Nonviolence

Mitchell Atencio 2-05-2024

AFC running back Raheem Mostert (31) of the Miami Dolphins rushes the ball past NFC cornerback DaRon Bland (26) of the Dallas Cowboys during the 2024 Pro Bowl at Camping World Stadium on Feb 4, 2024 in Orlando, Fla. Nathan Ray Seebeck/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters

On Sunday, I tuned in to watch my first football game in over a year as part of my discipline toward Christian nonviolence. That may seem odd, especially since I’m the person who wrote about quitting the NFL as an act of nonviolence just last year. But this weekend I tuned in for the NFL’s Pro Bowl competition, including the flag football game, to signal my support for player safety and wellbeing.

Josiah R. Daniels 12-04-2023

Photo of Michael McBride. Photo credit: Squint. Graphic by Tiarra Lucas/Sojourners.

When I was living on the West Side of Chicago, friends and family would often say that they couldn’t comprehend why I would want to live in such a “dangerous” area. The exchange would usually go something like the following: “I can’t imagine why you’d want to live in Chicago, considering all the gun violence.” “Are you worried about me being shot by the police?” “Well, no. The criminals are the ones who are shooting people.” “The police shoot people too. And there’s a reason the ‘criminals’ are resorting to violence.”

I would then go on to explain the antecedents to Chicago’s gun violence: racial segregation and systemic disinvestment. Beginning in the 1950s and into the ’70s, white Chicagoans fled the South and West Sides because they couldn’t imagine being neighbors with Black people. Because of this, these areas became predominantly Black, and the city has refused to invest resources into these neighborhoods to reverse their poor conditions. The South and West Sides are still suffering from disinvestment today, and this disinvestment is a major contributor to gun violence.

John Dear 11-30-2023
The illustration shows Mary illuminated by a ray of light wearing a white robe and cape with a red ribbon. She is holding one hand to her heart and the other is raised in a nonviolent protest. Behind her are three unnamed figures in white robes.

Illustration by Leonardo Santamaria 

MOST CHRISTIANS TODAY do not understand the life and teachings of Jesus as a broad vision of daring nonviolence. But scripture gives convincing evidence for this: The gospel of Luke presents Jesus as the God of peace who comes among us in total poverty into our impoverished world of war and empire, who brings with him God’s reign of peace and nonviolence, and who invites us to follow him on the path of love, compassion, and justice. With his birth, we hear the angels announce the coming of peace on earth.

Jesus, the greatest peacemaker in history, marked the path of peace toward Jerusalem, where he confronted imperial injustice and called us to learn the things that make for peace; he endured rejection, betrayal, torture, and execution in the holy spirit of nonviolence, and rose to offer his gift of peace and send us out all over again on his path of peace.

How did Jesus learn all this? Luke’s gospel offers an amazing answer. The writer presents Mary, Jesus’s holy Jewish mother, as his teacher of nonviolence.

Luke tells the story of Mary’s journey as three movements of creative nonviolence: the first, the Annunciation as a story of contemplative nonviolence, which leads to the second, the Visitation as the story of active nonviolence, which leads to the third, the Magnificat as the vision of prophetic nonviolence.

Movement 1: Contemplative nonviolence

THE ANNUNCIATION IS a scene of contemplative prayer in which Mary communes with the God of peace; in that silence and stillness, she encounters, and is ready for, God. Jesus learned this from his mother. We will see this in Jesus’s first public appearance when he sits by the Jordan River after his baptism and, in that contemplative peace, hears the God of peace call him “My beloved,” which sets him on his journey.

The first lesson of Lucan nonviolence is to sit in silence and solitude, in contemplative prayer, to open ourselves to God, to listen for God, and to be available if the God of peace chooses to speak. As Mary would have known, the first step in a peaceful life is to spend time in peace with the God of peace, to let God speak to us, to be ready if God sends us forth as peacemakers into the world of war.

The Editors 11-28-2023
The illustration shows Sharon Lavigne over a background of clouds, with the quote "To love a community is to find ways to heal a community"

Sharon Lavigne, founder of the Louisiana environmental justice group Rise St. James, is a 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize winner and recipient of the 2022 Laeare Medal for service to the U.S. Catholic Church and society. / Illustration by Raz Latif 

WE BEGIN PLANNING each issue of the magazine months in advance, and this edition was no exception. Our conversations about Christian nonviolence last summer were rooted in our long history of wrestling with questions of how to put our biblical faith into practice in the face of challenging, real-world problems. Our goal, as always, is to offer a word that is both “timeless and timely,” and the combination of John Dear’s biblical reflection on Mary’s role as a “teacher of nonviolence” and our interview with Palestinian peacemaker Ali Abu Awwad seemed exactly that.

Catholic and Christian activists call for a cease-fire outside the White House in Washington, D.C., during a “pray-in” on Nov. 2, 2023. Juliann Ventura/Medill News Service for Sojourners

Fifty protesters gathered for a “pray-in” in Lafayette Square on Thursday afternoon, holding signs directly facing the White House that said, “Catholics say ceasefire now.”

Adam Russell Taylor 11-02-2023

Demonstrators call for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war at New York's Grand Central Station on Oct. 27, 2023. Photo: Kyodo via Reuters Connect

Wars, by their very nature, often force people to choose sides and dehumanize the other side to justify violence. We’ve seen the dangers of this binary here in the U.S. as some student groups in support of Palestinian liberation have wrongfully praised or failed to condemn Hamas’ attacks, while some pro-Israeli groups (including many U.S. Christians) have failed to acknowledge the injustice of the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the severe death toll Israel’s response has inflicted on Gazan civilians. Yet while the powers of the world want us to take a side and declare ourselves fully (and exclusively) pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, Christian compassion must be freed from favoritism. As peacemakers, we must honor the image of God in every Israeli and every Palestinian.

Mubarak Awad 10-20-2023

A welcome sign in Bethlehem. Photo: Simona Pezzi / Alamy

I have spent my life advocating for Palestinians and Israelis to use nonviolent means to resolve their conflicts. Because Israel feared Palestinian unity and mass nonviolent action, I was expelled by the government in 1988. Since then, I have, on several occasions, personally advocated with Hamas leaders to abandon armed struggle and embrace nonviolent campaigns. Yet, today, Palestinians and Israelis are once again killing each other.

A woman mourns Danielle, 25, and Noam, 26, an Israeli couple who were killed in a deadly attack by Hamas gunmen from Gaza as they attended a festival, during their funeral in Kiryat Tivon, Israel on Oct. 12, 2023. REUTERS/Shir Torem

We all are shocked by Hamas’ horrific, inhumane attacks on the people of Israel, which killed more than 1,000 people, according to recent estimates. Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes have killed at least 1,000 more; thousands of people on each side are wounded. In both Israel and Gaza, innocent civilians are bearing the brunt in this latest round of indiscriminate, militarized lethal violence — violence that will solve nothing and only further entrench mutual mistrust, hatred, and the thirst for vengeance.

Mitchell Atencio 10-10-2023

Rev. Mae Elise Cannon. Graphic by Tiarra Lucas. Original photo courtesy Cannon. 

“We had a prayer meeting [Monday] morning with dozens and dozens of people from all different traditions, from bishops to people sitting in the pews,” Cannon told Sojourners. “We’ll have another prayer gathering on Wednesday morning. We’re grieving, we’re lamenting, and we’re also working really hard.”

Pope Francis speaks during the First General Congregation of the Synod at the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Oct. 4, 2023. Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS

Pope Francis called for an end to attacks and violence in Israel and Gaza on Sunday, saying terrorism and war would not solve any problems, but only bring further suffering and death to innocent people.

John Reuwer 8-02-2023
A man in a yellow hazmat suit simulates checking radiation levels on a Ukrainian boy by holding a black device out in front of him. Red-and-white striped tape keeps them separated from an onlooking crowd in the background.

A Ukrainian emergency service team simulates checking radiation levels on a boy during training drills held in the Zaporizhzhia region. / Elena Tita / Getty Images

I WAS CONCERNED about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant because of my background in things nuclear. Europe’s largest nuclear plant was sitting in frontline combat. It has hundreds of times more nuclear material than Chernobyl. When I read about the International Atomic Energy Agency sending in unarmed inspectors, I thought, here are 14 guys risking their necks to save what could be tens of thousands of people if this plant goes up. Those guys probably have never heard of nonviolent action or unarmed protection — everything you do to keep yourself and others safe once you take violence off the table. The least we, who practice this stuff, could do is support them.

7-26-2023
The cover for Sojourners' September/October 2023 issue, featuring a blue illustration of a woman praying. You can see tendrils of her nervous system glowing through her skin. She's surrounded by black bramble, stained glass windows, and a church building.

Illustration by Ryan McQuade

Healing from religious harm: Why compassionate community is part of the journey.

Zachary Lee 5-03-2023

Ariela Barer in 'How to Blow Up a Pipeline.' / Neon

Can blowing up a pipeline be a form of nonviolent protest? Director Daniel Goldhaber’s new film, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, makes a strong case in the affirmative — even if the activists at its center could care less about being called “terrorists” by the American empire.

Mitchell Atencio 4-27-2023
A comic book illustration of a male superhero in purple tights, a purple cowl, and red gloves. He's holding a woman in his arms in a city park as a police helicopter circles a tower in the background, where an explosion occurs on an upper floor.

Illustration by Cat Sims

EVER SINCE I was little, my imagination has been shaped by superhero worlds, lore, and comic and animated adaptations. And while more “realistic” adaptations are the trend on the big screen, what enthralled me about characters such as Batman wasn’t that I thought he could be real; I was tuned instead to the ethos behind the caped crusader.

Superhero stories often seem limitless. At their best, they stretch the imagination to ask what type of world we want to exist and what it would take to get us there, while acknowledging hardships along the way.

Recently, I began a rewatch of the DC Animated Universe: TV shows, feature films, and shorts that aired mainly from 1992 to 2006. These shows were the first to capture my attention and shape my imagination. Batman: The Animated Series was my first love, with Kevin Conroy’s Batman and Mark Hamill’s Joker seared into my consciousness. As I watched, I made a particular note about the moral imagination of these shows: Superheroes in these shows don’t just refuse to kill — a theme recurring across superhero worlds — they refuse to even let anyone die.

Take Season 1, Episode 11 (S1 E11) of Superman: The Animated Series: Lex Luthor’s weapons factory is about to explode, with spilled molten metal splashing about. Lana Lang is hanging by a thread above certain death; so is Lex Luthor, who unintentionally caused this mess in his attempt to kill Superman. But then, at the last moment, Superman bursts forth from under the molten waves, crashing out of the top of the factory just before it explodes, with Lana in one arm and the villain in the other.

It’s a scene that strains credulity. There’s an improbability of timing, a lack of “logic” in doubling back for the person trying to kill you, and the storyteller’s refusal to explain how Superman managed to save the villain. But what’s key here is the insistence, and flaunting, that Superman would save the villain. It doesn’t need an explanation; it’s assumed.

For a while, I was paying attention to how the writers made this subtext believable. Superman saves some villains in hopes they can be rehabilitated, others because they are being used by larger, more villainous characters. Why? The simple answer is that these were shows for families and children. The same reason the comic book’s “League of Assassins” became the TV show’s “Society of Shadows” and villains set out to “destroy” rather than “kill” heroes.

But this death-resisting subtext becomes dialogue in S2 E9 of Superman: The Animated Series when some kids plead with Metallo, a villain disguised as a hero, to save Lois Lane from an exploding volcano. “Superman wouldn’t let anyone die, no matter how bad they were,” the kids protest. “I’m not Superman,” Metallo retorts.

Mitchell Atencio 4-19-2023

Representative Justin Jones marches with supporters to the Tennessee State Capitol the after being reinstated by the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County with 36-0 votes, after the Republican majority Tennessee House of Representatives voted to expel two Democratic members, representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, for their roles in a gun control demonstration on the statehouse floor, in Nashville, Tenn., April 10, 2023. REUTERS/Cheney Orr

Despite Republican colleagues expelling him from the Tennessee state legislature, Nashville’s Democratic Rep. Justin Jones still believes working for justice in the South means working on “sacred ground.”

Andrew DeCort 4-06-2023

Image of Jesus on the cross. Credit: Unsplash/Francesco Alberti.

Three years prior to Jesus’ crucifixion, he had launched a public movement in the violent society of the Roman Empire. He said that God’s kingdom was coming close, and he invited people to rethink their lives in light of it. His message revolved around a teaching that we desperately need to embrace today. That teaching, however, is also what led to his crucifixion.

The Editors 3-16-2023
An illustration of Rev. James M. Lawson Jr. with a quote above his head that reads, "We must earn to work and struggle, not for simply what we see in front of us. We must work that we might be citizens of a country that has not yet appeared."

James M. Lawson Jr., a proponent of Gandhian nonviolence and a leader of the civil rights movement, is a retired United Methodist minister in Los Angeles. / Illustration by Kayneisha Holloway

WHEN VILLANOVA PROFESSOR Vincent W. Lloyd reflects on the theology of the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” he begins with the “death-dealing forces of white supremacy” and the tragic “ vulnerability to premature death” experienced by Black people. But Lloyd doesn’t stop there. To affirm the value of Black lives, Lloyd writes, requires life that is rich, creative, and flourishing.

Lloyd doesn’t think such flourishing is possible without faith. Specifically, he argues that to hold on to “a hope against hope” in the face of these noxious, murderous systems and practices requires belief in the possibility of life after death: “For Black life to matter,” Lloyd writes, “we must believe in resurrection.” As Carmen Acevedo Butcher puts it in her interview with Betsy Shirley, “It may not look like it,” but “Love’s in charge.” That’s an important reminder for all of us, in this Easter season and always.

On a lighter note: We’re pleased to have a guest appearance by our former art director (and humor columnist) Ed Spivey Jr., who came out of retirement to offer his pearls of wisdom on artificial and other kinds of intelligence.

Heather Brady 2-23-2023

A woman holds a sign during a daily demonstration of solidarity with Ukraine in Krakow, Poland ahead of one-year anniversary of Russian invasion on Ukraine. Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto 

Readers respond to Adam Russell Taylor's recent essay on the Christian imperative to make peace.

A woman wrapped in a Ukrainian flag looks at pairs of shoes arranged in rows.

In Prague, a woman looks at shoes symbolising war crimes committed against Ukrainian civilians to mark the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: REUTERS/David W Cerny TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, Ukrainian citizens are hurting and exhausted. Meanwhile, Russia is mounting a new counter-offensive and Ukraine is restocking weapons from its allies, including the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and wounded, both Ukrainian and Russian, yet the war grinds on without an end in sight.

Mitchell Atencio 2-16-2023

A graphic of Shane Claiborne. Original photo courtesy HarperCollins, graphic by Mitchell Atencio/Sojourners

When I opened Shane Claiborne’s new book, I rolled my eyes and sighed. Claiborne’s book, Rethinking Life: Embracing the Sacredness of Every Person, was dedicated to “all the women of faith over the centuries, the midwives of a better world, and to the two most significant women in my life—my mom, Patricia, and my wife, Katie Jo.”