Having spent years ministering with Quakers and Brethren, it should come as no surprise that I have often referred to myself as a pacifist. There was even a season when I would have preferred the term non-resistor. I used to pride myself on my peace-loving zeal. I ate up respectability politics like I was hungrier than Jean Valjean’s family. I had never thrown a stone at an authority figure. I dressed with Eurocentric sensibilities. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me, politely they thought, that I spoke white, I would have no student loan debt.
Of course, nonviolence is not only a religious value. I am a huge student of history and politics. Both taught me the importance of nonviolence. I learned about Harriet Tubman, Booker T Washington, Gandhi, King, and the Dalai Lama. Each of them affected great change in their respective countries using nonviolent means. Some of them were even martyred for the cause of peace. My belief in and dedication to peace was not shallow. It also was not, however, held to so blindly as to keep to it staunchly when a better way seemed to appear.
I cannot point to one conversation that led to my change of opinion. I cannot point to one person or influence. My distancing from terms like pacifist came gradually. I learned about the Harriet Tubman they did not teach about in grade school. I learned she carried a rifle and promised to shoot any person she was assisting who acted in a way to put her and others seeking freedom in jeopardy. I learned about the King they did not teach about in grade school. I learned about the radical King. His Letter from a Birmingham Jail and his Mountain sermon are two of the most eloquent, inspiring, and, quite frankly, chilling pieces ever written. I met the King who said, “the fact is that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed – that’s the long, sometimes tragic and turbulent story of history”.1 King also wrote, “We maintained the hope while transforming the hate of traditional revolutions into positive nonviolent power. As long as the hope was fulfilled there was little questioning of nonviolence. But when the hopes were blasted, when people came to see that in spite of progress their conditions were still insufferable … despair began to set in.”2 So where is the hope today? How do we have hope in the utter insufferable•ness of continued oppression and injustice?
Argumentation or a person’s credibility influences the audience (i.e., the one needing convincing). This seems true in my case. The more I examined primary source evidence against what I had learned, I began to see King and others as more credible, at least regarding their own values and methods, than I did teachers and others whose teaching was informed by a whitewashing and passively oppressive political agenda, however learned.
I used to live and work at the Levi and Catherine Coffin Meetinghouse, a Quaker worship space associated with the Underground Railroad. During my time there, I learned that many in 1800s Indiana opposed slavery but opposed breaking the law more. Levi and Catherine Coffin followed a higher law. Their rejection of the rule of law was considered outside the bounds of polite society by many other Friends (Quakers). Their refusal to collaborate with the State’s oppression could easily have been seen as rocking the boat. And, that’s just not something peaceful people do, right? Keeping the peace often means capitulating to the status quo. In modern times, I hear many complaints about the fringe violence peripherally connected with some current social justice movements. I believe this concern is largely unfounded. That being said, I recognize that lawlessness does occasionally occur and I think we need a more nuanced view of it when it does. I yearn, not just in a political sense but a religious one as well, for the end of oppression. I believe in the end of oppression by any means necessary. Of course, my preferred method for seeing this take place remains nonviolent. As the Kingian Nonviolence principle asserts, nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. I will not, however, allow peace to be an idol I refuse to sacrifice at the altar of a just God.
So, about conversation… Certainly, conversation was a big influence in my getting to this point. I had many conversations with various historic figures as I reread their words gleaning new understandings with each freshly approached page. I had many conversations with activists on the ground who warned against policing oppressed persons’ response to their oppression. Still, I do not believe conversation, or better understanding, should be our goal. I’m not interested in another roundtable or fireside chat where we share our feelings. I’m interested in change. I recognize, though, how conversations have positively influenced me. This is a tension. I am reminded, though, how conversations have served not only to subdue and subvert but to do intentional harm to me and others. What is a ministry of conversation in a post-truth society? Moreso, what is a ministry of conversation that is not respectable? Truth isn’t respectable. Neither was Jesus. As counter-cultural as the Brethren tradition of feet washing is, it’s actually pretty easy to worship an image of a humble and caregiving Jesus. But, Jesus also brashly opposed economic exploitation in a house of worship. Jesus boldly and physically stopped a group of elders from slut-shaming a woman. Do we worship these images of Jesus, as well, even when they get in our faces and make us uncomfortable?
Responding to Israel’s injustice, Amos prophesied these words from God:
“Your wife will become a prostitute in the city of Bethel. Your sons and daughters will be killed by swords. Your land will be measured and divided up. And you yourself will die in another country. The people of Israel will surely be taken away as prisoners. They will be carried off from their own land.”
God has no tolerance for oppression at the hands of global powers. God isn’t interested in having us form a committee or make sure our pants are pulled up before we discuss the need for change. God may very well mourn the throwing of stones but surely he mourns the systems that led us to this point more – far, far more. Surely God is in the gutter with us ready to tend our wounds. As you offer up a passive peace to a dangerous God, what sort of perfume is given off? Does your faith stink like a rotting corpse? Do better. All of us.
Grace. Shalom. Solidarity. Uhuru.
1. King, The Other America
2. King, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
Social Media Editor for the Brethren Journal Association, Chibuzo Nimmo Petty is also a husband, father, organizer, and minister.