Today a friend pointed me to a lecture that William Cavanaugh gave in Australia on Torture and Eucharist. I have read a couple of Cavanaugh’s books, but not that one, so I listened to the lecture with interest. As with the books of his that I have read, there was much there that when placed in an more rigorously biblical context (especially on the atonement), is edifying and helpful. But when his comments are understood in the context that he places them in, the results were exhibited by Cavanaugh himself — profound confusion.
Suppose an evangelist is working a neighborhood, going door to door, and he finds that a coke head lives three houses ahead of where he is. The coke head is shacked up, has seven kids under the age of 10, and they are all on food stamps. Now, what would we think of the evangelist if he skipped that house? And suppose he skipped the house, not because he thought he wouldn’t get a hearing, but because he was suddenly fearful that he would? If that guy converted, all of a sudden we have a host of problems in the church that we didn’t have before. Lots simpler to keep things the peaceful way they were before. If he converts, and comes into the church, he is going to track in a host of problems.
Now I am afraid this scenario is how anabaptists and pacifists go about preaching to magistrates. They prophetically speak truth to power until it starts to look as though power might listen. And as soon as that happens, they skip that house. If the king, or emperor, or president, or khan, converts, what do we have? A host of problems in the Church, and a deep need for a new Augustine to start sorting them out. This is because the king then asks us what God wants him should do with his armies, and with his security forces, and with his treaties, and with all this tax revenue. The lesson is clear. Never lead coke heads or magistrates to Christ.
There is a type of carnal power, the kind Jesus said that the Gentiles used in lording it over one another, which can be described as a right-handed power. Kick butt and take names. Simple. And yet despite Christ’s warning, there are a host of scriptural passages which clearly describe God exercising this kind of direct power. He is God the Father Almighty, after all.
But there is also the kind of left handed power that Christ exhibited on the cross, when He suffered, bled and died, the bloody victim who would thereby draw all men to himself. The Bible is also clear that this kind of power is at the center of God’s conquest of the world.
God does both, which is something that sinful men simply cannot do.
Right wing imperialistic rah rah Christians think it is all right handed power. The attractive lure of this position is its simplicity. Pacifists think it is all left handed power. The attractive lure of this position is identical — the simplicity. Whatever you do, don’t make us think and don’t track your problems into the church. You might wind up walking all over our simplicities.
But God has two hands, and He uses them both. Only the grace of God can enable people to grasp this, and an abundance of grace to imitate it.
The Church was commanded to bring these problems into the Church when the Church was commanded to preach the gospel to the nations, baptizing them. Nations not only have babies, they also have armies and navies. Nations have kings and princes, and treaties and enemies. Come to Christ, we are commanded to tell them, and we will teach you what Christ would have you do. Paul stood before a king once, and sought to persuade him to become a Christian (Acts 26:28). He told Christians to pray for kings because God wanted all kinds of men to be saved (1 Tim. 2:1-3). This is risky, because believe me, kings track in a lot more than the coke heads do.
This is an assignment that the magisterial Reformers understood and embraced. It is one that the anabaptist tradition has, sad to say, fled from. The neo-pacifism of today’s church is making the same mistake. This is a matter of great concern because the avoidance of mercy and maturity is always a costly mistake.