By Jeanette Rodriguez
We hear some calls for nonviolence amid today’s civil disruptions, and for good reason. We know, thanks to Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan’s Why Civil Resistance Works, that nonviolent strategies are twice as effective as violence in achieving social change. Of course, demands for nonviolence sometimes focus on pacification—on ending a challenge to the status quo rather than resolving the underlying causes of that challenge.
But remember: Faith-based nonviolent strategies are actually meant to introduce disruption, to create unrest--and in doing so bring about just social change. In this spirit, the late John Lewis, a longtime member of Congress and a Christian, nonviolent, civil rights activist, urged people to “get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America.” As Ken Butigan, another Christian activist and nonviolence educator, puts it: “nonviolence is a constructive force, an active method, and a powerful way of life that challenges violence without using violence, transforms and resolves conflict, and promotes justice, peace and reconciliation. It challenges and disrupts systems that foster and perpetuate institutional violence.”
Compared to violence, which of course is also disruptive, Christian nonviolence is a force of an entirely different kind--grounded in love and compassion, disrupting ways of thinking, living, and governing that pit us against one another. In a book called From Violence to Wholeness, Nancy Shreck, O.S.F., contends that Jesus’ nonviolence is rooted in the inclusive, unconditional love of God, a vision of universal healing, and a spirituality purified of violence. Jesus’ nonviolence “welcomes all to the one table and creates a world-view that critiques any kind of exclusion as a form of violence. One of the radical nonviolent actions of Jesus therefore is to eat with ‘sinners’ and ‘tax collectors’ and all those others excluded by the society of that time. Sharing a common table is nonviolent resistance to the violence of division.”
People everywhere, including people of faith, are now being asked to join as allies and agents of change to support reforms heralded by Black Lives Matter and excluded, marginalized, and oppressed communities throughout the nation and world. But in this context, how do we, Christian or not, bring about nonviolent disruption? How do we foster a reality “that critiques any kind of exclusion as a form of violence?”
We can begin by embracing a popular nonviolent slogan: “Defeat injustice, not people.” This means rejecting modes of civic and political engagement that cast others as enemies to be overcome rather than fellow humans with whom we seek to share a common table. We know that the power of violence is destructive and comes from fear and greed. But the power of nonviolence--constructive and unifying, nurturing our capacity for connection, compassion, and sacrifice for others--comes from authentic love and generosity.
Organized by students to advance the work of racial justice, several hundred students, staff, faculty, Jesuits, and community members gathered for a peaceful demonstration against racism outside the main gates of Loyola Marymount University on June 6, 2020. Photo courtesy of Loyola Marymount University.
For Christians in particular, the practice of nonviolent disruption is grounded in spirituality and in embodying what they believe. Christians who seek to bring about nonviolent disruption to systems of injustice and to the violence that undergirds those systems might ask themselves whether they are committed to a spirituality, a way of living, an orientation toward civic and political obligations that prioritizes being a companion to marginalized people, that sustains them in disciplined and courageous action to challenge unjust systems, and that affirms their commitment to follow Jesus’ nonviolent example?
How Christians answer that question this election season means everything for the future of our nation.
Jeanette Rodriguez is interim director of the Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture and professor of theology and religious studies at Seattle University.
The featured cover photo (above) is courtesy of The Intercept_.