FORTY THIRD ANNUAL
FAST FOR THE TRUTH OF
GOSPEL NONVIOLENCE
(July 1–August 9)
FAST FOOD AD 2025: Thirty -Third Helping
The Nonviolent Jesus, Gospel Nonviolent Love
(2minutes, 37seconds)
What you have just listened to is a brief presentation of a problem of Infinite depth, namely, that the internal disposition of the Christian who desires to nonviolently challenge and to overcome evil, any evil, small or large, is axial to whether he or she, individually or collectively, actually have any power to do so. or whether their efforts are just more cymbals clashing in the cacophony of evil in which humanity presently exists.
Following Jesus’ Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies is not merely a catch phrase without explicit content. By word and deed, by His life, death and resurrection, Jesus has imbued the Nonviolence of the Gospels with a clear but difficult content. A content, however, that is universally understandable to and applicable by all humanity and by each individual human being. For example, He specifically teaches in the Sermon on the Mount, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you.” He also teaches in the Sermon He delivered by His choices in His life from Gethsemane to Golgotha, the same content to His Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies as stated in the Sermon on the Mount. In summary He emphatically communicates, if you want to overcome evil and death the Way I did, that your nonviolent efforts will have to be rooted in and model on “Loving as I loved when I nonviolently confronted evil and death and conquered them.” Nonviolent acts or actions where the internal disposition is not to love as Jesus loved nonviolently are impotent to save humanity for the twin universal irrationalities and scourges of evil and death.
But, Christlike Nonviolent Love of all always does not mean merely the refusal to strike back at an enemy with violence, although it includes this. That, however, is only the first step or condition for an act or an action to be spiritually commensurate with the Way of Nonviolent Love of Jesus. The second necessary step or condition for an act of Christlike Nonviolent Love is to choose to love the enemy, to do good to those who hate you, to pray for those who persecute you., not just superficially and behaviorally, but also in terms of the Nonviolent Christian’s desired internal disposition towards the enemy, the one who hates you and what you are about, and even towards your active persecutor. Perseveringly choosing Step 2 as part of what Gospel Nonviolence requires to overcome evil and death as Jesus did, can be much harder on the psyche of a person than step 1 is on the body.
The ancient Christian adage, “Hate the sin but love the sinner,” is central not only to Gospel Nonviolence but also to Gandhian Nonviolence, Mahatma Gandhi used this maxim often to speak about authentic Nonviolence, even in His autobiography, The Story of My Experiment with Truth. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows more about Gandhi than his external behavior. Gandhi’s internal spiritual life in relation to Nonviolence can be discerned in one or two quotationsfrom him. First, “Jesus is Nonviolence par excellence.” Ahimsa is the Hindu word Gandhi uses for Nonviolence. He said, “Ahimsa is the same as Agape in St. Paul ” (cf. I Cor 13:1-13, Rom 12:17-21)
The Benjamin Netanyahu reference in the opening video is but the tip of the iceberg to a significantly larger problem in understanding and applying Jesus’ Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies. The whole content of His Way of Nonviolence must be chosen in order to do God’s will as revealed by Jesus. Mere external behavior is ultimately ineffective before the incomprehensible immensity of the power of evil presently operating in the human condition.
Never bypass praying for the eternal salvation of your fellow human being who is engaged in wickedness, as well as your brothers and sisters in the Family of God who are victims of that wickedness.
-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
www.emmanuelcharlesmccarthy.org
https://www.youtube.com/@emmanuelcharlesmccarthy3292
“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Love.
Heaven and earth are full of Your glory!
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is He, Who comes in the Name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest!”
