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Active Non-Violence - A Revolution of the Heart

"Non-violence confronts systematic injustice with active love, but refuses to retaliate with further violence under any circumstances. In order to halt the vicious cycles of violence, it requires a willing acceptance of suffering and death rather than inflicting suffering or death on anyone else."   (John Dear)

Charles McCarthy defines violence as:

"responding to a person as an object for the purpose of self-gratification. Violence is forgetting or ignoring that there is a infinity behind every human face."

 

A THEOLOGY OF "NON-VIOLENCE"

1.  Calls us beyond every form of violence, whether institutionalized, structural violence, repressive military violence or revolutionary violence.

2.  Bestows the love of God to the poor and oppressed: the non-violent resistance to evil and the love of enemies which can transform us all, liberating both the oppressed and the oppressors into God's reign of justice and peace.

Flows from the gospel of Jesus & the image of God as non-violent.  Jesus envisions a place where all killing & all violence cease.  

There are 6 principles of non-violence:

principle 1

Justice must be a priority. It must recognize the evils of racism, sexism, classism, greed, apathy and fear that pervade the world leading to killing.

principle 2

This new ethic practises compassion toward all who suffer.  It “feels with those suffer".

principle 3

From this heartfelt compassion, non-violence has a preferential for the poor.

principle 4

Non-violence does not judge others - this includes those who commit violence.

principle 5

Non-violence practises unlimited forgiveness - even toward those who commit the most atrocious crimes of violence.

principle 6

A consistent ethic of non-violence is rooted in unconditional love - a love even for those who commit crimes.

"Just as Jesus’ command to love one another cannot be seen as a part-time obligation, but requires our total investment and dedication, so too Jesus’ call to peacemaking is unconditional, unlimited, and uncompromising. None of us is excused! Peacemaking is a full-time vocation that includes each member of God’s people".  

(Henri Nouwen)

ADHERENTS OF NON-VIOLENCE BELIEVE:

• There is no cause however noble for which we support the killing of any human being.

• We cannot pursue human rights of others while violating the human rights of anyone.

• Instead of killing others, we give our lives in the non-violent struggle for justice and human rights.

• We will not retaliate with further violence, murder or war.

• Instead of inflicting violence on others for the cause of justice we accept and undergo redemptive suffering in pursuit of justice and peace, without retaliating or seeking revenge.

• Non-violence calls us to lay down our lives for suffering humanity, indeed, for everyone on all sides.

• Non-violence begins in the heart where we renounce the violence within us.

Before God the Creator and the Sanctifying Spirit.

I vow to carry out in my life the love and example of Jesus -

• by striving for peace within myself and seeking to be a peacemaker in my daily life;

• by accepting suffering in the struggle for justice rather than inflicting it;

• by refusing to retaliate in the face of provocation and violence;

• by persevering in non-violence of tongue and heart;

• by living conscientiously and simply so that I do not deprive others of the means to live;

• by actively resisting evil and working non-violently to abolish war and the causes of war from my own heart and from the face of the earth.

(From Pax Christi USA)

“The greatest challenge of the day is how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us. War and the poverty of peoples which leads to war, are the great problems of the day and the fundamental solution is the personal response which each of us makes to the message of Jesus”.

(Dorothy Day)

http://paceebene.org/pace/

http://www.johndear.org/