The Little Friar

Aristotle once rightly observed that ethical character is a matter of habits :  We are what we do.  Or, to quote him: We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Lots of us, in fact, want to believe we're someone else.  We usually say we're not really the miserable, grumpy, cynical, obstructive or unreasonable person we appear to be -- it's just that, right now , there are some extenuating circumstances.   The boss is being a Nazi.  Our childhood sucked.  Money's tight.  We just don't have the time.  It's not my problem.  We like to imagine we could change the world -- or at least our little corner -- if circumstances were different.  Inside our heads we're convinced that we're kind, forward-thinking, engaged members of society who, given half the chance, would be working to make the world a better place. Thing is, Aristotle was right.  We are what we do.  That miserable...

I'm not a supporter of Barack Obama for any number of reasons.  Not least of which is his support of Reinhold Niebuhr .  I'm a Christian pacifist, and I think being a pacifist is made possible only because I'm a follower of Jesus Christ.  Being a follower of Jesus Christ, I think, is the only cure for the realism that pervades our culture's thinking about violence and war. Realism is a political theory that views politics as a realm shorn of all moral and ethical constraints. Sometimes called "power politics", a realist politics is not motivated by concerns for the common good or virtue, but rather by self-interest, necessity, and most of all, maximization of power.   According to realism, politics is seen as limited only by power constraints, not by ethical constraints about what may or may not be just.  Realism can be summed up as "they that have odds of power exact as much as they can, and the weak yield to such conditions as they can get...

Today is December 7th. In America, that means today is a day devoted to the memory of the attack on Pearl Harbor . As national memory goes, this one is a doozy. At least for Americans, this war stands not as the "war that ended other wars" nearly so much as the "war that justified other wars". World War II shows, in the American "good war" mythology, that sometimes going to war is the best option when it comes to dealing with the "bad guys". So today is filled with all manner of folks who remember Pearl Harbor as part of the justification for engagement in "the good war" that became the foundation for a mythology to support all war. Thing is, I'm a Christian. And, as a Christian, I am devoted to telling the truth. So today, for me, is less about remembering those who died and how their deaths justified our involvement as a nation in war. Today is a day for mourning the dead, yes, but also for telling the truth about Wor...

This long post -- placed beneath the fold -- is actually written as part of a project of interreligious dialogue and is meant to be one Christian perspective on the rejection of violence specifically. Thing is, I can't reject something without positively embracing the alternative. I am a Christian pacifist. This is my reflection of what that means.

That I'm a Christian pacifist isn't too much a surprise.  Thing is, most folks assume that pacifism is tantamount to being a doormat.  That it's impractical in the real world.  Even some of my sisters and brothers misunderstand what that means. Many otherwise devout Christians simply dismiss Jesus' teachings about nonviolence out of hand as impractical idealism.  And with good reason. "Turn the other cheek" has come to imply a passive, doormat-like quality that has made the Christian way seem cowardly and complicit in the face of injustice.  "Resist not evil" seems to break the back of all opposition to evil and to counsel submission.  "Going the second mile" has become a platitude meaning nothing more than "extend yourself" and appears to encourage collaboration with the oppressor.  Jesus' teaching, viewed this way, is impractical, masochistic and even suicidal -- an invitation to bullies and spouse-batterers to wi...

September 11, 2001, was a Tuesday.  Most of us remember that day and what we were doing around nine o'clock that morning.  (I was standing in line in an airport, waiting to board a plane.) September 11, 2012, is a Tuesday.  Much like that day, if I'm honest.  The air is crisp, but the sun is bright.  I'm not standing in an airport, but my mind has turned again to busy-ness as usual.  School or work, picking up things from dry cleaners, taking dogs for a walk -- we all do it.  We want to have ceremony and somber speechifying, but today, I'm resisting that urge. Because, if I'm honest, what's left to say?  We've talked much over the years about this day.  Even Christians were quick to join in the chorus of voices around today.  We swaped all our pious God-talk for well-intended but dubious theological reflections on a murderous tragedy. In his beautiful book, Writing in the Dust:  After September 11 , Archbishop Rowan Williams ...