The second anniversary of the Russian attempt to invade Ukraine happened earlier this month. News reporters say that some sort of agreement to end months of hostilities in the Gaza area is imminent. These two conflicts dominate the news feed these days, but I am sure countless others around the world deserve our attention no less. I am sure I am not the only one who is wondering why this is happening and what we can do about it.
The question of why people believe weird things like God, religion and where good and evil come from came up some time ago. These questions, in turn, were rooted in still other even more fundamental questions such as where does religion come from and what is human nature.
Those are big questions indeed and smart people have been trying to find answers for millennia, but no one has been able to so far. Some have been the subject of heated debates, but scientists are generally good natured people who have been able to keep the conversations civil only getting out of hand when crackpots and pseudoscientists have come onto the scene. That is because scientists know that science is rarely an exact science. They know that few things in the universe have yes or no or black or white answers. Almost everything is in some sort of gray zone between unknowable and ironclad. Actual scientists are constantly looking for more answers and more questions to ask. In contrast, pseudoscientists and other cult leaders have already determined what the answers are and try to impose them on everyone else.
One headline said that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war so far without mention of how many civilians were also killed or injured. Other headlines report a similar number of dead in Gaza also without breaking it down in military or civilian deaths or injuries. Even without those details, those are still huge numbers. The thing is that all of them were unnecessary. Not one of them had a legitimate purpose. All of them have been rooted in evil. All of them are caused by the power of the decisions made by a very small group of people who have nothing invested in the conflict themselves.
Count Leo Tolstoy (1828 to 1910) was a Russian author and philosopher. He is best known for books like War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but devoted the latter part of his life to answering some of those same life questions I have had. He managed to get excommunicated from the Eastern Orthodox church and probably only escaped arrest and prison for his opposition to the Czarist regime because of his popularity and reputation.
His most significant works for our purposes during this time are What I Believe (https://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/what-I-believe-tolstoy.pdf) and The Kingdom of God is Within You (https://arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/kingdom-god-tolstoy.pdf). He explains in What I Believe how he became a believer at age fifty (that would make it 1878) and that it changed his life.
all that stood to the right now stands to the left, and all that was to the left is now to the right
he says.
the whole aim and purpose of my life has been changed
he continues, but he could not reconcile what he read in the Bible with what was being taught by the church. He stopped relying on interpretations and focused on the Bible itself. What helped his understanding more than anything was the Sermon on the Mount, particularly Matthew 5:39 (here NIV):
But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
To this day, Tolstoy is known for his radical pacifism. This is particularly significant in light of his service as an officer in the Czar’s army. Tolstoy corresponded with Gandhi. Even though Gandhi is also known for his non-violent approach, perhaps even more so, he was not nearly as radical as Tolstoy.
In any event, theologians, scientists of religion, have been and continue to be debating the meaning of this verse. What exactly is evil? Is it evil in general, Satan or an evil individual? I think I will go with Tolstoy’s conclusion that it turns left into right and right into left as mentioned above.
For the purpose of this paper, the most pressing question is: What do we do about evil? The damage has already been done. The past is in the past. There is nothing we can do about that anymore. What remains is: What do we do about it going forward? What should our response be?
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos devotes space in several chapters to evil and a nonviolent response in his book Christian Anarchism based on his doctoral thesis that anarchism is inherent in Christianity. Christoyannopoulos considers Tolstoy to be the most influential of the anarchist writers. The thing is Tolstoy himself did not quite embrace the anarchist label mainly because other anarchists had become more violent during the latter part of the 19th century, a reputation that still haunts us to this day.
Christoyannopoulos concludes that the anarchist writers have vastly differing views on the subject of civil disobedience as a response to the violence of the state. The only thing they can basically agree on is this:
love of God and of one’s neighbour are the two most fundamental commandments on which the rest of the law subsequently hangs.
[Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre. Christian Anarchism . Imprint Academic. Kindle Edition.]
In other words, it may become necessary to disobey the state to comply with these requirements. However, unless firmly anchored in this Christian belief, there is a danger that civil disobedience might itself lead to or inspire evil. Christian response to violence can never be violent.
The most powerful and profound response to evil comes from Adin Ballou, founder of the now defunct Hopedale Community in Massachusetts. He writes:
I cannot tell how I might act in such a dreadful emergency—how weak and frail I should prove. But I can tell how I ought to act—how I should wish to act.
[Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre. Christian Anarchism . Imprint Academic. Kindle Edition.]
Then he goes on to describe how he would like to have the courage to respond to an assailant with such a Christ-like attitude that it would totally surprise and disarm him by offering him food, something to drink and a place to sleep.
Such a response might be possible with an individual, but what do you do when it’s another country attacking you? And how do we as by-standers respond to the violence of the day?
Perhaps we can begin to answer that by looking at Jesus’ own response to arrest and torture by local law enforcement of his time. Resistance would only lead to violence and bloodshed, so he healed the ear of the high priest’s servant when Peter had cut it off.
What would happen if Ukrainians had invited Russian soldiers into their homes for tea and cookies instead of showering them with bullets? No one knows for sure. It might still have been awful, but probably nothing like what actually did happen. What would happen if Israelis or Palestinians suddenly reversed course and began to obey the commandments of Jesus and respond to evil with good? For the vast majority of us that would be completely counterintuitive, but what are the chances the resulting suffering would have been far less? Most would not consider it worth the risk. Being a follower of Christ is risky business.
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