Category: News
Statement on Cycles of Violence from Members of the Faculty Senate at Central Seminary
Central Seminary is a teaching and learning community that is steeped in the life and teachings of Jesus. We are grieved to learn daily of the suffering of innocent people throughout the world who are victimized by cycles of violence. Some of the victims are our students and their families, their churches, and their faith communities. They live in places like Myanmar (Burma), Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, and Ukraine. In the United States, also, we read all too frequently of violence occurring in response to prior acts of violence. The cycle goes on and on.
Two millennia ago in Israel, a Jewish rabbi taught a radically new way of responding to evil oppression. Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer [or in some translations “do not resist with evil] . . . .You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you . . . .” (Matthew 5:38-44, NRSV).
We understand Jesus literally as teaching us how to respond to violence in ways that go against the grain of violent self-defense and human desires for revenge. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is normative in most societies, including ours, but that method of countering oppression results in a cycle of violence from which there is no escape—none, that is, unless following Jesus’ alternative option.
We call upon human siblings in Myanmar, Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, Ukraine, and the United States—persons of all faiths or none at all—to stop the cycles of violence. Responding to violence with more violence is ineffective. It results in even more bloodshed.
Too many of those victims are entirely innocent children and other noncombatants. Traditional “just war” theory and international law both recognize the impermissibility of tactics resulting in the predictable injury or deaths of noncombatants, even in self-defense.
Jesus taught and demonstrated a different way of response. It is not passivity in the face of evil, but active resistance using the most powerful weapons known to humankind. “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
We understand that following Jesus is very hard. So too is being victimized in cycles of violence. May we all choose the better way described in Matthew 5.
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The views expressed in this statement are affirmed by the majority of voting members of Central’s Faculty Senate.