Yesterday I talked about “Jesus for President” and focused on what Shane Claiborne wrote about pacifism. Here are some more quotes along that line.

When we talk about peacemaking and the “third way of Jesus,” people inevitably ask bizarre situational questions like, “If someone broke into your house and was raping your grandmother, what would you do?” We can’t exhaustively troubleshoot every situation with a nonviolent “strategy,” but what we can do is internalize the character and spirit of Jesus. We can meditate daily on the fruit of the Spirit and pray that they take root in us. Then we can trust that when we encounter a bad situation, we will act like Jesus.

The bloodstained pages of history are filled with people doing terrible wrong out of a deep sense of right.

Without a doubt, protecting the innocent is one of the strongest arguments for redemptive violence….[But] Jesus didn’t say, “Greater love has no one that this, to kill to protect the innocent.”

Jesus knew that his followers would face threats to their lives. But nowhere did Jesus teach that his followers should turn into wolves when they run into other scary wolves. He himself was killed like a sheep by wolves. By freely accepting crucifixion, he demonstrated what a sheep among wolves looks like. Refusing to become like the wolves to defeat the wolves, Jesus revealed that God, being love, chooses a different path–to suffer evil to overcome it.

Jesus was detestable to the state in his day, and he is detestable to our state today. His teachings are impossible for the state to ever follow. What state would ever say, “Do not resist the evil person,” or “Turn the other cheek”?….Considering that history has recently called the US to execute disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians, we can know that this is not the voice of the shepherd who calls his sheep to love their enemies.

President Bush’s speech promoted the popular goal of ridding the world of evil. This goal is not new. The ostensibly good intention to rid the world of evil, ironically, is associated with some of the most evil and tragic events in history. Even Osama bin Laden’s stated goal, more or less, was to rid the world of evil. Three thousand people were killed in the tragedies of 9/11 in the hope of destroying evil….Jesus understood the destruction of evil to be not in human hands but in God’s hands.

Instead of trusting the command to love our enemies, we insist that having the right people take office to direct the right bombs to fall in the right places is a more effective way to deal with evil. We can’t be peaceful now, we say. So give us time to rid the world of evil; eventually, it will work. After thousands of years, we haven’t learned that violence begets only violence. Peace begins not with nations, but with the people of God.

I’m just trying to make you think, just as Claiborne has made me think. I’m not a pacifist, as least not now. I’m just exploring with an open mind. Trying to understand the truth about Jesus is never a bad thing, even when it contradicts everything American Christianity tells you.