So how did the early followers of Christ respond to his words following his resurrection and ascension to heaven? One thing is for certain, any reading of the NT will show that the early Church took very seriously the idea that they were Christ's body on earth. Imbued with his Spirit, they sought to live out the words he taught and the way he lived, full of love, peace, and compassion. In today's Church, I find very few Christians who truly understand how literal the writers of the NT were when they referred to the Church as the body of Christ. It seems to me (and I've been in the Church my entire life) that the Church sees this idea as nothing more than a fuzzy notion. However, the implications of the Church being Jesus' body on earth are huge. If we are his body (representatives, hands and feet, etc.), then it is imperative that we seek to live out his teachings and his way of life in order to finish his work of rescuing the world. This isn't just a nice, clean, and fuzzy idea, but a concrete reality that we must take as seriously as the first Christ followers. So what did they have to say along the lines of pacifism?
"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse." - Here again, we must enter into some history. In our day and age, we don't take blessings and curses all that seriously. The ancient world was a whole different ball game. We throw horrible words and phrases around like, "I hate you" and "You suck," and, many times, don't really mean them at all. In ancient times, a blessing was something you conferred on someone that set the pattern of their lives. These were words that people believed God participated in. So if you said to someone, "May your life and home be prosperous," it was assumed that God heard you and made this happen. Curses worked the same way, but with opposite results. To heap a curse on someone was to wish them the worst kind of life. It was to heap bad things upon them and their household. So when Paul (the dude who apparently wrote this letter) tells the Church to bless those who persecute them, he was definitely setting up a new way of living. He was telling Christians to turn the tables on people who hated them by invoking a blessing on their lives and wishing them well. Once again, this doesn't work in a war theology You can't wish someone well and then blow them up or splatter their brains across the desert. It just doesn't work that way.
"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." - I was tempted to just let that passage speak for itself, but alas, the preacher in me just can't do that. Paul says that "as far as it depends on us," live at peace with one another. This means that we can't control the actions of other people, but we can control our own actions. He calls us to fight with unconventional weapons. He says that we are to fight with a spoon and a canteen. If our enemies are hungry, we're supposed to feed them, if they're thirsty, we're supposed to give them something to drink. So how do win a fight? By not fighting at all. On the surface, this looks like nothing more than laying down and losing, but it isn't. It's winning through aggressive service to the ones who hate us the most. How do you beat an idea? With a better idea.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." - On the surface, it doesn't look like passage has anything to do with war and violence, but I ask this question: how can you fit blowing someone up into this passage? If we're called to love our enemies, then this passage takes on a whole new revolutionary meaning. Love always wins.
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." - Love is made complete when we live like Jesus here and now. Jesus didn't fight back, if we are going to live like him, we can't either. The reality is that fear is the root of all war. We fear that something is going to happen if we don't act, so we lash out in violence. The writer makes it very clear that fear and love are incongruous. If we love our enemies, we don't fear anything they can do to us. Jesus rising from the grave was a way of saying, "Now what? You killed me, now what are you going to do?" The worst thing that anyone can do to us is kill us. But then what can they do? Nothing. They can't touch the soul.
These are just a few examples of how the Church responded to the brutal Roman Empire in the first century. There are many more examples, and I encourage you to look them up. The next post will focus on what pacifism means and what it looks like. We'll also talk about what author Shane Claiborne calls the prophetic imagination.
In case you're wondering, in the first picture, that is, in fact, my wife's open thorax. Look at the cranium on that freak! The second picture is the first time he opened his eyes. 
