I'm a pacifist. No surprise there to my regular readers.
But I'm a pacifist only because I'm a Christian. Following Jesus makes all the difference in the world. It is the difference of my life.
That said, I'm never all that shocked when being a pacifist is seen as being ungrateful. The line usually goes like this: "You've received so much freedom at the hands of the American defense of those freedoms by violence. How dare you question it?"
I'm not surprised because such is the way the world works.
My undergraduate thesis was Christians as the Romans Saw Them: Textual and Epigraphical Evidences. In it, I advanced a thesis that's easily enough demonstrated: The early Christian practice of "holy ingratitude" was the primary reason the Romans hated the Christians. And it explains the escalating social Roman pressures exerted upon Christians that exploded in persecution.
What is the practice of "holy ingratitude"?
Specifically, the Romans believed that Roman citizens owed a certain amount of gratitude toward the state. Romans lived in a great, prosperous and generally peaceful empire. Thus, Roman citizens owed the state gratitude.
But the Christians seemed to differ. Confessing Jesus as "Lord of all" and directing their gratitude toward God rather than toward the state the Christians busted up the cycles of gratitude that had kept Roman citizens bound to the state.
One way that Christians expressed this holy ingratitude was in their refusal to kill for the state. This refusal struck the Romans as hugely ungrateful. Christians benefited as Roman citizens. Yet they refuse to participate in the fighting that created and maintained all those benefits. Non-violent Christians in their refusal to participate in the Roman military were non-patriotic slackers and free-riders.
In short, the pacifism of the early Christians was experienced as shockingly ungrateful.
And yet, this was a holy ingratitude as Christians were obediently following the non-violent ethic of Jesus.
The more things change ... the more they stay the same.
The charge leveled at me is pretty much the same charge leveled at early Christians by the Romans: How can you enjoy the benefits of the state that others have died for yet refuse to participate in the protection and maintenance of the state?
This holy ingratitude is what makes the Way of Jesus so absolutely galling today.