Helping Ukraine: War without Violence?

Today is the twentieth day since the beginning of the unprovoked Russian invasion of the sovereign country of Ukraine. The courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people has certainly been admirable, but their suffering has been great and their short-term future is exceedingly bleak. 

From the 3/5/22 cover of The Economist

President Zelenskyy’s Call for Help

Since the very beginning of the invasion of his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been widely praised as a courageous leader in his beleaguered country and an exemplary advocate of freedom. He will be awarded the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award for 2022.

President Zelenskyy has repeatedly taken to the airwaves to make zealous appeals for increased military help from NATO and the U.S. He has warned that the refusal to give assistance through such means as declaring a no-fly zone over his country will result in the deaths of thousands of his citizens.

In response to that March 5 appeal, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said, “Let’s be cleareyed about our options: “A No-Fly Zone means sending American pilots into combat against Russian jets and air defenses—in a battle between nuclear powers that could spiral out of control quickly.”

So, how should the U.S. and NATO respond to Zelenskyy’s call for help?

Has President Biden’s and NATO’s Response been Weak?

Some in this country have used the lack of full positive response to Zelenskyy’s call as a sign of weakness on the part of President Biden.

An opinion piece in the March 11 online issue of The Christian Post is titled “The Ukrainian crisis: A catastrophic failure of leadership.” The author is Richard Land, President Emeritus of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Land asserts that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was “so preventable,” pointing out that 62% of Americans believe that if Trump were still president, Russia would not have invaded.

Apparently, Land is among those 62%. He writes, “Putin feared Trump’s strength, whereas he holds Biden’s invertebrate weakness in disdain.”

He also asserts that “Biden’s weakness is illustrated by his apparent fear of what Putin might do.”

This same sort of criticism is expressed by Wendell Griffen, a progressive Baptist leader for whom I have great respect. I was disappointed, though, by what he wrote in a March 9 opinion piece.

Griffen asserted, “What perturbs Zelensky and delights Putin is the knowledge that world leaders lack the will to bring their arsenals, warriors and other war-fighting resources to bear against Putin.”

The opinion of Daniel Davis, a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army is far better than the two divergent Baptists just cited. Davis’s article in the March 8 post of The Guardian is titled “A no-fly zone means Nato shooting down Russian jets. We must not do that” (emphasis added).

Can there be Significant Help without Violence?

The effectiveness, and even the morality, of the violent resistance of the Ukrainian people is discussed in an article posted March 7 by Religious News Service (here). It is titled “Catholic theologians question the morality of Ukraine’s violent resistance.”

While I agree with much in that significant article, here I am writing only about the morality of help for Ukraine supplied by the U.S. and NATO—and in that regard I strongly believe that the stance taken so far by the U.S. is not a show of weakness but of prudence.

The increasing level of sanctions leveled against Russia will surely in the long run lead to a cessation of violent fighting in Ukraine. Direct military action would, no doubt, be more effective in the short run—but with the distinct possibility of leading to greater escalation of violence.

Greater military help of Ukraine now, could—and perhaps would!—lead to greater suffering, more casualties, and more violent Russian warfare not only against Ukraine but also against other European countries.

Hasty, belligerent acts by the U.S./NATO could—and perhaps would!—provoke Russia to use strategic nuclear weapons. And that could well be the beginning of World War III.

Looking at the bigger picture and the potentiality of unthinkable disaster, I am deeply grateful that the U.S. and NATO are seeking to help Ukraine mostly by non-violent (=non-military) means.

“The Tragedy at Buffalo”: Reflections on McKinley’s Assassination

William McKinley was the third U.S. President to be assassinated—in just 36 years (plus a few months). He was shot 120 years ago on September 6 and died eight days later. What was behind that tragic event?  

Pres. McKinley shot on 9/6/1901

The Making of Pres. McKinley

William McKinley, Jr., was born in Ohio in January 1843. When he was still 18, he enlisted as a private in the Civil War—and 36 years later became the last President to have fought in that horrendous war.

Mustered out of the army in 1865, McKinley was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives just eleven years later. After six terms in the House, he served as the Governor of Ohio for two two-year terms.

In the presidential election of 1896, Republican McKinley defeated Democrat / Populist William Jennings Bryan and became the 25^th POTUS. Four years later, he was re-elected by defeating Bryan for the second time with 51.6% of the popular vote, up slightly from 1896.

McKinley’s election was due, in large part, to the financial support he received from the wealthy industrialists of the country. Bryan was the “commoner,” who had the support of the working class but with limited resources. The moneyed class won the elections for McKinley.

In his classic bestselling book, A People’s History of the United States (1980; rev. ed., 2003), Howard Zinn wrote that in 1896 “the corporations and the press mobilized” for McKinley “in the first massive use of money in an election campaign” (p. 295).

McKinley’s Presidency

McKinley’s support by the wealthy paid good returns for them. Early in the second year of his presidency, the U.S. went to war with Spain.

Three years before McKinley’s re-election in 1900 with Theodore Roosevelt as the Vice-President, the latter wrote to a friend, “I should welcome any war, for I think this country needs one.” And, indeed, that very next year (1898) the Spanish-American War began, and Roosevelt was a hero in it.

John Jay, McKinley’s Secretary of State, called it "a splendid little war," partly because it propelled the United States into a world power—with world markets. Indeed, under McKinley’s presidency in 1898, the American Empire emerged.*

Zinn quotes the (in)famous Emma Goldman writing a few years later that “the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of the American capitalists” (p. 321).**

Indeed, the “military-industrial complex” was a reality far before Pres. Eisenhower used that term sixty years ago in January 1961.

Shortly after the brief war with Spain ended, the Philippine-American War started in February 1899 and was still in progress when McKinley was shot and killed.

McKinley’s Assassination

Leon Czolgosz was a Polish-American who, by the time he was 28 years old, believed, probably for good reason, that there was a great injustice in American society, an inequality that allowed the wealthy to enrich themselves by exploiting the poor.

Early in September 1901, Czolgosz traveled from Michigan to Buffalo, New York, where the President was attending the Pan-American Exposition (a World’s Fair). There he shot McKinley twice at point-blank range.

Czolgosz had clearly been influenced by the fiery, anarchist rhetoric of Goldman (1869~1940). But just as Nat Turner had misused the words of the Bible (see my 8/25 blog post), he misused the words of Goldman, who advocated dramatic social change, but not violence.

Even before McKinley died on Sept. 12, Goldman was arrested and charged with conspiracy. She denied any direct connection with the assassin and was released two weeks later. On Oct. 6 she wrote a powerful essay titled “The Tragedy at Buffalo.”

Goldman stated clearly, “I do not advocate violence,” but wrote in forceful opposition to “economic slavery, social superiority, inequality, exploitation, and war.” And she concluded that her heart went out to Czolgosz “in deep sympathy, and to all the victims of a system of inequality.”

At the end of October, Czolgosz was executed by electric chair—and Goldman continued advocating for the people Czolgosz cared about so deeply and sought to help in an extremely misguided manner.

_____

* “American Empire, 1898~2018,” my 1/15/18 blog post, elaborates this matter.

** Zinn wrote “Emma,” a play about Goldman that was first performed in 1977. I found Zinn’s play quite informative and of considerable interest. 

Misusing the Bible: The Tragedy of Nat Turner’s Rebellion

Earlier this month I watched the 2016 movie The Birth of a Nation for the third time. It graphically depicts the rebellion of enslaved men in Virginia that began 190 years ago on August 21, 1831. 

Historical marker erected in 1991

The Making of a Black Preacher

Much of what is portrayed in The Birth of a Nation is fictional—or a composite of the historical people of the time rather than specifically about the one boy/man Nat Turner, who was, in fact, born in October 1800 in Virginia’s Southampton County.

It also is historically true that Nat was a precocious boy who learned to read at a young age—although not necessarily in the way it was portrayed in the movie. And he learned to read by using the Bible as his “reader.”

Further, it is factually true that Nat continued to read the Bible regularly and had a deep, even mystical, spiritual life. Both because of his knowledge of the Bible and his mystical experiences, he apparently became a preacher at an early age.

However, Nat was not used by his “owner,” Tom Turner, as portrayed in the movie, for in fact, Tom Turner died in 1822.

But even if Nat was not “used” to pacify the enslaved people to whom he preached in Southampton Co., it is historically accurate that “slaveowners” expected Black preachers to use Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22, and 1 Peter 2:18 often in their sermons.

Also, similar to what is portrayed in the movie, those preachers did so when “slave owners” were present, as they often were. Selective use of the Bible became a tool for the control of enslaved people in the American South.

That is just one of numerous examples of the historical—and current!—misuse of the Bible.

The Re-making of a Black Preacher

Nat Turner, however, seems to have begun to read the Old Testament more and more, especially passages about the “warrior” God depicted in Deuteronomy, Joshua, and some of the Minor Prophets.

Spurred by visions that he considered of divine origin, Nat began to preach more and more, when he could, about the use of force against evil—and he began to plot a violent rebellion against the Whites in Southampton. And, as indicated, the actual uprising began on the night of August 21, 1831.

The actions of Nat Turner and his fellow rebels were brutal. White children were killed along with their slave-owning parents. That was consistent with what the Old Testament includes as God’s instructions to the Israelites in their battles against the Canaanites and others.

The insurrection was quelled in just a couple of days, but it took the lives of some 60 Whites and about four times that number of Blacks. After successfully hiding out for more than two months, Nat was captured and then hanged on November 11.

Critiquing Black Preacher Turner

The main problem I have with Nat Turner’s use of the Bible—as well as with the pro-slavery people of the South—is his/their paucity of references to Jesus Christ and his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere.

Still, it is not hard to have considerable sympathy for Nat Turner. As Judith Edwards writes near the end of Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion in American History (2000), her helpful book written for high school students,

Nat Turner, whose rebellion was so very bloody, seems not to have been a violent man by choice. The excesses of slavery caused the excesses of his rebellion (p. 99).

So, perhaps the (mis)use of the Bible by Nat Turner wasn’t any worse than, and maybe not as bad as, the (mis)use of the Bible by the Whites of the South in the 19^th century—and now.

But when, oh when, will Christians ever learn how to believe/preach the word of truth correctly (see 2 Tim. 2:15)?

_____

** My blog post for Oct. 10, 2016, was titled “The Birth of the Nation” and is about the 2016 movie with that name and Nat Turner’s rebellion. While the content overlaps this present post, there is much that is different, and I commend it for your consideration (again). (Surprisingly, there have been over 850 “pageviews” of that post.)

Beating Guns

For many years I have been an admirer of Shane Claiborne, author of several books and leader of “new monastic” Christians who go by the name The Simple Way in downtown Philadelphia. Last week I had the privilege of meeting Shane for the first time.

Beating Guns

Claiborne (b. 1975) is the author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical (2006). That was the first book of his that I read, and I was very favorably impressed by it.

He also wrote, with Chris Haw, Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals (2008). That was also an impressive book. Two years later he wrote Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, which I have not yet read but have seen quoted often.

Mike Martin (b. 1982) is a Mennonite blacksmith from Colorado. He is the founder and Executive Director of an organization known as RAWtools. (Check out their attractive website here.)

Shane and Mike teamed up to write Beating Guns: Hope for People Who are Weary of Violence, a nearly 300-page book that was published last month. It is an attractive, challenging work worthy of serious consideration.

Beating Guns Tour

Currently, Shane and Mike are on a thirty-seven-city Beating Guns Tour. The 23^rd stop on that tour was in Kansas City, Kansas, on April 2. Their event there was held at the Rainbow Mennonite Church, where June and I are members, and it was a very engaging evening.

Here is the picture I took of Mike standing by the bus: 

And click here to see a video of Shane telling about that bus soon after they acquired it in November 2018.

The inside-the-church program was primarily an excellent presentation by Shane explaining the purpose of the Beating Guns Tour. It also featured a brief talk by Jamal Shakur who works for Kansas City in what is called the Aim4Peace program.

Outside, in the parking lot right behind the church building, they used their forge to heat the metal of a gun red hot. The metal was then placed on an anvil where several people, one after another, beat it with a hammer. Before the close of the event, the new garden tool, as you see below, was brought in for our admiration. 

Beating Guns into Garden Tools

One of my favorite sculptures was created by Arlie Regier (1931~2014), a member of Rainbow Mennonite Church. It is a “swords into plowshares” work which I wrote about (and included a picture of) in my 5/25/11 blog article.

Since there is not so much use of swords, or even plows, now, Shane & Mike’s emphasis is on guns and garden tools. While they certainly stress the problem of guns in USAmerican society, their primary opposition is to violence of all kinds.

Following the teachings of Jesus, they not only oppose the rampant violence of guns used for both homicides and suicides in this country, but they also speak out clearly and firmly against all war as well as capital punishment.

The tone of the book—and certainly the tone of the authors as they spoke to us last Tuesday evening—is not harsh. Shane and Mike don’t come across as strident or angry, but they do speak out forcefully—and also with a hopeful message.

In the words of the subtitle of their book, they, indeed, are seeking to foster “hope for people who are weary of violence.” They end their book with these words:

May we be the midwives of a better world—through our prayers, by our lives, and with our hammers.

What Would King say about Ferguson?

Fifty years ago today, on Dec. 10, 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was 35 years old, and at the time was the youngest person ever to be given the Peace Prize, which was first awarded in 1901.

King gave an acceptance speech upon receiving the prodigious prize on that December day, and on the 11^th he delivered the Nobel Lecture. 

From 1960 until his death in 1968, King and his father were co-pastors of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. (That is also where one of King’s funerals was held on 4/9/68.) Last Monday (Dec. 1) Attorney-General Holder met with community leaders of Atlanta in Ebenezer BC.

That gathering was publicized under the name “The Community Speaks: A Service. A Forum. A Place to be Heard.” Prior to that meeting Ebenezer Church’s Facebook page explained,

This service is designed to provide a sacred space for interfaith prayer, solidarity, communal lament, and constructive outlets for community involvement that furthers the work of social justice locally, nationally and globally.

What would King have said last week if he had been there at Ebenezer? (If he had not been assassinated, at age 85 he might have been.)

King would, no doubt, have expressed great sadness at the shooting death of an unarmed black teen-ager. And it is most likely that he would have also expressed grave reservations about the grand jury’s refusal to indict Darren Wilson.

Doubtlessly, King would also have decried the violence that has marred the protest in Ferguson and elsewhere. As he did in the 1950s and ’60s, he would have appealed for nonviolent demonstrations.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, King declared that “nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time,” and that it is necessary for humans “to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”

King also declared in his Nobel lecture, “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral.”

Further, “Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible.” And then, “Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.”

If King were to have come back, Rip van Winkle style, to Ebenezer last week, he would quite likely have expressed great disappointment that the racial situation has not improved more than it has since 1964.

In his Nobel lecture, King talked about racial injustice, poverty, and war. Sadly, not very much has changed in 50 years.

In that lecture, King spoke about how we humans suffer from

a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers [and sisters].

King’s acceptance speech was full of hope, though. To some that may have sounded then, and maybe especially now, as “liberal” or humanistic optimism. But there is a distinct difference between hope and optimism.

King was not, and most likely would not today be, optimistic about race relations in the country. But he was hopeful then, and as a man of deep Christian faith, he would be hopeful now.

That hope rests partly in people of good will truly seeking freedom and justice for all. 

"The Nonviolent God"

J. Denny Weaver is an Anabaptist/Mennonite theologian who is best known for his book “The Nonviolent Atonement” (2001; 2^nd ed., 2011).

Dr. Weaver is coming to Kansas City as part of a book tour related to his new book, “The Nonviolent God” (2013). I am currently reading that book as well as co-leading a Sunday School class discussing it at Rainbow Mennonite Church.

Weaver was born in Kansas City, Kan., in 1941, and has ties to Rainbow (in KCKS) where he will be speaking on March 30. He will also be speaking at Central Baptist Theological Seminary on March 31. I am looking forward to hearing his talks.

Now Professor Emeritus at Bluffton University (in Ohio) where he taught for 31 years, Weaver is also the author of books about the Anabaptists, such as “Becoming Anabaptist: The Origin and Significance of Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism” (1987; 2^nd ed., 2005).

Before I really knew anything about Weaver, I mentioned what he had written about the Atonement being “divine child abuse,” as some feminist theologians describe traditional views concerning the significance of Jesus’ crucifixion. (See my “Limits of Liberalism,” pp. 196-199).

Traditional views of the atonement are severely critiqued by Weaver, who is sympathetic with the feminist theologians’ point just mentioned, as well as with James Cone who has “linked substitutionary atonement specifically to defenses of slavery and colonial oppression” (“Nonviolent Atonement,” p. 66).

Whereas “The Nonviolent Atonement” is primarily a rejection of the traditional views of the Atonement, especially the penal substitution theory that has been predominant among Protestants, “The Nonviolent God” expands that idea to include the theology of the nature of God.

On the second page of the latter, Weaver clearly states, “That God should be understood with nonviolent images constitutes the major thesis of this book.”

That thesis is based on this premise: “If God is revealed in Jesus, as Christian faith professes, then God should be considered nonviolent as a reflection of the nonviolence of Jesus” (p. 125).

Thus, “if God (or the character of God) is revealed in Jesus, the violent and nonviolent images of God cannot be reconciled” (p. 135). There are, to be sure, violent images of God in the Old Testament and even in the parables of Jesus.

But Weaver argues that there are more and stronger images of God as nonviolent and that those should be constitutive of a theological understanding of God and of the Christian life.

The emphasis on nonviolent atonement and a nonviolent God is consistent with a central conviction of Anabaptists/Mennonites such as Weaver.

Nonviolence, often referred to as pacifism, has been a dominant characteristic of most Anabaptists since the heyday of Menno Simons (1496-1561) and is entrenched in most Mennonite churches to this day.

As one who has long identified with that tradition, and who is now a member of a Mennonite church, Weaver’s arguments strongly resonate with me, even though I don’t necessarily agree with every point.

Thus, I can emphatically say that I am glad we in the U.S. have such a “weak” President. (With regard to the critical situations in Iran, in Syria, and now in Ukraine, how many times have I heard the President criticized by his political enemies for being weak!)

But if the President were “stronger,” and thus more inclined to use military might rather than nonviolent ways to deal with international disputes, our country could well be fighting right now in Iran and Syria and perhaps in Ukraine soon.

Since God is nonviolent, though, those who truly believe in God should always seek to be nonviolent too.

Remembering 9/11 – 1973

In recent days, and continuing through tomorrow, there have been numerous newspaper articles and radio & TV programs about the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. Since there is already so much in the media this week about the tenth anniversary of those attacks, I decided to write about events on 9/11 twenty-eight years earlier, in 1973.

As horrific as 9/11/01 was, and with respect for the victims’ families, I am writing about 9/11/73 partly to help us realize that we in this country are not the only ones to have been victims of terror.

Salvadore Allende (b. 1908) was elected president of the South American country of Chile in 1970. That was an attention-grabbing occurrence, for he was the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in the Americas.

Allende’s election was of grave concern to U.S. political leaders—and to the many U. S. companies (especially IT&T and the Anaconda and Kennecott Copper companies) with heavy investments in Chile.

The U.S. government, as well as the U.S. companies, spent millions of dollars trying to keep Allende from being elected. Having failed to prevent his election, they began to work for his overthrow. President Nixon reportedly told Richard Helms, the Director of the CIA, to do whatever was necessary “to get rid of” Allende.

Although it was denied for years, it became clear, especially after certain documents were declassified in 1998, that the CIA and U.S. companies were involved behind the scenes in the overthrow of the Allende government on 9/11/73 and that they directly supported the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006), who led the coup d’etat.

President Allende apparently died by suicide on that 9/11, choosing that means of death rather than the imprisonment, torture, and likely execution that would have occurred when his government was overthrown by military violence.

There were around 3,000 deaths caused by the terrorists on 9/11/01. The events in Chile on 9/11/73 began a period of terror for many Chileans (as well as for some North Americans and other foreigners living in Chile) that resulted in an even greater number of deaths there.

As late as 2000, a BBC newscast said, “According to an official report, more than 3,000 people were killed under General Pinochet’s regime and more than 1,000 are still unaccounted for.”

A few days ago (for at least the third time) I watched Missing, the 1982 movie starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. That sad movie is based on the true story of Charles Horman (1942-1973), an American journalist who was one of the victims of the 9/11/73 coup in Chile.

Not only were thousands of Chileans killed by the ruthless military junta and government led by Pinochet, at least three North Americans “disappeared” (were executed) as well. Horman was one of those, killed eight days after the coup, even though his death was not acknowledged until weeks later.

So, today and tomorrow as we once again grieve the death and destruction caused by the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, let us also remember the many Chilean, as well as some American, families who still grieve their loss because of the events of another 9/11.