Christian pacifism

Notable Christian pacifists include Martin Luther King Jr., Leo Tolstoy,[2] Adin Ballou, Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy, and brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan.

Stephen B. Chapman expresses the Old Testament describes God's divine intervention, not human power politics, or the warring king, as key to the preservation of Israel.

[4] Jacob Enz explains God made a covenant with his people of Israel, placing conditions on them that they were to worship only him, and be obedient to the laws of life in the Ten Commandments.

[17][18] War was used in God's ultimate purpose of restoring peace and harmony for the whole earth with the intention towards salvation of all the nations with the coming of the Messiah and a new covenant.

[13] Studies conducted by scholars Friedrich Schwally, Johannes Pedersen, Patrick D. Miller, Rudolf Smend and Gerhard von Rad maintain the wars of Israel in the Old Testament were by God's divine command.

[13] The sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13) and the fundamental principle it holds true is that reverence for human life must be given the highest importance.

"[30] Origen, whose father Leonidus was martyred during the persecution of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus in the year 202 AD, writes, "Jews [...] were permitted to take up arms in defence of the members of their families, and to slay their enemies, the Christian Lawgiver [has] altogether forbidden the putting of men to death [...] He nowhere teaches that it is right for His own disciples to offer violence to any one, however wicked.

"[31] Further examples include Arnobius, "evil ought not to be requited with evil, that it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, that we should rather shed our own blood than stain our hands and our conscience with that of another, an ungrateful world is now for a long period enjoying a benefit from Christ";[32] Archelaus, "many [soldiers] were added to the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and threw off the belt of military service";[33] Cyprian of Carthage, "The whole world is wet with mutual blood; and murder, which in the case of an individual is admitted to be a crime, is called a virtue when it is committed wholesale";[34] and Lactantius, "For when God forbids us to kill, He not only prohibits us from open violence, which is not even allowed by the public laws, but He warns us against the commission of those things which are esteemed lawful among men.

"[36] Saint Maximilian of Tebessa was executed by the order of the proconsul Dion for his refusal to serve in the Roman army as he thought killing was evil; he became recognized as a Christian martyr.

[40] Marcus Aurelius allegedly reported to the Roman Senate that his Christian soldiers fought with prayers instead of conventional weapons,[41] which resulted in the Rain Miracle[42] of the Marcomannic Wars.

[53] The Truce of God, first proclaimed in 1027 at the Council of Toulouges, attempted to limit the days of the week and times of year that the nobility engaged in violence.

[55] While most information concerning Cathar belief was written by their accusers, and therefore may be inaccurate, purportedly they were strict pacifists and rigorous ascetics, abjuring war, killing, lying, swearing, and carnal relations in accordance with their understanding of the Gospel.

Allegedly rejecting the Old Testament, Cathars despised dogmatic elements of Christianity, while their Priests (Perfects) subsisted on a diet of little more than vegetables cooked in oil, or fish not a product of sexual union.

The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards, a 1395 document of Lollardy, asserts that Christians should refrain from warfare, and in particular that wars given religious justifications, such as crusades, are blasphemous because Christ taught men to love and forgive their enemies.

Che Guevara wrote this, and he is quoted by Chicano youth in El Grito Del Norte.Charles Spurgeon did not explicitly identify as a pacifist but expressed very strongly worded anti-war sentiment.

[74] Although the group had already separated from the Campbellites, a part of the Restoration Movement, after 1848 for theological reasons as the "Royal Assembly of Believers", among other names, the "Christadelphians" formed as a church formally in 1863 in response to conscription in the American Civil War.

[75] The British and Canadian arms of the group adopted the name "Christadelphian" in the following year, 1864, and also maintained objection to military service during the First and Second World Wars.

[82][83][84][85][81] The Emmanuel Association teaches:[81][86] We feel bound explicitly to avow our unshaken persuasion that War is utterly incompatible with the plain precepts of our divine Lord and Law-giver, and with the whole spirit of the Gospel; and that no plea of necessity or policy, however urgent or peculiar, can avail to release either individuals or nations for the paramount allegiance which they owe to Him who hath said, "Love your enemies."

[87][88] According to law professor Archibald Cox, Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States were "the principal victims of religious persecution … they began to attract attention and provoke repression in the 1930s, when their proselytizing and numbers rapidly increased.

"[89] At times, political and religious animosity against Jehovah's Witnesses has led to mob action and governmental repression in various countries including the United States, Canada and Nazi Germany.

According to the acclaimed 20th century socialist writer Upton Sinclair, …the subtle worm assumed the guise of no less a person than the Emperor himself, suggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so that the Church and he might work together for the greater glory of God.

[108]Linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, social critic, and libertarian socialist Noam Chomsky writes, The Gospels are radical pacifist material, if you take a look at them.

Garrison and Ballou, along with Amos Bronson Alcott, Maria Weston Chapman, Stephen Symonds Foster, Abby Kelley, Samuel May, and Henry C. Wright,[110] founded the New England Non-Resistance Society in 1838 in Boston.

The society condemned the use of force in resisting evil, in war, for the death penalty, or in self-defense, renounced allegiance to human government, and called for the immediate abolition of slavery without compensation.

Before Tolstoy, and similar to Northern Abolitionists (though from a Southern anti-slavery viewpoint), David Lipscomb argued in 1866-1867 that Christians could not support warfare and should not vote, because human governments throughout history waged wars.

The symposium was sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union, Peace History Society, Plough Publishing House, and the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust.

[123][124][125] The French Christian pacifists André and Magda Trocmé helped conceal hundreds of Jews fleeing the Nazis in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

Her principled pacifist position was vindicated somewhat when, in 1945, the Nazi's Black Book of 2000 people to be immediately arrested in Britain after a German invasion was shown to include her name.

[143] After the war, Brittain worked for Peace News magazine, "writing articles against apartheid and colonialism and in favour of nuclear disarmament" from a Christian perspective.

[147] In 2017, the Methodist minister Dan Woodhouse and the Quaker Sam Walton entered the British Aerospace Warton Aerodrome site to try to disarm Typhoon fighter jets bound for Saudi Arabia.