Probably the greatest Muslim proponent and practitioner of nonviolent jihad was Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Abdul Ghaffar Khan was born in Utmanzai in 1890. His father, Behram Khan, was a wealthy Pathan who ran a large guest house on the main road to Peshawar. Behram Khan had many servants, but he always took great pride in serving his honoured guests himself. His mother – whose name I do not know – lived her life, like most Pathan women, in purdah, hidden from prying eyes behind a veil of secrecy. She was reputedly quite devout, and set her son an unforgettable example of genuine piety.

In 1901 Ghaffar Khan attended Edwards Memorial School in Peshawar. The head-master, Rev. Wigram, a stern but generous teacher, was committed to providing the best education he could for the boys on the North-West Frontier. And the young Ghaffar Khan grew to appreciate him almost as much as his own parents.  Not surprisingly, in 1910, after spending a couple of years in the Islamic School in Aligarh, Ghaffar Khan started a school in Utmanzai, his own home town.

In 1913 Ghaffar Khan participated in a conference of progressive Muslims that was held in Agra. He met famous Islamic leaders, like Maulana Azad, and he seized the chance to discuss his understanding of Islam with them. ‘It is my inmost conviction,’ he was to say later, ‘that Islam is amal (work), yakeen (faith), and muhabat (love), and without these the name Muslim is sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.’ ^[i]

Upon returning to the North-West Frontier after the conference, Ghaffar Khan decided to perform a chilla, or fast, in order to seek divine guidance on how he could put the amal, yakeen, and muhabat that he preached into practice. What actually occurred during the chilla no one knows. But we do know that Ghaffar Khan emerged from the fast with a resolute determination to serve God as fully as he could for the rest of his life.

In 1915, his wife, whom he married in 1912, having died of influenza, Ghaffar Khan set out on a pilgrimage to visit every village in the North-West Frontier. Three years – and five hundred villages – later, Ghaffar Khan returned, saying;  ‘I have one great desire. I want to rescue these gentle people from the tyranny of the foreigners who have disgraced them. I want to kiss the ground where their ruined homes once stood. I want to wash the stains of blood from their garments. (And) I want to create for them a world of freedom, where they can live in peace, and be happy.’[ii]

In 19i9 Ghaffar Khan was arrested by the British authorities, who saw him as a threat to their power in the region. And, over the next five years, Ghaffar Khan was in and out of prison all the time for protesting against British imperialism.  On one occasion, he found himself grinding corn in solitary confinement. His fellow prisoners offered to pay a bribe to get him out of prison. But he refused. His prison guard told him he could stop grinding corn if he wanted to. But he replied, ‘Robbers grind corn. And their cause is impure. Why should I mind grinding for my cause which is pure?’[iii]

In 1924, after a three-year stretch, Ghaffar Khan was released from prison. And he took the opportunity to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He was fascin-ated with the life of the Prophet. Especially the early years. When Mohammed spent his time in Mecca. And he came back from his haj refreshed, ready to re-engage in the struggle for freedom, armed with the ‘weapon of the Prophet’

‘The weapon of the Prophet’, he says, ‘is sabr’, not ‘a sabre’. It literally means patience. ‘The weapon of the Prophet ‘he says, is patience. If you exercise patience, endure all hardships, victory will be yours. No power on earth can stand against it.’ He quotes the Koran as saying, ‘there is no compulsion in religion’; ‘forgive and be indulgent’; ‘render not vain your almsgiving by injury;’ ‘whosoever killeth one – for other than manslaughter – it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.’ [iv]

In 1928 Ghaffar Khan started a newspaper called the Pakhtun. It was to become the vehicle that he was to use to rally his people for the long ongoing struggle. Then, the following year, Ghaffar Khan launched one of the most exciting, and creative, and effective, nonviolent campaigns for independence ever conducted. It began innocuously enough with the Khan calling Pathans to join him in forming a movement called the Khudai Khidmatgar.  Any Pathan could join the movement, provided they swore an oath to become ‘A Servant Of God’:

‘I am a Khudai Khidmatgar, and as God needs no service…

I promise to serve humanity in the name of God.

I promise to refrain from violence, and from taking revenge.

I promise to forgive those who oppress me or treat with cruelty.

I promise to refrain from taking part in feuds and quarrels.

I promise to treat every Pathan as my neighbour and friend.

I promise to live a simple life, to practice virtue, and refrain from evil.

I promise to devote at least two hours a day to social work.’[v]

Now for a Pathan, an oath such as this, is a very serious matter. Once made, it can not be broken. Even upon pain of death. So in asking a Pathan to swear an oath such as this, Khan was hoping to appeal to the old warrior code to help forge a whole new warrior ethic. An ethic that would pride itself on forgiveness, rather than revenge, and service, rather than slaughter; and that would have the power to break the cycle of violence on the North-West Frontier once and for all.

It was a brilliant idea – culturally appropriate and politically astute. And Pathans responded to the Khan’s call by rallying behind the banner of the Khidmatgar in their thousands. In fact, the recruiting drive was so successful, that at one point up to one hundred thousand Pathans – men and women both – donned their famous red shirts, and went to work in the villages, singing:

‘We serve and we love; our people and our cause.

Freedom is our longing; our lives the price we pay.’ [vi]

The courage of these Khudai Khidmatgar was legendary. A British officer commanded a Khidmatgar by the name of Faiz Mohammed to take off his red shirt. He refused. The officer then commanded his soldiers to forcibly strip the recalcitrant. Faiz Mohammed did not fight back, but he refused to cooperate. It took up to nine soldiers to strip him of his proud red shirt. And even then they only were able to do it when they had beaten the Khidmatgar unconscious. The soldiers then came for a Khidmatgar by the name of Mohammed Naquib. He was beaten mercilessly. And his shirt was stripped off his back. But when he was ordered to take his trousers off he went berserk. He turned to run to get a gun. But he was pulled up short by the voice of his commander. ‘Mohammed Naquib!’ he cried. ‘Is your patience is exhausted so soon? You swore to remain nonviolent until death!’ With those words ringing in his ears, eyewitnesses say the chastened Khidmatgar turned back to face his tormentors, armed only with the ‘weapon of the Prophet’, fortitude and forbearance.

A large crowd gathered in Kissa Khani Bazaar in Peshawar to protest the brutality of the British. Troops from a nearby army base were deployed. The troops asked the people to disperse; and they had begun to do so, when, without warning, three armoured cars drove at speed into the crowd. Several people were run over and were killed on the spot. The troops asked the people to disperse; but they said they would do so only if the armoured cars withdrew, and they were allowed to carry away their fallen comrades. The troops did not remove their armoured cars, and refused to allow the people remove their fallen comrades. So the crowd did not disperse. The troops then opened fire, shooting point blank range into the front row of the gathered throng. When those in the front row fell wounded, the next row came forward and took their place. Over and over again, from 11am in the morning till 5pm in the evening, row upon row of Khidmatgars, took the place of their fallen comrades, bared their breasts, and were shot to death by the troops. Two to three hundred were killed – many more were wounded – and the bazaar was littered with piles of bodies of the dead and dying. The elite Garhwal Rifles were brought into deal with the crowd. But faced with unarmed men and women, who would not fight, they refused to fire. ‘We will not shoot our unarmed brethren!’ they said.

It was the beginning of the end for the empire on which – it was said –  that the sun would never set. [vii]

[ii] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains foreword

[iii] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains p88-89

[iv] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains p117,209

[v] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains p110-112

[vi] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains p113

[vii] Eknath Easwaran A Man To Match His Mountains p122-124

In Reconstructing Jihad, my friend Halim Rane, a brilliant Palestinian-Australian Muslim scholar, argues that the concept of jihad needs to be deconstructed – and reconstructed as a struggle for righteousness and for justice.

Quoting Fatoohi, Halim says ‘jihad is most accurately defined as “exerting efforts, in the form of struggle against something in the name of Allah”.’ Contrary to the popular notion, Halim says ‘in its original sense “jihad” does not mean “war”, let alone “holy war”. It means “struggle” (jahd), exertion, striving; it signifies the exertion of ones power to the utmost of ones capacity in the cause of Allah; the opposite of being inert (qu’ud) sitting.’[i]

Halim says that ‘the term jihad and its grammatical equivalents occur thirty five times in the Quran.’ Of these thirty-five verses Halim says ‘twenty are open to differing interpretations’ but ‘only four verses use the term in a combative context’. He says ‘by contrast, eleven verses use the term in a pacific sense.’[ii]

When talking about jihad in a militant sense, Halim says that the famous ‘sword verse’ – that calls on Muslims to ‘slay those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God wherever you may come upon them’ (9:5) – that has been ‘quoted through out Muslim history to justify aggression against non-Muslims for their “unbelief”’- has to be interpreted in context’. And, in context, Halim says this verse is not calling Muslims to a generic ongoing war against non-Muslims, so much as specific call at a particular time in history, for Muslims to fight in self-defense in a war that was ‘already in progress’ because the ‘unbelievers’ had broken their treaty obligations and subsequently attacked their Muslim neighbours.[iii] Halim says we should note that the very next verse (9:6) calls on Muslims to protect ‘unbelievers’ who seek their protection; and he concludes that ‘if their unbelief was the basis of fighting against them, this provision would be nonsensical’ [iv]

When it comes to armed combat it would seem that many Muslims – like many Christians – would subscribe to their own version of a just war framework. Halim asserts that the Quran permits armed combat only on certain strict conditions:

1. That Muslims have sought to make peace. ‘The establishment and maintenance of a just peace is an overriding objective in Islam. In fact the word “Islam” is from the root word ”slm” meaning “peace”.’[v]
2. They have not used their vows to God as an excuse not to seek peace. The Quran instructs Muslims ‘Do not allow your oaths in the name of God to become an obstacle to the promotion of peace between people.’(2:224)
3. They have not rejected open offers of peace because of hidden agendas. The Quran says: ‘do not out of your desire for fleeting gains…say to anyone who offers you a greeting of peace “you are not a believer”.’(4:94)
4. They acknowledge that, apart from securing a just peace, all killing is sin. The Quran famously says ‘if anyone slays a human being – unless it be punishment for murder or for spreading corruption on earth – it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; where as if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind.’ (5:32)[vi
5. All acts of aggression are forbidden. Killing is only permissible when there is no other alternative for people to pursue in the quest of self-defense, self-determination and peace with justice (17:23; 2:191)[vii]
6. In conflict, homes and homelands are to be protected. [viii] Not only Muslim mosques, but also Jewish synagogues and Christian churches are to be guarded and to be defended (22:40).[ix] And ‘helpless men, women and children’ are to be liberated from oppression. (4:75) [x]
7. Wherever possible Muslims are to make peace between conflicting parties.(49:9-10) Those who forgive their enemies and make peace with them can expect God’s reward (42:40) even if they are non-Muslims (4:94)[xi]
8. The Quran demands that Muslims ‘respond to (one) offer of peace with a better one’ (4:86) ‘In fact, peace must be given a chance, even if deception is anticipated from an enemy.’ (8:62) [xii]
9. Muslims are expected to seek peace with justice. In Islam justice (adl) literally means ‘the act of straightening making equal or establishing equilibrium’. Only when things are ‘in their rightful place’ can there be justice and only when there is righteousness can there be peace.[xiii]
10. The maqasid (purpose) of jihad (struggle) – whether it is violent or nonviolent – is to strive for human freedom, fraternity and welfare.[xiv]

Most, if not all, of the wars being waged today, cannot be justified according to this just war framework. But surprisingly, Halim argues it is not only the invasion of Iraq, it is also the Palestinian intafada against Israel that cannot be justified.

Halim says that the first intafada was quite effective, because it used largely nonviolent means – like noncooperation, resignations, strikes, demonstrations, marches, breaking curfews, blocking roads and flying flags – to advocate for self-determination, which mobilised international support for the Palestinian cause, including support for them from within Israel;[xv] but the second intafada was quite counterproductive, because it used largely violent means – like armed combat, suicide bombs and missile attacks – to advocate for self-determination, which was a public relations disaster for Palestine and provoked globally sanctioned Israeli repression in the name of self-defense.[xvi]

Halim argues that, in these present circumstances, all Muslims should set aside violent jihad as a strategy altogether and struggle for righteousness nonviolently.

Halim says that while there is a precedent in the Meccan period of the Prophet Muhammed’s life, ‘in Muslim tradition the nonviolence displayed by the prophet has been overshadowed by his military conquests’. So much so, that many ‘Muslims do not see the value of nonviolence’ at all and tend to ‘regard violence as the most “Islamic” means of resolving conflict.’ This perspective is not helped by the fact that the Muslim sects who have practiced nonviolence most – the Maziyariyya and the Ahmadiyya – are considered heretical by the orthodox.[xvii]

However, Halim insists that the idea of nonviolent jihad is completely consistent with the fundamentally nonviolent principles in Islam – of benevolence (ihsan), compassion (rahmah) and patience (sabr).[xviii] Abu-Nimer says Islam can be used as ‘a force for tolerance, pluralism, and reconciliation’.[xix] And Johan Galtung says the pilgrimage (hajj) can provide ‘Muslims with the cultural tools to carry out such nonviolent actions as mass demonstrations and marches.’[xx]

[ii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p141

[iii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p186

[iv] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p187

[v] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p192

[vi] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p190-1

[vii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p181, p190-1

[viii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p191

[ix] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p179

[x] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p183

[xi] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p193

[xii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p193

[xiii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p193

[xiv] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p168

[xv] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p116-21

[xvi] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p121-26

[xvii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p122-3

[xviii] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p122

[xix] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p124

[xx] Halim Rane Reconstructing Jihad p123

If we focus on Christ – as Stanley Jones suggests we do – and we look at Christ’s attitude to the scriptures, it is clear that Jesus got a lot of his significant ideas from the Hebrew Bible. After all he said: ‘Do unto others as you’d have them do to you – for this is the law and prophets’ (Matt 7.12)

However Jesus did not treat all the ideas in the Hebrew Bible as equally significant. Jesus treated the Hebrew Bible as his authority (Matt 5.17-20) but interpreted the law according to the prophets – especially the prophet Isaiah – whom he quoted when at the start of his ministry. (Luke 4.18-19)

In the book of Isaiah there is a very distinctive revelation of the character of God that describes the God of Israel, in a way Jesus wanted the people of Israel to take as their framework of faith.

According to the bible scholar, Water Breuggemann, God reactions to the plight of his people is portrayed very differently throughout the scriptures. In the book of Genesis, God’s reaction to Abraham’s plea for help is portrayed as ‘unresponsive’. Leaving Abraham to question God’s character: ‘Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?’(Gen.18:25)[ii] In the book of Jeremiah God’s reaction to Jeremiah‘s plea for help is portrayed as ‘uncompromising’. There is a mercy, but it is ‘a severe mercy’[iii] Leaving Jeremiah to accuse God of ripping him off. ‘O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived.’ (Jer.20.7) In the book of Job, God’s reaction to Job’s plea for help is portrayed as ‘incomprehensible’. Job is affirmed for having spoken ‘what is right’ (Job 42:7-8). But his questions are left unanswered – or, what is worse, answered unsatisfactorily. ‘This is a God, who when asked about justice, responds with a description of a crocodile’.[iv] Leaving Job feeling thoroughly puzzled and totally displaced by God’s assertions.[v] However, in the book of Isaiah, there is a consensus among scholars that God’s reactions to Israel’s pleas for help are portrayed as ‘compassionate’. God’s responses portrayed in Isaiah’s ‘salvation oracles’ start with terms of endearment – like ‘my chosen ones’ (Isa.41:8-9); then move on to statements of assurance – ‘do not fear’, ‘fear not’ (Isa.41.10); and then move on to promises of real help - ‘Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.’ (Isa.41.10)[vi]

It is Isaiah’s portrayal of God that is Jesus’ portrayal of God. Most of Jesus’ famous sermon – the Sermon on the Mount – was based on the book of Isaiah. When interpreting the scriptures in his Sermon, Jesus’ Isaiah-inspired prophetic portrayal of a compassionate God led Jesus to advocate the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law:

• Jesus explained the law as guidelines for love – love of God and love of neighbour (Matt 22.34-40)

• Jesus emphasized ethics over ceremony and ritual – compare (Amos 5.21-24 and Matt 21.12-17)

• Jesus stressed that righteousness meant justice - radically inclusive and egalitarian (Luke 4.18-19)

• Jesus always focused on the heart of the issue – the causes – not symptoms – of injustice (Matt 7.18-23) p9

As far as Jesus was concerned, the ‘greatest’ commandment in the bible was to “`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ‘This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbour as yourself. ‘All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.“(Matt.22.37-40)

So, as far as Jesus was concerned, everything in the Bible needed to be interpreted in the light of these two commandments. Jesus seemed to have no qualms about quoting only the bits of scripture that he thought were consonant with these commandments (Luke 4:18-19 from Isa.61:1-2) and/or contradicting those bits of scripture he thought were not consistent with these commandments (Matt.5:38-39).

Dave Andrews

[ii] Breuggemannn, W. Finally Comes The Poet Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1989 p57-8

[iii] Ibid p59-60

[iv] Ibid p61

[v] Ibid p62

[vi] Ibid p63-64

I would like to suggest while much Christian Theology traditionally supports the basic assumptions that make it possible to program soldiers to kill, a Christ-like Sensibility opposes those set of assumptions which make a social construction of killing possible.

Christian Theology traditionally aids and abets the training of men as killers by making it acceptable, if regrettable, to kill; increasing the distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ so we do not see the humanity of the ‘other’; teaching us to submit to the authorities, keep the rules and obey the leaders; and encouraging us to conform to the groups that we happen to be a part of.

However a Christ-like Sensibility typically critiques and challenges the training of men as killers by saying it is totally unacceptable to kill anyone in any circumstance; decreasing the distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ so that we see the humanity of the ‘other’- even our ‘enemies’; teaching us to submit yet subvert the authorities, keep some rules but break others and obey God over above and if necessary over against leaders; and encouraging us not to conform to the groups we happen to be a part of.

If we want to prevent the continued social construction of killing in our society, we need to help the ‘conscientious objector’ at the heart of ‘every healthy individual man and woman’:

1. be clear Christ calls us to be willing to die - but to not kill for our faith;
2. decrease the distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and see the humanity of the ‘other’- especially the humanity of our ‘enemies’;
3. submit yet subvert the authorities, keep some rules but break others and only obey if their demands reflect real love for our neighbours;
4. refuse to conform to group pressure, intensification of power and diffusion of responsibility which turn groups into killing machines

1. We need to be clear Christ calls us to be willing to die – but to never kill for our faith.

The patron saint of conscientious objectors must surely be the illustrious Martin of Tours.

Martin was born about 316 in Sabaria, in Hungary. His father was a tribune in the Imperial Horse Guard of the Roman Army, and named his son ‘Martin’ after ‘Mars’, the god of war.

Martin showed an interest in Christianity from an early age; but his father was suspicious of Christianity and discouraged his son from pursuing his interest. However, at the age of ten, against his father’s wishes, Martin went to the church, knocked on the door, and begged them to take him as a catechumen or candidate for baptism. In contemplative prayer, the young Martin said he found the spirituality he was looking for.

At the time, there was a law that made it mandatory for the sons of veterans to serve in the Roman Army. So, at the age of fifteen, Martin was forced to join the military. Martin refused to cooperate. He was put in chains until he promised he would take the orders he was given.  He was then assigned to a cavalry unit. While in the army, Martin tried to live like a monk rather than a soldier. As an officer, he was entitled to a servant, but he switched roles with his servant, cleaning his servant’s boots instead of the other way round.

Around 334, Martin was sent as an officer to do garrison duty in Gaul (now France). On one bitter winter day, while Martin – fully dressed in his warm military winter gear – was riding towards the gates of Amiens, he came across a ragged beggar – whose clothes were in tatters – freezing, half-naked, in the cold.  Martin was overcome with compassion. He took off his beautiful, white, lambs-wool, officer’s cloak, slashed it in two with his sword, wrapped one half of it round the beggar and then draped the other half back around his own shoulders. That night Martin had a dream. In that dream he saw Jesus wearing the half of the lambs wool cloak he had given to the beggar, and heard Jesus saying to the saints who were crowding round him: “Look at this cloak, Martin the catechumen gave it to me!” When he awoke, Martin went and got baptised straightaway. But it would be two more years before Martin could leave the legion and follow his vocation.

In the meantime, Martin struggled with the conflicting demands of trying to live as a ‘soldier of Christ’ in a Roman Legion. The conflict came to a head when the Franks invaded the northern borders of the empire, and Martin refused to fight, saying: “Put me in the front of the army, without weapons or armor; but I will not draw sword again. I am become the soldier of Christ.” His commander said he was more than happy to grant Martin’s his request; and put him in prison until he was ready to send Martin to the front.

However, the next day the Franks made peace; and Martin was discharged from the army. Martin became a bishop and continued his campaign against killing for the rest of his life.[i]

2. We need to decrease the personal and relational distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and to see the humanity of the ‘other’- especially the humanity of our ‘enemies’

Following in the footsteps of Martin were a bunch of soldiers on the front in World War I.

In 1914, amid the muddy trenches and flying shrapnel of the Great War, an unlikely reconciliation took place in the middle of combat. Trenches occupied by French and Scottish troops lay a few metres away from their German counterparts.

On Christmas Day a magical event occurred that would forever emblazon the history books with a moment of humanity in the midst of the brutality. The Germans placed Christmas trees above their trench, while Scottish bagpipers played along to the operatic voices they heard wafting over from the German camp.

Then, miraculously, the men from both sides climbed out of their trenches and met one another in No Man’s Land for a Christmas celebration. The enemies made friends, showed each other pictures of their lovers, and played soccer in the snow with one another.

When ordered to commence hostilities again the next day the men refused to fire on one another. The officers were disciplined and their units were disbanded.

3.  We need to submit yet subvert the authorities, keep some rules but break others and only obey leaders to the degree that their demands reflect real love for our neighbours.

Paying the price ultimate price to act like Martin was an unknown soldier in World War II.

‘In the Netherlands, the Dutch tell of a German soldier who was a member of an execution squad ordered to shoot innocent hostages. Suddenly he stepped out of rank and refused to participate in the execution. On the spot he was charged with treason by the officer in charge and was placed with the hostages, where he was promptly executed by his comrades. He responded in the crucial moment to the voice of conscience (refused to obey his orders) and those who hear of the episode cannot fail to be inspired’.[ii]

Dave Grossman says: ‘This – ultimately – may be the price of noncompliance for men of conscience. (In) overcoming obedience-demanding-authority and the instinct for self preservation, this German soldier gives us hope for mankind.’[iii] (emphasis mine) .

4. We need to refuse to conform to group pressure, the intensification of power and the diffusion of responsibility which turns groups of men (and women) into killing machines.

The best contemporary example of a Martin of Tours that I know is Bruce from Tasmania.

Bruce was brought up on a farm in Tasmania, where from a very young age he had used a rifle to shoot rabbits which, he says, were real pests on his family’s property.

When he was conscripted as a soldier to fight in the Vietnam War, Bruce joined the infantry, as he felt that as a follower of Jesus he should not use his conscientious objection to the war as an excuse to avoid the dangers other young men were being forced to face. However, as a follower of Jesus, Bruce decided that while he was prepared to face the dangers of combat with the unit he was part of, he was not prepared to pick up a rifle in anger, let alone fire it at anyone, regardless of how much pressure he was put under.

So Bruce went through basic training for the military at the Enoggera Army Barracks with a steadfast refusal to pick up his rifle. As you can imagine, Bruce was ridiculed, bullied, and abused right throughout his basic training. But his steadfast refusal to pick up his rifle under any circumstances was unshakable – his rock-solid resolve absolutely unbreakable.

Bruce told me in his typically-Aussie laid-back laconic style that the other men in his unit really gave him a hard time – until the day they had to do bayonet practice. Then, when they were confronted with the brutality of thrusting the bayonet on their rifle into the vital organs of a living breathing human being, they were forced to face the violence of killing. And that night, he said, they came to him quietly, one by one, and told him, that now they understood why he had taken the stand that he had. And never gave him a hard time again.

The war was over before his unit was sent to the front, so Bruce never had the chance to test his resolve in combat. But as most soldiers say that their fear of letting their unit down is greater than their fear of facing up to enemy fire, I think Bruce would have stood the test.

If we want to stop the continued social construction of killing in our society, I believe the best way we can do it is to advocate not mainline Christian Theology but Christ-like Sensibility  - the radical, sacrificial, nonviolent compassion of Christ – which is committed to the care of friends and enemies alike, over against the commands of the authorities and demands of their agencies to do otherwise.

Sources

Dave Andrews Christi-Anarchy, Tafina Press, Armidale 1999

Dave Andrews Not Religion But Love, Tafina Press, Armidale 1999

Dave Andrews People Of Compassion, TEAR Australia, Blackburn 2008

Dave Grossman On Killing Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company, New York 2009

[ii] Dave Grossman On Killing Back Bay Books Little, Brown and Company New York 2009 p227-8

[iii] p228

I’ve just been reading a book called On Killing. It’s a study about killing in combat. And its not written by a pacifist propagandist, but by a credible military paratrooper psychologist who goes by the name of Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman.[i]

Grossman cites research that suggests that – contrary to some of our most famous cultural stereotypes – ‘the vast majority of men are not born killers.’[ii] At most only 2% of men could be considered aggressive psychopathic personalities with a predisposition towards killing.[iii] A figure reflected in the kill figures of fighter pilots in World War II, where only 1% of fighter pilots accounted for more than 40% of all enemy planes shot down.[iv]

Grossman quotes Brigadier S.L.A. Marshall, whose study of soldiers’ conduct in World War II  suggests ‘that the average healthy individual has such a resistance towards killing a fellow man that he will not of his own volition take life if it is possible to turn away from that responsibility.’[v] A view that is reflected in the shots-per-soldier and the kills-per-shot recorded in every major war from the Civil War through to World War I up until World War II. During this period,  when it became possible to measure shots fired in combat, research has showed that the vast majority of soldiers – between 75 and 95% – either did not fire their weapon – even when fired upon – or only fired into the air – refusing to kill the enemy – even when given orders to do so.[vi]

In Civil War times, conscience-stricken soldiers had the option of pretending to fire – that is, loading up their muskets, mimicking the movements of a firing soldier next to them, and pretending to recoil. These soldiers would then be carrying loaded weapons or would have loaded their weapons multiple times.

When the fighting at Gettysburg was over, 27,574 muskets were found on the battlefield. Over 90% were loaded. Given that loading a weapon took roughly twenty times as long as firing it, the chances of these muskets representing mostly soldiers cut down just as they intended to shoot are slim. But then how do you explain the 12,000 multiply-loaded weapons, with 6,000 of them loaded with 3-10 rounds apiece? The most obvious answer is these soldiers could not fire their weapons. “Most soldiers were trying not to kill the enemy. Most appear to have not wanted to fire in the enemy’s general direction”[vii].

The Battle of Gettysburg is considered one of America’s bloodiest battles, but as Grossman shows, it could have been a great deal bloodier. Averages and estimates suggest that during Napoleonic and Civil War times, an entire regiment, firing from a range of thirty yards, would hit only one or two men a minute.

Let’s break down the numbers. A regiment contains between 200 and 1,000 men. A soldier operating at peak efficiency could get off 1-5 shots per minute. During training, these soldiers were 25% accurate at 225 yards, 40% accurate at 150 yards, and 60% accurate at 70 yards. So, taking the most modest of these estimates – a 200 man regiment shooting once per minute with 25% accuracy – you would expect to see about 50 hits, which would be more than 25 times greater than that which actually happened.

As one officer observed, ‘It seems strange that a company of men can fire volley after volley at a like number of men at not over a distance of fifteen steps and not cause a single casualty. Yet such was the facts in this instance.’[viii] What was happening? Soldiers were resorting to a range of options that meant that they didn’t have to kill. Some fell back to support positions. A few faked injury or ran away. Many fired into the air.

Colonel Milton Mater’s uncle said the most significant fact he could remember about his combat experience in the World War I was ‘draftees who wouldn’t shoot’[ix]

Gwynne Dyer says that apart from ‘the occasional psychopath who really wants to slice people open’ most soldiers on both sides of World War II were interested in ‘damage limitation’[x] And ‘all forces had somewhere near the same rate of non-firers’[xi]

According to Brigadier Marshall ‘At the vital point’ (when a soldier has to decide to fire or not) the average healthy individual ‘becomes a conscientious objector.’[xii] (emphasis mine)

When the military realized what was happening, they embarked on a new program to turn their soldiers into killers. They knew that while they couldn’t change the vast majority of men’s natural aversion to killing, they could put could soldiers under sustained systematic pressure to kill – by reframing killing as saving lives, portraying the enemy as sub-human, increasing the distance between the trigger and the target so soldiers can not see the human-ity of the enemy, demanding every soldier’s immediate obedience to the commands of their leader and developing each unit’s capacity for collective violence..

Reframing killing as saving lives

As it has become clear that most men are motivated to serve and to preserve life, the  military has taken the desire to serve and preserve life and used it to make men killers by telling men that killing is the only way they can the save the lives of those they love. Soldiers in Iraq are told killing terrorists is the only way to save the lives of civilians.

Portraying the enemy as sub-human

In World War II it became clear that soldiers found it harder to kill people they could identify with; but easier to kill people they couldn’t identify with. Only 6% of Americans said they wanted to kill Germans; while 44% said they wanted to kill the Japanese.[xiii] So the military has encouraged soldiers to see the enemy as ‘ragheads’ rather than humans.[xiv] As it has become clear it is harder for soldiers to kill people who are innocent; but easier to kill people who are guilty, ‘ragheads’ are deemed bloodthirsty, baby killers in advance.[xv]

Increasing the distance between the trigger and the target,

Most soldiers find it difficult to kill up close and personal. ‘Where you hear ‘em scream and see ‘em die, it’s a bitch’[xvi] It has always been easier to kill from a distance and to pretend its not personal. Sailors shoot up ‘ships’. Aviators shoot down ‘planes’.[xvii] The artillery attack enemy ‘lines’.[xviii] ‘They can pretend they are not killing human beings.’[xix] So the military is increasing the distance between the trigger and the target technologically as quickly as it can. Through night goggles for example when a soldiers shoots someone they say its just like shooting on a TV show – ‘as if its happening on a TV screen’ [xx]

Demanding every soldier’s obedience to their leader

Sigmund Freud said ‘never underestimate the power of the need to obey’.[xxi] Those with no combat experience presume that ‘being fired upon’ was the reason most soldiers fired. But veterans of combat say that being ‘ordered to fire’ was the reason most soldiers fired.[xxii]. Without an order to fire soldiers many soldiers would not fire, even when they came face to face with the enemy in combat.[xxiii]

Stanley Milgram‘s experiments at Yale prove that more than 65% of people will obey authority figures to the point of inflicting (seemingly) lethal shocks on strangers.[xxiv]

Gwynne Dyer said in his book on War that while ‘the vast majority of men are not born killers’; nonetheless ‘men will kill under compulsion – men will do almost anything if they know it is expected of them and they are under strong social pressure to comply’.[xxv]

Since Marshall’s report on surprisingly low firing rates, the military have tried to increase soldiers’ compliance with orders to fire through social learning, classical conditioning and operant conditioning.

Through social learning men have been socialized to imitate role models like the ANZAC legends who obeyed orders to attack impregnable positions in Gallipoli – even when it was obvious to everyone that the orders were insane and to obey them was suicidal.[xxvi] Through the classical conditioning[xxvii] devised by Pavlov to make dogs salivate at the sound of a bell. [xxviii] soldiers have been conditioned to associate obeying the orders of drill sergeants[xxix] with rewards (pleasure), and disobeying orders with punishment (pain)[xxx] And through behave-ioural engineering[xxxi] devised by Skinner to make rats through mazes[xxxii] soldiers have been engineered to increase their automatic quick shoot reflex[xxxiii] by repeatedly shooting at targets which look like people in simulated battlefield conditions[xxxiv] to such a degree that an average infantryman now has a 95% shot-per-soldier rate[xxxv] and a marksmen now has a 1.39 kill-per-shot ratio. [xxxvi]

Developing each unit’s capacity for collective violence.

Research has shown that the greatest fear of a man in combat is not the fear of death but of ‘letting others down’[xxxvii] ‘You can’t turn around and run the other way. Peer pressure, you know?’[xxxviii] So the military have used peer pressure – along with the intensification of power [xxxix] and the diffusion of responsibility that a group provides[xl] (‘there were so many guys firing, you can never be sure it was you’ who killed someone[xli]) – to turn men into killers. Konrad Lorenz says: ‘Man is not a killer, but the group is.’[xlii]

Grossman concludes his book On Killing by saying that the same techniques used by the military are now being used by the media in society at large – and that not only soldiers, but also civilians, are being socialized to kill without constraints by watching movie heroes like Dirty Harry kill outside the constraints of the law;[xliii] being desensitized to the act of killing by seeing thousands of people being killing on television;[xliv] and being engineered to kill reflexively by shooting at human targets with model guns in life-like video games.[xlv] Grossman says ‘we are learning to kill and learning to like it.’ [xlvi](emphasis mine)

[ii] p31

[iii] p189

[iv] p110

[v] p1

[vi] p3

[vii] p23

[viii] p20

[ix] p29

[x] p6

[xi] p16

[xii] p1

[xiii] p162

[xiv] p161

[xv] p165

[xvi] p117

[xvii] p58

[xviii] p58

[xix] p108

[xx] p170

[xxi] p142

[xxii] p143

[xxiii] p144

[xxiv] p141

[xxv] p31

[xxvi] p.306

[xxvii] p255

[xxviii] p254

[xxix] p322

[xxx] p255

[xxxi] p255

[xxxii] p 255

[xxxiii] p 256

[xxxiv] p256

[xxxv] p36

[xxxvi] p256

[xxxvii] p52

[xxxviii] p150

[xxxix] p151

[xl] p152

[xli] p111

[xlii] p151

[xliii] p325

[xliv] p329

[xlv] p319

[xlvi] p315

Then hear the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: `If you are determined to go to Egypt and you do go to settle there, then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow you into Egypt, and there you will die.’

So Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers and all the people disobeyed the LORD’s command to stay in the land of Judah. Instead, Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers led away all the remnant of Judah who had come back to live in the land of Judah from all the nations where they had been scattered. They also led away all the men, women and children and the king’s daughters whom Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard had left with Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah. So they entered Egypt in disobedience to the LORD and went as far as Tahpanhes.

“Therefore, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am determined to bring disaster on you and to destroy all Judah. I will take away the remnant of Judah who were determined to go to Egypt to settle there. They will all perish in Egypt; they will fall by the sword or die from famine. From the least to the greatest, they will die by sword or famine. They will become an object of cursing and horror, of condemnation and reproach.” 42:15-16,43.43-44;44.11-12

Eugene Peterson says Israel opted for Egypt. It represented clarity, safety and security. After all hadn’t Abraham, the father of their faith, gone there ‘when he got tired of living by faith’ Why shouldn’t they do the same? Ge12.10-20

‘There is nothing more difficult than to live spontaneously, hopefully, virtuously, by faith. And there was never a time when the external conditions were less conducive.The temple was in rubble. The priests were silent.’ 358 Egypt was an easy way out of the mess. Egyptian religion offered external certainty, spiritual clarity, material security. 364

But for people of faith there is no easy way out. ‘Living by faith a means readiness to live by what cannot be seen or controlled’. 363 There may be certainties in faith. But they come from within rather than without. If it is nurtured, faith emerges in the messiness of life, but it doesn’t eliminate the mess. The clarity of vision and values that faith produces does not come from managing our environment, but learning to live our lives conscientiously in the light of God’s love. 360

The prophet begs the people to stay where they are – not to go to Egypt. But the people not only disregard his warning not to go, they drag him along with them.

So Jeremiah finishes his life struggling with the same problems he has struggled with all his life without any clear, happy, successful or satisfying resolution.

‘In Egypt, the place he doesn’t want to  be, with people who treat him badly, he continues determinedly faithful, magnificently courageous, heartlessly rejected’.366

I should expect a fate no different from that of Jeremiah.

I need to be prepared to continue to struggle with the same problems I have always struggled with without any clear, happy, successful or satisfying resolution.

Of these, my greatest struggle is to continue speak of things most people don’t want to hear about – the God of the bible, the gospel of Jesus Christ, his concern for the poor, and his call to live a life of radical, nonviolent, sacrificial compassion.

And in the midst of this mess, I need to learn to live my life like Jeremiah – with determined perseverance and substantive courage – even though I am rejected.

However, let me conclude by saying that I refuse to use this attitude as excuse not to continue to work towards the resolution of my problems, and I will rejoice in every opportunity I get to practice grace, extend forgiveness and resolve conflicts

So help me God.

Dave Andrews

Numbers refer to pages in The Quest by Eugene Peterson Zondervan Grand Rapids 2000

‘This is the word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations: concerning Egypt…the Philistines…Moab… Edom…Damascus…Kedar… Hazor…Elam…Babylon…’ 46:1-2,47.1;48.1,7,23,28,34;50.1

Eugene Peterson says Jeremiah was designated as a prophet to the nations.’ Jer.1.5 ‘The word nations (goyim) specifically refers to the nations across the border, the others, the foreigners.’345 ‘The title “prophet to the nations” is a deliberate rejection of the life of faith identified with a single nation or culture.’ 345 ‘Biblical faith always has and always will have (a) global dimension. The promise to Abraham was that in him “all the nations shall bless themselves” Gn.12.3 The final vision of the Apocalypse shows the nations walking in the light of god’s glory. Rev.21.24’ 346

‘But Jeremiah never left Jerusalem and it immediate environs. At the end of his life he was taken against his will to Egypt, but that hardly justifies the title. How did Jeremiah carry out his appointment without ever leaving Jerusalem? He did it by composing oracles for the nations – Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, Edom, Damascus, Kedar, Hazor, Elam,  Babylon’. These oracles were carefully prepar-ed and beautifully written.  John Bright says they were “some of the finest poetry in the entire prophetic canon.” 348 Except for the m/s taken Babylon by Seriah, we don’t know how these messages were delivered. 347

What we do know is – that these were messages of judgment (46.19; 48.16-17;49.3; 49.35-6) yet messages of salvation on the other side of judgment. (46.26; 48.47; 49.6; 49.39) The same as he preached to his own people.350

Unlike Jeremiah, I have traveled a lot. But before I traveled anywhere at all, the world came to us in Hemel Hempsted in the form of two Nigerian boys whom my mother fostered in order to give us an international outlook right from the start.

My father had been in the air force during the war in Burma, and had been so deeply impacted by the faith of the Karen people that he’d met that he said they were one of the major reasons that he later became a Christian. So right from the start there was an outlook in our house that greatly revered the faith of ‘others’.

As my parents were interested in overseas mission, there was an endless line of missionaries who came to our house – showing us quaint colourful slide shows and telling us exotic exciting stories about the life people live in other countries.

For my 17^th birthday I surprised all my friends by inviting a visiting missionary from WEC to show a slide show at my birthday party about his work in Borneo.

My first teacher at state school, Rita Barwick, went as a missionary to India with Interserve, or BMMF as it was then. Which – coincidentally(?) – I did later myself.

All through my youth I read biographies and autobiographies of missionaries like Hudson Taylor, Adoniram Judson and William Carey. Even today, many of my favourite authors are people who were involved in mission in the early twentieth century – CF Andrews, Stanley Jones, Toyohiko Kagawa and Mahatma Gandhi.

After Ange and I were married we went to Europe, and then drove overland to Afghanistan. After working in Afghanistan for a while we moved to India where we lived and worked for twelve years. Since then we’ve visited, lived and worked in almost 30 countries – England, Scotland, Wales, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Yugosalvia, Greece, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, South Africa, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US.

The human family is a global family. We will either live together in peace or die together. There will be no peace for any of us unless there is peace for all of us. The challenge for Christians is to be ‘peacemakers’ – rather than ‘peacekeepers’

Dave Andrews

Numbers refer to pages in The Quest by Eugene Peterson Zondervan Grand Rapids 2000

“I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver. I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the silver on the scales. I took the deed of purchase –the sealed copy containing the terms and conditions, as well as the unsealed copy– and I gave this deed to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and of the witnesses who had signed the deed and of all the Jews sitting in the courtyard of the guard.

“In their presence I gave Baruch these instructions:`This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Take these documents, both the sealed and unsealed copies of the deed of purchase, and put them in a clay jar so they will last a long time. For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’

“After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the LORD:

“Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.

“See how the siege ramps are built up to take the city. Because of the sword, famine and plague, the city will be handed over to the Babylonians who are attacking it. What you said has happened, as you now see. And though the city will be handed over to the Babylonians, you, O Sovereign LORD, say to me, `Buy the field with silver and have the transaction witnessed.’ ”

Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: “I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?

“This is what the LORD says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them. Once more fields will be bought in this land of which you say, `It is a desolate waste, without men or animals, for it has been handed over to the Babylonians.’ Fields will be bought for silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed and witnessed in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, because I will restore their fortunes, declares the LORD.”                                                                                                                                                                                  32.9-10;24-27;42-44

Eugene Peterson says Jeremiah bought the field at Anathoth when the vast invading Babylonian army threatening the total destruction of Israel were actually camping on the land.336

Why did he do it? As a sign of hope. ‘All acts of hope expose themselves to ridicule because they seem impractical, failing to conform to visible reality. But in fact they are the reality being constructed (which) is not yet visible.’340 For the  prophet buying the field at Anathoth was an investment in the future of Israel.336

What we call hoping is often only wishing – wanting things that are impossible for us to have. But for Jeremiah, hoping was not wishing – it was holding onto the promise of God, that he would do what he said, even though it looked impossible. 340 As Stringfellow says ‘Hope is reliance upon grace in the face of death; hope is living constantly, patiently, expectantly, resiliently, joyously, in the efficacy of the word of God.’ 340 ‘It is of course much easier to languish in despair than to live in hope, for when we live in despair we don’t have to do anything or risk anything.’ If we live in hope we have to risk everything to fight against the way things are for the sake of an alternative future which we cannot bring about. 341

Hopeful actions participate in the future that only God can bring into being. 341

To live in hope is seldom spectacular. It is embodied in the little decisions that we make everyday about what we should invest our time, and energy and money in.

The way I have sought to embody my hope in my everyday life has been to invest in my time and my energy and my money in community – when all the indicators suggest that community in our society is headed towards oblivion.

I seek to participate in the future that God wants to bring about by doing whatever I can do to create the possibility of community in my locality here and now.

Sure ‘community development’ is a contradiction in terms. I know that I cannot ‘develop’ community. But I act in hope – risking everything I am and everything I have – to ‘work towards a community future that only God can bring into being’.

I did it in India; and been doing it in Australia – through the Waiters Union. The Waiters Union is my Anathoth -the field of dreams I have bought into in Brisbane.

‘I dream of a world

in which all the resources of the earth

will be shared equally between all the people of the earth

so that even the most disadvantaged among us

will be able to meet their basic needs with dignity and joy.

I dream of a great society of small communities

co-operating to practise

political, socio-economic and

personal righteousness and peace.

I dream of vibrant neighbourhoods

where people relate to each other as neighbours.

I dream of people developing networks of friendship

in which the private pain they carry deep down is allowed to surface

and shared openly in an atmosphere of mutual acceptance and respect.

I dream of people understanding the difficulties they have in common,

discerning the problems, discovering solutions,

and working together for personal growth and social change

according to the visionary agenda of Jesus of Nazareth.

I dream of every church in every locality

acting as a catalyst to make this vision of a renewed world a reality.’

And it is in the Waiters Union that –against all the odds – I seek to live that out.

Dave Andrews

Numbers refer to pages in The Quest by Eugene Peterson Zondervan Grand Rapids 2000

“When he reached the Benjamin Gate, the captain of the guard, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, arrested him and said, “You are deserting to the Babylonians!”

Jeremiah was put into a vaulted cell in a dungeon, where he remained a long time. Then King Zedekiah sent for him and had him brought to the palace, where he asked him privately, “Is there any word from the LORD?”

But Ebed-Melech, a Cushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. While the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate, Ebed-Melech went out of the palace and said to him, “My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern, where he will starve to death when there is no longer any bread in the city.”

Then the king commanded Ebed-Melech the Cushite, “Take thirty men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”

So Ebed-Melech took the men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and worn-out clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. Ebed-Melech the Cushite said to Jeremiah, “Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.” Jeremiah did so, and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard

37.13,16-7;38.7-13

Eugene Peterson says that Irjah, the sentry, used patriotism as a reason to attack any criticism of the king in a time of crisis. Its ‘far easier to shout patriotic slogans than to work patriotically for justice’. 324 So in the name of his ‘duty, Irjah unjustly arrests Jeremiah.325

Zedekiah, the king (actually the regent, appointed by the Babylonians to rule in the king’s place), respected Jeremiah, but resented his critique of his regime.326 So he vacillated when he heard the princes threw Jeremiah into the cistern. 327

Ebed-Melech, the eunuch, was a foreigner, a black man from Ethiopia. He was an official in the administration, but as a foreigner he had no legal rights.  How-ever Ebed-Melech was prepared to risk his life to save Jeremiah because the princes had ‘acted wickedly in all they had done to Jeremiah the prophet.’38.8

Jeremiah needed a friend like Ebed-Melech. Without our friends we die. Our friends may not turn out to be whom we expect them to be. To the contrary. They may be the last person we might expect to be our friend – ‘a foreigner’, ‘a black man’ ‘a eunuch in the palace ruled by our enemies’ – but they can save our lives.

We need to give help to others – but we also need to receive help from others.

I have often found help where I most expected it. From close family and friends. But as often as not, like Jeremiah, I have found help where I least expected it. Many times I have gone to ask for help from people I thought I could count on, only to have the door closed in my face. Then, totally unexpectedly, I would get a visit from a person, whom I didn’t count as a friend, with a wonderful offer of help.

We don’t need many friends. Only one will do. But we need one who will help us. Often we won’t know who they are, till we are in trouble, and we cry out for help.

My experience is that God will always hear our cry for help and send someone to help us. But when our ‘angel’ appears, he or she may not be whom we expected.

Dave Andrews

Numbers refer to pages in The Quest by Eugene Peterson Zondervan Grand Rapids 2000

By Jeremiah, Eugene And Me.

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the LORD. This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”                               29.4-14

Eugene Peterson says ‘Exile is traumatic. Our sense of  who we are is very much determined by the place we are in and the people we are with. When that changes abruptly the accustomed ways we have of finding and sensing our significance vanish.’310

‘The essential meaning of exile is that we are where we don’t want to be. We are not at home. We are forced to be where (we don’t fit, where) nothing fits together’ 311

False prophets exploit our nostalgia by promising us that ‘we will be going home.’ Even if it is an illusion, it’s the message we want to believe. But it undermines our capacity to ‘be here now’, to ‘be present to the moment’,      to make the most of our opportunities in the circumstances’. 313

Jeremiah says you should “Build houses and settle down;’ Make this place your home. ‘Plant gardens and eat what they produce’. Plan long-term. Plant in the expectation you will reap what you sow. Participate in the local economy.‘ Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters’. Make the people in their society your family. Not only relate to them, but include them as your own.

‘And, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper’“. If you want to live your life to the full, start where you are and work with what you have. Just make sure you are working for the welfare of everybody in the city. 315-6

In my life I have been forced to leave three or four countries against my wishes.

One time I was arrested in Yugoslavia for distributing ‘illegal’ literature and asked to leave the country immediately. But it didn’t have much impact on me, as I was only passing through. Another time, when civil war broke out in Afghanistan, I was forced to flee from Kabul, through the Khyber Pass, to Peshawar in Pakistan. That impacted on me a lot more, as I had been living in Afghanistan at the time, and I was forced to leave my home abruptly; and I was worried about those left behind.

However the times that have had the greatest impact on me were when, as an eight-year-old, my family migrated from England to Australia and when, after living in Delhi for twelve years, we were ordered to leave India and return to Australia. Neither of these decisions were my own. They were made for me by others. In first case, by my parents; in the second case by the government. Both these decisions involved my being forced – earlier as a child, later as an adult – to leave the home I loved and go into exile. And on both occasions my place of exile was Australia.

As a child I hated being in Australia. My exile in Australia morphed me from ‘nice little English kid’ into a ‘little pommie bastard’; from a ‘boy’ who played ‘football’ into ‘a girl’ who played ‘wogball’; from an ‘A grade student’ into a ‘fool’ who felt so ‘degraded by my classmates’ I wet my bed when I had nightmares about school.

As an adult I hated having to come back to Australia. Not only because of the memories that I had of coming to the country as a child, but also because of the memories of my life in India as an adult that I had been forced to leave behind. My exile in Australia represented the loss of my life in India. I grieved the loss of the life that I had there with my friends – and the loss of who I was there with them. In Australia I felt totally lost. In India I had felt that I was ‘somebody’ who was doing ‘something really worthwhile’ with my life. In Australia I felt I was a ‘nobody’ – and there was ‘nothing I could do here that was of the same value of what I did there’.

The challenge for me living in exile in Australia has been Jeremiah’s call.

‘Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Don’t waste your time wishing you were somewhere else. Be here now. Be present to the moment with the people in this place. Don’t be crippled by self-pity. It doesn’t matter whether you are happy or not. Just get on with the task in hand: “seek the peace and prosperity of the city in which you live”.

A lot of the people in the city we have helped ‘seek peace and prosperity’ are other groups living in exile in Australia – refugees from Latin America, Central Asia, Indo China and the Horn of Africa. Over last twenty years we’ve helped hundreds of exiles in our city get housing, settle their families, learn the language, adjust to the culture, create work cooperatives and develop their own community organisations.  And as we have done so I have found myself feeling more and more at home here

(Not that I have become assimilated. We should become acculturated – but never assimilated. I support the Brisbane Broncos, but I don’t support the Aussie cricket team’s win-at-all-cost attitude that was displayed in the Sydney test against India a year or so ago!)

Dave Andrews

Numbers refer to pages in The Quest by Eugene Peterson Zondervan Grand Rapids 2000

“Go to the Recabite family and invite them to come to one of the side rooms of the house of the LORD… We have obeyed everything our forefather Jonadab son of Recab commanded us. Neither we nor our wives nor our sons and daughters have ever drunk wine or built houses to live in or had vineyards, fields or crops. We have lived in tents and have fully obeyed everything our forefather Jonadab commanded us. 16The descendants of Jonadab son of Recab have carried out the command their forefather gave them, but these people have not obeyed me.’  35.2,10-12,16

Eugene Peterson says Soren Kirkegaard insists ‘the crowd is untruth’ 372 ‘The more people the less truth.’  We can test this assertion easily. ‘Which promise is most likely to be kept: the promise spoken by a politician to a crowd of ten thousand or the promise exchanged between two friends?’299 Maybe crowds can predict the truth, (see crowd theory) but crowds are less likely to act on the truth. Crowds reduce our responsibility and turn us into spectators. Crowds make us consumers.299.

Jeremiah connected to crowds (in the streets and in the temple courts). But Jeremiah was ‘not crowd-conditioned’. The crowd did not shape his values. The crowd did not dictate his script. The crowd did not determine his message. 300

Jeremiah was what Kirkegaard called an ‘individual’ – a single-minded single person whose personal response was singularly shaped by the word of God.301

God pointed Jeremiah to the Rechabites – a small, travelling community of craftsmen who owned no land – and who had made a vow not to drink wine.302

‘The Rechabites were living evidence of the two things the crowd-conditioned people assumed were impossible. They were evidence that ordinary people could live lives directed by a personal command (and) that it was possible to maintain persistently a distinctive way of life’ without succumbing to pressure.303

God told Jeremiah to invite to the Rechabites to the temple and offer them wine to drink in front of the crowd that met in the temple courts. 303 Of course the Rechab refused to partake.305 Then Jeremiah turned to the crowd and said ‘the Rechab have kept the command which their father gave them, but this people have not obeyed me.’ 306 He did call the people to become Rechabites, but called them to keep their promises like the Rechabites had – for 250 years!.306

The Rechab show us we have no excuse for not keeping our promises to God.

The Rechab in my life are Jim and Ann at the Catholic Worker. They  have made vows of simplicity, hospitality and protest which they have kept over the years.

They show us we can be committed to a life of simplicity, hospitality and protest, regardless of the society in which we live and the daily pressure to do otherwise

I ask myself – What are some of the promises that I have made to God? Which ones have I kept? Which ones have I not kept? What am I going to do about it?

I have made a general vow to follow Jesus which I have kept all my life. I cannot think of a single major decision that I have made in my life without serious explicit conscious reference to Jesus. Including decisions about who I have married, and how I conduct my marriage; who I include in my family, and how I relate to my  community; and who I seek to be – and to become – in the context of Christ’s  calling to live a life of practical radical compassion where I live through what I do.

However, there are specific promises along the way that I have not kept. One is to make time to sit quietly and meditate, contemplate and pray first thing in the morning every day. Another is to recite the beatitudes every day and to select a be-attitude to practice every day. The challenge for me is to do these things daily.

My Rechab-ilitation requires that I need to make a vow to visit – but not dwell in – the internet or tv, and to keep my vows not to drink spirits and not eat industrially farmed red meat.

As I was raised as a teetotaller, of these three vows ‘not drinking spirits’ is easy. However, I was brought up as a meat-eater, and though I am totally convinced that not eating meat will reduce the harm we do to animals and the planet, I am finding the transition to vegetarianism difficult to make. The Dalai Lama and I both share a taste for pork crackling. I don’t know what the Dalai Lama is doing,  but I know I need to make a vow this year to ‘avoid eating any industrially farmed red meat at all’.

When I don’t have my wits about me I am too easily distracted in the morning by email and the evening by the news. I need to make a vow not to open my email in the morning till after I have had my prayers, and not to turn on the tv in the evening till after I have actually touched base with everybody in my family.

Dave Andrews

Numbers refer to pages in The Quest by Eugene Peterson Zondervan Grand Rapids 2000

In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah and all the other nations from the time I began speaking to you in the reign of Josiah till now. Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, each of them will turn from his wick-ed way; then I will forgive their wickedness and their sin.” So Jerem-iah called Baruch son of Neriah, and while Jeremiah dictated all the words the LORD had spoken to him, Baruch wrote them on the scroll 36.1-4

Eugene Peterson says: ‘The book Jeremiah read was Deuteronomy. It was discovered in the course of the temple repairs, it was the handbook for Josiah’s reforms.’288 By reading it Jeremiah developed a memory (of God’s activity in liberating his people from slavery), a theology (of the call to love which echoes throughout the book) and a sense of responsibility (in response to the multiple demands that love makes)289

‘The book Jeremiah read developed into the book that Jeremiah wrote. Just as Deuteronomy repreached the message of Moses to a people who had lost touch with Moses, so Jeremiah repreached the message of Deuteronomy to a people who had drifted from its moorings’. 290

Charles Williams says ‘There is no other institution that suffers from time so much as religion. At the moment when it is remotely possible that a whole gen-eration might have learned something of theory and practice, the learners and their learnings are removed by death, and the church is confronted with the ne-cessity of beginning all over again. The whole labour of regenerating mankind has to begin again every thirty years or so.’ 290

Jeremiah was directed: “Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken …Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, each of them will turn from his wicked way; then I will forgive their wicked-ness and their sin.” The prophet’s task was to take a scroll and write God’s word.And he enlisted the help of Baruch as a scribe to not only write it but read it. 291

As Jeremiah ‘was forbidden to speak in public (he was persona non grata to King Jehoiakim), his message was now written so that it could be delivered by another . Baruch read out what Jeremiah wrote to the people in the temple. 292

‘Honest writing’ exposes the reality of the way we live, the way we ‘violate beauty’, the way we manipulate truth, the way we ‘dominate people’ and challenges us to change our ways. Such writing is not without pain for the reader. ‘Every significant utterance is a wound, but “faithful are the wounds of a friend”.’ 293

I wondered about the place of writing in my prophetic engagement with the world. After all, ‘of the making of many books, there is no end’ (Eccl.12.12)

According to  a survey by the Jenkins Group 80 percent of the (US) population want to write a book. 120,000 titles are published in the U.S. each year ( www.bookwire.com) And 293,550 titles are published in the world each year www.worldometers.info 70 percent of the titles published do not make a profit. In fact 70 percent of titles published do not even earn back their advance. ( www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

In the U.S., each day people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines. (Veronis, Suhler & Associates) On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book’s front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover. ( www.parapub.com) 33 per cent of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. 42 percent of university graduates never read another book after college. 80 per cent of families did not buy or read a book last year. 70 percent of adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years. (www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

Most people who read typically read fiction (53 percent). The favourite category is crime, mystery and suspense (19 percent). (Publishers Weekly) A successful non-fiction book sells only 7,500 copies. (www.authorsguild.org) And 57 percent of  the new books that are bought are not read to completion. (www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

So, its not surprising Christ never wrote a book.

But, his followers did. And they managed to turn their book – The Bible – into the world’s biggest ever bestseller.

I have tried to follow in the footsteps of the followers of Christ and – like Mahatma Gandhi, CF Andrews, Stanley Jones, Studdart Kennedy, William Barclay, Leslie Weatherhead, Toyohiko Kagawa, Helder Camara, Jean Vanier & Henri Nouwen – tried to write personally as simply and as practically as I can about God’s call on our lives.

In ‘Christi-Anarchy’ I wrote about the example of Christ – who was committed to an empowering rather than overpowering spirituality of compassion. In ‘Not Religion, But Love’ I wrote about how we can practice the principles of radical compassion that Christ personified in the context of our every day lives.

In ‘Compassionate Community Work’ I developed these ideas in more detail, giving people lots of suggestions as to how they could engage their community more compassionately. All these books have been ‘successful’, having been printed in multiple editions and distributed in lots of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, the UK., India, China and the Philippines. ‘Compassionate Community Work’ has become a text for the Micah network – a network of 300 hundred Christian aid and development agencies. And ‘Living Community’ – a generic version of ‘Compassionate Community’ – is going to be used as a textbook at universities and colleges to train community workers. (See books on www.daveandrews.com.au)

And now I have written the Plan Be series (Plan Be, Hey, Be And See and See What I Mean) calling for a d-i-y personal-political be-attitude revolution. In 2010 I’ll be launching it in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

I know I’m not a great writer, but I know my writings continue to stimulate great conversations. And for that I’m grateful.

Dave Andrews

Numbers refer to pages in The Quest by Eugene Peterson Zondervan Grand Rapids 2000