“Allowables,” a brief poem by the great Nikki Giovanni, tells the simplest of stories: the speaker encounters a “papery” little spider, which scares her, though she knows it poses no danger. She smashes it in her moment of fear. She ends the poem by wondering whether one is permitted “To kill something / Because I am / Frightened.”
The line between poet and prophet is thin, sometimes nonexistent. Giovanni reveals something shameful and difficult about the impulses of humanity: when we are afraid, we cause harm. For Christians, nonviolence takes to heart the refrain of Jesus Christ to “fear not!” To practice nonviolence is to overcome our inclination to harm in the face of threat. To practice nonviolence is to see fear for what it is and to disallow its rule over our beliefs and actions.
To practice nonviolence is to see fear for what it is and to disallow its rule over our beliefs and actions.
Fear is potent, and it means control. If you make a nation sufficiently afraid, you can send it to war. If you make people sufficiently afraid, you can imprison people by the hundreds of thousands, justify genocide, turn neighbor against neighbor and make everyone an enemy. Suppose we can overcome the power of fear. In that case, we suddenly become incredibly free. That freedom is profoundly threatening to oppressive powers everywhere and deeply hopeful in the liberation of others. None of this asserts that nonviolence is without pain, loss and death for the practitioners — it often is. Nonviolence simply means that pain, loss and death are not more powerful or more important than our refusal to contribute to the pain, loss
or death of someone else.
Nonviolence is a foundation of conscientious objection. A shocking paucity of research has examined the nature of conscientious objection to war; a mere handful of stories and museum exhibits are scattered worldwide. One would think that conscientious objection is an obscure phenomenon, not a global movement with thousands participating across the historical record of wars, as it truly is. Although conscientious objection to harming others is a core value of several faiths, including Jainism and Buddhism, here I focus on the nature of conscientious objection in recent memory in the U.S., among Christians in particular.
Nonviolence is the belief that we should love our neighbors as ourselves and that our neighbors are everyone and everywhere.
Christian conscientious objectors in the U.S. come from a variety of traditions. Quakers and Mennonites are best known for their commitment to nonviolence, but the ethos crosses denominational lines. Nonviolence, for Presbyterians, essentially means that when God said, “Thou shalt not kill” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” God included all people and all places. Nonviolence is acting like God meant it. Nonviolence is the belief that we should love our neighbors as ourselves and that our neighbors are everyone and everywhere. Nonviolence means this commitment persists even when our neighbors do not love us back. Nonviolence stands firm even when our neighbors want us dead.
Nonviolence isn’t a popular stance, and frequently it costs dearly. But it is also rooted in creativity, strategy and faith, which are inherently liberating qualities. In a 2013 interview with NPR’s Michel Martin, Giovanni said, “Killing is a lack of creation. It’s a lack of imagination. It’s a lack of understanding of who you are and your place in the world. Life is an interesting and a good idea.” Nonviolence means actively choosing creation, and it lies at the heart of the preaching and practices of Jesus Christ. In the interview, Giovanni was responding to the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, where she taught for many years. The atrocity had been committed by a former student about whom she had expressed concern. Her words reflect the inherently uncreative response that defines violence in any form. Violence has one aim: destruction, the antithesis of creation. Nonviolence insists that more options are available, always.
Violence is also a shortcut to an unsatisfactory conclusion. It does not heal, restore or enact justice. It cuts short the possibility of any of those things happening at all. In moments of pain, fear and hostility, we may follow our impulses toward violence — but if we choose to kill, we circumvent the possibility of repair or restoration. If you’ve harmed someone I love, I might want you to suffer, but to inflict or incite suffering means I give up both my humanity and yours. I reduce us both to the worst versions of ourselves, often at the worst moments of our lives. Reconciliation is not always possible, but retaliatory violence leaves no room for healing. Violence – quick or drawn out, systemic or personal – tends to seek the fastest way to blot out pain and obliterate our fears. It channels fear and anger in the least helpful way imaginable.
Violence – quick or drawn out, systemic or personal – tends to seek the fastest way to blot out pain and obliterate our fears. It channels fear and anger in the least helpful way imaginable.
On the individual level, this dearth of creativity might lead us to the default of interpersonal violence. As a culture, our lack of creativity and our wholehearted acceptance of violence show up in our cultural love affair with militarism. Militarism is a commitment to war as an inevitability, to battle as a site of glory, to the idea of the most significant value – in time, money and human lives – being found in constant preparation for and participation in the next cataclysmic moment of mass human destruction. It is a national cheer at having “the most lethal fighting force in the world,” as if the capacity for causing mass death is something of which we should be proud.
Militarism is, of course, deeply embedded within our houses of worship. Flip through most hymnals and see how often we sing about battle and conquering. Failing to set aside worship time to honor military veterans on Veterans Day is one step away from heresy in most communities, where a celebration of conscientious objectors would be anathema. Our learned gratitude for those who served – and our understanding of the very real risk each of them has taken for a valued cause – is omnipresent in the U.S. The movement of conscientious objection and nonviolence is intended not to detract from the lives of veterans nor to demonize them — quite the opposite. Conscientious objection invites us to ask more deeply: Is war aligned with following Jesus Christ? And if it is not aligned with Christ, how can we ask anyone to participate on our behalf?
Militarism is, of course, deeply embedded within our houses of worship.
The importance of this dialogue now may seem peculiar at a moment when the U.S. does not have an active military draft. Worth noting, though, is how military recruiters continue to pop up in most high schools, particularly low-income high schools with a population primarily composed of students of color. Worth noting is that nearly all 50 states automatically register young men for the federal Selective Service System when these young people receive their driver’s licenses and apply for financial aid for college. This registration, required by law, signifies their readiness to serve should a draft reemerge. This requirement is suspiciously uncommon knowledge among 16- to 18-year-olds and, I’d wager, many parents. The machinery of our military-industrial complex churns on successfully, based on storytelling, marketing, unimaginable amounts of funding and fear of the “other.” The processes for becoming a conscientious objector are vague; they vary by denomination and receive remarkably little funding and support. It’s almost as if our U.S. military does not want any attention paid to the humanity and consciousness of those who die to serve it.
Conscientious objection invites us to ask more deeply: Is war aligned with following Jesus Christ?
As a denomination, we’ve long wrestled with these questions. As recently as the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s 204th General Assembly in 1992, the denomination’s Advisory Council on Social Witness Policy put forth a resolution, subsequently adopted by the assembly:
Whereas, An estimated 2,500 military personnel sought conscientious objector status during the military conflict in the Persian Gulf and only 400 cases were finally adjudicated by the Department of Defense by May 1992, and over 150 service members have been or are now being prosecuted for incidents surrounding their conscientious objection to serving in the Persian Gulf War. Approximately fifty conscientious objectors have been imprisoned and subjected to harassment and abuse. …
Be it Resolved, that the 204th General Assembly (1992):
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- Reaffirm its support for legislation that would establish in statute the right to selective conscientious objection (that is, the Military Conscientious Objector Act);
- Reaffirm its support for other reforms of conscientious objector processing that would assure due process, access to information and assistance, implementation of international norms for the rights of conscientious objectors, and expedient relief;
- Reaffirm its opposition to peacetime conscription and registration; and
- Reaffirm its policy for the repeal of the Military Selective Service Act.
These steps, which seem tepid enough to appeal across political lines, focus on individuals’ rights by positioning conscientious objection as a fully personal choice, which it is. It entails questioning one’s internal alignment between faith and action.
At the same time, conscientious objection faces outward in invitation. By undertaking the role (and accompanying stigma and harm) of conscientious objection, individuals elevate a posture of radical rehumanization – of the soldier, of the “enemy” – and interrogation of our convictions. They offer an alternative way to engage with the very nature of humanity and war. A posture of gratitude toward active service members might also look like a posture of expressing how sorry we are that our country asked them to serve in the first place. The rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and veteran suicides say much about both the realities of war and the realities of how we treat service members upon their return. Surely better care is possible somewhere in the Department of Defense’s $850 billion budget. The ways in which conscientious objection troubles the waters of our national militaristic identity are powerful, whether an active draft exists or not. I hesitate to use the phrase “in peacetime.” When the U.S. actually experiences one of those, let’s revisit the issue.
Beyond these points, the right moment to raise our particular and collective consciousness is always now. Consciousness – being aware of our internal lives, our minds and the world around us – is a gift of being human. Consciousness-raising circles have been effective worldwide in supporting individuals’ learning in community, deepening self and shared knowledge, and building the depth of relationships that enable one to become many and, in turn, become sites of action and meaningful change. Consider Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s conscientization, second-wave feminism and justice movements centering on disability, Black Lives Matter, queer identity and more. Creating spaces to know ourselves and our communities deeply is a wise and powerful starting place for change.
Conscientious objection, then, is a movement not only for soldiers and not only for times of war. It offers the opportunity to ask hard questions and to know our answers firmly. Would my conscience allow me to work for or support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when I’m aware of how it harms my immigrant siblings and refugee neighbors? Would my conscience allow me to turn against a neighbor under any amount of political or militaristic authority? In the rise of fascism, mass destruction comprises millions of individual choices to say yes or no or nothing at all. To comply or to resist, to consent by silence or to speak out are choices that people everywhere face all the time.
To comply or to resist, to consent by silence or to speak out are choices that people everywhere face all the time.
Conscientious objection to violence embodies what we profess to believe. Jesus Christ, over and over again, refuses to categorize people by caste, class or condition. He sees people as fully human and asks questions that provoke their consciousness. Jesus refuses to let his followers off the hook. In the face of suffering, we are required to care for one another, even and especially when that care costs us dearly. He invites us to look deeply within and then to live accordingly.
We never do so alone.
Nonviolent resistance is nothing new. Theologian and scholar Walter Wink spoke of the surprising success of nonviolent movements across geography and history, and the millions of lives made better for it. Nonviolence encompasses a surprisingly broad community, one that includes Leo Tolstoy, Cesar Chavez and thousands whose names will never make the history books. Choosing to listen and respond when your conscience objects to the world’s violence will put you in good, challenging, world-changing company.
Jesus Christ was a nonviolent, radical leader who knew what happened to people who spoke against the violence of the Roman Empire. Across the centuries, many others have taken that same risk, knowing that they would likely meet a similar end. So why take the risk if death is all but inevitable?
Because Christ told us to follow him. Because risking nonviolence is the only way violence stops.
