The Myth of Redemptive Violence

A few years ago, an angry neighbor came to my door, cursing and threatening to kill my dog.

What I remember most about the incident is that none of that same cursing fury boiled up in my own heart, to spew back in her face. I know I'm fully capable of it, especially when I'm attacked blind-side. The fact that rage didn't erupt from me in response made me aware how much God has worked, and is working, in my heart...even MY heart.

Thinking about it later, I tried to understand where that spirit of rage comes from. What stood out to me was that people kill (or threaten to) in the belief that killing will solve a problem. (People operating on that belief are dangerous to be near. I warned my kids to stay far away from her yard.)

It's an idea the theologian Walter Wink called "The Myth of Redemptive Violence: "...the pattern-of-belief [the strict meaning of the word myth] that wrong can be put right by violence. That myth, he wrote, "...enshrines the belief that violence saves, that war brings peace, that might makes right..."

Human beings have long experience with that thought-pattern. And we have abundant evidence to look back on, how that thought-pattern works in reality. If we believe wars bring peace, our world, today and through all our history, would surely be a place overflowing with the blessing of peace.

But we know that's not true, and never has been true. From pragmatic experience, it seems a good assumption it never will be true. In that regard, the idea of "redemptive violence" is also a "myth" in the everyday sense of that word: a story that's not true.

Scripture tells us to take our “…every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (II Corinthians 10:5). Even more than our passing thoughts, that must surely apply to the basic operative-ideas on which we act. “Redemptive (or ‘restorative’) violence” is one such idea, deeply ingrained in human hearts.

Jesus testified that He is Himself “…the Truth…” (John 14:6). Our human operative-belief in “redemptive violence" has shown itself every time, all the millions of times, it's acted on, to be a lie.

The test of “redemptive violence” is as simple as I John 2:21 puts it: “…no lie is of the truth.”