The Underside of Nonresistance

I am new to the conversation of pacifism. It has always been an uncomfortable one for me to engage in—both because people tend to get heated in debate, and for this anonymous discomfort I always have felt in the pit of my stomach whenever conversations arise. But, alas, for the good and the bad, I am being faced head-on with the conversation of non-violence in my coursework this term.[1] One of the conversation partners I have been engaged with is John Howard Yoder.[2] In his essay “Peace without Eschatology?” he expounds on his pacifism this way: The church’s suffering, like the Master’s suffering, is the measure of the church’s obedience to the self-giving love of God. Nonresistance is right, in the deepest sense, not because it works, but because it anticipates the triumph of the Lamb that was slain… God’s love for us being right at the point where God permits sin again himself and against others, without crushing the rebel under his/her own rebellion. The word for this...