Wednesday, April 04, 2007

A WEEK WITH... STANLEY HAUERWAS (again) day 3


STANLEY HAUERWAS ON DISINTERESTED WAR, SUCH AS THE CONFLICT IN DARFUR:


"That I have some sympathy with those who would refuse to allow another person to be unjustly injured or killed is simply a statement that any person should make. But that sympathy does not mean I think we should kill in order to prevent another from being killed. I've always insisted that Christian nonviolence is a harsh and dreadful love requiring that at times we may have to watch the innocent suffer for our convictions. But that is true of any serious moral position including the just war position. Of course Christians should have tried to prevent the massacres in Rwanda and Darfur. The question is how? I can't imagine what a disinterested war would look like."

4 comments:

Eric Lee said...

Jonathan,

Really good Hauerwas quotation. But I have to admit that what caught my eye was that you used the cover of the book that I created! What do you think of it? I'm not sure when that one is supposed to come out, but it was one of the covers in the Interventions series that I was really proud of when I was done with it.

Peace,

Eric

John said...

Hence the problem with pacifism: unpersuadable evil goes unopposed.

Jonathan Marlowe said...

That, in a nutshell, is your primary objection to pacifism, is it not John?

Jonathon said...

eric, the cover is GREAT!!! How cool that you got to design it. Congrats.

John, I have to admit that pacifism is still problematic for me. However, I also find war and violence problematic.

In fact I find the use of violence more problematic because I can't find anywhere in the gospels where Jesus teaches anything other than love for enemies, turning your cheek (which from what i understand is a form of very active nonviolent resistance), and an unwillingness to result to violent action.

I believe the problems we face will continue until more people's moral imaginations are sparked to proactively create "pre conflict" initiatives on a mass scale. These initiatives would create opportunities to deal with conflict before we get to the war and violence part. But to do that Christians have to be way ahead of the game and be willing to put themselves out there more than we have ever done so before. Thanks for your thoughts.

shalom,
jonathon