FAST FOOD (AD 2019): Second Helping
No reader of the New Testament, simple or sophisticated, can retain any doubt of Jesus’ position toward violence directed to persons, individual or collective, organized or free enterprise, he rejected it totally… Jesus in no way accepts violence as a means of controlling violence. Rev. John L. McKenzie, Preeminent Catholic Biblical Scholar Mid-Twentieth Century
Jesus may not be risen from the dead. Jesus may not be the Word of God “made flesh.” Jesus may not be Lord, God and Savior or the Messiah, the Christ. I believe as the first premise and primary allegiance of my life that He is all of these. But whether He is or is not any or all of these, what Jesus teaches in the Gospels is no more a matter of faith than what Galileo teaches is a matter of faith. Even if Jesus is just a smart rabbi, He teaches Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies as the Way to live, the Way to die and the Way to eternal communion with God. If He is just a smart rabbi, then he may be wrong about this. If He is Lord, God, Savior, the Word of God “made flesh” and the Messiah, the Christ, risen from the dead, then He is and must be absolutely and infallibly right.
The overriding issue in Gospel Nonviolence for Christians and for all human beings is not what Jesus teaches, but who He is? “Who do you say I am?” Jesus’ teaching by word and deed of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies as the Way and Will of God stands or falls, is validated or invalidated, by the answer to that question, because the Messiah, the Christ, God Incarnate does not lie and is not ignorant of what His Way and His Will are.
-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
