I read Jesus & Non-Violence this afternoon, a relatively short but highly informative book! Found this much easier to get into than Brimlow’s What About Hitler?, but then again, this is a substantially shorter book!

Wink starts off by looking at the social/cultural context of Matthew 5:38-41, and then goes on to expand on this.

Some stuff I liked:

“Reduction of conflict by means of a phony “peace” is not a Christian goal. Justice is the goal, and that may require an acceleration of conflict as a necessary stage.”

This is helping me greatly… I went through a stage were I was very much anti-war, at all costs… I think I am slowly coming back around to realising that in a perfect world, violence at all costs is wrong, but we unfortunately live in a fallen world and though we strive for perfection, we do not attain it.

“Gandhi continually reiterated that if a person could not act nonviolently in a situation, violence was preferable to submission.”

“Nonviolent revolution is not a program for seizing power. It is, says Gandhi, a program for transforming relationships.”

“We have no right to hope to harvest what we have not sown.”
(Miguel D’Escoto)

This reminded me of Micah 4:3 actually, about how “nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war.” Why do we expect to have a peaceful and stable world if we continue to use force in an attempt to bring peace into existence?

“…to die with clean hands and a dirty heart.