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Militant Nonviolence: A Spirituality for the Pursuit of Social Justice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Abstract
This essay suggests that a clearer understanding of violence and nonviolence as means to be used in the pursuit for justice will be achieved if we move the discussion of nonviolence to the domain of spirituality rather than ethics. A distinction is made between militant nonviolence and historic forms of pacifism and nonresistance, and it is argued that militant nonviolence only makes sense as a spirituality, rather than as an ethical demand. Finally it is argued that such a spirituality is essential for the pursuit of justice and some practical implications are drawn.
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References
1 Cited in Gremillion, Joseph (ed.), The Gospel of Peace and Justice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1976), p. 514.Google Scholar
2 The name militant nonviolence I owe to Erikson, Erik H., Gandhi's Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (New York: Norton, 1969).Google Scholar
3 I refer not simply to King himself, but to all the activities of the period for which King was both spokesman and symbolic center.
4 See Lee, Umphrey, The Historic Church and Modern Pacifism (New York and Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1943)Google Scholar, and Bainton, Roland H., Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace (Nashville: Abingdon, 1960).Google Scholar
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7 The scriptural references are, in order: Jn. 13:34-35; Mt. 5:30-39; Rom. 12:17-21; Mt. 18:21-22.
8 This approach is developed in Macgregor, G. H., The New Testament Basis of Pacifism (Nyack, NY: Fellowship Publications, 1960).Google Scholar
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13 I refer to the demand to Frs. Drinan and Cornell not to seek reelection to the House of Representatives. The rationale for such exemption varies, historically, but the essence of the position is that violence is not fitting for such a vocation.
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37 As recently as Pope Pius XII, the Catholic teaching was that the Catholic citizen was obliged to go to war if that war had been declared by legitimate authority. See Murray, , We Hold These Truths, pp. 252–53.Google Scholar
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38 Lee, p. 79.
40 In the long run this is what we owe to Karl Marx.
41 For the notions of space and the ability to act see Arendt, Hannah, On Revolution (New York: Viking, 1965), pp. 120–37.Google Scholar
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45 In King, pp. 83-88 six principles of nonviolence are listed. I think they can be reduced to two. The passion for truth is at the heart of Gandhi's vision; and agape is at the heart of King's. While suffering is undoubtedly a key element in nonviolent resistance, it is not a separate category. The only suffering that is germane to nonviolence is that which comes as a consequence of one's love and passion for the truth.
46 The notion of love as letting the other be I borrow from Hauerwas, Stanley, Vision and Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: Fides-Claretian, 1974), pp. 118–20.Google Scholar
47 I am indebted here to a paper done by one of my graduate students, James Ruck.
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51 Reinhold Niebuhr has pointed this out a long time ago: “Who is better able to understand the true character of a civilization than those who suffer most from its limitations?” (p. 157).
52 Perhaps the biggest contribution a nonviolent spirituality could make in the foreseeable future would be to restore the role of police and soldiers as essentially helpers, public servants, and not as the enemy of the people and ministers of violence.
53 That there are alternatives here seems to be a well-kept secret. Sharp, Gene, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973), pp. 109–434Google Scholar, has alternative methods of nonviolent action as the second part of his work.
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56 A good illustration of the embarrassment is Brown, Robert McAfee, Religion and Violence (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973), pp. 85–88.Google Scholar
57 By King's people I mean all who heard and responded to his demand for social justice.
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