More What Ifs?

I came across three articles that dealt with this”what would you do if?”" question.  In this post I am going to take a few quotes from each…and, of course, give you the links to read the articles in their entirety. 

The first article is entitled, What Would You Do If? By Joan Baez.  It is a question and answer session between Joan Baez and someone named Fred.  Fred comes up with all these increasingly unlikely scenarios which might incite her to violence.  The first question he asks….

Fred: OK. So you're a pacifist. What would you do if someone were, say, attacking your grandmother?

The next question kind of evolves from a series of questions into a what would you do if…in the following very unlikely to happen circumstances:

Joan: What would I do If I was in a truck with a friend driving very fast on a one-lane road approaching a dangerous impasse where a ten-month old girl is sitting in the middle of the road with a landslide on one side of her and a sheer drop-off on the other.

In the article she goes onto explain the very real havoc and damage and destruction that violence and war wreak in situations that are not hypothetical.

In Non violent Response To Assault , Gerard A. Vanderhaar discusses some very practical suggestions on how to prevent an attack..and how to react if one occurs.  He talks about four or five different circumstances, when, confronted by the possibility/probability of a violent encounter, would be victims do something very far out of the ordinary and stave off an attack.  The point being that criminals and violent perpetrators expect their victims to behave in a specific way.  When the victims do not oblige them and behave differently than they expect, it throws the perpetrator off balance. In several of the situations they simply walked away.

What Would You Do If Someone Attacked Your Family? by Greg Boyd kind of brings this all together for me.  Although he acknowledges that he doesn’t know for sure how he would react, he believes there is no getting around how a follower of Jesus SHOULD react.  Non violently. And he brings up a point I hadn’t really considered.  Duh. 

The situation is not necessarily as black and white as it seems.  We think the only choices are to react violently…or not but perhaps when we ponder these hypothetical situations, we are forgetting something.  Boyd hones in on that when he says:

Not only this, but this person’s day-by-day surrender to God would have cultivated a sensitivity to God’s Spirit that would enable him to discern God’s leading in the moment, something the “normal” kingdom-of-the-world person would be oblivious to. This Christ-like person might be divinely led to say something or do something that would disarm the attacker emotionally, spiritually, or even physically.

The peace that passes all understanding is not  doled out until it is needed, so too, perhaps, discernment on what to do in an attack is also not given until it is needed.  Why do we consider it so unlikely and farfetched that the spirit could and would tell us exactly how to disarm our attacker?  God knows the ins and outs of everyone’s heart.  He knows their fears, their weaknesses and their needs.  Boyd goes on to tell about a situation where a would be victim followed the leading of the spirit…..

For example, I heard of a case in which a godly woman was about to be sexually assaulted. Just as she was being pinned to the ground with a knife to her throat, she out of nowhere said to her attacker, “Your mother forgives you.” She had no conscious idea where the statement came from. What she didn’t know was that her attacker’s violent aggression toward women was rooted in a heinous thing he had done as a teenager to his now deceased mother. The statement shocked the man and quickly reduced him to a sobbing little boy.

The woman seized the opportunity to make an escape and call the police who quickly apprehended the man in the park where the attack took place. He was still there, sobbing. The man later credited the woman’s inspired statement with being instrumental in his eventual decision to turn his life over to Christ. The point is that, in any given situation, God may see possibilities for non-violent solutions we cannot see and a person who has learned to “live by the Spirit” is open to being led by God in these directions (Gal. 5:16, 18).

I have a few more posts I want to write on this topic, including another one (or two) about the American Patriots Bible.  Stay tuned.  If you are interested in reading more about active non violence…

There are two “courses” on peace…put on the internet by the San Antonio Peace Center.  One is an eight part course, the other a sixteen part course.  They both feature writings of well known and lesser known peace keepers.  Much food for thought. 

John Yoder was another prolific writer about peace. 

Preston Eby has an awe inspiring writing on non violence that I’ve posted here on this blog  in its entirety….

More tomorrow…