Christian Realism and the "Necessity" of Violence

In these politically charged times, how should Christians understand the role of violence during times of tumultuous political change. Ellul helps us through this with the concept of "necessity."

12. Christian Realism and the "Necessity" of Violence

Christian violence? Is this even a thing? Can Christians, as Christians, be violent revolutionaries? Can violence be legitimized? If so, in what circumstances and for what reasons? This question seems to be all the more pressing in the early days of May 2022. Breaking convention, the draft opinion of Justice Samuel Alito, indicating that the controversial Roe vs. Wade ruling will be overturned, was leaked to the press. This sparked protests by those who support free access to abortion. They have doxed the justices, protesting in front of their houses. A pro-life advocacy group in New York City had their storefront offices firebombed. How should Christians respond to the intense anger and violence of the pro-abortionists?

Because of the nature of the fight against abortion, other than a brief period when some groups took it upon themselves to bomb abortion clinics, activists have generally taken the high road in their fight. Peaceful protests. Calm decorum. Quiet prayer. Pro-life. They have worked within the system to restrict and limit the number of babies killed through abortion. They have focused on helping and supporting mothers as well as providing adoptions. They have worked to have pro-life judges appointed. These efforts have yielded results. It looks like Roe vs. Wade may soon be overturned. But now what?

How should Christians respond to the intimidation tactics and the violence from the pro-abortion activists? There is a fear among many pro-life supporters that the movement will get steam rolled precisely because it has always taken the high road. Yet, to meet the pro-abortion activists’ violence with violence of our own would seem to be a betrayal of the movement. After all, it is pro-life. Many, like me, see the abortion debate as the fulcrum in the culture war. There is the sense that if this battle is lost, losing the culture war entirely would be a foregone conclusion. Again, how do we respond? There are no easy answers, but Jacques Ellul in his typical clarity, develops a theory, a philosophy of violence, from a Christian perspective that he calls: Christian realism.

Introduction to the Question

Ellul is quick to remind us that Christian teachings on violence go back deep into the Old Testament. There is a long history of discussion on the subject. Throughout this time, especially in the Christian era, there has never been unanimous agreement on the role of violence in human society. Down through time the general opinion was that the state was justified, even blessed, in its use of violence. The state’s role was to maintain the metaphysical order. In a sinful world within which there is evil, there will be a need for the state to wield the sword in order to curb and restrain society’s baser instincts. At the same time, because of this metaphysical order, rebellion against the state, especially using violence, was condemned. Revolt was not just revolt against the king, but also against God. It would be a mistake, though, to assume that Christians have only ever advocated for non-violent protest against an unjust ruler. They have also at times backed the idea of revolutionary violence. We must see that both those who advocate violence and those who support non-violence can look back into Christian tradition and find support for their adoption of one mode or the other. This debate has been with us from the early days of the Christian faith.

After spending some time reviewing the traditional arguments for just war, for the use of force by the state as well those of radical Christian pacifism, he begins to lay the groundwork for a third option. To do so, in a fashion typical to Ellul, he begins looking at the whole problem by trying to properly understand violence and its ubiquitous presence in the world. What is violence? How does it manifest itself? How does violence work? What does it do?

He begins by making the observation that in regard to violence, the refusal to use violence in the face of violence, the refusal to use violence in order to protect the oppressed is in fact a form of passive violence. The typical non-violent response to violence—taking the high road, we would call it—is in fact a form of passive violence. I allows you to be violent, but I feel good about it because I was not violent. Ellul argues that today’s non-violent approaches to activism are not authentic; rather, they are a form of propaganda. They allow their opponents to continue being violent so that they can signal and message to the world their moral virtue. It is done to create the propaganda that “our side” are the “good guys.”

Ellul argues that the acceptance of violence has always had a place in Christian teaching on various grounds. That said, there is not direct chapter and verse “yes” to something like revolutionary violence of the oppressed against the oppressor. In fact, if anything, the scriptures lead away from that conclusion, instead trusting things to the judgment of God. At the same time, someone like Aquinas was willing to justify theft by a poor man against the rich because the rich man had neglected his duty to the poor. In a sense, if the poor are stealing from the rich, it is a judgement of God against the rich. If the poor are in such a state that they think they must steal to survive, the rich have been neglecting their duty and do deserve what they are getting.

Once you set this back and forth aside, is or isn’t violence justified, especially when it is not the state acting, what you discover is that when private political actors like revolutionaries use violence, their Christian faith actually plays a small part in their justifications for its use. Their Christian principles are almost always abandoned in the revolutionary process. Ellul comes to this conclusion:

“The attempt to assimilate world and faith with each other is one mistake, and the attempt to separate them radically is another.”

He says that it is a huge mistake for Christians to believe that the victory and lordship of Christ has resolved the problem of violence for the Christian. The world we live in is a world in which the radical salvation of Jesus exists side by side with a world where sin and evil are still very much present realities. This dual nature of the world, this in between time between Christ’s death and resurrection on the one hand and his second coming on the other, places us in a situation where we face contradictory realities that must be accepted.

Ellul argues that the recourse to violence in our age is particularly tempting in part because of technology. The embrace of technology, and with it technical thinking, is to embrace the spirit of power, that is the “will to power” that is evident in all technical thinking. Technology is the effort to apply the power of human reason to master the world, to dominate and control it. Science and technology are inherently violent in their nature. As Christians embrace the technical, they typically set aside the virtues of humility and resignation. We must solve every problem because we can and with the power of technology behind us we will be able to realize a truly Christian world. It is the will to power and it is violent. It is also a hypocritical lie.

He argues that Christians who engage in violence often do so with a “distressingly simplistic cast of mind.” They typically judge all socioeconomic problems in the simplest of terms, using stereotyped formulas in the place of real thought and real solutions. But few ever stop to think that when the violence is over and the force has been applied, often the real problems don’t start to show themselves until after we think we have solved them. When you look at Christians who engage in violent movements, they typically did so not because of their Christianity, but because they shared the dominant ethos and ideology of the day.

“Let me emphasize that recourse to violence is a sign of incapacity: incapacity to solve the fundamental questions of our time and incapacity to discern the specific form Christian action should take.”

Ellul argues that the primary roll of Christians and the Christian community is first of all to act in a prophetic role towards the rest of the broader society. Flowing out of his book on politics, Ellul works from the understanding that any public, political form of Christianity will be inherently hypocritical. In order to succeed in the realm of politics as a Christian, its exigencies will demand he compromise his stated beliefs, rendering him a hypocrite. This happens largely because of the necessary use of violence in any state, “Christian” or otherwise. This has been the tragic history of Christian politics.

“Christians ought, above all, to play the role of society’s sentinel (Ezekiel), to interpret for society the meaning of acts and events.”

But this clarity of purpose for the Christian community does not let the Christian off the hook:

“The Christian who accepts violence, like the Christian who thinks he can ignore violence, has abdicated from Christianity as a way of life.”

This seemingly contradictory statement provided the launching pad for Ellul to discuss his theory of violence, that of Christian realism.

Christian Realism

We seem to be swirling around in circles. Ellul himself notes that the Bible frequently condemns violence, but often defends it, even in the New Testament. The Christian, argues Ellul, must approach social ethics from a position of realism, a clear headed understanding of what is actually happening and what is actually at stake. He argues that only the Christian, because of Christ and his revelation, can see the world clearly. He does not have to shy away from seeing the truth, because the truth will not elicit despair, but can be faced with hope in Christ.

Christian realism means knowing and understating exactly what the situation is, but also what you are doing in response to it and facing the truth of both. The Christian must understand what he is doing, why he is doing it and what the results will be once its done. Faith and the move of the Spirit does not exempt us from having to think. But seeing things as they are does not mean that we derive our principles of action from them. We, in sober humility, must do what needs to be done in any given situation. He notes, where violence is concerned, typically Christians think and act like “imbecilic children.” We live in a fallen world, a world of sin and evil. Thus:

“It must be recognized that violence is to be found everywhere, at all times, even when we pretend it does not exist.”

This is the baseline condition of the world that we live in and experience day-to-day. It is a world of violence. Ellul notes that every state, every one, even the so-called “Christian” states are founded by violence and they are maintained by violence. There can be no polite distinction between violence and force. Force is violence. There is invariably violence at the start of a state, and a state can only become legitimate when it can force by means of violence, or the threat of violence, its neighbors to acknowledge it as legitimate. This is the only true criterion of state legitimacy, argues Ellul. All governments gain and maintain power through the use of violence.

Why is Hitler, and with him Fascism, denounced as not legitimate as a political regime and philosophy? For no other reason than he lost. He could not maintain the integrity of the state and he was defeated. Why was Stalin and with him communism not delegitimized in the same way? The regime was, by all objective standards, just as, if not more evil than that of Hitler. Stalin, and with him the communist system, has legitimacy because Stalin was never defeated. He was, by violence, able to maintain the legitimacy of communist Russia and his rule. A similar dynamic plays out in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Before anything else, a state must establish order. This order is built and maintained through violence. Violence is just not a matter of the establishment of the state. For example, any system of economic competition is a form of violence. The free market economic system makes all economic interactions into a form of violence. Likewise the relationship between the classes is inherently a violent competition for positions of power, status and wealth within the nation. Can anyone suppose that the lower classes, the workers, employees, peasants, will accept without protest the dominance of the upper classes over their lives without the real or implied threat of violence? What of the rule of the bourgeoisie, the capitalist, the manager, the bureaucrat, the technocrat or whatever? Their rule is equally established and maintained by violence, even if that violence is masked and hidden. Will people accept this social stratification without the underlying threat of violence? There is the threat that if they rise up to challenge their position that they will be put down by police or the military. In fact, recent remarks by President Biden made plain the threat. It must be understood that the current class structure of society is a product of violence. Violence may be physical, psychological or spiritual, but it is still violence. In truth, propaganda may be the worst form of violence as it is a form of psychological terrorism. It is violence against the mind and the spirit.

Ellul has this to say of the American situation:

“The United States has always been ridden with violence, though the truth was covered over by a legalistic ideology and a moralistic Christianity.”

What Ellul is saying is that by wrapping themselves in the idea of “the rule of law” and the “marketplace of ideas” as expressed through the parliamentary mechanism, wrapped with Christian virtue, Americans have lived in denial of the violent nature of the founding and maintenance of their society. Because of this, there is the expectation that everyone will simply just play by the rules. We don’t need violence the way other nations do. We organize our society by the “rule of law.” This is a lie. Americans need to employ violence just the way that all the other nations do in order to maintain order. The “rule of law” only exists because it is backed by the threat of violence.

“Americans are stunned when the world rewards their good will and their sense of responsibility with resentment. That is because they have never looked reality in the face.”

And:

“The truth is that the United States is an explosive situation—a complex situation whose elements are racialism, poverty, urban growth involving the disintegration of communities (the phenomenon of the metropolis). But for decades Americans have the idea that every problem could be solved by law and good will…I do not mean to indict the United States. I merely point out that even so moralized and Christianized a society that holds to an admirable ideology of law and justice…even such a society is basically violent, like every other.”

This was written in 1969, not 2020.

The reality that we must face, especially as Christians, is that in a fallen world, in the world we actually live in, violence is an inescapable reality. Violence is a necessity. Violence cannot be justified by moral or religious means. It is a necessity. The necessity of violence is like the necessity of gravity. As a necessity, violence cannot be brought under a moral judgement.

But, argues Ellul, when a man is violent he should realize that he is acting on the animal level and is obeying a necessity. A violent man is not free. A violent man cannot be free. In this sense, Americans are not a free people.

The Law of Violence

Because violence operates in this realm of necessity in a sinful, fallen world, the Christian must know what they are doing when they commit violence.

The first law of violence is “continuity.” Once you start using violence, you cannot get away from it. Once we start using violence we never stop using it, because it is much easier, more direct and more practical to use violence than any other means. Once you have loosed violence, you cannot get away from it. You keep coming back to it again and again.

The second law of violence is “reciprocity.” All who live by the sword perish by the sword. There is no distinction between a good use of the sword and the bad use of the sword. In the same way there is no good use of a firearm and a bad use of a firearm. All are violent. A victory gained through the use of violence does not bring freedom from violence. Violence imprisons its practitioners in a circle that cannot be broken by human means, certainly not by violence itself.

The third law of violence is “sameness.” Justified and unjustified violence is the same. Violence done for the “right” reasons is the same as violence done for the “wrong” reasons. Every violence is identical with all other forms of violence. There is not good violence and bad violence, greater violence and lesser violence. All violence is violence.

“I maintain all kinds of violence are the same. And this is not only true of physical violence—the violence of the soldier who kills, the policeman who bludgeons, the rebel who commits arson, the revolutionary who assassinates; it is also true of economic violence—the violence of the privileged proprietor against his workers, the “haves” against the “have-nots”; the violence done in international economic relations between our societies and those of the third world; the violence done through powerful corporations which exploit the resources of a country that is unable to defend itself.”

Whether the violence is physical or psychological, it is all the same. Violence is violence. The very nature of violence is that it has no limits. Once we consent to using violence ourselves we have to consent to our adversary using it too. A government that maintains itself through violence cannot be shocked or outraged when violent guerrilla groups are formed to attack it violently. Likewise, a revolutionary rioter cannot protest when the government uses violence to quell the riot.

The fourth law of violence is “violence begets violence.” A current example of this is in propaganda. To combat state propaganda and that of mainstream media outlets who amplify the regime message, we believe we need to use our own propaganda. We must use psychological violence to combat the psychological violence of our opponents. Ellul argues that the violent struggle against racism, through both propaganda and through the violence of protests (even so-called “non-violent” protests are a form of violence), has resulted in the development of racism throughout the world. The more that racism is “battled” the more violently racist the world becomes. Violence begets violence. As such, violence can never create either liberty or justice.

The fifth law of violence is this: the man who uses violence will always try to justify his use of violence, to justify it and himself.

“The plain fact is that violence is never pure.”

And:

“Violence is hypocritical.”

This may be the most important point about violence. It can never be justified. It can never be made pure. It is always a thing of evil and those who engage in it are increasing the evil in the world. The belief that violence can make a decisive positive change in the world is the worst kind of delusion.

But, says Ellul, this does not exempt the pacifist. The pacifist cannot escape the laws of violence.

“[The pacifist idealist] does not know that the reality of his society—a violent society, devoted to technology and to production-consumption—is the basis of their own existence. They are a supplement to this same society—the flower on its hat— … in reality they are the product of its luxuriousness. They cannot exist materially unless this society functions fully.”

What Ellul is saying here is that a pacifist group, like say the Mennonites, can only be pacifist because a space has been made for them by the violence of the rest of society. Their idealism is made possible by the general violence of society. Their existence is a way for society pat itself on its back for their high ideals, while looking the other way in regards to the general violence that makes their peaceful existence possible. The same, then can be said for the non-violent nature of the pro-life movement. Its ability to pursue its aims without resorting to physical violence is also made possible by the violence of the state. It also does not exempt them from the violence of their propaganda. The non-violence of the pro-life movement is at best an illusion and worst a form of hypocrisy. It is a denial of the reality of the situation, a set of polite fictions used to secure the moral high ground that it actually does not occupy.

To extend this further, a case could be made that the real price for the non-violent high ground of the pro-life movement has been the death of 60,000,000 plus unborn babies. We have allowed countless numbers of babies to be murdered so that we can signal to the world the purity of our Christian action. As I said, Ellul wants us to look the problem of violence square in the face and see its ubiquitous ugly reality. It is the first duty of a Christian living in a sinful world to reject idealism.

“Christian realism leads to the conclusion that violence is natural and normal to society…if this realism scandalizes Christians, it is because they make the mistake of thinking what is natural is good and what is necessary is legitimate.”

The Necessity of Violence and the Freedom of Christ

Ellul then draws a very stark line between the sinful world of necessity where violence is an integral part of all of life, and the grace of God in Jesus Christ. What Christ does is he sets us free from the world of necessity.

“What Christ does for us above all is to make us free…true freedom is to be free from necessity.”

To be free from necessity is to be free from violence. The Christian must struggle against violence because apart from Christ violence is the form that human relations normally and naturally take. Ellul sees Christ as making a complete and radical break with the world. The world of necessity appeared when Adam broke relationship with God. And freedom from the world of necessity comes in and through Christ.

To use violence is to be of the world. If we are free in Christ, we shall reject violence precisely because violence is necessary. But, we cannot just reject one form of violence. We must reject them all. That means rejecting ideology and propaganda. It means rejecting technology and the technical because both are forms of violence. It means rejecting economic and class violence. It also means rejecting theological violence. And, yes, it means rejecting physical violence.

Again, because we live in a world of necessity, violence does have its uses. For example, violence is usually the only way that facades of hypocrisy can be exploded. It often is necessary to use violence to expose hidden oppressions for what they are. In that sense “only violence reveals reality.”

What Ellul argues is that on the one hand you have to hold out the radical nature of the gospel as a promise of freedom, freedom from the world of necessity, perhaps something only seen with the eyes of faith and not allow it to become mingled and corrupted with the hypocrisy of trying to justify violence, especially in the name of Christ. Even though we can never call violence “good” there are times when it is necessary. But in these times of necessity, we must recognize that our actions are contradictory to the Christian life, the life of freedom, freedom from the world of necessity.

“Opposing an unjust order, creating a state of disorder our of which renewal may issue—this is acceptable, provided that users of violence do not pretend they are creating order; what they are creating is one more injustice.”

Violence is not a strategy or a tactic one can use freely. Nor can a Christian give credit to a movement which promises a new order through the use of violence. It is simply not true that violence can realize this ideal.

“The only thing the Christian can do is acknowledge that he doing wrong, is sinning against God, and increasing the world’s disorder.”

And:

“The Christian cannot believe the violence he commits is in conformity with the divine will and the divine order…the man who uses violence is no longer free, a man conformed to God, a witness of the truth.”

We must reject all attempts to justify violence on Christian grounds. Any attempt to justify violence is yet another example of the fallen nature of man.

Ellul quotes Charles Peguy:

“People who insist on keeping their hands clean are likely to find themselves without hands.”

So. No easy answers. Ellul leaves all the questions out there. What should a Christian do in response to the violence of pro-abortion supporters? Do they keep their consciences clean and end up without hands? But, truly, should our consciences be clean anyways? Is our non-violence simply a white washing of our unwillingness to do what is necessary at the expense of the lives of millions of unborn babies? No one can live in the world of necessity, and we all do, and keep their hands clean. Is it time to do what is necessary? That begs the question, what is necessary? A storm is coming and Christians will feel its force one way or another. We need to begin facing the truth of the way things are and what might be necessary to do in the future, sooner than we think. Our opponents have no problems using political violence or violence against the unborn to achieve their aims. I am afraid we will not be able to keep our hands clean for long, if they ever were clean to begin with. The abortion issue is the distilled symbol of the cultural war. This seems to be the hill that the left culture warriors will fight tooth and nail to hold. How will we respond?