SELF-DEFENSE AS A CHRISTIAN OBLIGATION

Nowhere is Jesus Christ more misunderstood than with respect to his stance on violence. As a result of the work of Christian theologians, the faithful are never quite sure if they should defend themselves in the event of an assault or just stand there and turn the other cheek. They don�t know if they ought to shoot somebody who�s about to kill a member of their family or pray for the shooter. They wonder whether they should support capital punishment or look at a convicted murderer like he's a baby about to be aborted. Christians aren't sure if they should go to war when the draft board calls or claim conscientious-objector status. In fact, they generally appear to be totally confused when the subject turns to violence.

Out of all this confusion, we can identify three general areas of Christian misunderstanding related to the use (or non-use) of violence. The first area of misunderstanding is typically known as self-defense; the second area can be called the defense of a third party; and the third area might be characterized as offensive violence in that it does not involve the direct defense of either oneself or another person. In this chapter, however, we�re going to look only at self-defense.