Nonviolent Resistance

Worldly philosophy teaches that inflicting injury is necessary to deter evil. Human society has relied on injury, vengeance, and fear as instruments of order — enthroning them in weapons, armies, penal codes, and government force. When non-resistance is proposed, many cry out in fear that such teaching would upend civilization itself. But in reality, the reliance on injury has only perpetuated global violence and cruelty. Despite its failure, people continue to worship this grim idol — INJURY — through war machines and systems of punishment. The doctrine of Christian non-resistance challenges …

The idea of separation from the state and from all participation in civil affairs, was universal among Christians for the first two or three hundred years. That then they began to grow worldly, apostatized from fidelity to God, lost faith in him, formed alliance with the civil power, became supporters of human government and imbibed the spirit of the civil institutions with which they affiliated.

Sovereignty, rightly understood, is inalienable – once yielded, it is no longer possessed. Therefore, the soul must remain sovereign, not by permission, but by nature.

Coercion is not only a moral wrong; it is a theological usurpation and a political disease. We contend that coercion should be ended not merely because it is unpleasant or unjust, but because it violates the rightful supremacy of God, corrodes moral relationships among individuals, and undergirds oppressive institutions. We envision a society ordered by voluntary interactions under God’s ultimate authority.

Precisely because the evil faced by the disciple is utterly unjustifiable, they are not to resist but to bring evil to an end through suffering —- and so overcome the evildoer. Willing suffering is stronger than evil; it is the death of evil. There is no act of evil so great or powerful that it would justify a different response from the Christian. The more terrible the evil, the more willing the disciple must be to suffer. The evildoer must fall into Jesus’ hands—not mine. Jesus alone must deal with them

In nothing is the degree of the contradiction which the lives of the men of our time have reached so striking, as in that phenomenon which forms the last means and expression of violence - in the universal military service.

After every revolution, every attempt at a revolution, every plot, every violent change of government: Every struggle only strengthens the means of the enslavement of those who at a given time are in power. Violence is now no longer maintained on the ground that it is necessary, but only that it has existed for a long time, and has been so organized by men to whom it is advantageous, that is, by governments and the ruling classes, that the men who are in their power cannot tear themselves away from it.

People are astonished that every year there are sixty thousand cases of suicide in Europe, and those only the recognized and recorded cases – and excluding Russia and Turkey; but one ought rather to be surprised that there are so few. Every person of the present day, if we go deep enough into the contradiction between his conscience and his life, is in a state of despair. Not to speak of all the other contradictions between modern life and the conscience, the permanently armed condition of Europe together with its profession of Christianity is alone enough to drive anyone to despair, to doubt …

Spiritual Influence is Incompatible with Power The defenders of the social concept of life generally try to mix up the concept of power, that is, of violence, with that of spiritual influence, but this admixture is quite impossible. A spiritual influence is an action upon a man, such that in consequence of it the very desires of a man are changed and coincide with what is demanded of him. A man who submits to a spiritual influence acts in accordance with his desires. But power, as this word is generally understood, is a means for compelling a man to act contrary to his wishes. A man who …

Physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; that the sinful disposition of man can be subdued only by love; that evil can be exterminated from the earth only by goodness; that it is not safe to rely upon an arm of flesh – upon man, whose breath is in his nostrils – to preserve us from harm; that there is great security in being gentle, harmless, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy; and that it is only the meek who shall inherit the earth, for the violent, who resort to the sword, shall perish with the sword.

“Destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends” The Philosophy of Nonviolence I’d like to take just a minute to say something about the philosophy of nonviolence because in our struggle this has been the most important undergirding philosophy. And I still believe that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and human dignity. This method has a way of disarming the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses, it weakens his morale. And at the same time, it works on his conscience, and he just doesn’t know how to handle …