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From remarks given at the University of Virginia, October 1, 2001
I am here as a representative of Christian nonviolence. Oftentimes when
you are a pacifist, people think you have nothing to say other than, "War
is bad and this one is bad too." I hope to suggest that Christian
nonviolence--at least the Christian nonviolence I have learned from John
Howard Yoder--has some things to say to help us understand better what
is confronting us. I think one of the things confronting us (if you ever
wanted, really wanted, to know what political correctness is) is that
we are now living in political correctness. Those who express any concern
about the American response to September 11 are assumed to bear the burden
of proof. That is real political correctness.
That we live at a time of such political correctness is partly because
Americans have suddenly found community. I am often supposed to be for
community. Thus I am described as a sectarian fideistic tribalist. The
use of "tribalist" means that I am considered a communitarian.
I always say I'm not a communitarian: I'm a Christian. I'm not a communitarian
because communitarianism in America, against the background of a liberal
society, always means nationalism. The we that is constructed in nationalism
means that people suddenly find themselves in unity across class, race,
and ethnic divides and this is extremely dangerous. Hopefully the "we"
won't be any deeper a loyalty than that we give to a pro-football team.
However, how this rediscovery of the "we" is used could be extremely
dangerous.
If you attempt to step back and ask, "Why do these people hate us?"
there is very little space for that kind of question right now. If you
ask, "Do you think they attacked the World Trade Center because they
hate American freedoms?" it is again a question that cannot be raised.
If you say, as an entertainer did, "Well, it doesn't look to me like
those people were cowards. I think cowards are people that set off missiles
from the middle of the ocean to attack civilians," then you are not
heard on the air. These reactions are quite understandable, given the
horror of the attack on the World Trade Center. But we need a space to
get our breaths. I should like to think that the commitment to Christian
nonviolence helps us to create that space.
I am not only a representative of Christian nonviolence, I also teach
in the university. So my remarks will address both constituencies; first,
the church which seems captured by the identification of God and country.
Red is a color of the Christian tradition. It's Pentecost. White is
a color of the Christian tradition. It's Easter. Blue is the color for
our mother who gave birth to Jesus. In the church, we never put them
together. That red, white, and blue have now become Christian colors
is an indication the church has been captured by a very different narrative
than the story of Jesus' birth. It seems the churches have a choice to
be either pro-government or irrelevant.
How can the church be at this time a people of patience who can take
the time to step back in the face of terrible events? Of course, since
as I noted I am supposed to be "a sectarian fideistic tribalist,"
I should have an easy answer such as: "Well, it's part of the continuing
accommodation of the churches to America." It is certainly true
I represent the Tonto principle of Christian ethics. When Tonto and the
Lone Ranger found themselves surrounded in North Dakota by the Sioux,
the Lone Ranger looked at Tonto and said, "This looks pretty tough,
Tonto. What do you thing we ought to do?" And Tonto replied, "What
do you mean 'we,' White Man?" My life and work has been the attempt
to re-establish the Christian belief in a way that when we are told we
must respond to that oppression wherever it occurs in the world, we Christians
say, "What do you mean 'we,' White Man?"
The "we" that distinguishes Christians from Americans, moreover,
has everything to do with death. Christians are a community shaped by
the practice of Baptism that reminds us there are far worse things that
can happen to us than dying. The identification of the Christian "we"
with the American "we" is an indication that the Christian "we"
of Baptism has been submerged in the American fear of death. The willingness
of those that flew the planes into the World Trade Center to die seems
incomprehensible to us. It is almost as if the desperation that drove
them to these terrible acts is a parody of our unwillingness to die.
The recent debate about stem-cell research is a mirror of the action
of the terrorist understanding of life: any means can be used to keep
us from dying is the flip side of the view that any means can be used
to kill people. For example, consider that Strom Thurmond (who is allegedly
against abortion) thinks with stem call research he's going to live to
be 168, get married, and have another kid! It's no wonder that South
Carolina is one of the centers of the United States military bases. Why?
Strom Thurmond. Of course that we do not know how to comprehend death
for ourselves or other people has everything to do with our being so wealthy.
Our wealth makes us stupid just because it allows us to live in the world
without learning the pain our wealth creates in our neighbors. For example,
we would not fund stem cell research if we were a country trying to keep
people from dying of hunger. We now assume the legitimacy of our government
comes from funding stem cell research to keep us from dying rather than
from securing justice for the poor. Part of the space Christians can
provide at this time is the space given to us as a people who have learned
through Baptism that the worst thing that can happen to us is not death,
but dying for the wrong thing. Christians are told by our Savior we must
prepare for death exactly because we refuse to kill in the name of survival.
That is what I think Christians can do at this time.
The university should be a space for these kinds of questions. The university
names the time and space to free us from the assumption that the way the
world is the way things have to be. For example, the university could
be a place where the "just war" shapes the study of state actions.
What would it be for a political science department to teach international
relations from a just war perspective? What would that look like in the
terms of the world in which we exist? I don't know about the University
of Virginia, but at Duke we talk a great deal about being a global university.
I don't believe it for a moment. We are a university of the United States
of America and cannot imagine serving the world in any way other than
through doing what is good for the United States of America.
I think the misery of the American public and the world in which we live
can be seen nowhere better than in the suggestion (in many ways quite
understandable) that we must take up our responsibilities as citizens
and respond to the attacks by shopping. A people who cannot think of
anything better to do than shop sounds like a people who are not quite
ready to kill anyone. That's just what I'm trying to suggest is the problem.
A people who know nothing better to do than to shop turn out to be the
most determinative killers, because at last something interesting has
dropped in their laps, and they don't know how to think about it. May
the church and the university be accordingly judged.
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