Most of my Saturday I was at a workshop on Lutheran nonviolence. This was conducted by one of my friends from PLTS who works for this organization called Pace e Bene. I think that the things that we covered were really good for promoting nonviolence and understanding. We addressed that there are a lot of misconceptions about nonviolence out there.
We also had an interesting activity that addressed that we all have different ideas of what is and is not violent with discussion about it. For example, is a bar tender serving another drink to an alcoholic person who is visibly drunk a violent act? Is a woman spray painting a bill board that she found to be sexist a violent act? I found myself only finding one case where I personally thought was 100% violent: the outsourcing of jobs to Mexico, leaving people who had these jobs in the US unemployed and not having the labor in Mexico be regulated. That sparked some very interesting conversation, understanding the variety of perspectives people
The other activity that I thought was pretty interesting that I had already done another version of at another workshop was the discussing of whether homosexuals should be ordained in the ELCA from a variety of points of views: A bishop from MN, a social worker from NY advocating for GLBT rights, a homosexual pastor and a homemaker who is against the ordaination of homosexuality. I thought that this was a good excercize to be mindful of the humanity of the other. This is something I would definitely would want to have in my bag of tricks for some kind of adult education session someday. I tend to be on the side of thinking homosexuals should be ordained. However I think that alot of the rhetoric around it tends to ignite extreme emotions regardless of what ones stance is. I think that it really is important to step away from these emotions to really understand other perspectives on this.
We also discussed "Freedom of A Christian" by Martin Luther. Which is a document that I absolutely love and am always citing in my papers. And we discussed a reading by Dietrich Bonhoffer.
I would recommend looking at www.paceebene.org as a good resource for anyone who would be interested in the issue of nonviolence for some good resources and training opportunites. I purchased their book Engage which has a lot of the activities that we did with an eye for wanting to use some of these resources myself.
Looking back on it from a more critical perspective now though, even though I am a pacifist I do not know if it is fair to prescribe it as a Lutheran stance. Article 16 of the Augsburg Confessions by Melanchthon states that "concerning civic affiars they teach that lawful civil ordinances are good works of God. Christians are permitted to...decide matters by imperial and other existing laws, to imose just punishments, to wage just war, to serve as soliders..." So this statement could definitely be used against the idea of lutheran pacifism, especially in the light of the sinful world we live in.
I live amongst people who hate legalism and works/righteousness because of their lutheran identity. Ideally nonviolence would be a work of the spirit that is described in the book of concord. However nonviolence could also be a good work of the spirit and an example of how Luther says in freedom of a christian that a christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all. I think that what I am saying is that I think that nonviolence is the best way to go personally and will continue my education on such manners. I can justify my Lutheran faith because of this. But I do not know if it is fair to prescribe pacifism as a lutheran stance even though I can justify a pacifist perspective from my lutheran heritage. However I can strive for a nonviolent approach in my own life as much as possible. So I think I am just nervous to say that nonviolence is Lutheran even though I can say that I am a Lutheran who would advocate for nonviolence. However a great resource for a lutheran nonviolence is lutheran peace fellowship. www.lutheranpeace.org A disclaimer is that I havent looked around on this website a lot yet, but I think that its something many of you who I know read this blog would appreciate as a progressive lutheran resource.
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Hi Betsy,
Thanks for the blog. I also have a hard time seeing nonviolence as a Lutheran stance. In many ways I see Lutheranism as a very American denomination and Americans tend to be pretty shallow in their veiw of violence; unless someone ends up bleeding it's not really violence. As you note in your blog, violence comes in many more subtle forms and many of these are accepted passively by most Lutherans because they are Americans first and Christians second. I'm not optimistic that the church is capable of teaching any sort of deeper moral reasoning with enough consistence or authority to make much difference in peoples behaviors or attitudes. This all sounds more negative than I actually am; in general I'm a raging optimist but it does get frustrating to realize that it really does take the passage of an entire generation to see any kind of change.
I'm teaching a course this quarter called "Advanced Topics in Neuroscience" and the central question of the course is "What is consciousness?". I'm convinced that much of human behavior is not conscious, most violence included. Behavior is modular; once a particular behavior starts it runs through a stereotyped and predictable pattern of sub-behaviors until it runs it's course. This is very obvious in lower organisms but I think it's true of humans as well. You mentioned the emotion connected with many volitile issues and emotion is one of the triggers that gets the modular behavioral patterns to start running. Politicians know this well and they're great at stirring up the emotions of the populace to manipulate behavior and to prevent any kind of conscious engagement of the issues. Cutting emotion out of the issues is key to the application of any reason (Obama in 2008!). In the end, apathy and willful ignorance (remember the ghost of Christmas Present) are the most powerful violent acts. I think that on many different issues, Americans are programmed in various ways to default into a behavioral module of apathy and inaction, based on an initial emotinal response to the issues.
Now that I've filled your day with Sunshine and Light. I need to get back to work.
Peace, Allan
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