Please join me in praying for the people of Minnesota in the light of the recent tragic shootings there. Regardless of the political views any of us may hold, violence in the name of law enforcement is a practice that must be employed very carefully, lest it become brutal oppression.
Throughout history -- including in Jesus’ own day and time -- violence has been used by those in power as a suppression tactic to silence those who disagree. As examples, one need only reflect on the military violence used by the British government to “suppress" the “radical” patriots during the American Revolution, or the enforcement of "Jim Crow" laws in the late 19th and early 20th century against black Americans, the violence used both by protestors and law enforcement during the American race riots of the 1960s, of the crackdown and killing of protestors by the Soviets in Czechoslovakia in 1968, or the brutal violence used by the Chinese government in Tiananmen Square in 1989 to suppress the Democracy movement there.
Yet, our American nation was built on the right of its people to protest what they feel is unlawful, unjust and/or immoral. So, whether or not we agree with what is being protested, both violence used in protest and violence used simply to silence those protests is un-American and un-Christian. At its core, our Christian faith is based on Jesus’ teachings and practices of non-violence (for example, read Matthew 5:9 and 38-48, Luke 22:47-53, and others), and non-violent protest movements such as those of Mahatmas Ghandi in India in the early 20th-century and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in America in the 1960s are faithful examples of this.
Speaking against the oppression of the Nazis in Hitler’s 1930s Germany, pastor, author and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote this now-famous challenge to people of Christian faith, “Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christians should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.” (cited from https://brianmclaren.net/more-on-violence-from-bonhoeffer/)
I’m not asking you to agree with me about all (or any) of this -- unlike much of today’s world, you and I can choose to be civil and “agree to disagree,” if needed -- but I do hope and pray that you will join me in praying for peace in Minnesota and anywhere in our nation or world where violence is being used to either to protest or enforce any “law.” Lord in your mercy, hear our prayers for peace!
