We’re back in San Francisco after being on the road all day.
The Pepperdine Bible Lectures in Malibu, CA were wonderful! I will be posting notes from a few classes I attended just as I did last year. Keep checking westcoastwitness.com over the course of the next few days if you’re interested in seeing them, or simply subscribe to this blog and get new posts sent directly to your email address or favorite reader- that’s the easiest thing to do.
This was a great event – I will update fully later.
For now I’m going to continue my research into the subject of pacifism for my social ethics class at Fuller. UFC 113 is about to come on, and the fight card is lookin’ good! Must research.
Oh, and don’t forget to call your mother tomorrow and tell her you love her. It’s Mother’s Day!
The Overflow 
Have you read “Mere Discipleship” by Lee C. Camp or “The Politics of Jesus” by John Howard Yoder?
Although there are still many questions I have, it was the change in my hermeneutics that brought about my acceptance of the pacifism position. Once I concluded that biblical Christianity was not adhering to a so-called pattern of the church by command, example, and inference but following Jesus – living, thinking, and acting as he acted…or to put it in more Trinitarian terms, being empowered by the Spirit to live the cruciform lifestyle of the Son in order to glorify the Father…once this hermeneutic was accepted (and I believe it is a good hermeneutic) I could not get around the fact that even though Jesus could have led a politically-militant revolution, he chose a cross and did so why loving and serving everyone from his fellow Jews to the outcasts to even his enemies all because he believed that lifestyle alone was the value that could restore God’s kingdom (will done) on earth as it is done in heaven and now calls his followers to that same life.
Of course, that hermeneutic has other implications then just the question of pacifism.
Any ways, I am glad you enjoyed the Pepperdine Lectures…I wish I could have been there but next year…
Grace and peace,
Rex
I’ve read Yoder – still haven’t gotten around to Camp.
I’ll be posting more about this in the future – would love to hear more from you on it.
The Lectures were great man – wish you could have came!
Another good (and easy) read arguing for a pacifistic ethic is “The Peacable Kingdom” by Stanley Hauerwas.
Of coure, Reinhold Niebuhr is a classic contemporary theologian who, in the face of rising Russian Communist power, argued the just-war position.
I don’t know if this would be helpful to you but in Churches of Christ, David Lipscomb and James Harding are good historical representations of pacifism within a restoration mind-set. Also Jan/Feb 2002 issue of “New Wineskins”, Rubel Shelly and Lee Camp did sort of a debate with Shelly arguing for “Just War” and Camp taking the “pacifism” position. Each defended their ethic with an essay and then provided a small response to the others essay. You can view that issue here: http://www.wineskins.org/page.asp?SID=2&Page=68
I hope you enjoy your class. Who is the teacher?
Grace and peace,
Rex
Cool – thanks for the Wineskins link.
A guy named Ron Sanders is my prof at Fuller. He’s currently working on a PhD through Fuller, and is a regional admin for Campus Crusade on the west coast. In addition to teaching a few classes for Fuller, he and his wife work full-time at Stanford University.