The Laws of Violence

Today I was watching basketball and planting seeds in my kitchen when President Obama came on with a declarative statement in his role as Commander in Chief of the United States Military.  For me it was a symbolic interruption, activities of celebration, play, and new life interrupted with a message of power, a show of strength, and the threat of force.  I couldn't help the tears that began flowing. 

This Sunday (March 20) will be the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.  Then too, the new life of spring and the celebration of play and sport in the basketball tournament were foremost in my mind as my team was in Lubbock, Texas preparing to play Texas Tech in the first round of the women's NCAA tournament.  I sat there stunned in my hotel room at the La Quinta Inn when I heard about the invasion.  I sat there with my roommate for the trip, completely deflated, overwhelmed by the human capacity for violence and forceful terror, overtaken by this country's intimate and often unquestioned participation in systems of violence. 

Many have said and many will say that force is necessary and the manipulation of power by shows of military might are a natural part of international relations.  Military intervention against a terrorist or a dictator is a necessary evil.  It is "our" job to protect people who can't protect themselves.  There are many questions to raise in this common and seemingly innocuous logic, questions that followers of Jesus in particular must raise. 

To that end, the late French social critic and radical lay theologian Jacques Ellul has written with clarity and conviction about violence and peace, deconstructing the arguments and assumptions that prop up the logic of violence.  In his book Violence (1969), he asks Christians to take seriously these laws of violence (pp 93-108):

1. Continuity: once you start using violence, you cannot get away from it.
2. Reciprocity: there is no distinction between a good and bad use of violence; violence begets and procreates violence.
3. Sameness: it is impossible to distinguish between justified and unjustified violence, between violence that liberates and violence that enslaves.  Every violence is identical with every other violence.
4. Violence begets violence, nothing else. No government established by violence has given the people either liberty or justice - only a show of liberty (for those who supported the movement) and a show of justice. 
5. The [person] who uses violence always tries to justify both it and [her/himself].  

We don't need to trust ourselves to make some kind of change, to argue with the global empires that threaten creation and convince them of a better way.  Instead we go on planting seeds, trusting that with water and light, God will make them grow.