Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution

[Amazing Rando]

In my studies at seminary over the past year, I've been referred over and over to a book by French Reformed Pastor Andre Trocme, Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1570755388/qid=1123000399/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-8975413-0832956?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). Christian ethicists of all stripes routinely refer to this book, and John Howard Yoder's classic study, The Politics of Jesus borrows its main theses from Trocme's work.

Lately, I've been feeling led myself to pick up Trocme's book and read it for myself. Since the conclusions Trocme draws are at once scholarly, Spirit-filled, and rather controversial, I think it would be a useful exercise to share my reading in this case with you, beloved Twebbers. Beginning shortly, I'll be reading a chapter (10-15 pages each), and summarizing what I feel to be the main thesis and supporting evidence from each chapter. Would you join me in discussing Trocme's book both critically and appreciatively, and helping me determine what, if any, applications for contemporary Christian ethics can be drawn from his research? I look forward to this, and I hope you'll join me. :teeth:

[Amazing Rando]

This is from Yad Vashem (http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous/bycountry/france/andre_trocme.html), the Israeli Holocaust Museum and memorial foundation. Trocme was awarded the prestigious "righteous among the nations" award for his activities resisting the Nazi occpation of France and risking his own life for the safety of thousands of Jewish refugees. Here's his story as told by Yad Vashem:

Andre Trocme, and the rescue activities in the village of Le Chambon sur Lignon

Pastor Andre Trocme was the spiritual leader of the Protestant congregation in the village of Le Chambon sur Lignon in Southeastern France. In 1942, he urged his congregation to give shelter to any Jew who should ask for it. The village and its outlying areas were quickly filled with hundreds of Jews. Some of them found permanent shelter in the hilly region of Le Chambon, until the liberation of France, and others were given temporary shelter until they were able to escape across the border, mostly to Switzerland. According to one estimate, some 5,000 Jews passed through Le Chambon and the surrounding villages in the three years during which the village served as a shelter for the Jews of Southern France. The Vichy authorities knew what was taking place, since it was impossible to hide such wide-scale rescue activities over time. They demanded that the pastor cease his activities. His response was clear-cut: "These people came here for help and for shelter. I am their shepherd. A shepherd does not forsake his flock... I do not know what a Jew is. I know only human beings."

Eventually, Trocme was arrested along with a number of his friends, but he was released after a few weeks, without having been persuaded by the authorities to sign a commitment to follow government orders regarding the Jews. The Germans arrested his cousin, Daniel Trocme, and sent him to Majdanek, where he died. Andre Trocme himself was forced to hide from the Germans. The residents of Le Chambon continued his legacy and provided shelter to Jews who hid in the homes of hundreds of the village’s residents.

Andre Trocme, the spiritual leader, was able to leave his moral mark on his congregation, and to bring thousands of people together in the fulfillment of a supreme moral command. Thus, in this hilly region of Southeastern France, many Jews resided in relative calm until the end of the war, with the aid and encouragement of the local residents.

Here was a radical Christian pacifist who put his obedience to Christ above his own self interests and nonviolently resisted the Nazi onslaught. Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution was first published in 1971, the year of Trocme's death, and is based on a lifetime of theological reflections that grew out of his own personal experience in World War II. I look forward to starting the book!

[Amazing Rando]

Trocme's preface to the book is more than your average list of methods, assumptions, limitations and theses you'll find in most scholarly works. In it, he laments the tragedy of world events and the violence that enfolds us on a daily basis. He shares his conviction that Jesus Christ is God's Messiah, the focal point of God's actions in human history and that his coming changed the history of mankind. He says, "Because of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we know that every birth, every life, and every death matter to God."

I like the sound of it thus far!

Trocme states the goal of his survey of the New Testament by saying that because of the primacy of Jesus for our faith, "I have thus limited my ambitions to the modest goal of interrogating Jesus Christ by Jesus Christ. What have I discovered? In short, the portrait of a vigorous revolutionary capable of saving the world without using violence."

It looks as though that should set the tone for the entire book. So what are your first thoughts? Do Trocme's findings about Jesus ring true to you or not? Does this sound like the Jesus of the gospels to you? Why or why not?

Tomorrow we'll get into the meat of Trocme's book with chapter 1- "Jesus the Jew" and try to see where he begins his study of Jesus' ethics.

[Zxcv Bnm]

"without using violence", is it?

How about Jesus and the money changers at the temple?

Or His own slaughter at the cross [without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness--Heb 9:22]? It seems as though Jesus did resort to violence, even if it was violence of others against himself.

Or His judgement of Jerusalem in AD 70 [With justice he judges and makes war....Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down nations....He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty--Rev 19:11-21]?

Vashem's words seem to reveal that Trocme had a Christ-like love for people. He's sure to have some great insights, and perhaps may offer his thoughts on the above points.

[Amazing Rando]

Hey, thanks for dropping in on the thread! It's good to see I'm not just whistling in the dark here! :smile:

"without using violence", is it?

How about Jesus and the money changers at the temple?

I hope Trocme will address this one himself later on in the book- let me see in the scripture index...

Nope- surprisingly, he doesn't address it from that angle, though he does have discussions about it on pages 106 and 118. Let me give you a surprisingly different take on Jesus' actions at the temple you might not have heard before-

Jesus' actions in the temple were not so much "cleansing" it as acting out God's judgment against it. It was, so to speak, a living parable, acted out by Jesus, against the corruption the Temple had suffered at the hands of the Sadduccees and others. What Jesus was doing in basically going ballistic in the temple and destroying the business of the moneychangers, livestock sellers, etc. was showing the people what was going to happen to the temple within their lifetimes, and which did occur in AD 70 when the temple was completely destroyed by the Romans. N.T. Wright has some interesting reflections on the temple action when understood that way.

In addition, it should be noted that an analysis of the Greek of John 2:15 (the version where Jesus makes the whip :whip:
) reveals that the passage is best translated (as most newer versions render) "... drove all the animals out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle." I can go into specifics if you'd like. The language is pretty clear that Jesus only employed the whip as a means for driving out the cattle and the sheep; there's no mention of him using it to physically harm the people in the temple.


Or His own slaughter at the cross [without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness--Heb 9:22]? It seems as though Jesus did resort to violence, even if it was violence of others against himself.

I think you'll find that that is precisely Trocme's point- Jesus voluntarily submitted to the evil violence of his persecutors rather than raise a hand to defend himself violently- in his earthly ministry anyway.

Or His judgement of Jerusalem in AD 70 [With justice he judges and makes war....Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down nations....He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty--Rev 19:11-21]?

I get the feeling that Trocme is referring primarily to the significance of Jesus' life on earth, not to the last judgment which will indisputably result in the destruction of the wicked. :flaming: I checked the scripture index in the back, and surprisingly, there isn't a single citation of Revelation. We'll just have to see where he takes it.

Vashem's words seem to reveal that Trocme had a Christ-like love for people. He's sure to have some great insights, and perhaps may offer his thoughts on the above points.

Indeed! :yes: Thanks for dropping by! Sometime tomorrow I'll post my summary of the main points of chapter 1 and see where he starts his survey.

[Amazing Rando]

Part I of the book is entitled "Jesus and His Revolution." This opening chapter seems to lay out Trocme's operational groundwork. More than anything, he wants us to see Jesus as firmly grounded in the Hebrew tradition. Jesus was at the very least, a prophet in the Jewish tradition, his thought was entirely Jewish, his scriptures were Jewish, and his target audience (at least initially) was Jewish. Trocme draw attention to three distinct characteristics of Jesus' thought that are particularly Jewish- Israel's sense of election, the "moral bias" of the Old Testament (the fact that evil is attributed strictly to moral causes and not to any sense of fate, as in other Oriental cosmogonies), and an inexorable yearning for justice.

While YHWH may be God of all the world, he has picked as his peculiar people, the nation of Israel, a fact to which the law and the prophets attest. Jesus, according to Trocme, stands at the end of a long line of prophets starting with Elijah, Elisha and Amos, and concluding with John the Baptist. His mission was to call Israel to repentance and a renewed relationship with their creator as the chosen people of God.

The "moral bias" of the main strand of OT tradition attributes the pain suffering in the world to human sin and rebellion. But, Trocme points out, several OT elements eventually come to question the entirety of this attribution, not the least of which are Job and numerous Psalms. Jesus also dealt with this "problem of pain" in Luke 13:4-5 when he referred to the case of the tower which had fallen and killed eighteen people. He said, "Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish." Jesus never gave his questioners a good explanation as to why the tower fell on those eighteen people, but what he did do was use it as an illustrative call to repentance and action. As Trocme puts it, "In other words, repentance comes first. Fall on your knees before God and confess your sin. Then get up and change the course of history!"

Finally, Jesus stands in the long Jewish prophetic tradition that calls for justice. Trocme mentions the lex talionis principle of "an eye for an eye" that so pervades the OT literature. But the violence of justice was extracted by the "avenger of blood" (the Hebrew word is goel, not by just any random person. The goel had the responsibility of carrying out the blood vendetta against the guilty party (cf. Num. 35:19). The goel, was also responsible for marrying the wife of the person he has avenged, as well as for redeeming any of his kinsmen who would have sold themselves into slavery.

Later, the term goel began to be used to refer to God himself, "with the double meaning of avenger and redeemer of the people of whom he is kinsman, particularly in the book of Isaiah. In chapters 52 and 53 for example, the goel, God, comes to be understood as the redeemer of Israel "by taking upon himself the chastisement of God." Trocme argues his point further:

In this way, the law of retaliation was transmuted, Its demand for justice, for holiness, could never be abolished. But God's vengeance would now be born by God himself, by the God who is the goel of his people in the person of his Son.

Jesus believed he was the goel, that is, the instrument chosen by God to carry out redemption.

Trocme wants us to keep these three points in mind and remember that Jesus' thought was firmly rooted in the Jewish worldview. I would pay particular attention to the concept of goel and how it evolved from being the kinsman "blood avenger" to being the redeemer and savior. What this suggests is that the goel is Jesus, not any of us, not our governments, but only the Son of God. He is the avenger, not us. This is borne out in the NT epistles as well. Living as the redeemed people of God means never seeking revenge, and always living in love to one another, even when our love is not reciprocated by others.

Next up- Chapter 2- Jesus' Proclamation of Jubilee. That one ought to be really controversial. :grin:

[NeilUnreal]

"I do not know what a Jew is. I know only human beings."

This is a pretty profound statement, regardless of what label is being discussed.

"I do not know what a _____ is. I know only human beings."

Our duty is to always find out what goes in the blank during our time and act accordingly.

-Neil

[Amazing Rando]

:highfive: Thanks for that Neil.