 enbar says: "Let's put the Amish in charge of Homeland Security" sounds terribly facile to me, and I don't think they'd take the assignment, but the article does offer some serious food for thought. sounds terribly facile to me Your comment would have ended perfectly with that. Believe it or not, GD, this kind of thing is not just a crock. If you're interested in actually thinking through the historical and political significance of the peace churches, you might have a look at R. Scott Appleby's The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999) (Amazon, L of C). I have been interested. I haven't read that particular book. But the conclusion that I've come to in looking at this issue is that the religion of the so-called "peace churches" is, for the most part, marxism, and or childish pacifism; the sunday school religious who've never grown up and matured in their spiritual understanding. Good grief, you really have absolutely no idea what you're talking about! I didn't realize you were that uninformed. My apologies. I thought I was having a conversation with someone who knew something about history and religion. The peace churches are about four to five hundred years old. They originate with the Anabaptists and Mennonites in 16th-century Germany. A lot of them were executed for their insistance on not bearing arms. Modern-day peace churches are very aware of this living legacy and have a strong tradition of repeatedly putting themselves in harm's way to act as peacemakers and Christian witnesses. Needless to say, they predate Marxism and Sunday schools by qui... I was focused on and interested in more recent history. That should have been obvious by my allusion to marxism. It's OK. Lots of people have strong opinions about stuff they don't know anything about. Don't feel bad. You don't have to cover it up by saying you were actually interested in something else. The clever focus shift doesn't make me feel anything. I was speaking to an era; you another. No clever focus shift on my part. The Amish are one of the historical peace churches. They're not one with a history of global involvement, like, say, the Mennonites with their Ontario-based Christian Peacemaker Teams. Your original point, though, that "peace churches" reflect Marxism and a kind of "childish" spirituality, is entirely contradicted by almost five hundred years of history, going right up to and including the present day. If you knew what "peace churches" actually were, you wouldn't have said what you did. That's all I'm trying to get at. What you're doing here is similar to the common injection of the ancient history of Christians or Muslims into discussions of current realty as if it had equivalent relevance to the current nature of both, or to the context of the current issues. Not quite, Godfrey. I know the tactic you're talking about, and I find it ridiculous just as much as you do, but that's not what I was doing. What I was doing was clarifying what's meant by the expression "peace church" and putting it into historical context. It would be one thing if the modern peace churches simpy sat around being Marxist and "childish" and pointing to their heroic past. That's not what goes on, though. These are small groups that actually do live according to a contemporary, developing interpretation of these rather venerable traditions. It's not Marxist, and it's certainly not childish by any stretch of the imagination. These are people for whom histo... marxism, and or childish pacifism And, by childish pacifism I mean it in a broader context. As I said in another clip, the very existence of pacifism--especially as a community lifestyle--is dependent on non-pacifists, or, in other words, the adults of the world. By "childish" pacifism, then, you mean all pacifism, because you think pacifism is childish by definition. That strikes me as a stunningly arrogant thing to say. Not that that should bother you, of course. You may be right about it, but the Mennonites, Amish, and Quakers would certainly disagree with you -- and according to them, Jesus would also disagree. More to the point, I can't see how you could prove that the very existence of pacifism--especially as a community lifestyle--is dependent on non-pacifistsnor do I see any obvious justification for equating non-pacifism with some undefined "adulthood." People who are willing to put up their dukes and fight it out are... |
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