigm based on their practice within the framework of Kuyper’s principles. They viewed the ethnic group as a sovereign sphere, as normative and the concept of creation ordinances was utilised in exegetical labour, with the ‘principle of diversity’ being seen as the most important of such creation ordinances. Afrikaners’ existence was interpreted in terms of a national and divine election and calling, stimulating the production of an idealised history. The system was labelled as ‘Christian national’. The nation (Afrikaners in the first place) was for them a peculiar cosmic phenomenon with its own essence and task in contradistinction to all other groups and with a freedom that is a privilege and duty to acquire and preserve, as the necessary presupposition for the fulfilment of its life task as a nation. Each nation has the right and duty to be itself and to exist separately and independent of others, to fulfil its own calling which God has given it (Kinghorn 1986:62). Apartheid theology also combined some ideas gained from the German National Socialist ideology of Adolf Hitler. In Nazi philosophy three trends converged: Max Müller’s and De Gobineau’s myth of the eminence of the Aryan race, the German romantic idea of the people as an organism, and Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Hitler’s nationalism was restricted to one people; he defined ‘nation’ in terms of people who are related based on race, the Aryan race (Christelike Instituut van Suider-Afrika 1971:11). Jews were excluded from citizenship of the Reich because they formed a group of foreigners who enjoyed the hospitality of the country as members of another race. When people failed to maintain the purity of their racial blood they destroyed the soul unity of the people; cross-breeding was the most cursed of all crimes. People should fight for the purity of their blood, Nazism taught.19 German Christians responded to Hitler’s notion of purity by declaring race and nation divine creation ordinances declared and entrusted to a people for the maintenance of what is nothing less than the commandment of God. Racial mixing must therefore be opposed; Christian faith is dedicated to intensifying and sanctifying race, not destroying it. These ideas were incorporated in apartheid theology alongside the Kuyperian principles, embodying socio-political and Afrikaner-revolutionary ideas (Loubser 1987:49) and the crude scientific racism drawn from the vocabulary of social Darwinism (Dubow 1992:209). Not humanity but the ethnic group was an ‘organic group’ and had absolute value; human beings were first called to be members of a nation. They could never find self-expression apart from the nation. What made people a nation was not a shared fatherland but the spiritual unity of a common

144  Ideology as violence culture. God had created a diversity of nations, and to try and eradicate national differences would bring people into conflict with the natural law of God, and God himself, and amount to an evasion of the task that God had entrusted to human beings. Nationalism was essentially religious because it regarded each nation as the creation of God. Service to the nation was equated with service to God; love for one’s own nation was regarded as higher than love for other nations because people of the same nation shared a common descent and the same values (Diedericks 1936). As German socialism strives after racial purity, the National Christian philosophy underlying apartheid theology requires that whites remain masters in following the Herrenvolk idea, refusing the extension of franchise to ‘nonwhites’ and attempts to develop them on the same basis as ‘whites’. Afrikaners got their concept of racial purity from Nazism and it later found expression in the hated ‘sex laws’.20 J. D. du Toit (the Afrikaans poet Totius, son of the Kuyperian S. J. du Toit who joined the Gereformeerde church) verbalised apartheid theology at a People’s Congress (Volkskongres) in Bloemfontein in 1944 (A. Van Wyk 2017:182).21 Du Toit (1955:1) declares that he does not use only a few texts to justify apartheid but the whole Bible. The creation narrative demonstrates that God is the great ‘Divider’ who created everything after its own kind; the principle of diversity was a creation ordinance and the cultural commandment of Genesis 1:18; 9:1 (and Acts 17:26) is a divine command to nation-building. Babel demonstrates the human urge to unify (as Kuyper already demonstrated); in the same way the Voortrekkers had to oppose the efforts of the tower builders at Babel to stay together and resist dispersion. In the providence of God, each nation had received a calling that can only be realised by preserving themselves against a ‘Babylonian spirit of unification’. Totius answers the objection of ‘liberalists’ who use texts like Colossians 3:11 and Galatians 3:28 that promote unity by stating that these texts refer to a spiritual unity that is valid only in Christ and that will only realise in the world to come. He ascribes the ‘barbarity’ of black Africans to the curse of Ham that rests on them. In contrast, the Boer nation developed from a miraculous intermingling of blood. Two principles emphasised by Totius is that what God has joined together no man should put asunder, implying the unity of the nation, and that humanity may not join what God had separated, implying that in pluriformity of nations the council of God is realised. Equality is directly against the great principle of God’s order at the Tower of Babel, as is also miscegenation. Division is according to Deuteronomy 22:9–11 and Leviticus 19:19 a principle in nature, and affirmed by 1 Corinthians 7:18–24. In this way, Totius also justified the guardianship of whites over blacks. In justifying apartheid as a biblical principle, apartheid theologians used a hermeneutic of ‘people’ as a social construct with divine sanction, allowing them to read a national component of meaning into the Bible where other readers of the Bible would never expect to find it. It deduced moral norms from what the Bible treats as facts and what the Bible teaches about individuals is directly applied to nations. The hermeneutical principle served the ‘collective individual’ of romantic

Ideology as violence  145 nationalism. The communion of believers is also made relative to the nation and defined in terms of the interests of the nation and the unity of believers from different nations is demoted to an ‘invisible unity’ that will only realise in the new world (Loubser 1987:69).

Apartheid effects After a brief discussion of the development and essence of apartheid as a political and theological doctrine it becomes necessary to discuss some of the effects of apartheid which can be summarised in one word: violence. Attention will be restricted to one aspect that is of prime importance, the education system in South Africa and its implications for the economy. Several other effects can be discussed but space does not allow its inclusion. Fact is that Black people were the ones that were mostly affected by this policy (https://sites.google.com/site/negativeeffectsofapartheid). Their suffering can in no way be quantified. However, it is necessary to describe its horrendous violent results. Blacks existed for historic reasons at the bottom of the social chain and received the worst facilities and services. They were not allowed to study in white schools and universities, forcing them to career options reserved for the less developed part of the population. In most instances, blacks in the apartheid era could not get a higher education than secondary school so that they were disqualified from all professional careers like doctors, lawyers, engineers or accountants. The most promising among them could become teachers in black schools. Others worked in gardens, house or kitchens of white people. However, they were not allowed in white suburbs as they pleased; they were forced to carry what resembled an identity document (called a Dompass) containing their personal details. The Dompass granted them access into white suburbs for limited periods of time. They had to carry the Dompass with them all the time. Blacks without a pass were refused admission into the white suburbs and they were liable to arrest. Blacks were also forced to leave the city and white suburbs at a certain time of the night (curfew). The white Nationalist government purposefully withheld educational opportunities from the black people in South Africa to maintain its control over this widespread population. The Bantu Education Act in 1953 ‘confirmed that black education would continue to exist primarily to service white interest’ (Jansen 1990:22). According to the minister of Native Affairs at the time, (the infamous) Hendrik Verwoerd, ‘The School must equip the Bantu to meet the demands which the economic life of South Africa will impose on him. . . . There is no place for him in the European community above certain forms of labor’ (Jansen 1990:22). Verwoerd explained that education for blacks in South Africa was exclusively to benefit white interests. During a debate in 1953 about changes to the Bantu Education Act, Verwoerd clarified that ‘if the Native in South Africa today in any kind of school in existence is being taught to expect that he will live his adult life under a policy of equal rights, he is making a big mistake’ (Pomeroy 1971:19). He emphasised that the main purpose of the Bantu Education Act and other legislation

146  Ideology as violence that prevented native people from getting a satisfactory education was to limit the potential of the black majority and ensure that the white population could control it (McDonnell 2017:2). Schools were segregated while blacks were forced to be taught in Afrikaans, a language that was not spoken by many of them and that they came to hate because they associated it with their Afrikaans-speaking oppressors. Many of them struggled with English but teaching for blacks was not allowed in an indigenous language. The march to Orlando Stadium in Soweto in 1976 that sparked a revolution was caused by school children objecting to their teaching in the language of the oppressor. During the march the police opened fire on the children and Hector Peterson was killed, an event that grabbed the attention and imagination of the world. South Africa saw many positive political changes when the country held democratic elections in 1994 for a liberal democracy. However, that was not the end of its problems. It still lacks the skilled labour force necessary to grow economically due to the oppression of black education during the apartheid era. The result of inferior education is that many blacks are unable to enter the skilled labour force and govern the country. And the trend is unfortunately continuing, with the ANC government perpetuating the poor education, strengthening the inequality between whites and blacks. Black schools do not have the capabilities to properly educate their students (cf. McDonnell 2017). The apartheid government focused nearly exclusively on white interest and neglected the larger task of creating a culture of learning, particularly . . . at schools for Black students, which were typically overcrowded and marked by insufficient resources as well as curricula that were irrelevant to the lives and aspirations of learners. (Gallie, Sayed & Williams 1997:461–462) Years after the end of apartheid, ‘South Africa’s Black Schools have remained disadvantaged, while its schools for whites have continued to grow and thrive’ (Gallie, Sayed & Williams 1997:462). According to data collected in 2013, ‘around 80% of public schools are dysfunctional and the quality of schooling for the majority of poor people is abysmal’ (Kangarlou 2013:15). This unfortunate situation led Nelson Mandela when he became president after his release from prison in 1994 to advise the youth of the importance to concentrate their time and effort on education (Baines 2007:300). Although Mandela had previously used the slogan, ‘liberation before education’ (Baines 2007:300), he now acknowledged that while the goals of liberation had been attained, the future generations needed to focus on education before anything else (McDonnell 2017:3). The new ANC-led government did many things right. However, social and economic inequalities were so deeply embedded in the South African society that thirty years after the introduction of a democratic government, [Fifty per cent] of the 1993 poor escaped poverty, while 27% fell from being nonpoor to poor. What is actually reflected in these statistics is the

Ideology as violence  147 deracialization of welfare payments under the Mandela government and the concomitant increase in the coverage and benefit levels. (Carter & May 1999:19) The new government helped to create a more racially equal society, which in turn served to reformulate the social classes to include all races. However, more is needed. The government needs to invest in its educational system to comply with international standards, broader access to employment through job creation and reforms to the welfare system that directs more resources to the poor (Nattrass and Seekings 2001:66). Blacks younger than thirty-five years old are the most represented among the unemployed. Unfortunately, because ‘the majority of these youths . . . grew up under apartheid, [they] are not unemployed, but rather unemployable due to illiteracy and lack of skills’ (Kangarlou 2013:12). They are caught in structurally disadvantageous circumstances – they cannot obtain jobs that provide stability and income due to their lack of education. And since they cannot find jobs, they cannot provide a greater standard of living for their families and expose their children to better education. In this way they are continuing the cycle. The apartheid government designed apartheid mass segregation acts, which were aimed at creating a black mass of very cheap, underprivileged, semi-slave labour that can be shifted about at will to satisfy the needs of white-owned enterprises. ‘A more gigantic and more heartless scheme of racially-based exploitation has never been conceived’ (Pomeroy 1971:23). These acts prevented black people from receiving the proper education to obtain high level jobs and the opportunity to pursue this type of employment. The white ruling government wanted to capitalise one of South Africa’s greatest resources, the labour of her native population (Nattrass 1971:658). The government realised that keeping the black population at an elementary education and skill level and restricting the mobility of black workers would cheapen the cost of labour to capitalists (Nattrass 1971:658). Today black people cannot find jobs and skilled jobs are left vacant because black people that have the potential to fill them are unqualified.22 At the end of apartheid, Nine out of ten households in the bottom six deciles (the poorest 60% of households) were black. . . ; a small proportion colored, and a tiny proportion were white. By contrast, three-quarters of the top decile were white. This is unambiguous evidence of interracial inequality. (Nattrass and Seekings 2001:49) To fix this problem, the country needs to focus on skill formation and education to more fully incorporate the entire population into an economy that had been run by whites. The country can grow economically if it can effectively educate and train black people to become part of the skilled jobs market. The violence that apartheid generated led to problems that the South African government alone cannot handle. It needs the help and support of churches and nongovernmental organisations to address various issues. The Pentecostal church should become

148  Ideology as violence involved in combating violence by addressing social issues that divine and threaten the survival of South African society.

Notes 1 ‘Civil religion’ refers to a way of interpreting faith that is uncritical about own privileges and interests. Civil theology then confirms existing thinking and practice (Zeldenrust 1988:16–17). 2 Yoder (1964:45), writing from a North American perspective, is adamant that the difference is never between black and white; political situation is never so simple that all the right is on one side. The interests of peace are not best served by the domination of the world even by an utterly benevolent nation, but rather by a controlled balance of power. The error involved in considering one’s own nation or bloc to be utterly benevolent and the adversary utterly evil is compounded by every effort to undergird such claims with appeals to a higher moral authority, to the rule of law, or even to Christian values. This is the danger of ideology, that one believes in the correctness of one’s position to the detriment of other opinions. And the difficulty is complicated by one’s inability to evaluate one’s own subjective position. ‘The longer you swim in a culture, the more invisible it becomes’, argues Tema Okun in a conversation at Duke Divinity School on 4 October 2017. 3 For instance, some ideologies are based on the economic contradictions that it perceives underlying society. The question is then, which economic-social system is the best? The economic order, however, has several main aspects that should be considered when this question is being answered: which part of production means should belong to public institutions and which part should belong to private entities; what should be the measure of centralisation in terms of both production and management; what status should be given to employees and their organisation; how should markets be organised and so forth (Tinbergen 1960:129), illustrating the complicatedness of economic issues. Another issue is the contradiction between developed and developing economies and the increasing gap between rich and poor nations, indicative of the increasing gap between poor and rich people. Eight of the world’s richest people possess as much as the poorest half of the world’s population (www.usatoday.com/story/news/ world/2017/01/15/global-inequality-oxfam-report/96545438/; accessed 9 May 2017). The implication is that income inequality is so lopsided that eight men own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world, and a top corporate CEO earns as much in a year as ten thousand garment workers in Bangladesh. That this would eventually at some stage result in conflict of some kind is in my opinion a given. 4 A myth is never simply the story of an historical event; rather, it expresses a timeless truth underlying a people’s daily existence. A myth is always about now (Armstrong 2014:27). It is essentially true because it is a symbol, and a symbol is something that points beyond itself to a truth that might be difficult or even impossible to express in ordinary language. In this sense, a myth is a narrated symbol just as a ritual is an enacted symbol (Cox 2015:25). Myth is always rooted in the experience of death and the fear of extinction, it is usually inseparable from ritual and the most powerful myths are about extremity, the limit of human life, forcing us to go to a place that we have never seen, and do what we have never done before. Myth is about the unknown, that for which initially we have no words. Myth is not a story told for its own sake; it shows us how we should behave, it puts us in the correct spiritual and psychological posture for right action. And all mythology speaks of another plane that exists alongside our own world, and that in some sense supports it. Everything that happens in this world, everything that we can see here below has its counterpart in the divine realm, the invisible but more powerful reality. Earthly reality is only a pale shadow of its archetype, the original pattern, of which it is an imperfect copy. And it is only by participating

Ideology as violence  149 in this divine life that mortal, fragile human beings fulfil their potential (Armstrong 2007:3–5). 5 Most biblical texts push a point; they seek to convince the implied audience and persuade those who hear the message that the beliefs proclaimed in the text are authoritative and true (Habel 1995:10). This applies to the interpretation of texts as much as it does to the texts themselves. 6 ‘For Europeans, colonialism brought unimaginable wealth; for the native peoples, it brought death on an unprecedented scale’ (Armstrong 2014:214). Armstrong gives as an example the case of sugar plantations that the Portuguese set up in the Cape Verde where between three and five million Africans were torn from their homes and enslaved and that led according to one estimate that the population of central Mexico between 1519 and 1595 fell from 16.9 million to 1 million, and between 1572 and 1620 the Inca population was halved. 7 Historically speaking a racial church only emerged for the first time in 1787 in Philadelphia in the United States, when a group of Afro-Americans formed a new body for Negroes (Loubser 1987:73). 8 The secret Afrikaner Broederbond formulated in 1933 a document that suggests ‘total mass-segregation’ of all nonwhites to be immediately applied by government. Segregation consisted of the forced resettlement of different black ‘tribes’ in separate areas. These areas would in time govern itself, under the supervision of the Native Affairs Department, and may even eventually become independent. In these areas, Africans may live and develop themselves in all spheres of life. However, they had to sell their labour on farms owned by whites or in towns that were situated in ‘white areas’. ‘Detribalized’ urban Africans were encouraged to move to these own areas where they could own land. If they refused, they were compelled to live in separate locations in ‘white areas’ where they did not enjoy any political or property rights (Dubow 1992:210). 9 Merton (1968:6) describes contemporary violence that is not part of a war-situation as white-collar violence that consists of the systematically organised bureaucratic and technological destruction of humankind. It is abstract, corporate, businesslike, cool, free of guilt feelings and therefore more deadly and effective than the eruption of violence out of individual hate (Merton 1968:7). 10 Aristotle believed that some men were natural slaves and that waging war against primitive peoples who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit, was as necessary as hunting wild animals (Armstrong 2014:215). Colonial America lacked the manpower to maintain productivity so that by 1800, between ten and fifteen million American slaves had been forcibly transported to North America (Armstrong 2014:268). For a hundred years after the abolition of slavery, African Americans in the South would continue to suffer segregation, discrimination and routine terrorism at the hands of white supremacist mobs, which the local authorities did little to suppress (Armstrong 2014:271). 11 Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) had defined the ‘people’ as a collective personality and the centre of a new social order. 12 Fichte, for instance, claimed that the Fatherland was a manifestation of the divine, a supreme value. Hence national mythology would encourage cohesion, solidarity and loyalty within the confines of the nation (Armstrong 2014:267). 13 Hegel saw the Absolute moving through history and embodying successively in one sovereign state after another. He stood in radical contrast to the Enlightenment emphasis on universal rights and popular consent. If reason rules, Hegel argued, it does so through sovereign states gaining conscious identity in opposition to each other. In the dialectic of history, nation confronts nation and war ensues. War is ethically justified for the welfare of the state. Hegel valued the courage war demands. He stood in contrast to Kant’s idealism that viewed the laws of war as purely customary and neither reason nor nature nor history offer hope of perpetual peace (Holmes 1975a:284).

150  Ideology as violence 14 The Israelite nation is depicted in the Hebrew Bible as a theocracy. The nation served as the people of God. The problem is created when the passages related to the ‘people of God’ and described in theocratic terms are retranslated and applied to the situation of a specific nation in the contemporary world. Fact is, today’s ‘people of God’ form a trans-national and supra-national entity, the church, and no nation may be considered the people of God, not even the modern Israeli state (Knight 1996:496). 15 Adolf von Harnack ([1905]1981:32) suggests that the dark history of Christian religious repression and holy war is the ultimate result of the military metaphors that are nearly ubiquitous in biblical and early Christian literature, a view that is attractive although it is ultimately unverifiable (Hunter 1992:92). However, it can be proved that Afrikaner literature’s and politicians’ use of these metaphors created the atmosphere for apartheid to serve as a theological paradigm. 16 On the contrary, the church is called to realise Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17. In the words of the participants gathered together for the Seventh Consultation of the Uniting and United Churches held in Driebergen in the Netherlands in September 2002, the extent of violence that divides humanity in the world has a deep impact on the churches in their search for unity. In the face of such apparent fragmentation, the Church must witness – by what it does and what it is – to the wholeness of God. In a time when talk of war is so pervasive, the Church must witness to the peace of God. At a moment when the powers of the world seem to lack the capacity for self-criticism, even our willingness to confess our brokenness is a witness to the sovereignty of God . . . Our prayer at the consultation was that our Churches, timid and fractured as they often are, would be empowered by the Spirit, and thereby witness to God’s power that tears down walls of hostility and brings together those who once were enemies. (quoted in Gnanadason 2004:64) 17 Punt (2009:150) remarks that globalisation carries with it a danger of uniformity, increasing the temptation to turn inwards and take refuge in all kinds of convictions, whether religious, ideological, cultural and nationalistic. When white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans lost political power in 1994 (they did not lose economic power, however, because the Constitution of the New South Africa entrenched their economic power to a substantial extent), some of them redefined their identity in reactionary terms and hide in conservative ideological convictions such as British Israelism or Jewish Messianism. 18 Fee and Stuart (1994:202) emphasises that one should first distinguish between the central core of the message of the Bible and what is dependent upon or peripheral to it. To define a central core does not imply that one creates a canon within the canon; it is rather to safeguard the Bible from the danger that culture, religious custom or contemporary cultural expression should determine the meaning of the text. 19 Rah ([2009]2015:124) describes the race myth: the category of race has no scientific justification; it is a sociologically created category, rather than a scientifically created one. The concept of race has no basis in the biological sciences; race should be a social convention. The category of race also does not exist in the Bible. Race distinctions based upon measurable physical distinctions were used to justify the unjust system of slavery, with ‘black’ symbolising savagery, ignorance, lack of intelligence and an inability to live in a civilised manner while whites were viewed as intelligent, civilised, capable of self-government and self-restraint ([2009]2015:125). Even today in Western representation in books, museums, the press, advertising, films, television and software, whites are overwhelmingly and disproportionately predominant, with the central and elaborated roles assigned to them and above all places as the norm, the ordinary and the standard, observes Dyer (2005:11).

Ideology as violence 151 20 Numerous laws were passed in the creation of the apartheid state in the 1950s, a decade that can be described as the era of ‘petty apartheid’, when the Nationalists passed racist laws to enforce and perpetuate an already existing racially separate and unequal social order. Here are a few of the pillars on which apartheid rested: the Population Registration Act of 1950 that demanded that people be registered according to their racial group. This meant that the Department of Home Affairs would have a record of people according to whether they were white, Coloured, black, Indian or Asian. People would then be treated differently according to their population group; this law formed the basis of apartheid. It was however not always that easy to decide what racial group a person was part of, and this caused some problems. The Group Areas Act of 1950 started physical separation between races, especially in urban areas. The Act also called for the removal of some groups of people into areas set aside for their racial group. Well-known removals were those in District Six, Sophiatown and Lady Selborne, Cato Manor, Fietas and Curries Fountain. People from these areas were moved to townships far from town. They could not own property here, only rent it, as land could only be white owned. The 1953 Reservation of Separate Amenities Act imposed segregation on all public facilities, including post offices, beaches, stadiums, parks, toilets and cemeteries, and buses and trains as well. The Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 forced different racial groups to live in different areas. Only a small percentage of South Africa was left for black people (who comprised the clear majority) to constitute their ‘homelands’. Like the Group Areas Act, this act also got rid of ‘black spots’ inside white areas, by moving all black people out of the city. The Act caused much hardship and resentment. People lost their homes, were moved off land they had owned for generations and were moved to undeveloped areas far from their work place. The Bantu Education Act of 1953 established an inferior education system for Africans based upon a curriculum intended to produce manual labourers and obedient subjects. Similar discriminatory education laws were also imposed on Coloureds, who had lost the right to vote in 1956, and Indians. The government denied funding to mission schools that rejected Bantu Education, leading to the closure of many of the best schools for Africans. In the higher education sector, the Extension of University Education Act of 1959 prevented black students from attending ‘white’ universities (except with government permission) and created separate and unequal institutions for Africans, Coloureds, and Indians respectively. Cf. also Shimony’s (2003:309–322) discussion of the way the Israeli education system implemented various pedagogical strategies aimed at inculcating a typology of national heroism during the state’s first three decades and the state sponsored curriculum ‘translated’ ideological discourse into educational text, integrating the state’s ideological value-system into a series of educational messages. The mapping of heroic prototypes in the national curriculum was conducted along the classic time-axis of Jewish history. The apartheid government also undermined intellectual and cultural life through intense censorship of books, movies, and radio and television programs. The Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 (originally introduced as the Unlawful Organisations Bill) was introduced to curb the influence of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) and other formations that opposed the government’s apartheid policy. It sanctioned the banning of the CPSA or any group or individual intending to bring about political, economic, industrial and social change through the promotion of disorder or disturbance, using unlawful acts or encouraging feelings of hostility between the ‘European’ and ‘non-European’ races of the Union of South Africa. The Act was progressively tightened up in 1951, 1954, and yearly from 1962–1968. Some other important laws were the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949; Immorality Amendment Act, 1950; Separate Representation of Voters Act, 1951 and Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, 1953 (www.sahistory.org. za/article/apartheid-and-reactions-it, accessed 19 April 2017).

152  Ideology as violence 21 A. Van Wyk (2017:182) argues that Totius was not the first to develop an apartheid theology. F. G. Badenhorst and J. G. Strydom, both from the Dutch Reformed Church, published studies about the South African racial issue from the perspective of apartheid. In 2015, Totius’ contribution to apartheid theology led to the removal of his statue from the campus of the North-West University in Potchefstroom. The statue now stands in the Synod Hall of the Gereformeerde Church in Potchefstroom. 22 For Michael Novak (1991), a Nobel Prize winner, the market economy is the capitalist economy and he views the market as the form of organising the economy which most corresponds with the gospel, the parameter of which is the American model. Houtart (1997:8) refers to a remark by Michael Camdessus, a previous director of the International Monetary Fund, who asserts the capitalist model is an economy of responsibility, in which human beings can employ all their dimensions. However, such an optimistic view overlooks the many flaws, imperfections and abuses that lead to the existence of unequal social relationships which do not put the partners in the market economy in a position of reciprocity. The market economy creates and reproduces inequalities by the very logic of its functioning. It cannot exist without this inbuilt inequality between people. Underlying the inequality is the potential for violent rebellion and revolution by the disempowered in response to the physical, social and cultural ravages of neoliberal policies. A community built on exclusion and oppression cannot exist without violence erupting at some stage. Cf. LaMothe (2016:42) for scathing criticism of the dominance of state-corporate capitalism in the United States. He (2016:49) defines capitalism as a complex semiotic system comprising ideas, narratives, treatises, rituals, and other practices for ordering relationships and institutions vis-à-vis financial exchange. He suggests that there are five interrelated types of occult violence contained in state-corporate capitalism causing injury to persons: class, environmental, physical, psychological-spiritual and communal. An example of such violence, he writes, is that lower classes bear the brunt of economic uncertainties in a market society. They are deprived of adequate income and access to health care and their educational and other opportunities are also limited. And the systemic economic diversion of money from working-class people to corporations in the form of greater profits is a legal though corrupt form of corporate theft. A further and more vicious form of legal class exploitation is lending businesses that charge up to 360 per cent interest on loans for employees. The violence is also seen in economic apartheid, which is increasingly evident in cities where the wealthy live on their own while the underclass are relegated to impoverished and poverty-stricken areas with a high incidence of crime.

4 A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic?

Introduction1 Pentecostal theologians have been publishing extensively during the past twenty years on hermeneutical issues, a subject that had not received much consideration before the mid-1990s, as Walter Hollenweger (1972; 1998) demonstrated in the dedication of his seminal work about the Pentecostals: His friends in the Pentecostal movement taught him to love the Bible and his friends in the Presbyterian church taught him to understand it. In their discussion of hermeneutical issues, Pentecostal theologians may create the impression that their hermeneutic is so unique that one can speak of a distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic. In this article the question is asked whether it is possible to speak of such a distinctive hermeneutic, whether it is necessary and what are the distinctives, essentials and characteristics of a Pentecostal hermeneutic. The growing debate among Pentecostals about hermeneutical issues demonstrates that the issue of interpreting the Bible is not settled for them. They disagree about several important issues. And while a major paradigm shift characterises Pentecostal culture, Pentecostals have to face the challenges it poses in terms of approaching and appropriating the Bible. They should also discount the difference between academic hermeneutics and what happens on its pulpits and in its pews.

Distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? During the ‘Dialogue Between the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity of the Roman Catholic Church and Some Classical Pentecostals’ (1977–1982; Gómez 2016:1), Howard M. Ervin (1981:22), a Baptist theologian who had been involved with Pentecostal issues and served as a representative on the Pentecostal team, suggested for the first time that Pentecostal hermeneutic differs so much from other traditions that it is possible to call Pentecostal interpretation distinctive from the hermeneutics of other traditions. He called it ‘pneumatic exegesis’. During the past twenty years several Pentecostals devoted their attention to the issues posed by a Pentecostal hermeneutic and most of them seemingly supported Ervin’s viewpoint of Pentecostal hermeneutic as distinctive from other theological traditions. The first question that needs to be answered is: Is it appropriate and proper to speak of a Pentecostal hermeneutic as distinctive?

154  A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? Epistemology is a question fundamental to the issue of hermeneutics or the art and skill of interpretation. Modernism and fundamentalism (as a critique on modernism) share a key epistemological presupposition, of objectivity brought into service of a historicist view of meaning (Cargal 1993:163–187; Bosch 1992:342– 345). Western culture, Ervin argues, accepts as axiomatic two ways of knowing, through reason and sensory experience. The approach to Scripture was driven by common sense and science (Hauerwas 1993:31).2 This implies that theology is also limited to these two ways, resulting in the unresolved dichotomy between faith and reason. Theologians reacted to the dichotomy by way either of traditional hermeneutics with its strong commitment to historical-critical exegetical methods, dogmatic intransigence or nonrational mysticism (Ervin 1987:100–104). In contrast, Ervin argues (1987:101), Pentecostals need an epistemology rooted firmly in the biblical faith with a phenomenology that also meets the criteria of empirically verifiable sensory experience (like miracles of healing, deliverance, etc.) and does not violate the coherence of rational categories. Pneumatic epistemology provides a solution, according to Ervin (1987:107), because it provides a resolution to the dichotomy between faith and reason, or rather a destructive rationalism that often accompanies critical exegetical methods, and a rational accountability for the mysticism fostered by a piety grounded in the Protestant sole fide. What would such a pneumatic epistemology consist of as a basis for ‘pneumatic’ Pentecostal hermeneutic? Ervin (1987:107) finds it in the Word, the transcendent word beyond all human words, for which there are no categories endemic to human understanding. For this word there is no hermeneutic unless the Spirit mediates understanding; the word transcends the Bible. The condition for this hermeneutic is then the divine hermeneutes, the Spirit of God who inspired Scriptures and is now animating it for the contemporary reader (Ervin 1987:116). This implies that the absolute precondition for understanding the Word of God is to be born again, to be born from the Spirit (John 3:5). In this way, humans become partakers of the divine nature although they do not partake in the divine. The boundary between Creator and creature is not erased but the Spirit creates the conditions where humans may hear and understand the Word that he realises and reveals. As the Spirit of Christ, he reveals the Word, Christ, the revelation of God’s character and will (John 1:1–5). Hearing and understanding the Word is a theological (theos logos) communication in its deepest ontological context (Ervin 1987:108), the incarnation making truth personal (a phrase Ervin borrows from Martin Buber 1953). For this reason, one has not heard the Word when one understands it only in cognitive terms. Bible study per se cannot reveal the Word of God, apart from the revelation by the Spirit to the contemporary reader. The gospel should happen, the good news consisting in it being apprehended by Jesus Christ. The kerygma is not simply in letters and words printed or read but in an encounter between a human being and God. This is the ground of pneumatic hermeneutic (Ervin 1987:109) that makes it distinctive from all other theological hermeneutics. Pentecostal hermeneutical thinking was undoubtedly influenced by Ervin’s observations because his hermeneutic leaves room for an intuitive, nonverbal

A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? 155 communication between God and humankind, which is always the character of the miracle of an encounter with God through his Spirit. One of the phenomena that accompanies this communication is glossolalia, an initial evidence of being baptised with the Spirit (Mittelstadt 2010:70–71) that forms for Pentecostals the reality of a direct encounter between God and a human being and that coincides in their view with what the Bible describes in terms of salvation, dreams, visions, theophanies, miracles of healing and speaking in tongues (Ervin 1987:113). In this way biblical events are re-enacted. ‘To be Pentecostal is to have experienced the power of God in Jesus’ (Clark & Lederle 1989:43). Pentecostals emphasise that the working of the Spirit would be accompanied by power, including signs, wonders and the miraculous (Wimber 1985:33–38; Thomas 2010:302–304), which form the ‘standard operating procedure of a New Testament/indigenous church’ (Rance 2009:7). In this way, the apostolic mandate is fulfilled in apostolic power when the events that the New Testament relates also occur in the presentday church. The same God who spoke and acted in salvation-history events as described in both the Old and New Testaments, speaks and acts today by way of the inspiration of Scriptures, and Pentecostals read the Bible to find the hermeneutical implications of God’s present activity in the faith community (McQueen 2009:3–4).3 The element of a direct and unique encounter between God and a human being or a group of believers is essential for the hermeneutical process; otherwise revealed knowledge consists merely as cognitive data, when the experiential dimension is neglected (Jacobsen 2003:110).4 Pentecostals use 1 Corinthians 2:4–5 to demonstrate their intention in preaching, where the author emphasises that his message and preaching were not in plausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of Spirit and power in order that listeners’ faith might not rest on the wisdom of men but in the power of God (καὶ ὁ λόγος μου καὶ τὸ κήρυγμά μου οὐκ ἐν πειθοῖ σοφίας ἀλλ' ἐν ἀποδείξει πνεύματος καὶ δυνάμεως, ἵνα ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν μὴ ᾖ ἐν σοφίᾳ ἀνθρώπων ἀλλ' ἐν δυνάμει θεοῦ). The implication is drawn that effective preaching of the gospel should always consist of a miraculous element. Remembering and commemorating the words and deeds of Jesus and the apostles is especially important for Pentecostals and indispensable to faith.5 The historical data, however, is itself not important but for its value in creating expectations for the contemporary believers because they insist upon the experiential immediacy of the Holy Spirit (Jacobsen 2003:136).6 For this reason, however, Pentecostals concentrate specifically and primarily on the narratives found in the New Testament relating to encounters early Christians experienced with the Holy Spirit, leading to an emphasis on the synoptic Gospels (with a predilection for Luke; Mittelstadt 2010:2–3) and especially Acts of the Apostles (Hollenweger 1988:336; Mittelstadt 2004:2). Because the Pentecostal community understands itself to be a restorationist movement, it argues in many instances (sometimes even in an offensive and arrogant way) that it is the best representation of Christianity in the world today because it is an authentic continuation of New Testament Christianity as well as a faithful representative of New Testament Christianity (Archer 2009:133).7 Penney (in Anderson 2003:3)

156  A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? argues that especially the experience of the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 becomes a ‘normative paradigm for every Christian to preach the gospel’, and that Luke’s ‘primary and pervasive interest is the working of the Holy Spirit in initiating, empowering and directing the church in its eschatological worldwide mission’.8 A pneumatic epistemology, according to Kärkkäinen (1998:97), posits the awareness that Scripture is the product of an experience with the Holy Spirit which biblical writers describe in phenomenological language. And the interpretation of this phenomenological language is more than an exercise in semantics or descriptive linguistics. The condition for understanding the events described in the Bible is an encounter with the Holy Spirit in the same tradition as the apostolic experience, with the same charismatic phenomena accompanying it. Only then can one truly understand the apostolic witness in an existential manner. The contemporary fellowship of believers stands in direct continuity with the faith community that birthed the New Testament (Thomas 2016:96). Because of the sense of awareness of continuity with the earliest community of believers, the present-day community has a deep respect for the witness of the Bible because they experience that the Bible is made alive in a new and fresh way through the anointing of the Spirit on the reader (Macchia 2015:9).9 For them the Bible becomes a new book filled with experiences re-enacted in their own lives. They now read the Bible from within, accepting and understanding its idioms and categories (Kärkkäinen 1998:107). Their intention is not to know the data related to biblical events and laws but to experience what the Israelites or early believers experienced. A resulting risk and danger for Pentecostals is the subjectivising trend to hear in the Bible what suits the reader. One’s hermeneutic may lead to demythologising the Bible because its exegesis robs the Bible of its critical-contextual historicity and factuality (Menzies  & Menzies 2000:78). Then hermeneutics becomes an exercise in a private and convenient reconstruction of the intentionality of the text that serves the interests of the contemporary reader while it ignores the sociohistorical context of the biblical text. For this reason, linguistic, literary and historical analyses are indispensable as a first step to an understanding of the Bible. A sound grammatico-historical and critical-contextual exegesis should be pursued to save one from the risk of subjectivism; there can be no hermeneutical integrity apart from a critical and contextual exegesis (Cartledge 2014:275). But more is needed than good exegesis by the reader; human rationality must be joined in ontological union with the ‘mind of Christ’ (νοῦν κυρίου; 1 Cor 2:16) quickened by the Spirit revealing divine mystery (Green 2015:73). This is the essence of pneumatic hermeneutic. Ervin is not a classical Pentecostal and his ideal of a sound exegetical basis for interpreting the Bible does not necessarily represent what happens in the average Pentecostal congregation. However, Ervin did Pentecostals a favour by verbalising the way Pentecostals think about the Bible. Arrington (1988:376) expands Ervin’s model and gives an important additional perspective on Pentecostal hermeneutic when he explains that it must arise out of the Pentecostal theology of the Spirit. Scripture can be interpreted and properly understood only through the agency of

A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? 157 the Spirit, as the Paraclete sayings of John’s Jesus demonstrate (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7; Nel 2016b). Pentecostals are convinced of the importance of the Spirit for the interpretative process and argue that an experience and life in the Spirit is the precondition for understanding the Bible correctly. And only then can Pentecostal theology emerge, as the result of the anointing of the Spirit on the believer’s engagement with Scripture (Arrington 1988:377). This implies that the Pentecostal method of interpretation stands on three pillars, as pneumatic, experiential and historical narrative (cf. Cargal 1993:163–165 for a critical discussion of these elements). This implies that Pentecostals should not foresee any obstacle in using critical tools of grammatico-historico-contextual exegesis while at the same time they appreciate the spiritual nature of the text and its Spirit-driven interpretation. What is necessary is that proper recognition be given to the divine and human elements in the interpretation of the Bible, as Arrington (1988:387) explains. Exegesis should be accompanied by study and prayer. This hermeneutical model is open for questioning and criticism. Some of the questions that should be answered are: What comes first, the so-called Spiritdriven interpretation or the human endeavour to interpret the text in terms of its historical and grammatical context? And what happens when a Spirit-driven interpretation and the human exegetical attempt provide conflicting interpretational data? What guarantee can be given that the interpretation determined by the immediacy of the text is not be overwritten by the historicity of the mystery, which describes a personal entry of God into human history? And how can the balance between spiritual/pneumatic and historically determined exegesis be maintained? Lee (1994:68–71) refers to the seemingly gnostic dualism that a pneumatic epistemology in his opinion witnesses to: ‘If Scripture is written in human language and is capable of communicating God’s Word, his (Pentecostal’s) insistence on the total incapacity of the human hermeneutic of language to understand Scripture seems unreasonable’. Some Pentecostals describe Scripture as the ‘Word of God’ expressed in human words, implying that the Bible is comprehensible apart from pneumatic illumination, and that allows for grammatical-historical exegesis to be effective in terms of the ‘words of humans’. However, I am of the opinion that pneumatic illumination is unconditionally necessary in understanding the ‘Word of God’ quality of the Bible, the deeper significance that can only be perceived through the eyes of faith (Arrington 1988:382; Cargal 1993:174) and by someone illuminated, inspired and filled by the Spirit. The dualism found in Pentecostal hermeneutic accords well with postmodern hermeneutics when it emphasises the immediacy of the text and multiple dimensions of meaning (Cargal 1993:175). The two levels are a ‘correct reading’ that leads to theological knowledge about God based on an investigation into the original intention of the biblical author by means of exegetical methods, and a ‘creative reading’ of the Bible that leads to an explanation of how a given passage can be put into practice today. Both are important in Pentecostal reading and interpreting the Bible. In thinking about the Bible, a distinction should be made between ‘inerrant’ and ‘infallible’. In their common usage the two terms are synonymous for many

158  A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? people but as theological terms they differ significantly. ‘Inerrancy’ refers to the Bible being free from error while ‘infallibility’ refers to the Bible not failing, which stresses that the Bible is a trustworthy guide that we can fully rely on in all matters which it addresses. Most people who affirm the Bible’s inerrancy also affirm its infallibility; it is argued that Scripture cannot be a reliable guide if it is not completely free of any errors. They claim that the Bible is infallible, a trustworthy guide that one can fully rely on in matters of faith, doctrine and morality even though it is a product written by human authors. Others realise that the Bible contains many scientific errors, such as a geocentric worldview, and scribal errors with enough variants in the New Testament between 5,700 manuscripts that there are as much variants between the manuscripts as verses in the New Testament. Smith (2012) refers to the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism to describe the empirical fact that Evangelicals have consistently disagreed with each other about what the Bible teaches. The implication of Smith’s observation is that if we cannot agree on what the Bible says, it does not make much sense to claim that it is an unfailing guide. The problem is further complicated by the various traditions found in the Bible about many issues, such as violence, warfare, how one should treat enemies, whether women should be allowed to minister and so forth. Add to this the observation that when one interprets the Bible in an unquestioning way because you regard the Bible as authoritative it inevitably leads to the justification of violence, abuse of women and children, holy wars and crusades, and more. To read the Bible in an authoritarian (and chauvinist) unquestioning way is to read it immorally, as was demonstrated for centuries when slave-owners used theological arguments to justify the practice of slavery, and when Afrikaners justified apartheid as a social policy from the Bible (as demonstrated in chapter 3). What Flood (2014) suggests solving the problem is a trajectory approach consisting of faithful questioning of biblical texts in terms of an ethical evaluation and the evaluation of the observable effects in life when the ethical decisions are applied in practice. The supposition is that Jesus clashed with the religious authorities of his day because they read the Bible with unquestioning obedience while he interpreted it with faithful questioning (cf. conclusions in chapter 2). I think that Pentecostals can identify with this approach because their religion is not exclusively a book religion. Scripture is not their master or highest authority, but Jesus is, as he is revealed by his Spirit to the faith community. The role of Scripture is to lead people to Christ, to encounter him in his power, grace and glory. When they meet Christ in an encounter with the Spirit, they experience the life-changing transformative power of the Spirit and then live in such a way that the observable effects prove the merit of their reading because it leads to a life of compassion and grace. Scripture is then not an end in itself; one does not read the Bible to acquire knowledge about God or ethical issues. The aim of Scripture is rather to show the way to God, through Christ. Scripture becomes the vehicle intended to bring us into loving communion with Christ. In reading the Bible, one becomes sensitive for the fruit of the application of what one reads in the Bible.10 The religious elite of his day rejected Jesus’ ministry of healing because it conflicted with their way of interpreting the Bible and with their religious tradition

A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? 159 based on the Hebrew Bible. Jesus warned them that they are blaspheming against the Holy Spirit (Matt 12:31) because they reject the work of the Spirit through Jesus’ healing ministry. This incident demonstrates the principle that to place a priority on one’s reading of the text over the experience of what God was doing was the greatest sin, the sin that would not be forgiven. Religion often gets struck when believers defend traditional values or historical faith as ‘God’s word’ when what they in fact do is to miss God because their life is not characterised by compassion. When one clings to hurtful interpretations of the biblical text even when the text implies and allows it or even encourages it (as some texts in the Hebrew Bible do in demanding annihilation of one’s enemies), and ignores the damaging effects it is having in people’s lives, this is blaspheming the Spirit because the result is the ruination of God’s reputation by a hurting religion creating a hurtful image of God. Paul demonstrates this process. He had read the Bible extensively as a Pharisee and understood God completely wrong, resulting in his persecuting Christ’s church. Paul first had to encounter Jesus in a life-changing experience before he could re-read the Bible in the light of Christ, changing him into a vehicle of God’s love for all people, including the heathen. He had to break with his previous understanding of Scripture, his religion and its traditions that were centuries old, to go with what he observed the Spirit was doing. What is needed then is seeing the primary role and telos of the Bible as leading us to love, to ask in the first place, ‘Does my reading of the Bible lead to love?’ rather than ‘Have I read this right?’, that we do not turn off our brains or sear our consciences when we read the Bible but that we continually seek to grow, ask, look and think and that we live our faith in obedience to Christ.11 The inspiration of Scripture involves realising that the Bible is not an end but a vehicle that leads us to a transforming encounter with God’s grace. ‘Inspired’ means literally ‘in-Spirit-ed’, to be indwelt with the Spirit or to be Spirit-filled. We recognise that the Bible is inspired when it leads us to an encounter with the Spirit of God in Christ, and then leads us to love. Therefore, Paul argues that the Bible is a dead book but through the Spirit the text becomes alive because it introduces us to Christ (2 Cor 3:3). The text as such is not inspired, apart from the Spirit. It becomes inspired (in-Spirit-ed) when God breathes into Scripture so that the voice of God is animated when the Spirit applies God’s word to the contemporary situation. Grenz (2000:72–73) shows how evangelicalism in the eighteenth century viewed the Bible as the vehicle through which the Spirit worked the miracle of salvation and sanctification. The nurturing work of the Spirit through the pages of the Bible penetrates human hearts with the message of the gospel. In contrast stands the biblicist understanding among conservative Evangelicals that resulted from a fundamentalist reaction to modernity. The shift to modernist fundamentalism and later Calvinist and neo-Calvinist conservative evangelicalism changed the theological ethos from a gospel-focused endeavour that viewed the Bible as the vehicle of the Spirit’s working to that of a Bible-centred task intent on maintaining the gospel of biblical orthodoxy and purity of doctrine.12 The shift is from

160  A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? a focus on the gospel to a focus on the Book, leading Smith (2011:93) to conclude that modern biblicism is not a truly evangelical reading of Scripture (that also forms the subtitle of his book).13 Scripture is primary to our faith not because it contains a collection of timeless truths that should be applied in an unquestioning way in all situations of our present lives. Fact is, because people obeyed unquestioningly the scriptural injunctions they practised slavery unscrupulously for eighteen centuries even though they were also disciples of Christ. Scripture does contain timeless truths, such as its emphasis on God’s forgiveness, grace and love for enemies that turn into injunctions for God’s children to imitate it. But we need to apply these with reflection and care because the potential exists that even these truths can be manipulated and become hurtful (Flood 2014:259). The reason why Scripture is primary is because it introduces us to Jesus, the Word who is life and truth. Scripture’s primary task is to lead us into a living relationship with God in Christ. Scripture becomes the way in which the Spirit primarily communicates God’s love and will to us, leading us to love others. A gospel-focused and Spirit-focused reading of the Bible begins in the experience of the love of God and continues in a life of love. This is the reason why the Evangelicals of the eighteenth century were at the forefront of social justice because they cared for the poor and promoted women’s rights and the abolition of slavery (Dayton 1987). The gospel-focus is the opposite of the book-focus that characterised the rise of fundamentalism at the beginning of the twentieth century and still determines conservative evangelicalism through the influence of the neo-Reformed or neo-Calvinist movement.14 It places priority on defending the Bible and doctrine, sometimes without regarding how it hurts people who do not agree with its viewpoints.15 Pentecostals believe that the Bible was never meant to be a substitute for their living relationship with God. That is also the reason why they reject the cessationist stance that the ‘supernatural’ revelations and miracles were limited to the first century ce. For them the Bible was meant to lead them into a life-giving relationship with Christ, a relationship that is nurtured by the Spirit utilising the Bible as one means to speak to believers and that is characterised by the revelation of the same wonder-working power that the authors in the Bible ascribed to God. In an image ascribed to Martin Luther, the Bible is the manger in which Christ is found by the wise men from the East. Without the manger, Christ is not to be found but the possibility exists that Christ may be confused with the manger. Pentecostals do not have a relationship with the Bible, but with the living Word. They respect the Bible because they find Christ in its pages when the Spirit anoints them in their reading. But their faith does not rest on the Bible but in the Logos of God. They do not find truth in the Bible; the Bible shows them where to find the one who is Truth (John 14:6). Their sure foundation is the One who is the Truth of God, Jesus the Messiah. God wants to reveal himself, at first through the Incarnation and since Pentecost through the gift of the Spirit, and the Bible. The inspiration of Scripture is a mystery

A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic?  161 consisting of an encounter between the divine and the human, and creates a kinship between the biblical writer and contemporary readers (Arrington 1988:383). The Holy Spirit re-enacts the apostolic experience brought about by the Spirit in the first place, serving as the bridge between the writer and reader. Stronstad (1995:14–23) calls the experiential nature integral to Pentecostal hermeneutic. The Spirit becomes the ‘common context’ between historical experience, interpretation and contemporary experience (Arrington 1988:382). Lee appreciates Arrington’s historical continuity between the first faith community and modernday faith communities and describes it as an important warrant against the risks of undue subjectivism that is always inherent in Pentecostal hermeneutic (Lee 1994:69). Lewis (2016:4–7) also appreciates Arrington’s going beyond a verbal dictation theory that characterised earlier fundamentalist hermeneutic within the Pentecostal community. Since the contributions of Ervin and Arrington, hermeneutic has become an important topic for discussion among Pentecostals (Kärkkäinen 1998:76).16 It should however be kept in mind that biblical interpretation in local congregations and pulpits is sometimes far removed from the academic discussion in Pentecostal theological circles confined mainly to seminaries and universities (Lewis 2016:9).17 In local assemblies many members (and pastors) of Pentecostal churches read the Bible from the supposition that it is the inspired and infallible Word of God, endowed with authority to determine doctrine and lifestyle, as totally reliable, without recognising any historical distance between contemporary believers and the text and without giving the necessary attention to the context in which specific texts function (Pluess 1993:191). They read the Bible with the implicit intention to find its literal meaning in all texts, including metaphors used in prophetical literature. Where it becomes impossible to find a literal meaning, they interpret texts in terms of typology and allegory to emphasise and apply its immediate meaning to the contemporary context (Spittler 1985:75–77). The Bible is perceived and interpreted as literally as credibility could stand, in Archer’s (1996:65) words, and at face value (Archer 1996:66). A literal approach to the Bible led to the distinctive Pentecostal practice of speaking in tongues and a restorationist identification with the early church. The Pentecostals assumed the early church had taken the Sermon on the Mount literally about nonresistance until the time of Constantine. They believed that the renewal of the church in modern times should include a return to those earlier pacific beliefs (Beaman 1989:lviii). The scopus applied in interpreting especially the New Testament is the pre-understanding of Jesus as Saviour, Baptiser, Sanctifier and soon coming King at the centre of charismatic life (Menzies 1985:14; Tomberlin 2010:35–53; Lewis 2016:3). What is needed is that a more sophisticated hermeneutical approach developed by Pentecostal theologians be communicated with these members to empower them to read the Bible from within a Pentecostal paradigm. Moore  & Henderson (2014:12–13) add further elements to a Pentecostal hermeneutical approach that have important implications: the priesthood and prophethood of all believers is important because it implies that every believer can contribute in a democratic manner to the interpretation of the Bible, the

162  A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? community of faith under the support of the Spirit exercising a corrective influence to heretical teachings is important as an actualisation of the gift of discernment and the Spirit draws the attention of the community of believers to the relevance of biblical passages for the contemporary life context (Archer 1996:78– 79; 2009:212–253). These three components must be brought into dialogue with each other, as demonstrated by what happened at the meeting of church leaders in Acts 15. At that meeting the early church’s way of using the Hebrew Bible to formulate a pronouncement about a current ethical issue serves as a parable to define the process of interpretation by a given community of faith, within the context of life of that respective community (Archer 2009:251).18 The hermeneutical process is solemnised when the Spirit draws the attention of the community of believers to the relevance of biblical passages for the life context of a specific church. Postmodern circles emphasise another important aspect, the significant role of the modern-day Bible reader in determining meaning. Cargal (1993:186–187) concurs and acknowledges that there are distinct levels of meaning in a text and variously equally accepted possible interpretations for one passage. Readers interact with the text in diverse ways based on their personal experience. In conclusion, Johns (1995:84–85) warns that Pentecostal hermeneutic may not happen or be understood within the frame of any other Weltanschauung than a Pentecostal one. For Pentecostals, truth consists of an encounter with the God who speaks in the Bible and that leads to radical life transformation while reading the Bible. And for Pentecostal theologians, Scripture forms a fixed reference point for the encounter with God, and an encounter with God forms the core of Pentecostal identity. The Pentecostal understanding of truth must be defended and protected at all costs and may never be made compatible with contemporary postmodern pluralism (Johns 1995:75). The impression is sometimes created by Pentecostal theologians that this model contains unique characteristics and emphases that qualifies it to be called a distinctive hermeneutic. However, this is neither possible nor desirable. By claiming Pentecostal hermeneutic to be distinctive Pentecostals may serve a Pentecostal ideology, while in reality they differ in several hermeneutical aspects from each other. Such an attempt also contributes to the seemingly endless fragmentation within Protestantism and the larger church. Instead of attempting to develop distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic, Pentecostals should rather contribute to a conciliar reading of the Bible that strengthens ecumenical commitment to the Bible and open up its meaning for postmodern humankind.

Synthesis There have been several attempts at construing Pentecostal hermeneutic during the past twenty years, characterised by an openness to the Spirit that informs the model of Bible reading. In engaging postmodern thinking, Pentecostal theologians should verbalise their hermeneutical model in an honest dialogue without submitting to the alleged similarities between Pentecostalism and postmodernism, such as the plural meaning of texts and the role of affections. These convergences

A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic?  163 exist only on the surface but cannot determine Pentecostal hermeneutical thinking unduly due to the fundamental differences in presuppositions between the two movements. Pentecostals accept the ‘big story’ of a scopus and the existence of truth, connected to the person of Jesus, while postmodernism rejects it. Pentecostals should keep on preserving their identity in terms of hermeneutical stances while at the same time relating to other Christians and the world around them. Pentecostal theologians’ attempts to construct a distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic are challenged by the diverse ways they use to describe its essence. What is important is that its pneumatology informs its Bible interpretation. However, this is not unique to Pentecostal hermeneutic. Ecumenical discussions with the Roman Catholic Church and several Protestant groups show that Pentecostal hermeneutic drinks from many different streams. To talk of a distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic is not possible and not even necessary, given the contribution that it has made and still makes to the emergence of a pneumatic/spiritual dimension of biblical interpretation as the Pentecostal contribution to other traditions (Kärkkäinen, 1998:90). The conclusion is that although there are specific identifiable emphases in Pentecostal hermeneutic it does not qualify to be called distinctive, and that an ecumenical approach demands that the movement should function within the context of the wider Christian church and its history of reading and interpreting the Bible.

Notes 1 A condensed version of parts of this discussion was published as Nel (2015a; 2017a). 2 The prevailing intellectual opinion in the nineteenth century was enamoured of the ‘Common Sense’ ideals of the Scottish Enlightenment, which provided an intellectual base for the unshakeable faith in the inductive scientific method associated with the seventeenth-century philosopher Francis Bacon. The Baconian Common-Sense system was identified to a substantial extent with Protestantism (Marsden 1982:81–82). Baconian fundamentalists were convinced that all they were doing was taking the hard facts of Scripture and discovering the patterns that were there. As natural science is concerned with the facts and laws of nature, so theology is concerned with the facts and principles of the Bible (Marsden 1980:112). This fundamentalist approach to Scripture is the Protestant reaction to allegorical methods, which Protestants evaluated as esoteric interpretation of the Bible. This presumed scientific approach to Scripture underwrote the presumption that the person of common sense possesses the ability to understand the Bible without further aid. In the process, it adopted the positivist epistemology that characterised modernism. 3 Cf. Nel (2015a:1–21) for full discussion. 4 Luther used the same terms when he described revelation not as cognitive data but rather a coming of Christ, present in the Word, through eyes and ears of hearers enabled to understand by the Spirit (Kirjavainen, 1987:137–140). 5 It should be kept in mind that the sermon itself is not just an exposition of the text. Rather it is a renarration of the text, which assumes that no account of the text is faithful that is not about God’s care of his creation. ‘A sermon is scriptural when it inscribes a community into an ongoing Christian narrative’ (Hauerwas 1993:42). 6 Cf. also the opinion of the Roman Catholic Church that it is not the ‘meaning of the text’ that interests the church but rather how the Spirit that is found in the Eucharist is also to be seen in Scripture (Hauerwas 1993:23). Hence Scripture must be read and interpreted according to the same Spirit by whom it was written.

164  A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? 7 The early Pentecostal revival at Azusa Street in Los Angeles called itself the Apostolic Faith Gospel Mission, to emphasise their perceived continuity with the preaching and experience of the earliest apostles and their emphasis on faith in Christ, and their desire to be a movement or mission rather than an institutionalised church (Dayton 1987:25–26). 8 Many scholars trained in biblical criticism still seek to recover the ‘original’ historical context of the text, the original intention of the author, and they regard the exegetical tradition prior to the development of historical criticism as an obstacle to proper understanding of the true meaning of the text. The supposition is that the most primitive meaning of the text is the valid meaning, and the historical critical method is the only key which can unlock it (Steinmetz 1986:66). Historical criticism seeks to describe what ‘it meant’ and not what ‘it means’ (Stendahl 1962b:419). Both fundamentalism and biblical criticism presupposes that the rational individual can understand the Bible without the equipment of additional knowledge, where the ‘rational individual’ is to be identified with the fictive agent of Enlightenment ideologies (Hauerwas 1993:35). The fundamentalist serves the lower and middle classes while the biblical critic feeds on the semiliterate class associated with the university; both wish to make Christianity available to the person of common sense without necessarily further requirements of moral transformation (Hauerwas 1993:36). 9 In this sense, the text has no ‘real meaning’; rather the Scriptures are maintained by the encounter of the church with the Christ of the Scriptures. And Christians have learned that the Bible exists to further the practices of witness and conversion (Hauerwas 1993:36). Although the believer ‘creates’ the meaning of Scripture through the inner witness of the Spirit, that does not invite ‘an orgy of subjectivistic arbitrariness’ (Hauerwas 1993:37) because the church returns time and time again to Scripture, not because it is trying to find the Bible’s ‘true meaning’ but because Christians believe that God has promised to speak through the Bible so that the church will remain capable of living faithfully by remembering well. This is expressed by Athanasius ([318]1946:96; cf. Hauerwas 1993:37–38), that for the searching and right understanding of the Scriptures there is need of a good life and pure soul. One cannot understand the teaching of the saints unless one has a pure mind and is trying to imitate their lives. Any attempt to make Scripture intelligible in and of itself can only be an attempt to protect ourselves from the challenge of having our lives changed. Scripture will not be self-interpreting or plain in its meaning unless we have been transformed to be capable of reading it (Hauerwas 1993:49). 10 Cf. the argument of Knight (1996:496–499) that because Christ is the highest authority for the Christian, they should follow his example that includes that he has the highest words of praise for a soldier (Matt 8:10), John the Baptist does not demand that soldiers leave the army but only that they do not misuse their power (Luke 3:14), Peter is sent to Cornelius, a centurion soldier (Acts 10) and Romans 12 and 13 encourages Christians to subject them to the state while it also distinguishes between the individual Christian and the state. While individual Christians may not avenge themselves, the power and authority of the state is delineated in other terms (Rom 13:1–7). The state’s task includes to avenge; it is a terror to evil. The state serves as a police force, and therefore it must do battle when needed. Knight (1996:499) acknowledges that the state may misuse its power and authority. In this way, the Bible is used to justify various forms of violence. 11 The Anabaptists refer to the ‘hermeneutics of obedience’, implying with the term that you can only properly interpret the Bible when you are living it. Only through this relational formation where we study and live the words of Jesus can we practically learn to recognise what reflects Christ and his way (Flood 2014:257). 12 Jonathan Haidt (2012) is a moral psychologist who explains the differences in the way that liberals and conservatives come to quite different moral sensibilities. There are six

A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic?  165 foundations underlying intuitive ethics or taken-for granted ways of acting ethically, he argues. Emphasising some of the six rather than the others explains cultural differences and clashes, he claims. The six pairs or vectors underlying competing moral systems are: care/harm; fairness/cheating; liberty/oppression; loyalty/betrayal; authority/subversion and sanctity/degradation. Liberals emphasise the first three vectors and conservatives try to emphasise all six vectors at the same time. The implication is that conservatives try to live with contradictions, which liberals essentially avoid. The last three vectors are useful in building social groups and ‘in-group’ cohesion, but often at the expense of the concern for caring, fairness and civil liberties that define the first three vectors. Regarding pacifism, Beaman (2016:19) points out that the first three vectors are conducive to a liberal or individualistic approach to pacifism, whereas the hierarchical and authoritarian tendencies implicit in the last three vectors probably contributed to the shift from social movement to formal organisation but also had the effect of moderating the element of social protest in favour of obedience to governing authorities. Such a shift could obviously serve to undercut thoroughgoing pacifism, as happened in the Pentecostal movement. 13 Biblicism can be defined as a theory about the Bible that emphasises its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning and universal applicability (Smith 2011:viii). ‘All related passages in the Bible on any given subject fit together almost like puzzle pieces into single, unified, internally consistent bodies of instruction about right and wrong beliefs and behaviors’ (Smith 2011:5). Biblicism requires all kinds of efforts to harmonise all the contradictory passages about war and peace across the Bible. Sacks (2015:208) explains that rabbinic Judaism declared biblicism, that is, accepting the authority of the written word while rejecting oral tradition, as the position of the Sadducees and Karaites, as heresy. The rabbis reasoned that one who translates a verse literally is a liar. Their point is: no text without interpretation, no interpretation without tradition. 14 All types of religious fundamentalisms are often preoccupied by the horror of modern warfare and violence, observes Armstrong (2014:276). They saw themselves grappling with satanic forces that would destroy the world making their spirituality defensive and filled with a paranoid terror of the sinister influence of other groups such as ‘the Catholics’ or ‘the Muslims’. Democracy is sometimes described as the most devilish rule the world has ever seen and they sketch scenarios of the End Time with wars, bloodshed and slaughter, symptomatic of a deep-rooted distress that cannot be assuaged by cool and rational analysis (Armstrong 2014:277). Protestant fundamentalism came into being in the United States when evangelical Christians pondered the unprecedented slaughter of the First World War. Their apocalyptic vision became a religious version of the ‘future war’ genre (Armstrong 2014:365). 15 Calvinist theology is hostile toward pacifist sentiments; Reformed churches’ reflections on war begin by distinguishing between justified and unjustified wars (Hoekema 1996:516). Their criticism of pacifism is based on the following arguments: that pacifism is surrender, that it places a higher value on own purity of conscience than on saving other people’s lives, that it is based on optimistic humanism rather than the total depravity of humankind (a doctrine they inherited from Augustine), that it confuses moral categories and that it is too patient. However, not all pacifism is to be equated with passive nonresistance. And these arguments deny the remarkable historical successes that nonviolent techniques have achieved, even in the face of brutal repression. Instances can be cited, namely Swedish and Danish resistance to Nazism, the transformation of the Polish society by the Solidarity labour movement, the struggle for Indian self-rule led by Gandhi, the struggle for racial equality in the United States led by Martin Luther King Jr and in South Africa by several leaders such as Alan Boesak and Desmond Tutu (Hoekema 1996:517) and Franz Jägerstätter who declined to obey his bishop and repeatedly refused to take the military oath and serve in what he called an ‘unjust war’ (Merton 1968:69). Pacifism is for sure not merely a policy of capitulation.

166  A distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic? 16 Pentecostal scholars now interact with the work of writers such as Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas although they remain critical of their presuppositions. 17 As a rule, they also utilise exclusively Bible translations based on the Byzantine text type and reflected in the Textus Receptus. 18 Virkler (1981:56) remarks that when quoting the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament frequently modifies the original wording. The question is how that practice can be justified hermeneutically? Several considerations are important. Authors (and speakers) could have used one of several Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek versions of the biblical text that circulated in Palestine at the time of the early Church, some of which had different wording than others. It was also not necessary for writers to quote passages from the Hebrew Bible in a word-for-word fashion unless they claimed to be quoting verbatim, particularly since they were writing in a language different from the Hebrew text. And their freedom from quoting directly also served as a sign of mastery of their material. The surer a speaker was that he understood an author’s meaning, the less afraid he was to expound those ideas in words that were not the same as the author’s. For these reasons, New Testament authors sometimes paraphrased or quoted indirectly from the Hebrew Bible.

5 The theory and theology of just war A Pentecostal reflection

Introduction What has prevented the disciples of Jesus from ignoring and rejecting the destructiveness of war through the centuries even though their Master was nonviolent? Egan (1993:61) finds the answer in the tradition of the just war, grafted onto the gospel from Roman philosophy, chiefly from the work of Cicero. For fifteen centuries, governments and leaders of the Christian church cited ‘just war’ conditions to exonerate Christians from feelings of guilt for maiming and killing human beings in the widespread and regularly occurring social organisation known as war. And they used religious and biblical language to justify their behaviour. During the First World War the parallel was widely made between the sacrifice of soldiers at the front and the sacrifice of Christ with a kind of naiveté and innocence that would not be acceptable in our world. And as late as January 1991, President George H. W. Bush remarked, ‘We know that this is a just war, and we know that, God willing, this is a war we will win’, while the opposite side was presented by Saddam Hussein who exclaimed, ‘We are being faithful to the values which God Almighty has inspired in us, for we have no fear from the forces of Satan, the devil that rides on your shoulders’ (Ruston 1993:131–132).1 The issue at stake is the quasi-religion that the sovereign state has itself become.2

Just war theory The theory and theology of just war is associated with the name of Augustine of Hippo. What is important to note is that he did not approve of war.3 No Christian should resort to violence or justify it, in his opinion. However, what should also be taken in consideration is that a distinction should be made between the individual and the state. God has given the sword to government, implying that the state is given the right as well as the power to protect the order (based upon Rom 13:4). In Contra Faustum Manichaeum (22:69–76), Augustine argues that Christians form a part of government and for that reason they should contribute to protect peace and punish wickedness, as part of the state’s calling to defend the order. If the state should strive for peace when it faces a grave wrong or evil that can only be stopped by violence, the state would commit a sin. Defence of one’s self or

168  The theory and theology of just war those committed to your care can in certain circumstances become a necessity, especially when authorised by a legitimate authority, argues Augustine. They who have waged war in obedience to the divine command, or in conformity with His laws, have represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom of government, and in this capacity, have put to death wicked men; such persons have by no means violated the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill’. (Augustine [1467]1972:31; I:20)4 It should be remembered that although the phrase ‘just war’ originated in Augustine’s work The City of God, when he states that wise men will wage just wars, he did not describe the conditions necessary for war to be just. If the war was not just the wise man would not wage it, he implies in his description of the just war. Where individual Christians find themselves under the rule of a government engaged in an immoral and hence unjustifiable war, Augustine admonished them that they are not to rebel against their political masters. They have no choice but to subject themselves to their masters and seek to ensure that they execute their war-fighting duty as justly as possible even though they know that they are participating in an unjust and therefore unjustifiable war (Johnston 1987:7). It was left to Thomas Aquinas (1225–7 March 1274) who lived nine hundred years later to lay out the conditions under which a war could be qualified as just and hence justified. In so doing, he combined the theological principles of faith with the philosophical principles of reason. The three principles that decide whether a war is just (and therefore justified) are: just war must be waged by a properly instituted authority such as the state;5 war must occur for a good and just purpose rather than for self-gain or as an exercise of power (for instance, a just cause would be for the sake of restoring some good that has been denied such as lost territory or lost goods, and punishment for an evil perpetrated by a government, army, or even the civilian populace); and peace must be a central motive even in the midst of violence (Aquinas [1274]1989:366–368; 37:1–42:1). Aquinas provides some examples of ‘just war’ such as a war waged in self-defence, as long as there is a reasonable possibility of success; a preventive war against a tyrant who is about to attack; and war that is used to punish a guilty enemy.6 It should be emphasised that a war is not legitimate or illegitimate simply based on its original motivation. It must comply with a series of additional requirements. It is necessary that the response be commensurate with the evil; use of more violence than is strictly necessary would constitute an unjust war. Governing authorities declare war but their decision is not sufficient cause to begin a war. If the people constituting the government oppose a war, then it is illegitimate.7 In other words, the people have a right to depose a government that is waging, or is about to wage, an unjust war. However, in Aquinas’ day the Western world was ruled by monarchs that did not constitute democratic governments. And once war has begun, there always remain moral limits to action. For example, the army and its soldiers may never attack innocents or kill hostages. And it is obligatory to take

The theory and theology of just war  169 advantage of all options for dialogue and negotiations before undertaking a war; war is only legitimate if it is viewed as a last resort. Under this doctrine expansionist wars, wars of pillage, wars to convert infidels or pagans, and wars for glory are all inherently unjust.8 The 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church lists four conditions for ‘legitimate defense by military force’:9 the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be exhausted.10 Otherwise it will produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated (the power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition).11 In its Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, the Roman Catholic Church elaborates on the Just War Doctrine:12 a war of aggression is intrinsically immoral. In the tragic case where such a war breaks out, leaders of the state that has been attacked have the right and the duty to organise a defence even using the force of arms.13 The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good. If this responsibility justifies the possession of sufficient means to exercise this right to defence, states still have the obligation to do everything possible to ensure that the conditions of peace exist, not only within their own territory but throughout the world. What is important to remember is that it is one thing to wage a war of self-defence; it is quite another to seek to impose domination on another nation. The possession of war potential does not justify the use of force for political or military objectives. Nor does the mere fact that war has unfortunately broken out mean that all is fair between the warring parties. Therefore, engaging in a preventive war without clear proof that an attack is imminent cannot fail to raise serious moral and juridical questions. International legitimacy for the use of armed force, based on rigorous assessment and with well-founded motivations, can only be given by the decision of a competent body such as the United Nations (UN) or a regional body such as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) that identifies specific situations as threats to peace and authorises an intrusion into the sphere of autonomy usually reserved to a state. Swinton (2008a:11) remarks, ‘We miss the deep irony that we constantly seek peace by going to war’. How can war lead to a better world? Governments use the excuse of war to make their citizens think that the world can be made safe. In this way, war is idealised as the way to peace, which obviously produces more war (Hauerwas 2008a:35). The only meaning that can be attributed to war is to produce peace; it can be described as an extreme but at times necessary way to peace. Peace alone can justify war (Van Leeuwen 1960:49). The theory of just war deals with the justification of wars. Augustine declares that no earthly order is free from sin; hence, none dare equate itself with ‘the good’ or ‘the just’ unambiguously (Elshtain 1993:49). The best the Christian can do is achieve the lesser evil, knowing that justice achieved will only be the basis for future injustice. The church is politically relevant only as it provides the account of our existence necessary for the creation of liberal democratic

170  The theory and theology of just war regimens that can acknowledge the limits of all politics (Hauerwas 1991:40).14 No politician can send soldiers into battle, ask them to risk their lives and to kill other people, without assuring them that their cause is just, and that the cause of their enemies is unjust (Walzer 1992:2).15 The justification of war can be either theoretical or historical. The theoretical aspect is concerned with ethically justifying declaring war and defining the forms that warfare may or may not take. The historical aspect, or the ‘just war tradition’, deals with the historical body of rules or agreements that have applied in various wars across the ages. For instance, international agreements such as the Geneva and Hague conventions are historical rules of agreement aimed at limiting certain kinds of warfare.16 The role of ethics is to examine these institutional historical agreements for their philosophical coherence as well as to investigate whether aspects of the conventions ought to be changed. The tradition of just war consists of a set of mutually agreed rules of combat between two culturally similar enemies who share an array of values that they implicitly or explicitly agreed upon and that limit their warfare to what is reasonable and fair. When enemies differ greatly, however, war conventions rarely apply, as is the case in most modern conflicts. The motivation for forming or agreeing to certain conventions that regulate war is mutually benefiting, for instance, to prevent the deployment of any underhand tactics or weapons that may provoke an indefinite series of vengeance acts (Moseley 2017). The just war tradition is as old as warfare itself. Early records of collective fighting indicate that some moral considerations were used by warriors to limit the outbreak or to rein in the potential devastation of warfare by considering treatment of women, children or prisoners. Commonly, the earlier traditions invoked considerations of honour; however, what is ‘honourable’ is often highly specific to culture and is also prone to interpretation by the rulers of the day. In some cultures, a suicidal attack may be deemed an honourable act as demonstrated by some Islamic State (IS) attacks, leading Robinson (2016a:3) to conclude that honour conventions are contextually slippery. Augustine wrote on the morality of war from the Christian perspective, railing against the love of violence that war can engender, as did several Arabic commentators also of the ninth to twelfth centuries, but the most systematic exposition in the Western tradition and one that still attracts attention was outlined by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Aquinas unites the natural law tradition with a biblical ethic. The two principal contexts within which he discusses the subject are the judicial precepts of the Jewish law and the virtue of love (charitas). He lays down three ‘just war’ principles: proper authority, just cause and just intention, and he raises the question of just means.17 His ethic depends on the view that laws of war and all essential ‘laws of the nations’ are rooted in the eternal wisdom of God and in the order of creation (Holmes 1975a:92); this is his theological starting point. In the Summa Theologicae, Thomas Aquinas ([1274]1989:367) presents the general outline of what has become known as the traditional just war theory. He discusses not only the justification of war but also the kinds of activity

The theory and theology of just war 171 that are permissible (for a Christian) in war (O’Callaghan 2014:1).18 He (Summa Theologica, 2–2, 1975:107) writes, In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged. For it is not the business of a private individual to declare war, because he can seek for redress of his right from the tribunal of his superiors. Moreover, it is not the business of a private individual to summon together the people, which is to be done in wartime . . . Secondly, a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault . . . Thirdly, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil.19 Thomas Aquinas’ thoughts were gradually expanded and universalised beyond Christendom by philosophers like Francisco de Vitoria (1486–1546), Francisco Suarez (1548–1617), Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), Samuel Pufendorf (1632– 1704), Christian Wolff (1679–1754) and Emerich de Vattel (1714–1767). In the twentieth century, just war theory has received new attention in response to the invention and of dangers implicated in nuclear and related weaponry.20 The most important contemporary texts include Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars (1977), Barrie Paskins and Michael Dockrill’s The Ethics of War (1979), Richard Norman’s Ethics, Killing, and War (1995), Brian Orend’s War and International Justice (2001) and Michael Walzer’s War and Justice (2001). The journals Ethic and The Journal of Philosophy and Public Affairs also specialise in articles on the subject. The most rigorous and extensive effort to apply traditional just war theory to the nuclear age is Paul Ramsey’s Modern War and Christian Conscience (1961).21 Ramsey (1913–1988) was perhaps the best-known Protestant ethicist on the subject of war (Holmes 1975a:341). His just war theory he traces to Augustine. Christianity fuses love with justice and natural law, in his opinion. His ethics is therefore based as much on the agape principle as it is on deontological principles. He views sin in clear opposition to any attempt to reduce morality to prudence or to make moral judgments on purely utilitarian grounds. Ramsey (1975:345–346) writes that any weapon whose very use is meant to be for directly killing noncombatants as means of attaining some supposed good is a weapon whose every use would be wholly immoral. And the manufacture and possession of a weapon whose very use is that described, and the political employment of it for the sake of deterrence is likewise immoral. Since the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, the theory of just war received new attention with several conferences being held that were dedicated to developing and consolidating the theoretical aspects of the historical conventions. Despite attention given internationally to the importance of abiding by the rules and conventions of just war, war crimes continue with genocidal campaigns waged by mutually hating peoples, total war waged on ethnic groups,

172  The theory and theology of just war and individual soldiers or guerrilla bands committing atrocious, murderous or humiliating acts on their enemies. That such acts remain to be viewed as atrocities is by virtue of the just war conventions, that some things in war are deemed to be inexcusable, regardless of the righteousness of the cause. Weigel (1992:19) calls the just war theory a theory of statecraft within which is embedded a crucial concept of peace that is possible, and thus morally obligatory, to pursue in the world in which contemporary people find themselves. The classic canons of the just war tradition provide the moral criteria by which thoughtful people in the West have argued about questions of force, power violence and the pursuit of peace since the days of Augustine. In this chapter, these canons will be discussed before an attempt will be made to reflect about it from a Pentecostal perspective, in terms of the hermeneutical angle that has been developed and suggested for classical Pentecostals. The assumption is that ‘politics’ and ‘morality’ do not function apart from each other.22 Politics is not only concerned with what is; at times, it also has to ask, ‘what ought to be done?’ The human universe is moral and political at the same time. The just war tradition includes three clusters of moral criteria, in terms of the jus ad bellum (‘war-decision law’, the rules that determine when the resort to armed force is morally justified), the jus in bello (‘war-conduct law’, the rules that govern the justifiable use of armed forces in combat), and the jus ad pacem (‘peace law’; Weigel 1992:22–34). War-decision law The war-decision law consists of the suggested criteria that need to be met before a war is justified. These criteria are: • • •

•

•

War is justified if a just cause can be provided. A moral discussion about the reason for the war is thus necessary. War is justified if the right intention exists. Wars for revenge or to satisfy imperialistic aims are not justifiable; a morally acceptable intention for the war is needed. War is justified if it is declared by a legitimate authority and a competent authority decides about it after deliberations. ‘Competent authority’ in modern times includes for instance the United Nations and regional power structures. War is justified if a reasonable chance of success exists. Because it tries to order the use of force to the pursuit of peace, it is necessary to set moral boundaries around the use of force. Before engaging in any military action, it therefore is necessary to judge whether there is a reasonable chance that the action will succeed in military terms. War is justified if there is proportionality of ends. The question that needs to be answered is whether the good that might be obtained outweighs the evil that would be caused by the military intervention.

The theory and theology of just war  173 •

• • •

War is justified if it represents a last resort, after all other attempts of reconciliation have failed. Such attempts may include economic and social sanctions and other diplomatic means of persuading the partners in the conflict. ‘Last resort’ means that reasonable people can conclude that all reasonable efforts at a nonmilitary solution have been tried, have failed and probably will continue to fail. War is justified if noncombatants can be guaranteed immunity. War is justified if the object is not to kill the enemy but to incapacitate them. Therefore, prisoners of war are to be treated respectfully.23 War is justified if unnecessary suffering is avoided. (Childress 1978:435–441; Gill 2001:185)24

War-conduct law The decision has been taken to conduct a war and now just war theory also tries to regulate what happens during the war. The criteria applied here are: •

• •

The conduct of the war is just if proportionality of means exists. The theory builds moral boundaries against the excessive use of military force when the resort to arms is deemed morally justifiable. ‘Proportionality’ refers to the requirement that no more military force is used than is deemed necessary to achieve morally legitimate political and military objectives. A question that should also be asked is to what extent those outside the theatre of the military clashes suffer and whether it is morally justifiable. The conduct of the war is just if the criteria of discrimination are met. In a justified war, military operations must rigorously discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. What is upsetting, however, is that soldiers partaking in war experience it as an abstract war, a ‘war in the distance’, as described by researchers after the Second World War. Anders (1956:93–102) describes an interview with a pilot who was asked what he was thinking about when he bombed a specific city. ‘I could not get the 175 dollars that I will be paid back home for a fridge out of my head’. Human feelings get lost and soldiers kill without any scruples. The opposite is found among some primitive indigenous groups. War between two Australian groups of aborigines was terminated when one person on both sides had died. One tribe of Arkansas Indians gave a part of their booty to the tribe of the Chikasawa who suffered loss in the war against them. Maoris took food with their canoes to their enemies when they learnt of their need (Klineberg 1957:95–128). The methods used in war between primitive people can in some cases be described as gentlemanly in contrast to the uncivilised ways of Western people (Fortmann 1960:150). Fact is, not all primitive societies abode by the principle of competition and aggression. While some societies glorified war, others abhorred it.

174  The theory and theology of just war Peace law The tradition of just war should be more than a moral calculus for determining when a war is morally justifiable or how armed forces should act in a war. The tradition should also contain a theory of statecraft, the jus ad pacem, as proposed by Weigel (1992:32). In this theory, an important concept of peace should be embedded that requires that proportionate and discriminate armed force be used to pursue peace as freedom, justice, security and order. This is not based on a utopian vision of a world without conflict but rather in the realpolitik of peace based on law and politics, or ordered legal and political institutions, as the normal means of prosecuting and resolving conflict. Augustinian realism should prevail although it should be kept in mind that not all groups involved in conflict are prone to pursue the solving of problems but rather the winning of the struggle, with the condition that the winner takes it all. The just-war tradition is based on the notion that a rational tradition of moral discourse is built into all (or most) human beings, as natural law theorists explain (Weigel 1993:40).25 The argument that a natural law in human beings determines their moral behaviour will have to be investigated further. However, the moral discourse provided by the just war tradition provides a grammar for public moral argument about the justification of war and other violent means that is beneficial in a pluralistic society. The worldview that Augustine used construes human beings as innately and exquisitely social. It follows that all ways of life are laced through with moral rules and restrictions that provide a web of social order. For Augustine, the entire sentient human race belonged within one category, the human, for God created all. And his natural law was written in human hearts; therefore, all ways of life incorporate basic grammars of injunctions and prohibitions which regulate the taking of human life, sexual relations, the administration of justice and so forth. What happens in families bears a reference to what sort of society one lives in overall (Elshtain 1993:54–55). The just war thinker holds certain truths to be self-evident: a belief in the existence of universal moral dispositions leading men and women everywhere to establish norms and rules for the just and unjust taking of life; and an insistence on the need for moral judgments, for being able to figure out who in fact in the situation at hand is behaving in a more or less just or unjust manner; and who is more the victimiser and who the victim (Elshtain 1993:44–45). For the just war thinker, moral appeals are at the heart of the matter; for the realist, moral appeals do not count much in strategic considerations (Weigel 1993:19–42).

Alternative theories Before discussing alternative theories, it might be beneficial to look at the suggestions made by Kempster (2008:11–12) to redefine the just war doctrine as part of a transatlantic dialogue. He suggests that among the areas that require clarification and refinement are right authority and proportionality, including a tightening of the requirement to minimise noncombatant deaths. But of most significance is the

The theory and theology of just war 175 issue of pre-emption. From a Christian perspective, one might accept the risk that an attack must be made before any military action is taken. Whatever the case, to err on the right side on this matter would be a step forward. Kempster argues that there is a case for placing the just war tradition within the context of an ethically justified foreign policy. Now it is concerned essentially with the waging of war and does not cover associated military activities which can be equally dangerous and immoral. The language of just war in the modern interconnected world rather needs to be replaced with that of ‘human security’. Nation-states should be less concerned with fighting enemies than with providing a safer and more secure world. Lastly, it is important to do something about war endings. Once the military intervention is finished, even with positive consequences, there are bound to be negative consequences which must be dealt with. These might well include the devastation of food production with the economy in ruins, and the local population scattered and with no effective authority (Kempster 2008:12). Several alternative theories have been posited that challenge the just war theory, including militarism, realism, absolutism and pacifism. •

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‘Militarism’ is defined as the belief that war is not inherently bad but rather can be a beneficial aspect of society; it should be managed. Such a definition makes it unnecessary to distinguish between ‘just wars’ and other instances of warfare.26 On the other hand, ‘realism’ argues that moral concepts should never prescribe, nor circumscribe, a state’s behaviour. Instead, a state knows the reality of its situation and therefore it should secure its own security and self-interest. One form of realism, ‘descriptive realism’, proposes that that morality of states can be described but not prescribed because states as such cannot act morally. ‘Prescriptive realism’ argues the opposite, that a state is motivated exclusively by self-interest. The state is for that reason not subject to the same moral or ethical constraints as individuals or groups within a society. It should be evaluated differently. Thus, the issues of justice do not apply. War between states, just or unjust, may or may not occur, and should incur no judgment. A third theory is ‘absolutism’, which argues that there are various ethical rules that are absolute. To break such moral rules can never be legitimate and it is therefore always unjustifiable. In this case, there is no circumstance under which war, if it involves the breaking of ethical rules, can be considered a form of justice. The philosopher Thomas Nagel (1972) is a well-known supporter of this view, having defended it in his essay War and Massacre. A fourth alternative theory is ‘pacifism’, that is, the belief that war (and all violence) of any kind is morally unjust. Pacifists extend humanitarian concern not just to enemy civilians but also to combatants, including conscripts (De Ribera 2017).

Some modern reactions to the theory of just war can be seen in terms of recent conflicts. In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the question as to whether it

176  The theory and theology of just war was a just war was posed frequently.27 A popular argument was for the theory of the just war; the only difference was on how the just war criteria should be applied. And this illustrates clearly the problems that the just war theory poses. Those who supported the war reasoned that the United States was correct when it accepted that the enforcement of United Nations resolutions was sufficient reason to start the war. Another related argument was that the US president is a sovereign ruler with legitimate authority to declare war. Opponents of the war, on the other hand, tended to interpret legitimate authority as requiring a specific UN Security Council resolution that war might be declared, which was not taken despite requests and discussions. In his contribution to the debate, South African President Nelson Mandela verbalised the problem that the position taken by the United States was effectively, ‘if you are afraid of a veto in the Security Council, you can go outside and take action and violate the sovereignty of other countries’.28 Some states criticised the United States for the way it declared and conducted the war in Iraq. Others criticised the United States, France and others in the United Nations because they dismally failed to act decisively during the Rwandan genocide in 1994 when one million ethnic Tutsis were killed by the majority Hutus. It has been argued that NATO acted when a state with vast quantities of oil was concerned but when human lives were endangered they kept at bay. Even the United Nations ignored reports from its observers that Hutu militias were planning attacks.29 If just war theorists were consequent they should argue that in a clear case of genocide, powerful nations should intervene. However, the United Nations including the United States failed to act in Rwanda. At the same time, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), led by the United States, took decisive action against the culling of people in Kosovo under the rule of the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic reacted when some ethnic Albanian guerrillas attacked the Serbian police, leading to a slaughter of ethnic Albanians. The United States was quick to intervene, and their forces drove Milosevic from power. Just war theory would allow for such participation except that it might be possible that US President Bill Clinton’s real reason for becoming involved was to distract attention from the political scandal that he was embroiled in (De Ribera 2017).

Pentecostal reflection on the just war tradition War through the centuries remained essentially the same, a lethal contest fed by hatred and consisting of unbridled physical violence unleashed in all its brutality. The aim of war has also remained the same, to destroy and annihilate the enemy by all means. War is an act of violence designed to force the adversary to carry out our will, and physical violence is the means to impose our will on the enemy (Clausewitz 1832:59). However, modern war differs from wars in the past in the sense that the theoretical categories and moral judgments once applied to past wars no longer seem applicable (Editors 1991:108).30 Weapons have become more destructive and murderous, thanks to scientific innovations.31 War is not localised anymore; an entire country and the entire population are caught up in war. Local and partial (ethnic) wars have turned into total war, encompassing the

The theory and theology of just war 177 whole territory and entire population, with the potential of many countries participating and the danger that it might trigger another world war. At the same time, weapons of total and indiscriminate destruction with the potential of destroying large parts of the planet, or even the whole planet, have changed the notion of war. It was already demonstrated at the end of the Second World War with the carpetbombing of Dresden on 13 and 14 February 1944,32 and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.33 Now humanity has entered a new phase in its history, the age of total war carrying the potential of destruction of life in its entirety. The spectre of the Second World War with its death toll of fifty-two million people – most of them civilians – hangs over the modern world (Egan 1993:62). The Persian Gulf War that started with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, which led to the invasion of Kuwait and Iraq by American-led forces on 16 January  1991 and the ceasing of hostilities on 27 February  1991, led to the death of at least 175,000 Iraqi soldiers and 30,000 civilians,34 and the complete destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure in terms of roads, bridges, irrigation systems and so forth (Editors 1991:110). Iraq had been blasted back to the preindustrial eras, demonstrating the reality of modern warfare. In terms of the criteria of ‘proportionate destruction’, 170,000 children would die of gastrointestinal diseases complicated by malnutrition because of this war (in the report of the Harvard Team which visited Iraq in April 1991; Meehan 1993:101).35 Interesting that although the theory of just war determined to a large extent the opinion of the Roman Catholic Church about war as well as most of the Protestant churches, research showed that forty per cent of the soldiers in combat in the First World War never fired their weapons (Hauerwas 1991:117) and only fifteen to twenty per cent of infantrymen were able to fire at the enemy directly during the Second World War while the rest tried to avoid it and had developed complex methods of misfiring or reloading their weapons to escape detection (Armstrong 2014:9). Approximately half of American combat soldiers during the Korean War (when North Korea invaded South Korea and that lasted from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953) failed to shoot when the occasion occurred. De Graaf (1960:55) discusses similar research done by military psychiatrists that concluded that the main reason for the soldiers’ decision not to actively partake in the business of war by killing enemy soldiers was due to the Jewish-Christian ethics that cultivated ‘taboos against killing’. It is the same phenomenon when Western people reject abortus provocatus and euthanasia as well as suicide as a reasonable solution to unsolvable problems. Christians do not live because they are afraid to die but because they believe their living is a gift that offers them the opportunity for service (Hauerwas 1985:13). This perspective of a vision of life fuelled by the eschatological hopes of their faith makes a difference in how they understand and how they respond to the threat of violence and war. The early Christians were the victims of persecution until the start of the fourth century ce; the church opposed war and military service. If a Christian soldier should carry out an order to kill an enemy, Hippolytus of Rome (170–235 ce) described in The Apostolic Tradition (16) the church’s viewpoint, the Christian

178  The theory and theology of just war soldier must be excommunicated from the church. With the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, the church’s attitude toward the army and military service changed. Theodosius II promulgated a law on 7 December 415 ce that compelled Christian citizens to do military service under pain of excommunication while pagans were forbidden to enter the army. The church justified the change in attitude by describing the realisation of a Christian empire as the messianic kingdom, with the Christian emperor serving as the vice-regent of Christ. Wars now became holy crusades with the aim to further the interests of the gospel and defending the church against the invasion of the barbarians, pagans and Arian heretics.36 The church accepted the army and war as a ‘sad necessity’ owing to the ‘iniquity of the unjust’. Waging war might seem like happiness to the unjust but to believers it is a painful necessity to participate (Augustine, The City of God, IV, 15). Viewing humanity and history through the hermeneutic of original sin,37 war and the use of force may be a terrible necessity, but violence is always a tragedy rather than the definitive sign of humanity’s essence. It follows that war, when it occurs, is as likely to be an expression of justifiable outrage at injustice as an ineluctable bursting forth of innate brutishness. Might never makes right, argues the just war thinker, but might may sometimes, on balance, serve right (Elshtain 1993:43–44). Augustine further argues that it is incompatible for Christians to ever use violence to protect themselves. Thus, his defence of the just war was never on grounds that it was analogous to self-defence.38 Rather, he argued that Christians can use violence only to protect the innocent, and by ‘innocent’ he meant only those who did not deserve the attack they were receiving. So, the Christian justification of violence derives not from the assumption that we must at times defend ourselves, but rather from the idea that violence is necessary if we are charitably to protect the innocent (Hauerwas 1993:118). At the same time, the church accepted that a war against the enemies of the cross was not only just but also justified and even meritorious for its participants. The church even obliged believers to go on crusades to free Jerusalem from the ‘infidels’ and punish Jews for their persecution of Jesus Christ. When the church declared a crusade, it expected of Christian princes to stop warring on each other for four years in order to support the crusade that purposed to free the Holy Land from the ‘impious’ (Fourth Lateran Council, Const. 72, 14 December 1215). In the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the enemy changed from the ‘infidels’ to the apostate Christians (Protestant versus Roman Catholic). Again, war was justified in terms of Augustine’s norms. The assumption was that war is not always and intrinsically immoral; it may be necessary in some cases that should be defined carefully. A war is just if it is waged to avenge injustices, but it is unjust when its desire is to do harm, out of lust for power, to enlarge an empire, or to obtain riches and glory. This makes war ‘robbery on a grand scale’ (Augustine, The City of God, IV, 6). Gratian in his Decretum (p. II, c. XXIII, p. 2, c. 1; written 1140 ce) specified in detail when a war would be just: It had to be declared by a competent authority and it had to be waged with the purpose to recover one’s own property or to repel aggression by an enemy.

The theory and theology of just war 179 The later centuries of the Middle Ages experienced the birth of nation-states, eventually leading to the awakening of nationalism and sovereign states.39 These modern states do not recognise any power higher than itself; it considers itself as the sole judge of its interests and rights. If it thinks that any of its rights have been violated by another state, it has the right to ius belli. Now the church tried to limit and restrain modern states’ ‘right’ to wage war on another state through the theory of the ‘just war’ (Editors 1991:115). What is important to realise is that the theory of just war has no intention of ‘justifying’ war but rather of limiting its frequency and ferocity by assigning precise and severe conditions to be met before a war can be declared ‘just’. The theory adds that when a war is waged it should not be allowed to cause great evils or harm the entire world. A just war should also not be waged with ferocity nor to inflict the enemy more damage than was required to obtain the ends of the war. However, these conditions were and are impossible to abide by because of the brutal character of any war. War causes greater harm than any advantages that it could bring in terms of justice and right. And it always inflicts more damage on the enemy than needed to achieve the end of the war. The carpet-bombing of Dresden and Hamburg as acts of revenge (as already mentioned) serves as a demonstration, where the Second World War was for all practical reasons finished and the Allied forces disposed of its excess of bombs by flattening the beautiful medieval cities. The reason for the impracticality of imposing conditions on a war is the express purpose of war, which is not simply to reach the goal for which the war was declared but also to annihilate the enemy as effectively as possible so that it will not become a future danger. The harm of war is so grave and horrendous that it can never be justified. And no war is necessary and inevitable because there always remains an alternative remedy. War can never be described as the extrema ratio, the ultimate recourse or remedy because there always remain peaceful mechanisms for settling conflicts (Editors 1991:117). For those who wish to utilise these diplomatic channels there are always several ways to settle disputes. The most important reason why the theory of the ‘just war’ should be rejected is because most of the time the ‘just cause’ serves only as a legal and moral pretext for a war waged for reasons far different from the official ones.40 For this reason, there are no just wars and no right to wage war. A means of mutual accommodation can always be found; the problem is that one or more of the participating parties want war for their own reasons. Whether one believes that war is evil because violence is evil, because killing human beings is evil or because it necessarily involves the evil of killing innocent civilians including children and women, fact is that war and violence are evil and should be uprooted by all committed Christians.41 Malone (1993:91) argues that just war theory as such should be abandoned by Christians because it has failed in the very purpose for which it was formulated, the protection of the innocent from unjust aggression and the circumspection of violence and killing, and it has not been faithful to the totality of vision expressed in the gospel of Jesus concerning the kingdom of God.42 The just war theory has become bankrupt in the nuclear-biological warfare age and a nonviolent love

180  The theory and theology of just war response remains the best defence against evil and violence. The transformation value of the ‘unpractical’ injunctions of Jesus, to turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, do good to those who persecute you, give to the man who begs from you and love your enemies in terms of individual lives but also the political lives of nation-states cannot be determined. Jesus did not teach us how to kill but how to die in order that the world may live. What is needed to realise is what UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) states in the preamble to their Constitution: That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed; That ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war; That the great and terrible war which has now ended was a war made possible by the denial of the democratic principles of the dignity, equality and mutual respect of men, and by the propagation, in their place, through ignorance and prejudice, of the doctrine of the inequality of men and races; That the wide diffusion of culture, and the education of humanity for justice and liberty and peace are indispensable to the dignity of man and constitute a sacred duty which all the nations must fulfil in a spirit of mutual assistance and concern; That a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.43 Other problems with the theory and theology of just war include: it is not clear what is meant by saying that any means used in war must be proportionate to the end achieved. The notion of ‘double effect’ implies that people are not responsible for unforeseen consequences of their actions, but that is not just.44 Then there are also the complex related notions of intention, threat and bluff which are not clearly defined, leaving it open for own interpretation. There is also the morality or otherwise of deploying weapons such as nuclear ones as deterrents, in the knowledge that their use would be immoral, while at the same time leaving room that it might become necessary to use these weapons.45 And there is the problem that opposing sides might both claim the justice of their cause, and the problem of determining which one is correct (cf. Elford 2001:181). Lastly, the extent and complexity of the vast international trade in arms increasingly exercise the Christian conscience. They should support all attempts to regulate this trade as well as intergovernmental arms transfer and subject it to an international register, such as the United Nations Organization in the Arms Transfer Register that was created in 1992.46

The theory and theology of just war  181 In our global world, it is not necessary that there should be any wars of legitimate self-defence because regional and international powers necessarily become involved in the conflict and means to solve the conflict can always be negotiated. In the era of weapons of destruction, the United States decided to use the GBU43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, whose acronym has inspired the nickname ‘Mother of All Bombs’, over the Achin district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, which borders northwest Pakistan.47 This is the largest nonnuclear bomb and had not been used in combat before. The 30-foot-long bomb weighs 21,000 pounds – 18,700 pounds of which is the warhead – and was dropped from a C-130 aircraft a little after 7 p.m. local time on Thursday, 13 April 2017. The target in question was reportedly an ISIS complex of tunnels, caves and a camp where personnel were supposed to be assembling. The bomb exploded in the air above its target and created overpressure designed to crush tunnels and everything in them.48 Afghan officials stated that it killed as many as thirty-six suspected Islamic State militants, although a news agency affiliated with Islamic State in the Middle East carried a statement denying that the group had suffered any casualties in the attack.49 In conclusion, the theory of ‘just war’ does not hold water any more in the light of modern warfare, which includes in its arsenal weapons of mass destruction with the potential of killing life on earth if it lands in the wrong hands.50 These weapons include nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons that can indiscriminately destroy cities and regions (Yoder 1964:53). Wars of the past were also not justified; however, the damages it left were generally localised, limited and subject to control. Modern wars will wound and kill innocent citizens as the chemical attacks by the Syrian government in April 2017 demonstrated where citizens were attacked to demoralise the enemy.51 Modern war is always immoral. But war is also useless and harmful, serving only the interests of parties who benefit financially without being endangered by the actual fighting. And even when it might seem as if war leads to the resolving of a conflict the problems that triggered it remain and cause more conflicts. In this way, war as a means of resolving conflicts aggravates the actual problem and lays the groundwork for future conflicts and wars because the ‘peace’ that is imposed on the losing party leads to a desire for vengeance. Thus, the Second World War was the result of the humiliation of the losers of the First World War, requiring revenge.52 In this sense, a war almost never ends with a true peace, leaving behind a trail of hatred. Modern warfare is immoral and irrational because of its uselessness and cost in terms of human lives.53 For these reasons, it is argued that classical Pentecostals should regain its original stance toward the exercise of all violence, including wars. They should absolutely condemn all wars; no war can be just, justified or holy. Peace is not a dream or a utopian ideal, something to be realised on the new earth after the second coming of Christ; hence it is necessary that the Christian church should proceed resolutely toward the absolute proscription of war (in the words of Pope John Paul II; Editors 1991:122). Hauerwas (1993:122) states that Christians do not believe that we should be peaceable because our peace is a political strategy for freeing the world

182  The theory and theology of just war from war. Rather we Christians know that we must be peaceable, not because our peaceableness will free the world from war, but because our peace is the only way that we can live in a world at war. As the church freed itself from slavery (unfortunately through the guidance of agitators for the rights of slaves that were mostly not part of the leadership of the church), it should however free the world from the slavery to warfare.54 The church as incarnation of the coming world can never utilise war to achieve her goals (Matt 26:52; John 18:11; Weterman 1960:65). The task of the church lies on another sphere; ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place’ (John 18:36; NIV).55 The church’s task is not to warn the world that it stands on the brink of destroying itself through nuclear war; rather the church’s calling is to tell the world that the reason it is so violent is because of its unbelief and that its loves are thereby perverted (Hauerwas 1993:124). Pentecostals should however not only condemn war; it should propagate and promote peace in a proactive way. This is done where the gospel of peace is preached effectively, and people’s lives are changed by the transformation caused by the Spirit as described in Romans 12:2.56 The promotion of peace is the church’s mission without the church intruding in the political field. It the church does not act as an agent of peace it betrays its mission because Jesus declares in Matthew 5:9, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers; they will be called children of God’. The notion of ‘enemy’ and ‘stranger’ that lies at the root of the ideology of war has been overcome; people from different nations and languages have become brothers and sisters to one another, because they have become part of the household of God the Father. The peace that the church announces is not based on the use of violence or terror; it is based on justice and mutual trust. The local assembly is supposed to be the showcase where the world can view how justice operates. If the world is characterised by social and economic injustices the church can never be at rest.57 While it pursues justice in its midst it should also be involved with the identification, naming and solving of injustices in the world around them. In South Africa marked by inequality in terms of income, services, housing and jobs, Pentecostals should busy themselves with job creation, projects to feed hungry children, the prevention of HIV and AIDS, racial reconciliation and so forth. Situations of injustice should be remedied because it has the potential of creating conflict that will be resolved at some stage by way of violence. In fighting against war, Christians should exercise influence over political parties and politicians to distance themselves from warfare as an option in the modern political world, accepting that wars are shot through and through with evil, falsity and sin (Merton 1971:290).58 In the end war is a decision taken by politicians and political leaders, utilising propaganda to influence the people (‘us’) to react by way of aggression against ‘enemies’ (‘the others’) created by the ‘state’ (Fortmann 1960:153). The church should show how internal and external conflicts should be mediated in a loving and responsible manner. Paul states unequivocally that Christian believers should show the world how justice works: one day believers will judge the world; when they have disputes while living in the world they should not use worldly courts to solve the problems but they should resolve

The theory and theology of just war  183 it themselves (1 Cor 6:1–11).59 The principle designed by Paul is found in verse 7: it is better to accept injustice and leave it at that and let yourselves be cheated than to insist on justice to be done. This is consistent with the example of Jesus who did not defend himself before the Jewish High Council or the Roman authorities. According to Mark 15:5, Jesus said nothing, much to Pilate’s surprise. Pentecostals should also hold politicians accountable for their actions because they are responsible for decisions that might ultimately lead to war while their motive in many instances is self-interest.60 By participating in war they imply that they do not fight the notion that war is necessary or inevitable and that peace is unattainable.61 Fighting against war implies that one does not accept that war is ever waged for noble reasons or to impose a new world order (George Bush’s ‘motive’ for the Persian Gulf War). Pentecostals should shed their naivety of thinking that there are noble motives for waging war; they should realise that it serves as a smoke screen for economic interests and political domination. War should be unmasked in all its brutality and it should be demonstrated unequivocally that the victims of war are the innocent, the poor and weak. The southern part of the planet experiences a dramatic increase in poverty, worsened by political instability.62 The conditions in these countries cannot be cured unless the production of arms is limited, among other things. Weapons cost enormous amounts of money; for instance, a Tomahawk missile costs $1.25 million, a Patriot antimissile costs $1 million, an F-14 Tomcat fighter-bomber costs $50 million, a Tornado costs $58 million, a Stealth fighter plane costs $108 million and an Apache helicopter costs $10  million. The squandering of immense amounts of money spent to kill people should be stopped; the money should be used to alleviate and eliminate the poverty of millions of people dying of hunger (Editors 1991:124).63 World powers spend more money to defend themselves against purposed enemies than what is needed to annihilate the inequality that characterises the modern world.64 When he opened the meeting in the Vatican of the Catholic patriarchs on 4 March 1991, Pope John Paul II referred to the situation in the Middle East. He reminded that peace and justice go hand in hand, and that there will only be peace in the Middle East between the Lebanese, Palestinians, Israel, the Kurds and the Cypriots when several goals are attained, such as genuine respect for the principles of the territorial integrity of states, the resolution of the Lebanese and Palestinian problems, and the regulation of arms sales, coupled with disarmament treaties for the region. Peace can only be built there, and at other conflict areas in the world, through careful negotiations that eliminate political and social oppression and economic exploitation. Building peace requires peace and demanding work; the alternative is the violence of war.

Notes 1 Tirimanna (2007:5) relates how in a recent interview with the BBC, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated that while former US Presidents like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were very religious, President Bush stands out with his

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certitude that it is God who had wanted him to be the president of the United States. She explained that such an attitude could easily lead one to conclude (as Bush often did) that God is on his side and that anyone who opposed him and his policies (including his policies of violence and war) was opposing God himself. This is typical of the ‘us’ and the ‘others’ syndrome. At the same time, she recalled how the terrorists who launched the attack of 11 September 2001 also regarded themselves as fighting in the name of God. They imagined their grievances in religious terms and drew their inspiration from the Qur’an, a book that draws from the same wellsprings of ancient Near Eastern religion than the Hebrew Bible (Collins 2004:1). Ruston (1993:132–133) argues that war for many people is the nearest they ever come to religious experience. Blood sacrifice carries the supreme value for even unreligious people and once blood is shed, war takes on an aspect of the sacred and it becomes blasphemous to question the (official version of the) ‘truth’. And in what it demands of people and the way it heightens religious feelings, war also has a kinship with religion. The price of war is high. Bartleman ([1915]2016b:67) observes that world wars well-nigh paralyses all missionary efforts. And it is no small wonder, since Christians’ behaviour during war sets an example that the heathen should not follow at all. Barrs (1996:501) starts his discussion in which he justifies war with the question, ‘Should we not trust in God rather than weapons?’ an issue that also haunted Augustine. A good way to understand war is through the realist description of Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (1 June 1780–16 November 1831), a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the ‘moral’ (meaning, in modern terms, psychological) and political aspects of war. His most notable work, Vom Kriege (On War; www.clausewitz.com/readings/OnWar1873/TOC.htm; accessed 26 July  2017), was unfinished at his death. He was a realist in many different senses and, while in some respects a romantic, also drew heavily on the rationalist ideas of the European Enlightenment. His key claims (as summarised by Wicker 1993:15–16) are: no sovereign state can avoid adopting policies which are likely to conflict with those of other states. Every state will naturally seek to ensure that its own policy prevails. If a state cannot get its way by political means, it will often turn to war to compel the opponent to do its will. War is thus an act of force to compel the enemy to do what we want. As such it is simply a continuation of political activity by other means. And it is in the nature of war that it will tend to go to the extreme. Each side tries to compel the opponent to do its will, and – apart from purely physical limitations – there is no reason why the reciprocal violence thus unleashed should not go to the uttermost that is possible to attain this objective. Therefore, to introduce a principle of moderation into the theory of war leads to logical absurdity. Of course, moral scruples and legal principles may, by lucky accident, happen to coincide with the intelligent application of force to gain an objective. But of themselves, they can have no direct effect on the conduct or outcome of war. Augustine cannot be understood if one does not realise how he viewed the fact and consequences of sin in history during the ‘not yet’ dimension of the kingdom contra the age when God’s kingdom would have realised. In his view, war was both the result of sin and a tragic remedy for sin and thus a necessity in the life of political societies. War arose from disordered ambitions, but it could also be used, in some cases at least, to restrain evil and protect the innocent (United States Catholic Bishops 1983). Max Weber asserted that the exercise of legitimate violence is one of the characteristics of the state; fact is, however, that since the appearance of the state, the state has built itself upon violence and in many instances, it asserts its continuation against the will of the majority by way of violence and repression (Houtart 1997:1). As most eminent sociologist of bureaucracy, Weber drew the connection between military organising for war and the organisation of society as its by-product (Beaman 2013:6).

The theory and theology of just war  185 6 Reichberg (2010:239) emphasises that Aquinas elucidates an ethics of just war restraint, specifically by appeal to the exigencies of Christian charity. His preferred approach was to isolate the two orders of discourse – just war and evangelical nonviolence – so that each would have applicability according to the principles. Temporal peace, the fruition of man’s natural existence, flows, proximately, from the exercise of the relevant acquired virtues. 7 Aquinas does not explain how the majority would make their concerns known and how the government should listen to the voice of its people before it may declare a war. These practical issues escaped his attention. 8 McCormick (2006:162) opines that the failure of traditional just war norms to adequately protect countless innocent men, women, and children from being killed by military interventions or economic sanctions is a reminder that the lines drawn between terror and justifiable force are often political and self-serving, specifically in serving the interests of politicians and economic powers that misuse politicians, and that the church must be constantly vigilant in its efforts to oppose and constrain the terror and tragedy of violence. He refers to the twin scandals of religious violence and democratic societies that discard of human rights and civil liberties and offer a sobering reminder that yielding to the temptation to demonise and destroy our neighbours seduces and corrupts communities both sectarian and secular. The appeal of war and violence – the sense of moral righteousness that flows from drawing a Manichean line in the sand between our forces of light and their forces of darkness – is embedded in human hearts and structures, and must be uncovered and resisted by a repentant Christian community that acknowledges its own violence and makes a preferential option for peace. (McCormick 2006:162) 9 10 11 12 13

Paragraph 2309. www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2309.htm; accessed 8 May 2017. www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2309.htm; accessed 8 May 2017. Paragraphs 500 to 501. Cf., e.g., the way Reid and Longman (1996:21) allows for war: A vision of Christian warfare that is truly centered in a theology of the Cross should never be guilty triumphalism or cultural arrogance. The Cross reminds us that we too were enemies whose hostility and offense have been reconciled through costly battle. As Christians, the Cross continues to judge our thoughts, actions, and stratagems, probing even our most cherished ethnic, national, and cultural assumptions, and calling us back to the path forged by the Captain of our salvation.

www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_just peace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html; accessed 8 May 2017. 14 Hauerwas (1991:33) makes the ironic remark that eventually this led to the situation, since the Enlightenment’s triumph, that people no longer kill one another in the name of God but in the name of nation-states. Hauerwas suggests that the political achievement of the Enlightenment has been to establish nation-states who believe it necessary to kill others in the interest of something called ‘the nation’, which is allegedly protecting and ensuring their freedom as individuals. Hauerwas (1991:31) correctly problematises the epistemological assumptions that underwrote the liberal commitment to individual rights. 15 Bourke (1999:67) explains that individuals must be broken down to be rebuilt into efficient fighting men. The basic tenets include subjection to state ideology, depersonalisation, uniforms, lack of privacy, forced social relationships, tight schedules, lack of sleep, disorientation followed by rites of reorganisation according to military codes,

186  The theory and theology of just war arbitrary rules and strict punishment. These methods of brutalisation change ordinary men into fighting machines willing even to torture prisoners. 16 The Geneva Convention of 1864 and updated in 1906, 1929 and 1949, as well as protocols formulated since 1949, allow for standards that established the Red Cross as the symbol for neutrality and for medical establishments and personnel, and in broad terms provide also for identification of the dead and wounded, adequate food and shelter for prisoners, treatment of prisoners in a humanitarian manner, no public display of combatants, withholding of attacks on civilians, the greatest possible protection of women and children, prohibition on taking innocent bystanders as prisoners or hostages, avoidance of destruction of public installations, dams or crops vital to the survival of civilians and no unnecessary mass destruction (Crook 1999:256). 17 His objections to the pacifist viewpoint should be read in his exemption of all clergy from combat. He uses the ‘two vocations’ argument of patristic pacifism to exempt those with sacred callings (Holmes 1975a:92). 18 An incongruency is found in Aquinas’ thinking when he justifies war in certain circumstances for Christians but prohibits priests’ involvement in any war under any circumstances. He bases his prohibition of the clerics’ involvement on the fact that they handle the elements of the eucharist that constitute the real body and blood of Christ (Meehan 1993:106). ‘Now warlike pursuits are altogether incompatible with the duties of a cleric . . . because the clerical Orders are directed to the ministry of the altar, on which the Passion of Christ is represented sacramentally’ (Aquinas 1975:94; II, 40, 2). 19 What is important to note is that Aquinas motivates each point with ample references to Augustine’s arguments. Tomlinson ([1915]2016:54), an early Pentecostal, makes the astute observation that bloodshed and murder are forbidden by civil laws in all civilised countries. However, these same nations engage in a wholesale slaughter accounting human lives as of no value and esteeming bloodshed as an honour when they declare war on another nation. Boys and men are shot down by thousands like cattle and hogs in the slaughter and women and children are treated like vagabonds. When Christians partake in this terrible event, they prove that their profession of Christianity was only a sham and the vilest grade of hypocrisy, Tomlinson vehemently adds. 20 On 6 August 1945 at 8:16, a fission bomb with a yield of twelve and a half kilotons was detonated about nineteen hundred feet above the central section of Hiroshima, in Japan. By present-day standards, the bomb was a small one; today it would be classed among the merely tactical weapons. The number of people who died is estimated to be a hundred and thirty thousand people and sixty-eight per cent of the buildings in the city were either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. The centre of the city was turned into a flat, rubble-strewn plain (Schell 1982:36–37). At the height of the Cold War, by the 1980s, there were some fifty thousand warheads in the world, possessing the explosive yield of roughly twenty billion tons of TNT, or one million six hundred thousand times the yield of the bomb that was dropped by the United States on Hiroshima. These bombs were developed as weapons for war, yet they threaten to end the history of humankind (Schell 1982:3). In late 1981, the Soviet government printed a booklet that stated that the Soviet Union holds that nuclear war would be a universal disaster, and that it would most probably mean the end of civilisation. ‘It may lead to the destruction of all mankind’ (Schell 1982:6). 21 Hallowell (in the introduction to Fahey 1961:vii) writes, ‘Not only must we come to terms with the fact that all civilised life upon this planet may come to an end but that it is possible through human decision and action’. Later Nye (1986:ix) says, The prospect of a nuclear war is horrifying. It brings us face to face not only with death, but with destruction of the civilisation that makes our life meaningful. It might even destroy our species. There is no precedent for the challenge that nuclear weapons present to our physical and moral lives.

The theory and theology of just war  187 Van Dijk (1988:55) calls nuclear weapons a symptom of our culture that is built on power and assertiveness. R.M. Brown (1981:48–53) distinguishes between traditional warfare and modern warfare; it is not simply the possession of more powerful weapons of destruction. Rather it is a complex of factors, eleven of which he discusses, among others, the automated battlefield, refinement of antipersonnel weapons, extensiveness of destruction, increasing erosion of moral constraint and so forth. 22 Pentecostalism stands in the Puritan and Anabaptist tradition in formulating a moral standard for society. As pacifists, Pentecostals say that the only standards are those of the Sermon on the Mount; the state should be subjected in its decision-making and behaviour to the Sermon on the Mount. Calvinists say the standards are those of the Old Testament theocracy and proceed to apply them (Yoder 1964:30). 23 To kill civilians including women and children as well as prisoners of war is murder according to the just war tradition. But the Hebrew Bible’s holy war tradition commands exactly the opposite (Josh 10:40; 1 Sam 15:1–3). No contemporary Christian ethicist would support this way of treating noncombatants and prisoners of war. The Hebrew Bible also prescribes this punishment for Israelites’ engaged in idolatry and sexual misconduct (Ex 32:27; Judg 19–20) (Sider and Taylor 1996:512). It was Joshua 10’s injunctions that got Galileo locked up by the Roman Catholic Church in the fifteenth century, when he proved Copernicus’ theory that the earth revolved around the sun, rather than the other way around. The church in the Middle Ages pointed to verses 12–13 as proof of its geocentric understanding of the cosmos, and condemned Galileo as a heretic because of it (Pidcock-Lester 2012:192). 24 The list may look convincing to many people, but the problem is that the criteria are ambiguous, as Hauerwas (1985:136) argues. To start with, what is legitimate authority? How do you distinguish offensive wars from defensive wars? Who are noncombatants and what do you do in the case of nuclear or biological warfare that does not distinguish between soldiers and citizens? Do you have to meet all the criteria before war may be declared or only some? Which ones receive the prerogative? Where did these criteria come from and who authorised it? Is the just war position derived from the paradigm of self-defence or from defence of the innocent? What difference does it make? What do you do if only one power involved in the war subjugates itself to the criteria while the other power does not? These and other questions have not been answered satisfactorily. 25 The terms ‘natural law’ and ‘order of nature’ or ‘order of creation’ (as Lutherans prefer) have for a long time been a vehicle by which value judgments could be introduced into ethical discussion without needing support in revelation. Luther as a nominalist appeals to the will of God rather than to natural law as the basis of his ethics although he draws on the just war tradition based on natural law. He is of the opinion that war is only justified out of necessity, as a last resort and even then with just intent and limited means (Holmes 1975a:140). Historical study shows that it is possible to understand under these terms just about anything a philosopher wanted, whether stoicism or epicureanism, creative evolution or political restorationism, Puritan democracy or Aryan dictatorship. The implication is that ‘the order of nature’ cannot serve as a source of any kind or revelation. At the same time there exists in the unredeemed world an order, consisting of the relation to him who ordains it, what Romans 13:1–7 refers to as order (taxis) and duty (opheilein). This allows us to speak of a structure of society whose main lines we may ascertain from revelation, and not nature, and which forms the framework of Christians’ judgment about ethics for states (Yoder 1964:33). Romans 13 and the parallel passages in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Peter 2 give the criteria for judging to what extent a state’s activities are subject to Christ’s reign. If the use of force is such as to protect the innocent and punish the evildoers, to preserve peace so that all might come to knowledge of the truth, then that state may be considered as fitting within God’s plan, as subject to the reign of Christ. If a state abandons this function and does

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not submit to a moral order higher than itself, and punish the innocent and reward the guilty, that state is best described as demonic (Yoder 1971a:60–61). One implication is that the state has no general authorisation to use the sword independently of its commission to hold violence to a minimum. The state’s function is limited to policing. War is thus illegitimate because it does not fit the definition of the police function according to the prescriptions of Romans 13 and 1 Timothy 2. The police function distinguishes the innocent from the guilty and preserves a semblance of order, whereas war cannot. And when the state does not listen to the church’s testimony against war, the church does not therefore become silent or irrelevant; she still has a word to say about the state’s ways of waging war (Yoder 1964:48). For instance, while the pax Romana proposes pacification as the task of the leaders, the Roman empire should be seen in other terms. 2 Timothy 2:22 and 1 Timothy 6:11 list Christian virtues that present love and faith in opposition to the Roman prudentia and temperantia and peace and gentleness opposite fortitudo (Van Dijk 1988:76). On 19 March 2003, the United States launched a ‘preemptive’ attack on Iraq. President George Bush and his cabinet claimed to have ‘irrefutable proof’ that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction which Saddam Hussein was prepared to use at any moment and Bush chose to strike Iraq so that Hussein could not choose a time to use those weapons against the West (Crook 1999:254). Kotz (2003) asserts that this war had deeper sources, in the tendency of powerful capitalist states to assert control over as much of the world as possible, to gain control over raw materials as well as to assure markets for exports and obtain cheap labour. www.ilaam.net, Nelson Mandela: The U.S.A. Is a Threat to World Peace, accessed 19 April 2017. It was probable that his failure to act led to the veto of a second five-year term as secretary-general of the UN for Boutros Boutros-Ghali. La Civiltá Cattolica is a Jesuit magazine in Rome which has its editorials reviewed by the Vatican Secretarian of the State. What is published in the journal has quasi-official status at the Vatican. Authors of articles in the journal are not acknowledged by name; all articles appear in the name of the editors. In this specific edition, it is argued that the day of just war theory is over. The Gulf War has testified to the vast destructiveness and lack of control inherent in modern war. These tendencies have pushed aside the controls of just war tenets, making them increasingly obsolete. This probably signals a new direction in the thought of the Roman Catholic Church, which for centuries had been the leading articulator in the West of the just war tradition in Augustinian tradition (Decosse 1993:ix). Not all agree with this statement. For instance, Walzer (1992:3) argues that ancient warfare that contained the siege against cities was the most massively destructive form of warfare that ever existed. However, when it is compared to the effects of a nuclear attack the argument loses its impact. The Germans suffered horrific losses after the fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945. A quarter of a million and possibly as many as half a million people died within a fourteenhour period (www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question41347.html; accessed 9 June 2017). The mortality was greater in Hiroshima because the city was in a flat delta, in contrast to Nagasaki’s Urakami Valley. The Nagasaki-Urakami is enclosed by mountain ridges that shielded the city. Nevertheless, the instant lethal effect revealed consideration of the use of these devastating weapons in warfare that cannot be tolerated by humankind now that nukes of far greater destructive power are available. The real mortality of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan will never be known. The destruction and overwhelming chaos made orderly counting impossible. It is not unlikely that the estimates of killed and wounded in Hiroshima (90,000 to 146,000 of a total of 330,000 people in the city) and Nagasaki (39,000 to 80,000 of a total of 250,000) are overly conservative (www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200708230009.html; accessed 9 June 2017).

The theory and theology of just war  189 34 A Harvard study estimates that some 170,000 children will eventually die from delayed effects of this war (Elshtain 1993:52). And the war left children from 17,500 families without the custodial single parent who usually cares for them or without both parents, according to Defence Department figures published in the Washington Post of 15 February 1991 (Elshtain 1993:58). 35 The United States also targeted the water and sanitation systems used by civilians, launched relentless attacks against retreating Iraqi troops, resulting in the slaughter of tens of thousands and used fuel-air explosives which suck up all oxygen in an area of hundreds of square metres and effectively suffocating all human and animal life, indicating the injustices of the invading army (Clarke and Rakestraw 1996:521). 36 Cf. Pascal’s (1941:314) remark that men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction (#894). 37 Augustine taught that humanity was created good, but through the fall of Adam and Eve (described in Gen 3) human nature became corrupted, and suffering and death entered the world. Augustine argued that original sin enfeebled the will, and that this enfeebled will is shared by all persons. All humans inherit Adam’s guilt, and we are all in a state of sin from the moment of conception. According to Augustine, original sin is transmitted by the concupiscence that accompanies sexual reproduction. This corrupted state of human nature demands a solution outside human nature: the death and resurrection of Christ. God’s salvation and grace is thus given to every Christian (Grantén 2009:98). 38 Augustine’s argument runs as follows, ‘Since it is better to suffer evil than to do it, Christians must be personally ready to die rather than to defend themselves if such defence requires that the aggressor be killed’ (Hauerwas 1985:138). 39 Aberbach (2003:269) discusses the relation between national poetry and the development of nationalism. Nationalism is a public phenomenon that unites masses of people with common territory, history and culture. On the contrary, poetry expresses the unique individual spirit and imagination. Some poets by common consent express their nation’s identity: Burns in Scotland, Mickiewicz in Poland, Lönnrot in Finland, Petöfi in Hungary, Shevchenko in Ukraine, Whitman in the United States, Yeats in Ireland, Bialik in pre-State Israel, Tagore in India, Gibran in Lebanon, or, more recently, Senghor in Senegal. Far from losing their distinctive individuality thereby, they seem to enhance it through their public role. National poetry is not marginal but expresses much of what ordinary people feel. Aberbach (2003:271) concludes that poetry continues as a midwife to nationalism, though rarely with the undiluted violence and idealism of the past. 40 Possible reasons for war may include national ambitions, religious fervour, historic conflict between nations or ethnic groups, frontier disputes, disagreement over selfgovernment, racial tensions, control of economic resources and vital communications, conflict over refugees, populations pressures and disagreement about the functions of the United Nations (Taylor and Bilheimer 1961:30). 41 Hoekema (1996:519) asks whether there may be wrongs so grave that only violent means can set them right. He argues that the historical point at which one faces this question is significant. Nazism, for instance, would surely have been destroyed if Christians consistently used nonlethal active resistance to the evil in the ideology, he argues. Similarly, I  am convinced that most Christian black people in South Africa would have toppled the apartheid regime eventually if they followed the same means of active nonresistance. However, the cost in terms of human lives claimed by the apartheid state that determinedly clung to power might have been high. This is a tricky question and should not be answered in definitive terms; new historical circumstances might create the need for the use of force and violence to end an evil regime. However, that would to my mind be the exception; the rule would be for Christians to resist evil in an active but nonviolent way. ‘Active but nonlethal resistance is both theologically

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and practically defensible even in seemingly hopeless circumstances – as the courageous work of André Trocmé in Vichy France and of several church leaders in the South today makes evident’ (Hoekema 1996:519–520). Although Merton (1968:5) supports pacifism he is convinced, to the contrary, that there are situations in which the only way to protect human lives and rights effectively is by forcible resistance against unjust encroachments. For instance, murder is not to be passively permitted, but resisted and prevented, and more so when it becomes mass murder. Boustan, Jassen and Roetzel (2009:4) argues that the Bible doesn’t kill people; people kill people. While it is impossible to discount the importance of the Bible’s violent narratives, the Bible’s continuing legacy of violence should also be in the hermeneutic of violence that subsists, beyond the bounds of the text, in the textual practices and social worlds of specific communities (Bekkenkamp and Sherwood 2003). Instigators of religious violence believe that they are carrying out God’s directive as articulated in the Bible while they are actually carrying out what they believe to be God’s directive through their reading and interpretation of the Bible. For example, the Deuteronomic directive to entirely destroy the Canaanites (as in Deut 20:15–18) is a thoroughly violent commandment. It should be characterised unequivocally as genocide. Later readers of the Bible dramatically transformed this divine directive through the hermeneutic alignment of the Canaanites with the current detested ‘other’. Thus, the Canaanites have been identified with the Irish Catholics (by Oliver Cromwell), Native Americans (by the New England Puritans), Palestinians (by militant Zionists), and scores of other ‘enemies’ of ‘Israel’ (Boustan, Jassen and Roetzel 2009:5). The violent legacy of the Bible is a product of both its own violent narrative and the hermeneutics of violence applied to it. http://portal.unesco.org/en/eversephp-URL_ID=15244&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC& URL_SECTION=201.html, accessed 25 April 2017. Bartleman ([1915]2016a:58) states unequivocally that God is not responsible for war; sin is. It is the unrestrained outworking of the sin principle in man. In thinking about the First World War and United States neutrality in the war, he observes that the United States had millions of dollars’ worth of orders for ammunition and arms from nations at war in Europe. They were keeping the war going for economic reasons. Their neutrality did not deliver Americans from their greed for money; they were quite willing to receive blood money. And the church and Christians did not object to the hypocrisy of American neutrality. ‘Patriotism has been fanned into a flame. The religious passion has been invoked, and the national gods called upon for defence in each case. What a blasphemy!’ (Bartleman [1915]2016a:61). In another article, Bartleman ([1916]2016b:95) remarks that every man that made a dollar out of the sea of misery and suffering that was the First World War was equally guilty and answerable before God. A nuclear bomb leads to nuclear radiation, the electromagnetic pulse, the thermal pulse, the blast wave and the local fallout as the primary effects. It also leads to innumerable secondary effects on societies and natural environments, some of which may be even more harmful than the primary ones. Cf. Schell (1982) for a fuller discussion of the effects of nuclear war in all its dimensions. More important than the global after effects of the local destruction would be the direct global effects, the most important of which is ozone loss leading to climate change that cannot be predicted beforehand. The earth’s climate is ‘holocoenotic’, in other words, it is a whole in which any action influencing a single part of the system can be expected to influence all other parts of the system. No adequate climatic models exist that would permit prediction of the nature and degree of climatic changes that might result from a large-scale nuclear event (Schell 1982:88). The United States Catholic Bishops (1983:par 107) in their pastoral letter writes, In terms of the arms race, if the real end in view is legitimated defence against unjust aggression, and the means to this end are not evil in themselves, we must still

The theory and theology of just war 191 examine the question of proportionality concerning attendant evils. Do the exorbitant costs, the general climate of insecurity generated, the possibility of accidental detonation of highly destructive weapons, the danger of error and miscalculation that could provide retaliation and war – do such evils or others attendant upon and indirectly deriving from the arms race make the arms race itself a disproportionate response to aggression?

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Houtepen (1988:80) warns against the cynic attitude that since humanity is trapped between technological weapons and ideological systems we could only hope to survive the madness that characterises our world and that we should maintain the illusion that we are in control of the situation. Pope John Paul II is very clear in his insistence that the exercise of the right and duty of a people to protect their existence and freedom is contingent on the use of proportionate means. In the meantime, the scenario has changed with terrorists (Crook 1999:251), some of whom are religiously inspired, posing new threats as demonstrated in the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States. What would happen when these hotheads acquire nuclear, biochemical or neurological weapons? Crook (1999:251–254) refers to the new critical moral issue posed by the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, and concludes that it was not jihad but terrorism in the guise of religious commitment. The United States responded by taking military action against Afghanistan when they refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, directed against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and this led to the question, can a war be legitimately waged by the government of one nation against a nongovernmental group within the territory of another nation? Ironically, the bomb was launched on 13 April  2017, the day before the world celebrated Good Friday with its connotations of the suffering Servant hanging on the cross. www.businessinsider.com/us-moab-mother-of-all-bombs-isis-afghanistan-2017-4; accessed 15 April 2017. www.yahoo.com/news/u-mother-bombs-owes-origins-specialized-anti-nazi030739929.html; accessed 15 April 2017; accessed 10 October 2017. Hence Merton’s (1968:3) remark that theology today needs to focus carefully upon the crucial problem of violence, seeing that humanity has the means at hand to commit global suicide. More bombs were exploded on Vietnam than were dropped in total during the Second World War. www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/world/middleeast/syria-gas-attack.html?_r=0; accessed 9 May 2017. Encyclopedia Britannica reckons that 8,529,000 people died during the First World War, and the Second World War saw 19,402,000 military and 17,391,000 civilian deaths (www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question41347.html; accessed 9 June 2017). German civilian deaths amounted to 780,000, or about four and a half per cent of the world total. Russian civilian deaths are estimated at 7,000,000, Polish civilian deaths at 5,675,000, Yugoslav civilian deaths at 1,200,000 and Japanese civilian deaths at 672,000. This led the Japanese to write into their Constitution a clause that states that they would never again arm and go to war (Merton 1968:10). Bartleman ([1915]2016b:63–64) ascribes the First World War to God’s judgment of the nations and cites some examples: Belgium is judged for her Congo atrocities and atheism, France for her infidelity and devil worship, Germany for her militarism and materialism and England for her hypocrisy, bullyism over weaker nations and overwhelming pride. America’s besetting sin is her money and greed. In a single week during the First World War, thirty million dollars’ worth of ammunition and shells were shipped from America to its allies, reports Bartleman ([1916]2016a:92). Booth-Clibborn ([1914]2016:43) also refers to England’s treatment of the African people during the Anglo-Boer Struggle (1899–1902). Another feature that is judged is the inequality between the rich and the poor. Needless to say, this kind of rhetoric does not contribute to the debate about wars.

192  The theory and theology of just war 53 Jean de Bloch wrote his six-volume treatise, The Future of War, in Russian and it was published in 1898. In these publications, he argues that great-power war was ‘impossible’, or in other words irrational, because if carried out in Europe it will cause humanity a great moral evil and civil order will be threatened by new theories of social revolution. The two world wars in the twentieth century and its effects proved De Bloch a true prophet. His dire predictions moved Russia’s Czar Nicholas II to issue a rescript in August 1898, calling for what would become the first Peace Conference in The Hague (held in 1899) to discuss arbitration and arms control (Dawson 2002:5–6). 54 At the beginning of the eighteenth century in England for the first time, some started demanding the abolition of slavery. The slave trade was not outlawed until the nineteenth century. After the First World War, for the first time small groups of people started calling for the abolition of war. This eventually led to the establishment of a peace movement, pushing its way into the consciousness of the broader public (Zink 1983:121). The church should take care that the issue stays on the agenda of the world. 55 Hauerwas (1991:71) contends that the question is not whether the church has the freedom to preach the gospel, but rather whether the church preaches the gospel as truth. Is the church able to say no to the state? No state, especially the democratic state, is kept limited by a constitution, but rather states are limited by a people with imagination and courage to challenge the ‘inveterate temptation of the state to ask us to compromise our loyalty to God’. Christians lose the critical skills formed by the gospel to know when they have voluntarily qualified their loyalty to God in the name of the state. Hauerwas (1991:88) typifies the American church: rather than being a church that kept the state limited, Christianity in America became a religion in the service of the state which then promised it freedom. 56 In the NLT, ‘Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect’. 57 To use an example of injustices, South Africa is characterised by enormous inequality between racial groups and the phenomenon of violence is a daily occurrence in the country. Inequality exists, especially along racial lines, because of the apartheid legacy. If the wealth of the country were equally distributed, then it would have been possible to feed all families. Former Deputy Minister of Finance Mcebisi Jonas pointed out in May 2017 that eight per cent of black households have a monthly expenditure of ten thousand rands, compared to sixty-three per cent of white households (www.fin24. com/economy/8-things-in-the-sa-economy-that-must-change-20170517; accessed 17 May  2017). A  study by the University of the Free State (UFS) found that many of the violent demonstrations of local communities were led by individuals who previously held key positions within the ANC, as well as leading community leaders. They had become disillusioned with the ruling party’s ability to create a just economic system in the country. Many of these protests were violent and the destruction had disastrous consequences for the communities concerned. The study was conducted by Dr Sethulego Matebesi, researcher and senior lecturer at the UFS. In his research, he emphasised the dynamics of service delivery demonstration in South Africa. Service delivery demonstrations refer to the joint action by a group of community members aimed at a local municipality due to poor or inadequate provision of basic services as well as a wider range of problems, such as housing, infrastructure development and corruption. These protests have increased considerably from about ten in 2004 to 111 in 2010, reaching unprecedented levels in 2014 with 176 protests. The causes of these protests are divided into three broad categories: systemic (maladministration, fraud, nepotism and corruption); structural (health care, poverty, unemployment and land issues); and management (limited opportunities for civil participation, lack of accountability, poor leadership and the deterioration of public confidence in leadership). In his research, Dr Matebesi has observed and studied protest demonstrations

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60

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since 2008 in the Free State, Northern Cape and the North West. He found that these protests could be divided into two groups, each with its own characteristics. On the one hand, there are groups of highly fragmented residents who often use intimidation and violence in predominantly black communities. On the other hand, there are highly structured taxpayers’ associations that mainly use the retention of municipal services and tax money in predominantly white communities. In general, protest actions are supported by largely unemployed young people. The study shows that the impact of service delivery efforts has become tangible and visible in South Africa, with almost daily reports of violent collisions with the police, extensive property damage, business looting, attacks of xenophobia and at times civil injury or even death. With the increase in violence, there is a decline in space for building trust between government and civil society (www.bloemfonteincourant.co.za/uv-navorsing-werp-lig-op-dienslewerings betogings-in-suid-afrika/, accessed 17 May 2017). The assumption that politicians within a given society are probably Christian by virtue of the fact that the whole society is Christian, implying that the ethical standards applying to the statesmen are those of the church, has been proven false when ‘civil religion’ tended to serve the interests of those in power (Yoder 1964:6). This optimism about the possibility of the state’s fulfilling the requirements of Christian ethics is neither supported by a realistic interpretation of current events nor by a careful study of the Bible. In his biography of Antony, Athanasius ([356]1980:75) tells of Antony’s influence on people who visited him in the desert. He admonished them in such a manner that they forgot their lawsuits and sometimes even withdrew from the life of the world to dedicate themselves to a life of consecration. Decosse’s (1993:vii-viii) remark is valid: ‘It is never easy to assess moral claims made by a politician. Are they to be taken at face value? Or are they a smoke screen meant to obscure some backstage manipulation of events?’ It is difficult not be cynical about politicians’ pronouncements when so much evidence shows how they oftentimes distort the truth. ‘Politicians rule the day. And politics is rotten’, is Bartleman’s ([1915]2016d:82) verdict. Judaism and Hinduism share a resigned acceptance of the inevitability of war; Buddhism places it in the wider context of its central concern to eliminate all kinds of suffering, while Islam derives from Judaism its more prominent belief in war as an instrument of divine wrath (Elford 2001:172–173). On the contrary, Christians live in ways which bring the powers of redemption which were wrought on the cross to bear on every area of practical politics, including areas of human conflict and suffering. For this reason, they are called to be peacemakers in the present; they do not only wait for the era of peace to dawn with the Messianic future. Sider (2016:36) speaks of the widening chasm between the billion hungry neighbours and the affluent minority and addresses the rich minority’s invention of plausible justifications of triage, lifeboat ethics, irresponsible population growth and the evangelistic mandate to witness to wealthy persons (2015:41–44). ‘The rich man’s dog gets more meat than the poor man’s family’, writes Bartleman ([1916]2016a:91–92) in his quest for social justice. Director-General of UNESCO Mayor argues that human beings must live and give meaning to their lives and that necessitates that violence be eliminated. ‘Poverty, ignorance, discrimination and exclusion are forms of violence, which can cause – although they can never justify – aggression, the use of force and fratricidal conflict’ (quoted in Punt 2009:137). Bartleman ([n.d.]2016:69) observes that it is the greed of men alone that is responsible for the unequal distribution of wealth in the world.

6 Synthesis

It has been argued that most early Pentecostals supported pacifism because of the justification of their existence in restorationist terms and their literal obedience to Scripture, especially Jesus’ command and example of love for the enemies and turning the other cheek. Their restorationist urge led to their emphasis on Christian perfection where they examined their practices and beliefs against the New Testament standard; their view of the true church as being united and as a church existing on the cusp of the eschaton, based on the way they read the New Testament; and their flight from denominational Christianity, which in their view was irreparably contaminated by the world. Their restorationist views moulded the subculture in which Pentecostalism flourished. The Pentecostal moral commitment to pacifism should be appreciated against this restorationist understanding of church history. They saw themselves as being the contemporary restoration of the New Testament church, a community that had become increasingly unfaithful in the time between the Pentecost of the first century and that of the twentieth. Certain events and developments in the 1940s and 1950s triggered a basic shift in Pentecostal belief about Christians bearing arms and partaking in battles against the background of worldwide stigmatisation and criminalisation of any peace talk by governments. In its quest to shed its image as a sect and the accompanying discrimination at the hand of established denominations, Pentecostals like the church in the fourth century ce started seeking for acceptance and approval by the state and community. Predominantly this happened due to Pentecostals’ assimilation into the cultural and religious mainstream during and following the Second World War and their new social and economic mobility, requiring them to gain acceptance as a denomination and leading to cultural accommodation. They allied with Evangelicals and accepted their fundamentalist hermeneutic and patriotism. Pacifism was left out of Pentecostals’ agenda. Since the 1970s, a debate about the early hermeneutic of the Pentecostal movement and its relevance for interpreting the Bible flourished among the new intellectuals of the movement. It was realised that if Pentecostals are interested in reading the Bible in the light of their restorationist heritage it will have to consider its position as the contemporary manifestation of the ‘last days’ community. The way early Pentecostals had been trained to read the Bible by their restorationist heritage gave them the sense that they were the contemporary manifestation

Synthesis 195 of the early church founded in Acts while the coming of the Holy Spirit was an empowerment by which the Christian community served as the implicit basis for the Pentecostal social ethic that included a strong commitment to pacifism. A second chapter investigates the most prominent anthropological theme in the Hebrew Bible, that of violence, ascribed in some parts of the Bible to God while human violence is also actively promoted as God’s will, representing the dark side of the Bible. The questions asked are: How should believers evaluate these descriptions? Does it serve as normative for their behaviour? Or should it be relegated to a description of sinful human behaviour, as early Pentecostals seemed to do? It became clear that the Bible does not present a unifocal view on violence, including war, presenting a hermeneutical challenge. When the Bible is interpreted in a fundamentalist-biblicist-literalist way, it is assumed that the entire Scripture is God’s Word and represents a unity and authority that is supposed to normatively determine the believers’ lives, including their morality. Scripture is also viewed as sufficient, providing the content of the Christian faith. The implication is that the Bible does not (and cannot) provide any conflicting views about any issue. It leads to the misuse of biblical texts concerned with justifying violence by selecting a very narrow canon within that canon and making it the whole truth or by allegorising such texts and provide a spiritual meaning that explains away the dangerous character of the textual witness. The misuse can however also lead to the amplification of violent texts into dogmatic statements that become the norm for what God is like and what he demands at any time and all times from humankind, with potentially dangerous or even fatal consequences. It has been argued that the fact that such descriptions form part of the canon does not allow modern readers to employ it as a legitimisation of violence in God’s name today. But these texts should also not be torn out of the Bible, for they serve to inform contemporary human beings how many people do react in crisis situations where the contrast and clash between ‘us’ and ‘the others’ are sharply delineated. These texts should rather form part of the dialogue with the other texts in which images of God show a different side of the relationship between God and humanity. The Christian history of participation in violence and war should be explored to expose the ethos and logic which has been woven into Western thinking that shape how we perceive God, understand justice and violence and read Scriptures. It is more truthful to acknowledge that the Bible contains contradictory statements about violence, some of which are morally unacceptable and even offensive to the sentiments of most contemporary people. Then it becomes possible to face the issue of violence in Scripture to counter the claims of those who continue to use the Bible to justify authoritarian and state violence in our day. In reading biblical texts supporting violence, it is necessary to ask how Christ and his way of compassion, grace and love for the enemies might point to better ethical alternatives to the ones found in the text. A trajectory reading can be helpful, consisting of the recognition of the redemptive direction that Scripture is moving in, with the aim to differentiate this from the cultural assumptions of the time, and to read these texts from the perspective of the victims. In dealing with conflicting views in the Bible about violence Pentecostal hermeneutic needs a developed rationale for reading

196  Synthesis that can stand its ground when it evaluates the occurrence of the justification of violence in the name of God as found in the Bible. What is needed is an approach that can honestly face and confront violence in the Bible, from a perspective of faith that leads necessarily to a developed moral conscience and lovingly critiques religion and Christians’ reading of the Bible from the inside, not with the purpose to destroy it but rather to ensure that the church’s moral and ethical viewpoints can be justified as good and just. It is proposed here that the Pentecostal movement should keep on reconsidering its hermeneutic in terms of its heritage in the early Pentecostal movement, going back to its roots and also reconsider its earlier nonpacifist stance because nonviolence serves as the hallmark of the Christian moral life, incumbent on all Christians who seek to live faithfully in the kingdom made possible by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The movement should in the process confess its participation in the enormous pain and heartache caused by its involvement in wars during the past century. It should also change its ethical stance on and discourse about war and violence due to its renewed hermeneutical viewpoint, making the church more relevant in a society where most Christians seemingly accept the Augustinian just war doctrine. Christians are to form alternative communities or social orders within the world where they live by entirely different standards of behaviour, including nonviolent nonresistance, even against the worst evils and in response to self-defence. The church should follow Jesus’ example; to refuse to obey his clear teaching about peace is to sacrifice Christian faithfulness. Nonviolence is the most exacting of all forms of struggle because it demands that one be ready to suffer evil and even face the threat of death without violent retaliation. Third, a case study, the ideology of South African apartheid between 1948 and 1994, is used in order to describe some of the implications, practices and effects of the theological justification of apartheid on Africans. White Afrikaner nationalism presented the ‘people’ as ‘chosen’ for a specific ‘calling’, in the same terms as Israel was called to enter the Promised land and establish a theocratic kingdom by expelling all the other inhabitants of the land. The calling of Afrikaners was defined in terms of the spreading of the gospel light in dark Africa, implying that order would replace the chaos of indigenous ‘barbarians’. For the elect people to fulfil their calling it was important to ensure its survival and self-determination as a people. In this way, self-determination and calling were linked; the people existed because they were called by God who created, rules and determines the creation in its diversity of sovereign spheres of authority by means of creation ordinances. These ordinances give to each different sphere its specific authority and character. In all created life there is embodied a law which God ordained for it, acting as laws of nature. The powers of evil exhort humanity to strive and work for unity or uniformity, an ideal that God had already frustrated at Babel. What is needed, is that diversity, also between different nations, should be defended and cherished. The greatest law of creation is that each form of life should multiply according to its own sort, glorifying the national character of ethnic groups. Apartheid theology also combined some ideas from the German National Socialist ideology with its myth of the eminence of the Aryan race, the German romantic idea of the people as an organism, and Darwin’s evolutionary theory. When people

Synthesis 197 fail to maintain the purity of their racial blood they destroy the soul unity of the people; cross-breeding is the most cursed of all crimes. People must fight for the purity of their blood. These ideas were incorporated in apartheid theology with its crude scientific racism drawn from the vocabulary of social Darwinism. God had created a diversity of nations, and to try and eradicate national differences would bring people into conflict with the natural law of God, and God himself. Nationalism was essentially religious because it regarded each nation as the creation of God. The horrendous effects of apartheid on South Africans are described in terms of education challenges and its influence in the New South Africa. Fourth, the hermeneutical angles within the Pentecostal movement were discussed in order to explain the differences found in the movement toward violence and peace. What are the distinctives of the various hermeneutical narratives found in the movement? And how are they related to a pacifist sentiment? Although there have been several attempts at construing a Pentecostal hermeneutic that is distinctive from the hermeneutics of other traditions, characterised by an openness to the Spirit that informs the model of Bible reading, it is concluded that this is neither possible nor desirable. By claiming Pentecostal hermeneutic to be distinctive Pentecostals may serve a Pentecostal ideology, while in reality they differ in several hermeneutical aspects from each other. Such an attempt also contributes to the seemingly endless fragmentation within Protestantism and the larger church. Instead of attempting to develop distinctive Pentecostal hermeneutic, it is proposed that Pentecostals should rather contribute to a conciliar reading of the Bible that strengthens ecumenical commitment to the Bible and open up its meaning for postmodern humankind. To remain relevant, Pentecostal theologians should also engage postmodern thinking by verbalising their hermeneutical model in an honest dialogue without submitting to the alleged similarities between Pentecostalism and postmodernism, like the plural meaning of texts and the role of affections. These convergences exist only on the surface but cannot determine Pentecostal hermeneutical thinking unduly due to the fundamental differences in presuppositions between the two movements. Pentecostals accept the ‘big story’ of a scopus and the existence of truth, connected to the person of Jesus Christ, while postmodernism rejects it. Pentecostals should keep on preserving their identity in terms of hermeneutical stances while at the same time relating to other Christians and the world around them. The main alternative to pacifism with regard to the violence of war is the theory and theology of the just war. This forms the content of the last chapter. Most other churches support one form or another of this theory that deals with the justification of wars. No earthly order is free from sin; hence, none dare equate itself with ‘the good’ or ‘the just’ unambiguously. The best the Christian can do is to achieve the lesser evil, knowing that justice achieved will only be the basis for future injustice. The church is politically relevant only as it provides the account of our existence necessary for the creation of liberal democratic regimens that can acknowledge the limits of all politics. The justification of war can be either theoretical or historical. The theoretical aspect is concerned with ethically justifying declaring war and defining the forms that warfare may or may not take. The historical aspect, or the ‘just war tradition’, deals with the historical body of rules

198  Synthesis or agreements that have applied in various wars across the ages. The tradition consists of a set of mutually agreed rules of combat between two culturally similar enemies who share an array of values that they implicitly or explicitly agreed upon and that limits their warfare to what is reasonable and fair. For a war to be just, three things are necessary: the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged; a just cause is required; and it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil. A reflection from the perspective of a proposed Pentecostal hermeneutic shows that the theory of just war has no intention of ‘justifying’ war but rather of limiting its frequency and ferocity by assigning precise and severe conditions to be met before a war can be declared ‘just’. The conditions defining a just war is impossible to abide by because of the brutal character of any war. It causes greater harm than any advantages that it could bring in terms of justice and right and inflicts more damage on the enemy than needed to achieve the end of the war. The reason for the impracticality of imposing conditions on a war is the express purpose of war, which is not only to reach the goal for which the war was declared but also to annihilate the enemy to prevent any future danger. The harm of war is so grave and horrendous that it can never be justified. And no war is necessary and inevitable because there always remains an alternative remedy. War can never be described as the extrema ratio, the ultimate recourse or remedy because there always remain peaceful mechanisms for settling conflicts. There are no just wars and no right to wage war. The theory should be abandoned because it fails in protecting the innocent from unjust aggression and is not faithful to the vision expressed in the gospel of Jesus concerning the kingdom of God. The just war theory has become bankrupt in the nuclear-biological warfare age and a nonviolent love response remains the best defence against evil and violence. The transformation value of the ‘unpractical’ injunctions of Jesus, to turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, do good to those who persecute you, give to the man who begs from you and love your enemies in terms of individual lives but also the political lives of nation-states cannot be determined. Jesus did not teach us how to kill but how to die in order that the world may live. Modern warfare includes in its arsenal nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons of mass destruction with the potential of killing life on earth, making warfare immoral. Pentecostals read the Bible in the expectation that God still wants to speak to them and reveal himself to them as in biblical days. Scripture is the ‘Word of God’ expressed in human words, implying that the Bible is comprehensible apart from pneumatic illumination, and that allows for grammatical-historical exegesis to be effective in terms of the ‘words of humans’. However, pneumatic illumination is unconditionally necessary in understanding the ‘Word of God’ quality of the Bible, the deeper significance that can only be perceived through the eyes of faith and by someone illuminated, inspired and filled by the Spirit. The dualism found in Pentecostal hermeneutic are a ‘correct reading’ that leads to theological knowledge about God based on an investigation into the original intention of the biblical author by means of exegetical methods, and a ‘creative reading’ of the Bible that leads to an explanation of how a given passage can be put into practice today. Both are important in Pentecostal reading and interpreting the Bible.

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Bibliography 201 Bartleman, F., [1915]2016c, ‘Is Christian civilization breaking down?’, in B. K. Pipkin (ed.), Early Pentecostals on nonviolence and social justice: A reader, pp. 72–75, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. Bartleman, F., [1915]2016d, ‘What will the harvest be?’, in B. K. Pipkin (ed.), Early Pentecostals on nonviolence and social justice: A reader, pp. 78–84, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. Bartleman, F., [1916]2016a, ‘In the last days’, in B. K. Pipkin (ed.), Early Pentecostals on nonviolence and social justice: A reader, pp. 89–93, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. Bartleman, F., [1916]2016b, ‘The world war’, in B. K. Pipkin (ed.), Early Pentecostals on nonviolence and social justice: A reader, pp. 94–97, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. Bartleman, F., [1919/1920]2016, ‘Christian citizenship’, in B. K. Pipkin (ed.), Early Pentecostals on nonviolence and social justice: A reader, pp. 146–153, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. Beale, G. K., 2013, The morality of God in the Old Testament, P&R, Phillipsburg. Beaman, J., 1989, Pentecostal pacifism: The origins, development and rejection of pacifist beliefs among the Pentecostals, Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, Hillsboro. Beaman, J., 2013, ‘Introduction’, in J. Beaman  & B. K. Pipkin (eds.), Pentecostal and Holiness Statements on war and peace, pp. 1–39, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. (Pentecostals, peacemaking, and social justice 6). Beaman, J., 2016, ‘Introduction’, in B. K. Pipkin (ed.), Early Pentecostals on nonviolence and social justice: A reader, pp. 11–14, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. Beaman, J., 2017, ‘Pentecostal and holiness pacifism’, Pentecostal Pacifism 2009, www. Pentecostalpacifism.com/, accessed 5 August 2017. Beaman, J. & Pipkin, B. K. (eds.), 2013, Pentecostal and Holiness Statements on war and peace, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. (Pentecostals, peacemaking, and social justice 6). Bekkenkamp, J. & Sherwood, Y. (eds.), 2003, Sanctified aggression: Legacies of Biblical and post-Biblical vocabularies of violence, T. & T. Clark, London. (JSOTSup 400; Bible in the Twenty-First Century 3). Bell, R. H., 2007, Deliver us from evil: Interpreting the redemption from the power of Satan in New Testament theology, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen. (WUNT 216). Bergant, D., 1992, ‘Violence and God: A  Bible study’, Missiology: An International Review 20(1), 45–54. Bergant, D., 1994, ‘Yahweh: A warrior God?’, in M. E. Miller & B. N. Gingerich (eds.), The church’s peace witness, pp. 89–103, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids. Bernal, J. G., 2013, ‘Background’, in G. Sharp (ed.), How nonviolent struggle works, pp. 150–231, Albert Einstein Institution, Boston. Bernard of Clairvaux, 1975, ‘The letters of St Bernard of Clairvaux’, in A. F. Holmes (ed.), War and Christian ethics, pp. 88–91, Baker, Grand Rapids. Blumenthal, D. R., 1993, Facing the abusing god: A theology of protest, WJK, Louisville. Blumhofer, E., 1989a, The Assemblies of God: A chapter in the story of American Pentecostalism, vol. 1: To 1941, Gospel Publishing, Springfield. Blumhofer, E., 1989b, The Assemblies of God: A chapter in the story of American Pentecostalism, vol. 2: Since 1941, Gospel Publishing, Springfield. Boettner, L., 1940, The Christian attitude toward war, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids. Bonhoeffer, D., 1956, No rusty swords, transl. by J. Bowden, Harper and Row, New York. Booth-Clibborn, A. S., [1914]2016, ‘Blood against blood’, in B. K. Pipkin (ed.), Early Pentecostals on nonviolence and social justice: A reader, pp. 42–48, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. Booth-Clibborn, S., [1910]2016, ‘Should a Christian fight?’, in B. K. Pipkin (ed.), Early Pentecostals on nonviolence and social justice: A reader, pp. 26–37, Pickwick, Eugene, OR.

202  Bibliography Booth-Clibborn, S., [1917]2016a, ‘The Christian and war: Is it too late?’, in B. K. Pipkin (ed.), Early Pentecostals on nonviolence and social justice: A reader, pp. 101–104, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. Booth-Clibborn, S., [1917]2016b, ‘The Christian and war: Christ cleansing the temple’ Part 2, in B. K. Pipkin (ed.), Early Pentecostals on nonviolence and social justice: A reader, pp. 105–109, Pickwick, Eugene, OR. Bopp, J., Bosse, H., & Huber, W., 1971, De angst voor de vrede, Bosch en Keuning NV, Baarn. Borchert, G. L., 1996, John 1–11, vol. 25A, Broadman & Holman, Nashville. (New American Commentary) Borg, M., 2006, Uncovering the life, teachings and relevance of a Jewish revolutionary, Harper, San Francisco. Bosch, D., 1992, Transforming mission: Paradigm shifts in theology of mission, Orbis, Maryknoll. Botha, A. J., 1984, ‘Evolusie van ‘n volksteologie: ‘n Historiese en dogmatiese ondersoek na die samehang van kerk en Afrikanervolk in die teologie van die NG Kerk, met besondere verwysing na die apartheidsdenke wat daaruit ontwikkel het’ (Evolution of a theology of the people: A  historical and dogmatic investigation into church and Afrikaner people in the theology of the Dutch Reformed Church, with specific reference to the apartheid perspective that developed from it), DTh Dissertation, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town. Bourke, J., 1999, An intimate history of killing: Face to face killing in twentieth-century warfare, Granta, New York. Boustan, R., Jassen, A., & Roetzel, C., 2009, ‘Violence, scripture, and textual practices in early Judaism and Christianity’, Biblical Interpretation 17(1), 1–11. Brannan, R., Penner, K. M., Loken, I., Aubrey, M., & Hoogendyk, I. (eds.), 2012, The Lexham English Septuagint, Lexham, Bellingham. Brown, H.O.J., 1981, ‘The crusade or preventive war’, in R. G. Clouse (ed.), War: Four Christian views, pp. 151–188, InterVarsity, Downers Grove. Brown, J. P., 1983, ‘Techniques of imperial control: The background of the Gospel event’, in N. Gottwald (ed.), The Bible of liberation: Political and social hermeneutics, pp. 357– 377, Orbis, Maryknoll. Brown, R. M., 1981, Making peace in the global village, Westminster John Knox, Louisville. Brueggemann, W., 2005, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, dispute, advocacy, Fortress, Minneapolis. Bruner, F. D., 1970, A theology of the Holy Spirit, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids. Buber, M., 1953, Good and evil, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. Burge, G. M., 1995, John, vol. 3, Baker, Grand Rapids. (Evangelical Commentary on the Bible). Burger, I.S.V.D.M., 1987, Die geskiedenis van die Apostoliese Geloof Sending van SuidAfrika (1908–1958), published DD dissertation, Evangelie, Braamfontein. Burger, I. & Nel, M., 2008, The fire falls in Africa: A history of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa, Christian Art, Vereeniging. Burggraeve, R. & De Tavernier, J., 1993, ‘Radicalism and realism of a peace ethic of Christian inspiration in a world of evil and injustice’, in B. Wicker (ed.), Studying war – no more? From just war to just peace, pp. 33–47, Kok Pharos, Kampen. Cabal, T., Brand, C. O., Clendenen, E. R., Copan, P., Moreland, J. P., & Powell, D., 2007, The apologetics study Bible: Real questions, straight answers, stronger faith, Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville.

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208  Bibliography Hauerwas, S., 2001a, The Hauerwas reader, J Berman & M. Cartwright (eds.), Duke University Press, Durham. Hauerwas, S., 2001b, ‘How “Christian ethics” came to be’, in J. Berman & M. Cartwright (eds.), The Hauerwas reader, pp. 37–49, Duke University Press, Durham. Hauerwas, S., 2007, ‘Sacrificing the sacrifices of war’, Criswell Theological Review 4(2), 77–96. Hauerwas, S., 2008a, ‘Finding God in strange places: Why L’Arche needs the church’, in S. Hauerwas & J. Vanier (eds.), Living gently in a violent world: The prophetic witness of weakness, pp. 43–58, IVP, Downers Grove. (Resources for reconciliation). Hauerwas, S., 2008b, ‘The politics of gentleness’, in S. Hauerwas & J. Vanier (eds.), Living gently in a violent world: The prophetic witness of weakness, pp. 77–99, IVP, Downers Grove. (Resources for reconciliation). Hauerwas, S., 2011, War and the American difference: Theological reflections on violence and national identity, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids. Hauerwas, S. & Willimon, W. H., 1989, Resident aliens: A provocative Christian assessment of culture and ministry for people who know that something is wrong, Abingdon, Nashville. Hays, R.B., 1996, The moral vision of the New Testament: A contemporary introduction to New Testament ethics, T&T Clark, London. Hedges, C., 2003, War is a force that gives us meaning, Anchor, New York. Heering, G. J., 1952, Karl Barth over het oorlogsprobleem, Hoofdbestuur ‘Kerk en Vrede’, Amsterdam. Helgeland, J., 1973, ‘Christians and Military Service, A.D. 173–337’, PhD dissertation. University of Chicago. Helgeland, J., 1974, ‘Christians and the Roman Army: A.D. 173–337’, Church History 43, 149–163. Helgeland, J., 1978, ‘Roman Army Religion’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II.16.1, 1470–1505. Helgeland, J., 1979, ‘Christians in the Roman Army, A.D. 173–337’. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.23.1, 724–834. Helgeland, J., Daly, R. J., & Patout Burns, J., 1985, Christians and the military: The early experience, Fortress, Minneapolis. Hershberger, G. F., 1953, War, peace, and non-resistance, Herald, Scottdale. Higgins, L. & Silver, B. (eds.), 1991, ‘Introduction: Rereading rape’, in Rape and representation, pp. 1–11, Columbia University Press, New York. (Gender and Culture). Hoekema, D. A., 1996, ‘A practical Christian pacifism’, in D. K. Clarke & R. V. Rakestraw (eds.), Readings in Christian ethics, vol. 2: Issues and application, pp. 516–520, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids. Hoffner, H. A., 1966, ‘Symbols for masculinity and femininity: Their use in ancient Near Eastern sympathetic magic rituals’, Journal of Biblical Literature 85(3), 326–334. Hollenweger, W. J., 1972, The Pentecostals, SCM, London. Hollenweger, W. J., 1988, The Pentecostals, rev. ed., SCM, London. Hollenweger, W. J., 1998, Pentecostalism: Origins and developments worldwide, Hendrickson, Peabody. Holmes, A. F. (ed.), 1975a, War and Christian ethics, Baker, Grand Rapids. Holmes, A. F., 1975b, ‘Introduction’, in A. F. Holmes (ed.), War and Christian ethics, pp. 1–10, Baker, Grand Rapids. Holmes, A. F., 1981, ‘The just war’, in R. G. Clouse (ed.), War: Four Christian views, pp. 115–150, InterVarsity, Downers Grove.

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Index

AFM of SA 42n3, 135; AFM 10, 13 – 14, 24 – 25, 42n3, 53n63, 53n64, 135 Alexander, P.N. 43n5, 49n40, 199 Anabaptists 14 – 15, 164n11, 187n22 Anderson, A. 131n90, 155, 199 apartheid: effects 145 – 147, 150, 152n22, 192n57, 197, 203, 209, 213 – 214; practices vii, ix – x, 2, 24, 35, 104, 135, 137 – 138, 151n20, 189n41, 210, 216; theology 5, 93, 136 – 140, 143 – 144, 150n15, 152n21, 158, 196 – 197, 202, 205, 210 – 211, 220; see also ideology apocalyptic war 15; circles 125n61; expectations 49n42, 51n52, 108, 127n76; language 87; literature 126n68; worldview 23, 51n51, 55n70, 92, 95, 165n14, 221 Aquinas, T. 14, 168, 170 – 171, 185n6, 185n7, 186n18, 186n19, 199, 210, 215 – 216 Archer, K. J. 13, 34, 54n67, 155, 161 – 162, 199 Arendt, H. 72, 199 Armstrong, K. 15, 47n22, 58n83, 73 – 76, 81, 86, 95, 111n2, 114n15, 114n16, 117n28, 118n29, 119n38, 120n41, 122n45, 122n46, 122n47, 126n67, 148 – 149n4, 149n6, 149n10, 149n12, 165n14, 177, 199 Assemblies of God 2, 6n2, 10 – 11, 21, 24, 43n5, 44n12, 52n55, 199, 201, 204, 209 Athanasius 164n9, 193n59, 200 Augustine 14, 45n16, 83, 96, 106 – 110, 126n74, 129n83, 132n101, 134n109, 165n15, 167 – 172, 174, 178, 184n3, 184n4, 186n19, 189n37, 189n38, 200, 210, 212

Babel 26 – 27, 29 – 30, 54n66, 141 – 142, 144, 196, 212 Bainton, R. H. 72, 106, 200, 232 Bartleman, F. 14, 17, 48n30, 48n36, 53n56, 184n2, 190n44, 191n52, 193n60, 193n62, 200 – 201 Beaman, J. 2, 6n2, 21, 23 – 24, 31, 43n5, 44n12, 47n21, 47n22, 49n42, 51n50, 52n54, 52n55, 53n57, 53n62, 53n65, 55n71, 124n58, 161, 165n12, 184n5, 201, 215, 222 Bergant, D. 101, 201 Bible: authority 3, 29, 31, 72, 78, 93, 104 – 105, 119n33, 124n55, 156, 158, 161, 165n13; biblicist-literalist 3, 54n67, 78 – 79, 118n33, 123n54, 131n94, 132n102, 161, 165n13, 195; book religion 43n11, 158 – 160; contradictions 14, 22, 27, 133n105; dark side of vii, 3, 46n20, 62, 64 – 68, 70 – 72, 76 – 80, 88, 90 – 95, 98 – 101, 103 – 105, 110, 111n2, 111n6, 115n19, 115n20, 115n21, 116n22, 116n24, 124n56, 126n72, 127n78, 133n104, 158 – 159, 164n10, 187n23, 190n42, 195 – 196; experiential reading 4 – 5, 25, 156 – 157, 159 – 160, 162, 197; historicist reading 28 – 29, 52n52, 154, 221; ideological reading 14, 144; inerrant 123n52, 158; infallible 123n52, 157 – 158, 161; living Word 5, 27, 58n88, 154, 157, 160; misuse of 111n3, 117n26, 150n14, 150n19, 159; moral use 31 – 32, 117n27, 118n32, 120n40, 133n102, 144, 158 – 159, 162, 164n9, 193n58; performative writing 58n88, 70; subjectivising trend 29, 156, 161, 164n9; timeless truths 10, 131n94, 160; trajectory reading i, 70, 103 – 104, 117n28, 158, 195, 222; see also hermeneutic

224 Index Bible Reading Method 54n67 biblical narratives viii, 1, 3, 5, 31, 64, 70, 72, 78, 105, 111n4, 117n27, 133n104, 155, 190n42, 219 Blumhofer, E. 19 – 26, 201, 209 Booth-Clibborn, A. S. 20 – 21, 49n38, 52n56, 55n71, 60n98, 83 – 84, 123n51, 191n52, 201 – 202 chaplains 4, 13, 21, 37, 49n39, 59n96 Christian perfection 17, 19, 47n24, 86, 130n89, 194, 207 church i, ix, 2, 4 – 5, 6n1, 8, 10 – 25, 27 – 32, 34 – 35, 37 – 39, 43n6, 43n7, 43n9, 44n11, 44n12, 44n13, 45n16, 45n17, 45n18, 46n19, 46n20, 47n21, 47n22, 47n26, 49n40, 49n41, 50n44, 50n45, 50n48, 51n50, 52n53, 52n55, 53n58, 53n63, 54n66, 55n70, 56n74, 56n75, 57n81, 59n96, 60n101, 76, 78, 80, 90 – 92, 94, 101 – 102, 105 – 106, 112n6, 113n9, 116n24, 120n40, 121n41, 122n46, 122n47, 122n48, 124n58, 124n59, 127n75, 127n79, 128n80, 131n91, 131n95, 134n108, 135 – 144, 147, 149n7, 150n14, 150n16, 152n21, 153, 155 – 156, 159, 161 – 163, 163n6, 164n7, 164n9, 165n15, 167, 169, 177 – 179, 181 – 182, 185n8, 187n23, 188n25, 188n30, 190n41, 190n44, 192n54, 192n55, 193n58, 194, 196 – 197; early ix, 1, 5, 12, 22 – 23, 43n9, 83, 95, 97 – 99, 107, 109 – 110, 115n20, 124n60, 128n81, 129n83, 132n99, 132n101, 133n103, 133n106, 166n18, 195; fathers ix, 14, 45n15, 45n16, 115n20, 128n81, 129n82, 129n84, 132n100, 219; hospitium 35; post-Constantinian 12, 39, 97, 106 – 107, 109 – 110, 129n83, 134n109; Protestant 12, 15, 47n21, 52n54, 77, 100, 130n89, 138, 154, 162 – 163, 163n2, 165n14, 171, 177 – 179, 197; Roman Catholic 15, 60n101, 77, 153, 163, 163n6, 169, 177 – 178, 187n23, 188n30 Clausewitz, C. von 176, 184n3, 203 Collins, J. J. 3, 64, 68 – 69, 72, 76, 115n17, 118n31, 120n40, 184n1, 203 conflict resolution 36 consecration (herem) 29, 63, 69, 72, 77, 114n12, 114n13, 206, 211 Constantine the Great 15, 23, 109, 134n109, 161 creeds 1, 16, 124n58, 129n87, 142 Crossan, J. D. 3, 82, 86, 204

crusades 9, 15 – 16, 19, 44n13, 62, 76, 111n4, 114n15, 121n44, 122n45, 122n46, 122n47, 122n48, 158, 178, 199, 200, 202, 215 – 216 Dayton, D. W. 124n58, 160, 164n7, 204 democracy 13 – 14, 24 – 25, 36, 43n9, 53n61, 124n59, 165n14, 187n25, 203, 212, 214; liberal 13, 43n10, 146 Dempster, M. W. 4, 10, 14, 20, 23 – 24, 50n48, 204 Desiderius Erasmus 15, 213 Deuteronomistic theology 64 – 65, 67 – 68, 75, 114n16, 116n21, 217 Dunn, J.D.G. 1, 90 – 91, 205 Ervin, H. M. 153 – 156, 161, 205 eschatology 4, 12, 22 – 26, 30, 38 – 39, 50n42, 51n49, 60n99, 60n100, 68, 86, 95, 108, 127n76, 131n90, 156, 177, 210, 214 Evangelicals 13, 24 – 25, 158 – 160, 194, 205; alliance 24, 52n55, 194, 216 exegesis i, viii – x, 98 – 99, 113n9, 122n49, 153, 156, 218; historical-grammatical 98, 156 – 157, 198 Faupel, D. W. 44n12, 205 Flood, D. 40 – 42, 62, 77 – 78, 80, 87 – 90, 92, 98 – 101, 103, 105, 117n25, 120n39, 158, 160, 164n11, 206 Fretheim, T. E. 97, 110, 206 Frodsham, S. 6n2, 16, 51n50, 132n99, 206 fundamentalism 27, 48n29, 51n52, 52, 54n67, 57n81, 78, 80, 104 – 105, 123n52, 123n55, 154, 159 – 161, 163n2, 164n8, 165n14, 194 – 195, 203, 210 – 212 Gandhi, M. K. 34, 38, 40, 47n27, 61n103, 165n15, 206 Gee, D. 6n2, 49n40, 53n58, 59n95, 123n51, 125n66, 206 genocide 5, 62, 68, 70 – 71, 76, 97, 99, 101, 115n18, 117n25, 123n54, 176, 190n42, 203, 211, 219; ethnic cleansing 57n81, 68, 111n3 Girard, R. 66, 116n22, 206 glossolalia 27, 30, 44n12, 54n66, 155 Hauerwas, S. v, x, 4, 7n10, 13 – 14, 17, 22, 25 – 27, 29 – 33, 43n7, 43n10, 43n11, 44n13, 45n14, 45n16, 48n32, 50n45, 51n49, 51n51, 55n70, 56n75, 57n79, 88 – 89, 92, 94, 97, 106, 111n6, 112n8, 115n20, 123n50, 154, 163n5, 163n6,

Index  225 164n8, 164n9, 169 – 170, 177 – 178, 181 – 182, 185n14, 187n24, 189n38, 192n55, 207 – 208, 215, 219 – 220 Helgeland, J. 96 – 97, 106 – 107, 129n82, 129n83, 208 hermeneutics i, 4 – 5; allegorical method 83, 97 – 98, 163n2, 200, 204; faithful questioning 90, 99 – 100, 105, 113, 126n69, 157 – 158, 160; fundamentalist hermeneutic 54n67, 104, 161, 194; interpretive communities 92, 205; Pentecostal vii – viii, 3 – 6, 8, 22, 25, 54n67, 90, 124n58, 153 – 157, 161 – 163, 195, 197 – 199, 210, 214; Pharisees’ 21, 81, 83, 89 – 90, 93; see also Bible holiness 2, 6n2, 22, 44n12, 49n42, 70, 78, 201, 215; see also sanctification Hollenweger, W. J. 1, 153, 155, 208 Holmes, A. F. 14 – 15, 18, 48n33, 96 – 97, 107, 118n32, 128n81, 132n101, 149n13, 170 – 171, 186n17, 187n25, 199 – 201, 208, 215 – 216, 218 – 219 Holy Spirit see Spirit ideology vii, 14, 31, 34, 43n6, 46n20, 60n101, 63 – 64, 80, 102, 113n9, 120n40, 123n54, 125n64, 143, 148n2, 148n3, 151, 162, 164n8, 182, 185n15, 189n41, 191, 197, 199, 209, 216; of apartheid 5, 135 – 138, 144, 150n17, 196; see also apartheid imminency of second coming 12, 22, 25, 49n42, 72, 108, 127n76, 141, 181 injustice 2, 6n6, 18, 36, 45n13, 46n19, 56n74, 66, 79, 86, 93, 107, 115n19, 119n36, 121n43, 124n61, 169, 178, 182 – 183, 189n35, 192n57, 197 Jacobsen, D. 1, 155, 209, 212 Jesus Christ: and allegiance 49; and Bible 78, 197; and kingdom 30; teaching 57n81, 123n51, 154; and violence 9, 12, 30, 37, 43n7, 85, 110, 127n79, 131n92, 178 Johnson, J. T. 45n15, 48n32, 76, 108 – 109, 209 Josephus 81 – 82, 209 – 220 justice 2 – 3, 9, 14, 22, 30, 41, 43n10, 45, 46n19, 48n33, 48n35, 50n46, 51n52, 55n70, 57n79, 59n91, 66, 73, 77 – 78, 83, 87, 93, 103, 108, 114n13, 117n26, 118n32, 122n47, 130n89, 132n98, 132n100, 132n101, 133n107, 137, 160, 168 – 169, 171, 174 – 175, 179 – 180, 182 – 183, 193n62, 195, 197 – 198; lex talionis 18, 88 – 89; restorative

18, 41 – 42, 88 – 89, 91; retributive 18, 41 – 42, 87 – 89, 91, 105 Kärkkäinen, V.-M. 156, 161, 163, 210 kingdom of God ix, 11, 13 – 15, 17, 20, 23 – 25, 30, 49n42, 84, 86, 130n89, 143, 179, 198 Kuyper, A. 140 – 144, 210 Land, S. J. 1, 211 Louw, D. 34 – 36, 58n85, 58n87, 212 Luke-Acts 1, 213 Macchia, F. D. 54n66, 156, 207, 212 Marcion 7n9, 68, 97 – 98, 101, 115n21, 133n106, 213 Markus, R. A. 107 – 108, 212 Marsden, G. 163n2, 212 Mason, C. H. 6n2, 51n50, 124n58, 212 McCormick, P. T. 112n8, 134n110, 185n8, 213 McQueen, L. R. 155, 213 Menzies, W. W. 156, 161, 211, 213 Merton, T. 16, 31, 34, 38 – 39, 48n27, 51n48, 58n84, 60n100, 60n101, 89, 125n65, 126n73, 149n9, 165n15, 182, 190n41, 191n50, 191n52, 206, 213 Mittelstadt, M. W. 1, 54n66, 155, 213 nationalism 2, 6n4, 21, 23 – 24, 50n48, 53n57, 80, 123n52, 179, 189n39; Afrikaner 13, 24, 136 – 137, 139 – 141, 143 – 145, 150n17, 196 – 197 Nel, M. 22, 25, 42n1, 53n60, 54n66, 83, 103, 124n61, 157, 163n1, 163n3, 202, 214 Noel, B. T. 54n67, 214 nonviolence i, x, 2 – 4, 8 – 9, 11, 15 – 18, 22, 26, 30 – 31, 34, 36 – 38, 40 – 42, 42n2, 45n16, 47n27, 50n47, 51n48, 55n71, 55n72, 56n76, 60n100, 61n103, 61n105, 81, 83, 85 – 86, 88, 95, 107, 110, 120n40, 122n47, 124n61, 127n78, 131n89, 165n15, 167, 179, 185n6, 189n41, 196, 198; nonviolent resistance 9, 17, 34, 40 – 41, 42n2, 50n47, 196 orality 1, 3 Origen 14, 45n15, 97 – 98, 105 – 107, 109, 129n83, 132n99, 132n100, 133n104, 210, 215 Otto, E. 65, 120n40, 215 pacifism: absolute 21, 50n47, 50n48, 130n89; conditional 85; non-combatant stance 2, 6n3, 10, 17 – 18, 21, 24,

226 Index 37, 48n33, 49n41, 80, 124n59, 171, 173 – 174, 187n23, 187n24; sectarian 108 Parham, C. F. 6n4, 48n37, 215 patriotism 12, 20 – 21, 24, 43n6, 48n37, 49n40, 52n56, 53n59, 142, 190n44, 194 peace churches i, 2, 15, 47n21, 124n58, 131n95 peacemaking 2, 22, 36 – 37, 59n91, 122n47 Pentecostalism: early 2, 4, 8, 12 – 13, 19 – 21, 25 – 26, 50n43, 50n48, 52n56, 53n65, 62, 80, 123n51, 125n66, 164n7, 186n19, 194 – 196 Pluess, J.-D. 2, 161, 216 pneumatology 58n85, 102, 163, 211; pneumatic epistemology 153 – 154, 156 – 157, 163, 198 politics, non-participation 13, 21, 86, 131n90, 193n60 poverty 9, 34 – 35, 58n89, 146, 152n22, 183, 192n57, 193n63, 203 prophetic movement 2, 31, 43n7, 46n19, 51n48, 51n52, 52n53, 80, 101, 110, 130n89, 134n108; post-exilic 7n8, 65, 108, 112n7, 161

164n9, 197 – 198; empowerment 26 – 27, 45n14, 124n58, 150n16, 156, 163n4, 195; encounter 1, 3 – 4, 31, 155 – 156, 160, 182; and eschatology 25, 30, 54n66, 58n85; guidance ix, 1, 3, 99, 103 – 104; and sanctification 44n12, 50n43, 99, 105 Spirit baptism 26, 30, 44n12, 49n40, 54n66, 211 Stendahl, K. 47n24, 164n8, 218 Stronstad, R. 161, 219 Swift, L. J. 107, 109, 219 Swinton, J. 7n10, 30, 169, 219

Quakers 14 – 16, 124n58

violence: domestic 2, 6n5, 216; to the earth 38; glorification of 28, 52n56, 63, 173; moral repudiation of 16, 42, 108; political 42, 218; structural 2, 40, 74, 95, 126n67, 192n57 Von Rad, G. 63 – 64, 113n9, 211, 220 – 221

reign of God 16, 22 – 23, 30, 46n19, 49n42, 51n51, 55n70, 78, 84, 187n25; see also kingdom of God restorationist impulse 11, 13, 19 – 20, 25, 29, 50n48, 155, 161, 187n25, 194 revolution: just 86, 113n10, 146, 152n22 Robinson, P. 122n48, 170, 216 sanctification 22, 26, 44n12, 50n43, 99, 105, 159, 161 Seibert, E. A. 99, 102, 105, 120n40, 217 self-defence 45n16, 51n48, 85, 125n66, 168 – 169, 178, 181, 187n24, 196 Sermon on the Mount 3, 9, 22, 50n44, 50n45, 126n70, 161, 187n22, 221 Seymour, W. J. 6n4, 21, 217 Shadle, M. A. 118n31, 119n36, 217 Sider, R. J. 96, 106, 116n24, 122n44, 128n81, 129n82, 131n89, 187n23, 193n62, 218 slavery 7n9, 46n20, 81, 103, 140, 160; abolishment 103, 138, 149n10, 160, 182, 192n54; justification 43n10, 93, 104, 138, 150n19, 158 Spirit: and Bible 22, 100, 103, 105, 133n102, 154, 156 – 160, 162, 163n6,

temple: cleansing 83 – 84, 131n89, 199, 202; destruction 71, 75, 87, 118n29; idolatry 73 – 75, 79, 81 – 82, 200; rebuilt 73, 81, 122n45 Tertullian 14, 96 – 97, 107, 109, 129n83, 129n84, 129n85, 129n86, 219 testimonies 1, 9, 26 – 27, 31, 50n44, 66 – 67, 95, 105, 112n8, 188n25 Thomas, J. C. 155 – 156, 219 Tomberlin, D. 161, 219 Tomlinson, A. J. 6n2, 186n19, 219

war: atomic warfare 31, 47n23, 47n24, 53n64, 55n72, 177, 188n33, 219; deterrence 32 – 33, 57n80, 171, 180, 220; holy war 19, 48n32, 48n35, 62 – 65, 68, 108, 111n4, 111n5, 112n7, 113n9, 114n15, 115n19, 116n21, 120n40, 127n76, 133n104, 150n15, 158, 187n23, 199, 206, 220 – 221; Jahwekrieg 64, 218; just cause 9, 19, 48n33, 110, 129n83, 168, 170 – 172, 179, 198; justification of 9, 14, 18 – 19, 25, 39, 45n16, 55n73, 59n90, 63, 65 – 68, 71, 76 – 77, 80, 83, 90, 98, 103 – 106, 108, 110, 111n3, 113n8, 114n12, 120n40, 121n43, 124n57, 125n62, 126n71, 129n83, 149n13, 158, 164n10, 165n15, 167 – 170, 172 – 175, 178 – 179, 181, 184n3, 186n18, 187n25, 195 – 198, 203, 218; just war theory 6, 9, 18, 45n16, 122n47, 167, 170 – 173, 175 – 176, 179, 188n30, 198, 210, 212, 214; peace law

Index  227 172, 174; preventive 19, 168 – 169, 202; tradition of just war 170, 174; war-conduct law 172 – 173; war-decision law 172 war: language of 28, 92, 112n8, 217; law of 29 Webb, W. 55n71, 70, 103, 118n33, 131n96, 132n97, 221 women and children: suppressed voices 29, 76, 79, 84, 99, 101, 114n12, 124n57, 158, 185n8, 186n16, 186n19, 187n23 world: sectarian relationship 208, 185n8

xenophobia 2, 34, 36, 58n89, 68, 114n16, 193n57 Yoder, J. H. 11 – 12, 17, 19, 22 – 23, 25, 27, 29 – 30, 43n9, 43n10, 44n13, 46n19, 47n23, 47n25, 50n44, 52n53, 55n70, 110, 134n109, 148n2, 181, 187n22, 187n25, 193n58, 221 – 222 Yong, A. 1, 131n90, 203 – 204, 216, 218, 222 Zehnder, M. 69, 120n40, 124n60, 206 – 207, 213 – 214, 221 – 222