BOOKS, FAITH, WORLD & MORE

THE PROBLEM OF VIOLENCE
A Review of Three Responses

Daniel Hertzler

War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges. Public Affairs, 2002.

Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future, by Michael N. Nagler. Berkeley Hills Books, 2001.

The Upside Down Kingdom, by Donald B. Kraybill. Herald Press, 1978, 1990, 2003.

To review these three books together is perhaps a marriage of convenience. But I chose the second and third in part because they have a vision the first lacks.

Hedges does a masterful job of demythologizing war, but he has no real solution. His analysis of the popularity of war is comprehensive. He has been a war reporter, writes that "War and conflict have marked most of my adult life," and lists more than a dozen places where he has experienced conflict. As an "authority" on war he observes, "The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. . . . It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble" (2, 3).

Hedges has done more in life than chase battles. A graduate of Harvard University Divinity School, he has studied classic literature. I find it of interest that he refers repeatedly to The Iliad and Shakespeare, but includes few quotations from the Bible. One I noticed is not documented. He writes of "The seductions of violence, the fascination with the grotesque—the Bible calls it ‘the lust of the eye’—the god-like empowerment over other human lives and the drug of war combine, like the ecstasy of erotic love, to let our senses command our bodies" (89).

His ethical perspective is evidently drawn from Reinhold Niebuhr, mentioned twice in the book. Hedges declares himself in the introduction: "I am not a pacifist. . . . The poison that is war does not free us from the ethics of responsibility" (16). He closes the introduction with a mixed message: "The only antidote to ward off self-destruction and the indiscriminate use of force is humility and, ultimately, compassion. Reinhold Niebuhr aptly reminds us that we must act and then ask forgiveness. This book is not a call for inaction. It is a call for repentance" (17). I think Hedges has not comprehended the New Testament understanding of repentance.

With his introductory caveat in mind, we can go on to follow his analysis of war. Chapter 1, "The Myth of War," states his thesis. Six more chapters provide commentary and documentation. "Wars that lose their mythic nature for the public, such as Korea or Vietnam, are doomed to failure, for war is exposed for what it is—organized murder" (21).

I sat in a barbershop during the combat stage of the 2003 war in Iraq and was impressed by the strength of the myth. Everyone who spoke was in favor of the war. As I recall, one or two identified themselves as veterans, but I imagine most had only experienced war on TV. As I write, the myth is losing some of its power. Whether it will prevail through the next presidential election remains to be seen.

Throughout the book, Hedges draws on his experience as a reporter to document the baleful effects of war. In "The Plague of Nationalism" he describes how "National myths are largely benign in times of peace. But national myths ignite a collective amnesia in war" (46).

In "The Destruction of Culture" he describes the hostility between Turks and Greeks on the island of Cyprus and observes "the struggle by opposing sides to wrap themselves in the mantle of victimhood" (67).

In "The Seduction of Battle and the Perversion of War" he comments that "there is in wartime a nearly universal preoccupation with sexual liaisons. There is a kind of breathless abandon in wartime, and those who in peacetime would lead conservative and sheltered lives give themselves over to wanton carnal relationships" (100).

In chapter 6, "The Cause," Hedges observes that "because we and modern society have walked away from institutions that stand outside the state to find moral guidance and spiritual direction, we turned to the state in times of war. The state and institutions of the state become, for many, the center of worship in wartime. To expose the holes in the myth is to court excommunication" (147). I understand that Hedges himself experienced this; he was booed in spring 2003 while giving a commencement address on war at a college in Illinois.

In the final chapter, "Eros and Thanatos," Hedges asserts that "to survive as a human being is only possible through love. . . . It alone gives meaning that endures. It alone allows us to enhance and cherish life" (184, 185). I can certainly agree, but Hedges does not appear to have any vision or strategy for responding to war except the Niebuhrian principal that the only way to fight fire is with fire. For any peaceful strategy we need to look further.

The next two books go further. Both of these books are written by professors, which gives them a kind of survey characteristic, especially the Nagler book. But these authors have an alternative vision which Hedges lacks. (I mentioned the Nagler book briefly in a Spring 2002 DreamSeeker Magazine review of the book Where Was God on Sept. 11? This will be a more extended comment.)

Nagler is Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature, so he has a broad background from which to draw. I have not been able to ascertain from the book whether he belongs to a specific faith community, but at points he sounds like a Quaker. He makes an occasional reference to the Bible but is more likely to cite Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. He digs to the center of the problem of violence and just as thoroughly into the possibility of nonviolent response to violence. He begins with the basic question:

What is violence?
Why is it getting worse? And
How do we make it stop? (18).

Basic questions indeed. The answer, he says, is "the classic recipe for nonviolence: spirit, a sense of legitimacy (that one’s cause is just) and the willingness to sacrifice—if necessary to lay down your life. Those are precisely the three things that make resistance to an unjust regime successful" (33). It is of interest that these qualities are often called for to justify violence. It is the method that differs.

The typical question, of course, is whether nonviolence "works." Nagler challenges the old chestnut which holds that violence is necessary because only violence works. His thesis is straightforward:

Nonviolence sometimes "works"
and
always works
while
Violence sometimes "works"
but never works (122).

The rest of the book elaborates this point of view. He discusses the issue of "meaning," the basic point of Hedges’ book. Among the authorities he cites is Viktor Frankl and his search for meaning. Nagler asserts that "Everything I have been saying in this book is meant to shed light on that search, for I believe it’s possible to define what is meaningful for us who live in this crisis in history. The task is to create loving community, and the way to understand and address that task is through nonviolence" (172).

Nagler is well impressed with Gandhi and observes that he "devised a social program [that] nearly worked" (176). Gandhi’s campaign for spinning cloth made it possible for Indians to boycott the cloth supplied by the British. This put several million British millworkers out of work, but Gandhi went to visit them and explained what the people of India were up against. "Don’t attribute your misery to India. Think of the world forces that are powerfully working against you." One of them responded, "We understand each other now" (190).

As we know, despite what was accomplished by Gandhi’s comprehensive nonviolent program, his successors did not follow his model. But the dream of nonviolence will not die, and Nagler refers to a variety of efforts which have demonstrated in a smaller way that nonviolence can work. Among those mentioned are Witness for Peace (151, 239, 265) and Elias Jabbour (206, 212).

I think he must surely mean Elias Chacour, a Christian priest who works in Ibillin, a village of Galilee. I myself visited there in 1990. Chacour, a peaceful man, was able to develop a school for Palestinian children under the very noses of the Israelis. Despite government stalling, Chacour went ahead with the work, in part, I think, because he was known internationally. Nagler is also aware of Christian Peacemaker Teams (258, 259) and the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (299).

This is a hopeful book. Nagler has described the problem of violence and then looked for resources to use in fashioning a reasonable response. He ends the book with a brief description of a farm in Michigan where the farmers practice "nonviolent agriculture" and do not hate the varmints which prey on their crops (304). It seems an odd way to end the book, but perhaps he means to emphasize that all of us can do something nonviolently even though we may not be involved with worldwide issues. The Michigan people have found meaning in their effort to live nonviolently on their land.

Donald B. Kraybill’s vision is presented in quite a different manner. Whereas Nagler has identified violence as the problem and set out to look for solutions, Kraybill begins with the teaching of Jesus and works from there in typical Mennonite fashion. Indeed, the very title of the book comes from a remark by a person in a Sunday school class who "exclaimed with enthusiasm and exasperation ‘Everything here is so upside down’" (9).

Although the book has been in print for a generation, it deserves renewed attention because Herald Press has just brought out a twenty-fifth anniversary edition. Kraybill reports, "I have revised the text word by word to enhance its clarity and flow. Recent scholarship on Jesus and the synoptic gospels provided new insights for updating some of the chapters" (9, 10). I find it notable that a sociologist has stepped out of his professional field and studied the work of biblical scholars to provide "a book for lay readers" (10). During its 25 years the book has sold more than 60,000 copies.

After a chapter to define his position, Kraybill works his way through the three temptations of Jesus and on through a variety of other topics in the teaching of Jesus as found in the gospel of Luke and which he avers are still authoritative today.

Kraybill makes regular use of the metaphor of the detour to highlight typical ways of avoiding the sharp edge of Jesus’ teaching. I find three lists of these detours: in chapter 1, in chapter 7, and again in chapter 9.

In chapter 9, "Lovable Enemies" he works through an extensive list of Jesus’ teaching against violence and concludes that "the message of Jesus is clear. The use of violence, whether physical or emotional, is not God’s way. Jesus shows us how to absorb suffering, not inflict it. . . . Nevertheless the call to love enemies has baffled human logic for centuries. Even the church has condoned the use of violent means in various ways" (186). He then calls attention to five detours often used to get around the teaching of Jesus regarding enemies.

The first of these is Old Testament warfare. However, "Jesus introduced a new norm, the Torah of love" (186).

The second detour has been Christian Crusades, "The temptation to think the God blesses and fights for particular nations." But "Americans obviously trust weapons, not God" (187).

A third detour has been the "just war" concept, a persistent fantasy when "enemies in the same conflict often called their cause ‘just,’ leading both sides to claim God’s blessing" (187). Another detour restricts the teaching of Jesus to interpersonal issues. For national issues, Christians would be expected to trust the government with support from Romans 13:1-7, often interpreted out of context. Finally, there is a detour which considers peace "as an appendage to the gospel." Peacemaking is seen as a personal conviction and "military service is a matter of individual conscience. . . . National loyalty often rises above our allegiance to Jesus" (188).

Following these detours, Kraybill has a list of "nagging questions" about peace which Christians need to ponder. These include the use of force by government, self-defense and the protection of the innocent against tyrants, response to bullies on any level, how far to go in advocating nonviolence, the issue of restraint of evil by violent means. This, of course, is where Hedges rests his case.

To these questions Kraybill can only respond that "Jesus’ call to love the enemy slices through the issues with simplicity and clarity. . . . Jesus calls us to faithfulness; to faithfully embody God’s loving forgiveness" (189, 190). He suggests that we "imagine the global impact if Christians in every country were willing to pledge that they will never kill another human being" (19). I have wondered about that myself.

Kraybill ends with a pledge of allegiance, evidently presented as an alternative to the American flag salute.

We pledge allegiance to the Lord
of the worldwide kingdom of God
and to the values
for which it stands—
one kingdom under God
with compassion and forgiveness
for all.

In an odd way these three works complement each other. Hedges documents the monstrosity of war, but he has no other alternative. Nagler surveys a range of nonviolent options and makes a case for nonviolence as a working strategy.

Of course, as a fellow Mennonite, I am more at home with Kraybill, who goes deep into the teachings of Jesus and shows how they cut through all those sophistries which masquerade as wisdom.

—Daniel Hertzler, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, a longtime editor and writer, contributes a monthly column to the Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pa.).