I have been a Christian Pacifist for at least 70 years and have no regrets for taking the position. I think I have firm foundation for saying that based on the teaching of Jesus and the other directives to the early church. What did Christ teach about resistance and retaliation? All one needs to do is examine the intention of our Lord’s words by His own example in real life. Did He really mean it literally when He said that Christians should not resist an evildoer? That the love of his disciples should be so immense that they should be willing to turn the other cheek when they were struck as is suggested in Matthew 5:38-48? Did he in point of fact mean that He was sending His disciples out as harmless and as vulnerable as lambs in the middle of a pack of wolves as recorded in Luke 10:3? Was Paul honestly reflecting the spirit of his Lord when he reminded his followers that even though they walked in the flesh, they should not war according to the flesh in 2 Corinthians 10:3? When he reminded the young church in Thessalonica not to render evil for evil to anyone in 1 Thessalonians 5:15 did he mean what he said? How about when he said in 2 Timothy 2:24 that the Lord’s servant must not strive, but be gentle toward all. Was he just kidding? Was Peter being led by the Holy Spirit when he urged the nonresistant spirit of his Christian readers in the nonresistant standard of Jesus Christ who suffered unjustly -- even crucifixion on a criminal’s cross in 1 Peter 2:21-24? Was Peter correct in two different times suggesting that Christians are called to a ministry of nonresistant suffering? 1 Peter 2:21; 3:9. And finally, was Peter led by the Spirit (1 Peter 4:1) when he suggested that just as the Lord Jesus suffered in the flesh, so the Christian needs to “arm himself” with the same readiness to suffer meekly? You know what, the witness of history is that the primitive church understood these injunctions to mean exactly what they said. This amazing witness remained until the fourth or fifth century.
Hear the words of Justin, who was martyed in 165 A. D., "We ourselves were well conversant with war, murder and everything evil, but all of us throughout the whole wide earth have traded in our weapons of war. We have exchanged our swords for plowshares, our spears for farm tools...now we cultivate the fear of God, justice, kindness, faith, and the expectation of the future given to us through the crucified one...the more we are persecuted and martyred, the more do others in ever increasing numbers become believers."
Or again listen to Hippolytus in 218 A.D., "A military constable must be forbidden to kill, neither may he swear; if he is not willing to follow these instructions, he must be rejected by the community. A procounsul or magistrate who wears the purple and governs by the sword shall give it up or be rejected. Anyone taking or already baptized who wants to become a soldier shall be sent away, for he has despised God."
Then following years of struggle with power being distributed among many rulers one powerful leader emerged one Gaius Flavius Valerius Constantinus - or just Constantine. He emerged from the imperial tumult through several military conquests, the most popular of which was the battle of the Milvian Bridge in the year 312. Before he entered into battle, so the legend goes, he saw a sign of the cross in the sky, and heard a voice saying, 'In this will you conquer.' Quite ironic isn't it, considering that for Jesus the cross meant refusal of worldly ways of conquering.
It was just a few years following Constantine's putting his blessings on war that the love affair between Church and State grew even more intimate. The emperor Theodosius proclaimed Christianity as the state religion of the empire and made it a crime not to be a Christian. That is when things really got messy. Christians were ordered to kill pagans who refused to become Christian.
The Church in reality moved from being the persecuted to being persecutor. In the name of one who taught us to love our enemies, the church burned its enemies alive.
However, the Anabaptists and their three groups of spiritual descendants (Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites) came along in the 16th century and they sought to hold to the primitive position of the church on nonresistance. They believed that only that position is possible if one seriously seeks to follow both the teaching and the example of the Lord Jesus. Hence Conrad Grebel, the chief founder of Swiss Anabaptism and a former disciple of Zwingli, wrote in 1524: "The gospel and its adherents, moreover, are not to be protected by the sword, nor are they thus to protect themselves. True Christian believers are as sheep among wolves, and prepared for the slaughter. They must be baptized in anguish and affliction, tribulation, persecution, suffering and death. They must be tried with fire, and must reach the Fatherland of eternal rest, not by killing their bodily enemies, but by [mortifying] their spiritual [enemies]. Neither do they use worldly sword nor war, since killing has absolutely ceased with them. This has been the nonresistant position of the Anabaptists and of their spiritual lineage for almost four and a half centuries, and for this "heresy," coupled with a free church (in opposition to one established by law), and believer's baptism, they suffered about 5,000 martyrs in the sixteenth century.
Then in the middle of the 17th century the Quaker movement began through the person of George Fox; the date which is generally accepted as the "birth of Quakerism" is 1652. For some five years, Fox had been traveling round the country, spreading his message. He was understood and welcomed by some, but he also met with considerable opposition; he had been imprisoned in Derby prison on a charge of blasphemy and had suffered considerable ill-treatment. He had been working very much on his own and he had certainly not initiated any sort of religious movement. Then, in May 1652, he was in Lancashire and had climbed to the top of Pendle Hill. It was a strange thing to do, for people did not climb hills for the fun of it in those days, especially one that was well-reputed as an abode for witches; still, Fox had a habit of doing unaccountable things! The view from the summit of the far spread countryside inspired him and shortly afterwards he had a vision, or an insight, of "a great people to be gathered".
The message of Fox and the early Friends was centered on "The Inner Light". More correctly this should be termed the "Inner Light of Christ", because a basic part of the message was that "Christ had come to teach his people himself". People listened because it was a message of hope-of assurance. No longer did they have to look to a Priest, or Church, or Book as the final authority; the authority and the "Truth" was to be found by the individual through direct knowledge of the spirit of Christ - the "Christ in the heart". They became convinced that by "waiting on the Lord" they would come to know the will of God through direct communication. The movement came into conflict both with Cromwell's Puritan government and later with the restored monarchy of Charles II, over a number of points: they refused to pay tithes to the state Church; to take oaths in court; to practice "hat honor" (doff their hats to the king or other persons in positions of power); or to go to war.
On a per-capita basis, Friends have probably contributed more in the promotion of tolerance, peace and justice than any other Christian denomination. They have been influential far beyond their numbers in many areas: promotion of world peace, abolition of slavery, fair treatment of Native Americans, universal suffrage, prison reform, improvement in mental hospitals, etc.
I am happy to be counted among their numbers and expect to remain so until I die
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