ARTICLE ON NONVIOLENCE
The scholar is considered a threat to the faith of the unlearned because he or she proposes opinions and conclusions which cannot be reconciled with popular belief.
Reasons are found why scholars should not disturb popular belief even when it is in error, for it is alleged that it is better to leave people in error, which they have so long cherished and from which they have reaped so much devotion, rather than shock and disturb them with the truth.
This principle by logical dexterity is maintained together with another favorite principle, the principle that “error has no right to exist.”
When both principles are applied, it means that the scholar should propose nothing which might possibly be erroneous, while the faithful are free to retain errors as long as they are old errors and not new errors.
The faith of many has been shaken when the teaching of the Church has been reduced to less that its full truth; the faith of just as many, or more, has been shaken when unenlightened teachers impose upon them as beliefs of the Church things which are not true…It is not, and we trust never will be, necessary and proper to explain and defend our faith by anything else but the truth.
*Now it is quite possible to speak from the Gospel to war and peace but I know of no way in which what the Gospel tells us about war and peace can be presented to modern governments in a form acceptable to them.
Our temptation then has been since we know people will not accept it, therefore don’t say it.
Another temptation is to try to produce a form of Christianity that will be tolerable to those who believe that the best way to deal with your enemies is to beat their heads in. And, we have done this. We have produced the Christian ethic of the just war.
This is not the New Testament and every theologian knows it. But the implication that Jesus spent His time producing impractical ideals of moral conduct has other implications. It is effectively going to lead to the denial of Christianity as a valid system of human life.
John L. McKenzie
Myths and Realities, pages 30, 31, 233. *How Relevant is the Bible?, page 213.
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www.centerforchristiannonviolence.org
