Comments on: How Would St. Francis Handle Syria? Not with Violence or Pacifism

By: ChrisMorton82

ChrisMorton82 — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 21:19:43 +0000

AricClark KevinRDaugherty DouglasHagler my point is to differentiate pacificism, whether in it’s best incarnation or in sloppy “passivism” from evangelism. Sorry for misconstruing!

By: AricClark

AricClark — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 01:18:34 +0000

Pacifism doesn’t avoid participating in violence it avoids committing violence. Put your life on the line, use every form of persuasion and nonviolent intervention you can to help end violence and protect victims without ever becoming violent yourself. Exactly. That’s pacifism in a nutshell.

By: KevinRDaugherty

KevinRDaugherty — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 01:05:11 +0000

“The accusation could be made that pacifist Christians would allow the innocent men and women of Syria drown in their own fluids just to avoid participating in violence.”
I think that would be more accurately described as “passive-ism” rather than pacifism. Pacifism is not sitting back and doing nothing; it is doing something, but with self-sacrifice and nonviolence. That is the pacifism of King, Debs, Arnold, Muste, and any other major pacifist in history.

By: DouglasHagler

DouglasHagler — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 00:41:51 +0000

What you describe as not pacifism is, precisely, pacifism. So St. Francis would respond to the crisis in Syria with pacifism.

By: MAGuyton

MAGuyton — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 18:40:39 +0000

Amen. Exactly. So who’s ready to get on a plane?