Christian Pacifism is incoherent

No worries about the time frame my friend; it took me too long to respond as well. I appreciate your response and I’d be happy to discuss this with you another time. Arguing from Christ's teaching misses the point of the orignal argument First I think it’s important I clarify something. I am not claiming it is incoherent to be a Christian and a Pacifist. What I am claiming is that a version of Christianity that demands all Christians be Pacifists is incoherent. From your response, I’m not sure if you caught that distinction. To be a Christian you must accept certain things such as belief in God, belief in the divinity of Christ, belief in Christ’s death and resurrection, etc. I’m claiming if Pacifism is added to those fundamental things then Christianity becomes incoherent as it then teaches contradictory things. It would be akin to a religion that taught that you must make a pilgrimage to a holy site, but then elsewhere taught that no one should ever see the same holy site. So I think your objection that Christ did teach Pacifism misses the point. If Christ did indeed teach Pacifism and the argument I give is valid, then orthodox Christianity teaches incoherence. Christ did not clearly teach pacifism But I don’t think it’s explicitly clear that Christ taught pacifism. When the original context that Christ taught from is considered that places the teachings in Matthew 5 in a different light. Christ said “do not resist him who is evil but whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” In Christ’s time you would strike someone who you considered your equal with your left hand and someone who you considered your lesser with your right. By turning your left cheek to your attacker you are effectively forcing them to acknowledge you as an equal or to stop striking you. Christ said “if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.” In Christ's culture nudity did not shame the person who was naked, rather it was considered to shame the other person. So in affect by giving the offender your coat you are forcing shame upon them for his already bad actions. Christ also said “And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two” This refers to a practice of the roman army where a soldier could force a local to carry his pack for one mile, but only one mile. Any further and the soldier could be several punished for “abusing” the person. So in effect these verses are not commanding pacifism or violence. Rather they are commanding a very clever third way that either forces the perpetrator to treat you as an equal, shames him, or causes him to be punished for what he did to you. I appreciate how this can appear to be pacifistic on a first reading, but deeper analysis shows there is more going on here than Christ saying to simply lay down and take it. You don’t have to take my word on it either. http://libertarianchristians.com... You can consult NT Wright on the subject as well N. T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (Cambridge: University Press, 2002) You also cite the example of Christ telling Peter that those who live by the sword die by the sword and I simply respond that a police officer who justly shoots and kills a murder or a rapist is hardly “living by the sword.” Rather he is acting in a just manner on behalf of the state to contain and minimize evil. Paul says as much in Romans 13:4 “For the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.Premise 1 is not assumed, I argued for it. Now I didn’t just assume that “Violence is necessary for any human society to function” I spent several paragraphs explaining and demonstrating why this is so. I think in order to show that this is not true you need to explain why the arguments and reasons I gave for it are false. I argued that 1. Any human society requires laws to function. 2. Laws without enforcement are unable to function as laws. 3. Enforcement is always carried out by violence or the threat of violence. 4. The threat of violence and actual violence are indistinguishable in the sense of law enforcement. It doesn’t seem to me you really responded to or refuted any of these reasons. So this isn’t completely unfounded. I explained how and why this is the case and if you want to show that it is wrong you need to explain what is wrong with 1-4 above.Your other objections. You did say that Christians should behave separately from the rest of the world, but I think this argument is lacking. In order to establish that the issue of violence/pacifism is one of those areas where Christians should be separate from the world you must show that Christ explicitly taught non-violence in the same way the he explicitly taught submission to God. As I’ve argued the scripture you cited does not do that I don’t see how your argument there stands. So I dispute numbers 1, 2, and 4 that you list in your conclusion. I argue that Christ did not teach Pacifism (tho I appreciate how it can appear so absent the an understanding of the cultural context) and that even a Christian society would need law enforcement. The people who carried out the law enforcement would need to be able to use or threaten violence otherwise their enforcement would be useless. Perhaps all this changes on the Second Coming of Christ, but until we get there it seems to be the way things are. If you think not, then point me toward an example of an independent society that functions and survives without laws or the threat of violence. I have looked for such societies and not found them. If you have, then please point them out. Pacifistic theorists often like to cite Amish and Mennonite communities as the very evidence I cannot see. While I find much to admire in Amish and Mennonite approach to life, I do not see how they can be held up as examples of non-violent communities because they are not independent communities. The ones in the United States enjoy the protection of the local police and the international protection of the US military. They can afford to be as pacifistic as they want to be because they do not have to worry about protecting themselves from external evil and violence. If some Amish or Mennonite people operated their own sovereign country, I think that would be a very strong case worth considering. But they don’t, so it’s not. Most citizens of legitimate and mostly just countries can and probably should be as pacifistic as the Amish and Mennonites are. Having police and a military enable most people to act non-violently and that is a good thing. The point is that as long as there is sin, it will be necessary for the state to enforce laws to contain and minimize the evil that sin brings. The only way possible to enforce such laws is on the foundation of violence. One final note of importance is that none of the church creeds such as the Apostle's Creed claim that followers of Christ must be pacifistic. The Church creeds are silent on this issue. This shows is the even the early church fathers (who were on average more likely to be pacifistic) did see pacifism as essential to following Christ. At certain points you seemed to concede that some violence is necessary for the state to function, or did I misunderstand you there? It seems that if you concede some limited amount of violence is necessary then the argument stands. Conclusions on your objections. I hope I haven’t misunderstood you at any point and if I have please correct me, but it seems that you did not address my reasons for premise 1, you did not dispute the logic of my argument, the examples of Christ's teaching you cite miss the thrust of the argument, and upon close study those same teachings do not hold up as pacifistic in nature. So for the moment, I conclude my original argument stands.