|
Editor's
note: No attempt has been made to update the language. Some
of the language may seem archaic, but the drama of these
lives and the energy of these ideas remain as relevant as
the New Testament.
All of us are
aware today that there are two great urges in the human
breast. One is the deep longing for peace; and the other
is the tremendous thirst for brotherhood. From every source
we are told that peace is now absolutely imperative. And
on the front pages of all the world's newspapers we read
of man's struggle for brotherhood. It could be that in God's
great wisdom these two ideas are occurring simultaneously
on the world scene for a real reason, for I think they are
deeply related to each other.
Man will not
give up war until he finds some better idea with which to
replace it. Most of us are convinced now that we must relinquish
war, but we do not know what will take its place. War has
been, to some extent, an answer for man's problems. He has
found in it, however, crude and however unsatisfactory,
at least some answer to his problems. But what was originally
a rabbit which we had by the tail has now become a bear,
and we can neither hold on to war nor can we relinquish
it.
It could be
that the struggle for brotherhood will give us some clue
to the answer of the urge toward peace. For in the struggle
for brotherhood, men have laid hold upon an idea to achieve
this goal which has not been violent. It has been non-violent.
So that the by-product of the racial struggle in the world
today might turn out to be the chief contribution.
Now, non-violence
is not a new idea. It's at least as old as Jesus' time for
Josephus tells us in his history of the Jews that Caiaphas,
the high priest at the time of Jesus, was an advocate of
non-violence. Now at this time Judea was occupied by the
military forces of Rome. Caiaphas, the high priest, still
insisted that Judea was a theocracy, and that he was God's
vicar on earth. Now when Pilate was sent to Judea to be
governor, he could not find adequate accommodations for
his crack cavalry troops. He searched everywhere and finally
found that there was quite a good bit of room in the Jewish
temple. He thought it would make a fine barracks for his
soldiers, so he quartered them there.
Caiaphas heard
about it and went to see the governor, and informed him
that it would be necessary for him to remove his troops
from the temple, largely due to the fact that the troops
had on their shields images of their gods, and images in
the temple were a desecration. Ruthless old Pilate reminded
Caiaphas that it was he who was governor, and not the high
priest. Then Caiaphus hit upon a rather interesting solution
to his problem. There was no law against parading without
a license in Judea, and there was no law against praying.
So Caiaphus went out and got some of his very best ministerial
students who had tremendous voices, and invited them to
a prayer meeting just outside of Pilate's window. Now the
Hebrews were not noted then for silent prayer, and they
prayed for Pilate at the top of their voices, all at the
same time, and not in unison. Well, they kept this prayer
meeting up for a half hour, an hour, two hours, all day,
and they didn't even adjourn it for night.
All night long
this prayer meeting went on, with just a shift of priests,
praying at the top of their voices for Pilate. Pilate didn't
sleep any that night, and after three days of that prayer
meeting, Pilate decided he would visit his good friend Herod
up in Caesarea. When Pilate went up there, Caiaphas followed
him on foot, and as he went he gathered some more fine loyal
preachers to accompany him up to Caesarea for a renewal
of the prayer pilgrimage. When they got up there, they surrounded
Herod's palace and set up their prayer meeting again and
prayed for several days, until Herod suggested that Pilate's
welcome was getting rather thin, and would he please go
back to Judea.
Pilate then summoned
Caiaphas and told him that if he would get his people together
and go down to the city hall that he would come there and
address them. So they went down to the market place and
while they were down there, Pilate gave the word to all
of his crack troops to surround them. Pilate then went to
the market place and said to them, "Now listen, I've got
this place surrounded with my troops, and I want you-all
to beat it on home, or I'm going to murder the last one
of you." Caiaphas laid down on the pavement, and when he
did, all the rest of them went limp and bared their throats
and said, "It were better that we were dead than that the
house of God be profaned." And when you've got 4,000 preachers,
all unarmed, laying out there on the concrete with their
necks bared, saying, "Go ahead and slit our throats," no
Roman governor could trample that kind of Roman justice
in the dust. So finally Pilate said, "Okay fellas, you-all
have got me. Go on home, and I'll take my troops out."
Now, that was
just one incident which Josephus relates. Caiaphas used
it two other times to convince Pilate that non-violence
was a rather powerful weapon.
Mr. Gandhi developed
it even beyond the idea of a weapon. He developed it to
the point of a way of life. Now the Negroes in the South
today have laid hold upon it, and I do not think, by and
large, the movement is characterized by a commitment to
non-violence as a way of life. I think it is being used
mainly very much like Caiaphas used it - as a tool to accomplish
an objective.
However, it seems
to me that as Christians, we must move on beyond the realm
of non-violence, which is only a very important part of
a higher objective. We at Koinonia have committed ourselves
to non-violence, and we have had quite a good bit of experience
in just the negative aspects of it. We have yet, I think,
to move on into the deeper levels of it where it becomes
a real redemptive force in the lives of the people.
Now I should
like to relate some of the purely negative aspects of it
in our life there, and then point to some of the deeper
levels which I think will be opening to us in the future.
When Koinonia was attacked through economic boycott and
later physical violence, we did not know who the people
were that were actually attacking us, and we never made
too great an effort to find out. And it is difficult to
overcome an evil person when you do not know him. We knew
here and there who these people were, but by and large we
could not pin it down. So for a number of years our position
was that of just accepting violence without returning it.
Now, however, I think that we are entering a stage where
we will have increasing opportunities to deal creatively
and directly with the opposition. I would compare it somewhat
to the shaking of the Philippian jail. Now that the earthquake
is beginning to subside a bit, people, both white and Negro
in the South, are going to be asking in the words of the
Philippian police chief, "What shall we do to be saved?"
Already we are finding doors opening in the South that we
thought would be closed for many years.
I do not think,
however, that the major struggle of Koinonia (and this is
true of Christians in general) will be in the realm of attaining
brotherhood; it's going to be in this realm of attaining
peace. Our biggest struggle is going to be not with the
red-necked segregationists. For by and large they have fought
their battle, and it is, perhaps, pretty largely over. But
we are going to have a tremendous battle with the United
States government. Those of us left at Koinonia are finding
it increasingly difficult to render unto Caesar the things
which Caesar is demanding. One of these is the matter of
the draft. We find it well nigh impossible to give Caesar
the power to take our lives and use them for the mass destruction
of mankind. And secondly, we find it very difficult indeed
to render unto Caesar tribute when Caesar will use a large
portion of that tribute for the annihilation of mankind.
What our answer to these will be I do not yet know. But
I would say to anyone who embarks upon a course of refusing
to give Caesar supreme loyalty, that he should be prepared
for a rather radical change in his life. If we refuse to
pay Caesar the taxes which he is using for military purposes,
we must be prepared for a life of poverty. And if we refuse
to give to Caesar our lives which are made in God's image
and not in Caesar's, we must be prepared for a life of loneliness
and perhaps imprisonment. But these may be small amounts
to pay for a way of life which has in it the power to save
the world at a very difficult and critical time.
|
Christianity
as a Movement