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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
At first sight, revolution and quietism are political opposites. This appears to be true even when both terms are taken in optimam partem. Viewed in the most favourable light, revolution is the active overthrow—in the name of freedom and justice (by what means is a question which may initially be left open)—of an oppressive and unjust system. For its part, quietism, benevolently considered, is the temporary acquiescence in an oppressive and unjust state of affairs whose wrongs will, the quietist hopes, eventually disappear.
page 535 note 1 Among the vast and growing literature, the following writings have proved useful in various ways: Barth, K., Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde (1946Google Scholar; E. T., in Against the Stream, 1954)Google Scholar; Brandon, S. G. F., Jesus and the Zealots (1967)Google Scholar; British Council of Churches and Conference of British Missionary Societies working party, Violence in Southern Africa: a Christian assessment (1970); Comblin, J., Théologie de la révolution (1970)Google Scholar; Cullmann, O., The State in the New Testament (1957)Google Scholar, Jesus und die Revolutionären seiner Zeit (1970; E. T., , Jesus and the Revolutionaries, 1970)Google Scholar; Edwards, G. R., Jesus and the Politics of Violence (1972)Google Scholar; Ellul, J., Violence (1970)Google Scholar; Ferguson, J., The Politics of Love: The New Testament and Non-Violent Revolution (n.d.)Google Scholar; Gutiérrez, G., Teología de la liberación (1971Google Scholar; E. T., , A Theology of Liberation, 1973)Google Scholar; Hastings, A.. ‘The moral choice of violent revolution’ in Mission and Ministry (1971), pp. 59–68Google Scholar; Kee, A. (ed.), A Reader in Political Theology (1974)Google Scholar; Lehmann, P., The Transfiguration of Politics (1975)Google Scholar; Lewy, G., Religion and Revolution (1974)Google Scholar; Lochman, J. M., ‘Ecumenical Theology of Revolution’ in Scottish Journal of Theology, 21 (1968), pp. 170–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McDonagh, E., ‘Human violence: a question of ethics or salvation’ in Gift and Call (1975), pp. 138–66Google Scholar; Moltmann, J., Theologie der Hoffnung (1964Google Scholar; , E. T., Theology of Hope, 1967)Google Scholar, Religion, Revolution and the Future (1969), Der gekreuzigte Gott (1972; E. T., , The Crucified God, 1974)Google Scholar; Müller-Fahrenholz, G., Heilsgeschichte zwischen Ideologie und Prophetie (1974)Google Scholar; Richardson, A., The Politica Christ (1973)Google Scholar; Shaull, R., ‘Revolutionary Change in Theological Perspective’ in Bennett, J. C. (ed.), Christian Social Ethics in a Changing World (1966), pp. 23–43Google Scholar; Torres, Camilo, Revolutionary Priest (1971)Google Scholar; Yoder, J., The Politics of Jesus (1972).Google Scholar A recent review of theories of revolution by a secular historian can be found in the first chapter of Stone, L., The Causes of the English Revolution 1529–1642 (1972).Google Scholar
page 536 note 1 See Gutiérrez, G., ‘Liberation Movements and Theology’ in Concilium (03 1974), pp. 135–46Google Scholar; and the 1974/2 number of Études théologiques et religieuses (Montpellier), under the title ‘Recherches de théologie politique’—but also the important critique by Subilia, V. in Protestantesimo 29 (1974), pp. 93–100.Google Scholar
page 537 note 1 The lex talionis is intended to limit retaliation.
page 538 note 1 In his fine book Krummes Holz—aufrechter Gang (1970), H. Gollwitzer has argued that man's search for meaning in life cannot finally be satisfied unless there is hope for him in a permanent and social context on the other side of death. Leaving aside all speculation on an ‘intermediate state’ between the individual's death and the universal consummation, we may say that the Christian notion of a definitive kingdom of God provides just such a context, both social and lasting. The believer will of course expect the sceptic to charge him with ‘wishful thinking’.
page 538 note 2 For Catholics the distinction is softened by (a) the theological principle that grace does not abolish but rather perfects ‘nature’ and (b) the historical claims which the spiritual rulers made over the temporal rulers. The Calvinist tendency to theocracy also softens the distinction.
page 538 note 3 See especially Von weltlicher Obrigkeit (1523).
page 538 note 4 See, e.g., Schmid, H., Zwinglis Lehre von der göttlichen und menschlichen Gerechtigkeit (1959).Google Scholar
page 541 note 1 I am of course speaking only of the ‘probabilities’ of a Christian's political alignment: Professor Norman Young reminds me that it is ‘possible to argue from a very sharp distinction between preservation and salvation and from a pessimistic view of the possibility of defeating sin to an advocacy of revolutionary activity on “realistic” grounds, not in order to “bring in the kingdom” but to bring about a social structure in which more rights of more people are preserved until God fulfils his purpose’.
page 542 note 1 The Reformers looked for the “godly prince’ to reform the Church, not to perform a ‘salvific’ duty in the State.
page 542 note 2 See my article ‘Autour de la notion de civilisation chrétienne’ in Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie, 22 (1972), pp. 413–30.Google Scholar
page 543 note 1 ‘If the Incarnation has a meaning it can only be that God came into the most abominable of places (and he did not, by his coming, either validate or change that place). The “Lordship of Jesus Christ” does not mean that everything that happens, happens by the decision of that Lord’ (p. 25).
page 543 note 2 Especially pp. 43–7.
page 544 note 1 See, briefly, Neill, S., Men of Unity (1960), p. 35f.Google Scholar
page 544 note 2 More deeply, the German Reformed theologian J. Moltmann, in The Crucified God, shows how the Roman crucifixion of Jesus becomes—in a theologia crucis—the permanent krisis of any sacral and authoritarian State.
page 545 note 1 At an earlier date, see Eisler, R., The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist (1931).Google Scholar
page 546 note 1 Cullmann, O., The State in the New Testament, pp. 14–17.Google Scholar
page 546 note 2 For a discussion, see Trocmé, E., Jésus de Nazareth vu par les témoins de sa vie (1971), pp. 125–36.Google Scholar Trocmé rejects the ‘zealot’ interpretation of an incident to which he himself nevertheless attaches considerable importance.
page 547 note 1 Luke 22.35–38 is difficult; but there are many reasons for taking the present text as a Lucan construction, perhaps based on an original metaphor. See the commentaries of J. M. Creed and G. B. Caird, ad loc., and Richardson, A., The Political Christ, p. 48.Google Scholar
page 547 note 2 Psalms of Solomon 17.23–27: ‘Behold, O Lord, and raise up their King, the son of David, at the time thou hast appointed, O God, to reign over Israel thy servant. Gird him with strength to shatter wicked rulers. Cleanse Jerusalem from the Gentiles who trample it and destroy. In wisdom, in justice, may he thrust out sinners from God's heritage, crush the arrogance of the sinner like a potter's crocks, crush his whole substance with an iron mace, blot out the lawless Gentiles with a word, put the Gentiles to flight with his threats.’
page 548 note 1 De corona militis, II; cf. de idolatria, 19: ‘How shall the Christian wage war, no, how shall he even be a soldier in peacetime, without the sword which the Lord has taken away?’ At the end of the third century, some Christians suffered martyrdom for contracting out of the army: one of them, Maximilian, made the famous declaration, ‘I cannot serve as a soldier; I cannot do evil; I am a Christian’. The Apostolic Tradition stipulates: ‘if a catechumen or one of the faithful wishes to become a soldier (i.e. a volunteer), let him be rejected, for he has despised God’. For other examples, and for some practical modifications to the principle, see Ferguson, J., The Politics of Love, pp. 55–67Google Scholar, and Ellul, J., Violence, pp. 10–12.Google Scholar
page 548 note 2 In S.T., II. ii. 40. 1, St. Thomas sets out three conditions of a just war: it must be declared by the competent authority; the cause must be just; the belligerents must have a right intention. From time to time, the theologians include other conditions: war must be only a last resort, after all peaceful means have been exhausted; the methods employed during the war must be just; the benefits that the war can reasonably be expected to produce must be greater than the evils brought by the war itself; there must be a good prospect of victory; the final peace must be just. For a critical discussion, see Ellul, J., Violence, pp. 5–9.Google Scholar See further now Russell, F. H., The Just War in the Middle Ages (1975).Google Scholar
page 549 note 1 Thomas Aquinas allows the right to resist tyrannical government, by which he means government that is directed not to the common welfare but to the private benefit of the ruler (S.T. II. ii. 42. 2).
page 549 note 2 Thus Adrian Hastings: ‘It is hard not to hold that many of the violent revolutions of history were, in Christian judgment, right and proper… Man cannot do other than attempt to embody the condemning judgment of God in revolutionary action just as he attempts to embody the enjoining judgment of God in his laws’ (Mission and Ministry, p. 56f). Paul Lehmann considers revolutionary violence as necessary but never ‘justifiable’: by assigning it to the category of ‘apocalyptic’, he thinks to put it beyond the just and the unjust (The Transfiguration of Politics).
page 550 note 1 I am clearly rejecting as inadequate those views of the Sermon on the Mount which see it as an instrument to convict us of our shortcoming or as the setting up of an inspiring but impracticable ideal.
page 550 note 1 Adrian Hastings raises the case in which a Christian ‘encounters a child being beaten to death: he cannot save the child except by immediate violent intervention. I cannot see that he has other than an absolute duty so to intervene, which means that at times the Christian has the duty to take part in physical violence. Here and now this, and this alone, can properly express Christian faith and love’ (Mission and Ministry, p. 60f). I should rather place this simple human duty within the order of preservation: in such an emergency situation of life and death, the one who intervenes on behalf of the third party is exceptionally assuming the function of the civil authority. Does such an emergency situation of life and death ever occur on the institutional plane? I should say that this is the only case in which ‘violent intervention’ (which may perhaps be distinguished from violent revolution) may be justified.
page 552 note 1 Bloom, A., Living Prayer (1966), p. 23.Google Scholar On ‘militant’ prayer for a righteous cause and against the forces of evil, see Origen, , Contra Celsum, VIII, 73 (ed. Chadwick, H., p. 509).Google Scholar
page 552 note 2 For a ‘prophetic’ understanding of ‘dialogue with God’, see Müller-Fahrenholz, G., Heilsgeschichte zwischen Ideologie und Prophetie, pp. 221–33.Google Scholar
page 553 note 1 Old Testament scholars agree that such prophetic passages are not a condemnation of the cultus as such, but only of a cultus that has no ethical counterpart.
page 553 note 2 Revolutionary Priest: the complete writings and messages of Camilo Torres (Pelican, ed. 1973), pp. 334, 375.Google Scholar
page 555 note 1 Scottish Journal of Theology 21 (1968), p. 180.Google Scholar