In this article, Dennis Linscomb attempts to explain how a pacifist’s interpretation of Matthew 5:44, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who hurt you” is actually incorrect and that such a narrow and literal view is not how it was originally intended to be taken. I do not have space to address all of the arguments he raises, but his are a few of the bigger ones I felt needed addressing.

First I’d like to address his question of how we can interpret Jesus’ words of gouging out our eyes as hyperbole and loving our enemies as literal if we are to remain consistent. Well, I don’t see anywhere that Jesus or his disciples gouged out their eyes or cut off their hands, but I see plenty of scenarios where they were violently pursued yet refused to retaliate. Therefore I have no problems seeing the gouging out of eyes as simple illustration while the loving of enemies as a more literal command. In addition, the teachings of Jesus, as well as the writers of the New testament, speak of meekness, humility, love, patience, forgiveness and self-control. That together with the often repeated command not to have vengeance, all work well with the idea of forgiving the enemy in all circumstances. I can find very few teachings in the NT that seems to support the idea of self-mutilation if any at all.

He also seems to think that Christian pacifists believe that Jesus and his followers need to be little flowers with smiles all the time creating no disruption anywhere. That’s just not true. We are fully aware of the strong words Jesus and Paul use. However, I don’t see what any of them have to do with whether or not we can act violently towards others. Luke 19:41-44, where Jesus is very possibly referencing Psalm 137 about “dashing infants” against rocks, could not possibly be taken as an allowance for doing so. He’s sobbing that this will be done to them by their enemies because the Jews “did not know what would bring them peace”. Certainly the thing which would bring them peace that they were ignorant of was not that they should respond violently, especially since acting violently was precisely what led to the enemies “dashing” them against the walls in 70 AD. This is a straw man and he admits as much when he writes, “But invoking curses/condemnation on the enemy is one thing and commanding that they be killed (as in the OT) is something different.” So I’m not sure why he even brought it up let alone why he spent a quarter of his paper on it.

As always, even when I disagree with him, Greg Boyd’s attitude and humility absolutely amaze and inspire me. This humility and admittance that things are not always as clear and straightforward as they seem is often lacking for many in regards to their rejection of Christian pacifism. The contrast between how Greg approaches this situation and many, though certainly not all, who reject Christian pacifism is shown very well in this article: Greg wrestles with this problem. He admits that it’s difficult at times and that there are complications. However, because he cannot find any reason to reject the principle of nonviolence within the gospels themselves, he cannot justify Jesus rejecting this principle. The only real objections he sees comes from the fact that at times it is difficult to square with reality. When his logic and culture conflict with what he believes Jesus is teaching, he does his best to understand, but also decides to ultimately trust Jesus over his own logic and culture. So, despite the difficulty and confusing nature of this teaching, he refuses to reject it from purely logical and cultural grounds.

As far as I can tell, Linscomb’s argument for not taking the commandment to love enemies as being all inclusive is little more than “it doesn’t make sense to me so it must not be what Jesus meant.” I mean no disrespect when I say that, but that’s really the only argument he gives. He dances around a few other possibilities. For example, he says that when we look at a passage like Luke 14:26, we cannot simply take that to mean that we must literally hate our parents. We can help qualify what Jesus meant when we compare it against other words of his on the matter. While Linscomb shows us where we can find teachings to put the difficult saying Luke 14:26 into perspective, he does not show us where we can do so for Matthew 5:44. In fact, when I do look for other references of the subject matter, I only see further support that it is meant to be a universal principle. The only verse which Linscomb uses in his article to try to counter thisis from Romans where Paul says to live in peace with others “if it is possible, as far as it depends on you.” Linscomb seems to think that this implies that sometimes we should repay evil with evil when certain circumstances arise, but I see no justification for such a reading. What Paul meant here, and we can see this from his lack of ever loosening his teaching on repaying evil with evil in either word or deed, is that we do what we can in order to maintain the peace with others, but that sometimes the other party will disrupt our attempts. In these situations the ideal is not attained, but that does not justify our moving away from the ideals on our part. I see no reason to believe that Paul then believes that we are justified in responding in kind. Seeing that Paul wrote those words in prison, I find it exceptionally hard to justify a reading such as Lincomb’s.

He also tries to weaken a few interpretations of Jesus’ supposed non-violence, but he gives no actual justification to use it except that he believes it is common sense that we will need violence. Seeing as we don’t have records of Jesus or any other teacher of Jesus’ life and teachings for the next 300+ years act violently or teach violence against the enemies who were violent towards them1, I would say it is not obvious to many that Jesus did not mean it so literally. I would actually say the burden of evidence is on those who believe it should not be taken as literally or far reaching as pacifists claim. It seems to me that, though surely unintentional, the author is putting his culture and logic above the teachings and actions of Jesus. In order to make a convincing argument that he is not doing this, he needs to give actual reasonings as to why he believes this is the case. Again, the burden of proof is on him, or at least as much on him as on pacifists. The fact that his view on violence seems little different, if at all, to most of the non-christians in the western world should be another reason for him to look more carefully at his stance (5:46-48).

Along with this, there is no nuance in the idea that killing someone may not be best. In fact, he says that it is “absolutely clear” to him that it would be best in the example he gave. And that’s exactly what I’m talking about about in regards to a lack of actually wrestling with the passage. There is no consideration that by not killing someone they may be converted and in turn may in turn prevent even more deaths. There is no consideration that the killing may foster a hatred between families, races or ethnicities which will result in more hatred and, at least somewhere down the line, more violence. It’s not that he has wrestled with it and decided it was justified, there is simply no consideration that we see. It’s stated as plain fact in direct contrast to Jesus’ words and actions in question. I do not see how someone can look at the actions and words of Jesus and the leaders of the first centuries of the church and not at least wonder if maybe it’s not “absolutely clear” that we should use violence. This is to say nothing of the growing research which is showing the effectiveness of nonviolent solutions over violent ones 2, a thought which would have been considered nothing more than ‘impractical idealism’ 100+ years ago. This is not to say that one cannot look at the data and believe differently than I have, but that more often than not, the rejection of Christian pacifism lies primarily in the fact that it’s been deemed impractical with little actual consideration for the scriptures nor for the possibility that it may not be as impractical as we are told by our culture.

All of that to say, I personally don’t use this verse to justify my pacifism anyway. It’s part of my belief, but my pacifism is not all hanging on the interpretation a few verses. It’s the entire scope of the scriptures: the direction of the Old Testament, Jesus’ teachings on forgiveness, mourning, peace, love, who our neighbors are as well as his refusal to defend himself and refusal to start a rebellion. It’s bolstered by the teachings and lives of the early Christians (including the New Testament, especially Paul who went from violent religious zealot to peaceful and violence enduring religious zealot.)

All too often I have had conversations with Christians about the Christian life where we happily discuss gentleness and meekness, forgiveness and love, mercy and justice, suffering and patience, all in agreement, and then the topic turns to war and I find that suddenly all those virtues are to drop out of the picture for the sake of ‘practicality’.

I urge my non-pacifist leaning brothers and sisters to be very careful on this subject not to rely primarily on culture when there is a wealth of discussion on the topic within Bible itself.

1. I am not implying that no Christians thought that, we know at least some were in the army and may have fought. There are no writings which advocate it. That some Christians behave in ways contrary to teachers in not hard to see, we even see it in Paul’s letters, but those same Christians writers and teachers who helped solidify our theology and understandings of the scriptures are the same ones who never advocated for violence.

2. https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/facts-are-nonviolent-resistance-works, http://www.ericachenoweth.com/research