The Painful Naivete of Pacifism

“Peace & Reconciliation: Spiritual Reflections on a Decade After 9/11” sounds like a fairly generic religious colloquium on the past decade. But this conference, run by pacifist organization Pax Christi, went well beyond calls to “reflect,” as Barton Gingerich notes in his profile of the event for the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Much of what was reportedly said at the conference is perfectly reasonable fodder for debate: the U.S. may have squandered an opportunity for reflection and moral improvement after 9/11; our ventures overseas have not resulted in a safer homeland; individuals are called to forgive, not simply grieve or retaliate. But these points, which some speakers were eager to highlight, were not the real objective of the gathering. These political claims are actually completely severable from the conference’s core argument for pacifism.

On the surface, the work of groups like Pax Christi seems not only unobjectionable but laudable. Their message seems so obviously in line with Gospel teaching about not withholding one’s coat when a cloak is demanded. And there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the men and women at this conference; indeed, their commitment to pacifism is strongly idealistic.

Yet the curious thing about Christian pacifists is that, for all the congratulation they earn, very few people would want to put them in any position of real political consequence, because their ideas are simply not realistic. This is not a Machiavellian slur against all people who hope and work for salvation, but a simple statement that their ideas do not comport with external existence. They make the mistake of being absolutists and monists on a subject which requires the earthly virtue of prudence as distinct from ultimate membership in the Kingdom of God, and as a result they come off as painfully naive.

What, it is worth asking, are their policy recommendations for a country whose very existence is menaced? What would they do when their freedom to preach their preferred value system is itself endangered? These are not unfair “gotcha” hypotheticals: they are situations that have arisen countless times in world history. And as for their theology: is it really a Gospel requirement that political entities abandon recourse to force?

This conference spoke of actualizing about justice and love in world in which these are clearly in short supply. But are the morally acceptable ways of accomplishing this as narrow as they assert? If that is the case, then their thinking may ultimately be less about Christ and more about ideology.