Letting Christian nonviolence speak for itself / Waging Nonviolence.
Christian Peace and Nonviolence: A Documentary History, published this year by Orbis contains primary-source texts, from the Book of Isaiah to Andy Alexis-Baker,
that reveal not simply the centrality of nonviolence to Christian tradition
but also the centrality of Christianity to the history of nonviolence in
general. There’s Leo Tolstoy, whose pacifism inspired Gandhi’s, and
Fredrick Douglass, whose Christian faith made him oppose even a war that
promised to liberate his people from slavery. No less than Clarence
Darrow, one of the 20th century’s greatest agnostics, relies on
Christian language as he prophesies against Christian militarism. The
depth and variety of Christianity’s resources for thinking about and
acting with nonviolence are tremendous—and will be, to many, surprising.
that reveal not simply the centrality of nonviolence to Christian tradition
but also the centrality of Christianity to the history of nonviolence in
general. There’s Leo Tolstoy, whose pacifism inspired Gandhi’s, and
Fredrick Douglass, whose Christian faith made him oppose even a war that
promised to liberate his people from slavery. No less than Clarence
Darrow, one of the 20th century’s greatest agnostics, relies on
Christian language as he prophesies against Christian militarism. The
depth and variety of Christianity’s resources for thinking about and
acting with nonviolence are tremendous—and will be, to many, surprising.