Jesus and Nonviolence: Chapter 5

[Jamie McDaniel]

This is a thread for discussing chapter 5 of the book Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way by Walter Wink. When posting comments, please reference the page number in the book.

[kara speltz]

In chapter 5, Wink says, that "nonviolence is not natural." This fits my own concept of nonviolence. My own personal philosophy is that nonviolence is a divine trait not a human one.

I believe that it is only when we keep ourselves centered in the divine that nonviolence can prevail. That's why prayer and centering are so important in our lives. It requires lots of study, thought and work to keep ourselves responding in love rather than in retailiation. We never really move out of the "student," mode when it comes to nonviolence.

kara

[Jamie McDaniel]

In thinking about a response to a post in another thread, I looked up a quote in Jesus and Nonviolence. (To find what page it was on, I used the Search this book feature at Amazon.com)

from page 61:
"To a certain extent the refusal to love enemies is a result of seeing the opposition as a monolith. We fail to note that the enemy camp is inevitably riddled with power struggles, fragmentation, back-stabbing, personal vendettas, bureaucratic infighting, and careerism, all of which conspire to prevent maximum efficiency in oppression."

I really like this quote because I sometimes tend to be shocked and awed by the power and size of oppressive forces.