Chapter 2: Nuts, Flakes and Quakes

As Ryan pulled his Sequoia SUV up to Santora’s, he spotted Anthony’s 6’5”-230-lb-frame getting out of the KIA Rio rental car. He looked just like he did the last time he saw him except for that soon-to-be-forty-something hairline that was sneaking up past his forehead. Ryan’s mischievous and reckless side came out as soon as he laid eyes on Anthony, speeding up, just missing him by inches as he pulled into the parking spot next to him. Ryan whirled out of the car and embraced Anthony who was beaming with delight. Anthony had a t-shirt and hat for Ryan, both of which read: ‘Fresh-Squeezed Jayhawks,’ a reference to the University of Kansas football team’s 14-1 record the prior year, including a victory in the Orange Bowl. Anthony, it seems, wasn’t so ‘corporate’ anymore, getting a job coaching the quarterbacks for this up-and-coming powerhouse collegiate program.

RW: So this is what you’ve been doing with your Notre Dame degree!
AT: You didn’t think I could hack it in an office for the rest of my life, did you?

As Ryan continued the conversation, he ushered the two of them into the restaurant, where their autographed jerseys and team photo were still on the wall. Ryan had a knack for leading a conversation and getting things done. He was a gift for introverts like Anthony who tended to be more intimate, with a need to solely concentrate on the conversation at hand. Ryan shepherded them to the back corner of the joint and ordered 60 ‘nuclear wings’ and a pitcher of water, just like they used to share two decades earlier.

As they ate and sweat and got two refills of their water pitcher, they caught up on their families and jobs and Ryan gave Anthony the scouting report of a lot of their old teammates, where life had taken them and some random tidbits to go with it like, ‘After our old center Joe Ruiz graduated from USC, he went to Wall Street and married into old money and now I get a postcard from him every August from Kennebunkport.’ Of course, Ryan would not only bump into old friends from high school, from time to time, at supermarkets and the little league field, but he also had a Facebook page with a gigantic friend-list who shot one-liners at him just to say ‘hello’ and get a quick update. It was invigorating for Anthony to hear all these names after all these years, but he felt a warm sense of relief to be removed from all this social networking technology that seemed to trap people into old mundane conversations rehashing old mundane identities.

As the night was winding down, Ryan flippantly asked,

‘So, what’s it like to be back out here in California with all these nuts, flakes and quakes? I mean, 2/3 of the state is going to be voting for the most liberal member of the Senate to be our next President!’

Anthony smiled, but in his mind a battle was raging, just as it always did when matters of ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ would be presented to him in ways that assumed that he agreed with them. Anthony wasn’t someone who put these twin-headed-ogres on the shelf with a ‘Don’t Touch!’ sign, as our culture seems to pressure us to do. He was passionate about dialoguing about them because they revealed one’s deepest convictions--no wonder they were so dangerous. But these matters, Anthony knew, must be given ample time in order to side-step the sound-bytes of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ packages that he had long since abandoned, but consistently encountered. Matters like these needed space and time and, preferably, quality beverages. The dinner conversation was well into its third hour, but Anthony decided that a conversation like this with Ryan was only going to happen once-every-20-years and so much had changed in his thinking since he and Ryan attended the same youth group together after Ryan had ‘led him to Christ’ at the Hume Lake Summer Camp before their Sophomore year.

AT: There is a lot that is compelling about Obama’s platform and leadership. Since I’m a devout pacifist now, I really respect that he called Iraq a ‘dumb war’ way back in ’02 when it was politically risky and unpopular to do so, when he was preparing for a heated Senate race.
RW: Yeah, seems like he was a bit of a prophet with that description of the war, but Anthony—a ‘pacifist’—-are you kidding me? That seems a little, how shall I put it, ‘irresponsible,' don’t you think? I mean, no offense, but what if a man broke into your home and held a gun to your wife and two daughters? You wouldn’t really just stand there as a bystander and let him kill the three most precious people in your life!

At this point, Anthony knew and appreciated, that this was going to be a long, in-depth conversation that embraced ‘full-disclosure,’ something that he rarely came across. Perhaps it was quite intimidating debating with a 6’5” hulk who spends far more time thinking than speaking. But Ryan, just like in high school, could be counted on to share his heart in an authentically transparent way, something Anthony really admired, but had almost forgotten about his good friend in their nearly two-decade hiatus.

AT: OK, it’s a fair question because my point-of-view on the violence issue is certainly in the minority, but there are some assumptions behind your question that we’ve got to consider. First of all, it falsely assumes that how I respond will inevitably determine the outcome of the situation. Second, it falsely assumes that I have control over the entire situation—that if I actually seek to stop the killer, I can. Third, it falsely assumes that I’m omniscient, like I could foresee exactly how events will unfold so that I could stop the evil killer by making the right move. Let’s face it, any real-life situation is vastly different than those predictable outcomes in all these Westerns—like Tombstone or Silverado—that we used to watch over and over and rehearse all the great lines.
RW: Point taken. But, in fairness to Hollywood, movies seem to be getting a lot less predictable these days—lot more random—like No Country For Old Men or The Departed, mirroring the complexity and confusion of a post-9/11 world.
AT: But even these, and especially these, are still widely endorsing violent solutions to rid the world of violence.
RW: I see.
AT: Where was I?
RW: Fourth?
AT: Yeah, fourth, in all humility, your proposed situation falsely assumes my untarnished righteousness. As my favorite professor at Notre Dame once wrote, the one responsible for my conversion to nonviolent Christianity, ‘I also assume that I am morally qualified to be judge, jury, and executioner—and to perform all those roles in one second.’
RW: Yeah, you were quite the athlete in your day, but surely no superhero. Who’s this guy who turned you into Gandhi?
AT: Ha! His name is John Howard Yoder. I had him for this social ethics class during the last semester at Notre Dame. He was mostly known in theological circles for his genius articulation of radical Christian nonviolence and peace-making. He came up with 29 different brands of religious pacifism in one of his books in the early 70s!
RW: 29? Are there even 29 pacifists in the United States today? Not counting places like Berkeley, Eugene and Madison, of course.
AT: Well, there are a lot more of us coming out of the woodworks in ‘Middle America,’ for any of some 29-odd reasons! Anyways, I only had two classes my senior year at Notre Dame and bowling was the other and I wasn’t wasting any energy since I wasn’t getting any time on the field. I was invigorated by what Yoder taught and how he thought and I started reading all of his works. He was a Mennonite and wrote this masterpiece called The Politics of Jesus in 1972, at the height of the Vietnam War. It was ranked #5 in Christianity Today’s top 100 theology books of the 20th century back in 2000. Anyway, Yoder also wrote this little pamphlet called What Would You Do about 25 years ago that deals thoroughly with your question.
RW: I knew this was a set-up.
AT: OK, I’ve only got one more point. Lastly, the situation leaves no room for any alternatives. Perhaps the ‘killer’ is just looking for dinner for his hungry children or some cash to pay rent. Furthermore, your question seems to falsely assume that if I don’t respond to this situation with force, like Jason Bourne or John Rambo, then I’ll somehow be less manly. Besides, your proposed real-life situation actually is quite different from the reality of war with its innocent bystanders, questions about jurisdiction and authority, the days and months of preparation and escalation, as well as questions of guilt and innocence. But here’s the key: I’m a pacifist, not because it works, but because I’m a Christian. I’ve been compelled by an interpretation of the New Testament that challenges the reader to take up the cross of Jesus by affirming, even to the loss of life, the dignity of the enemy and offender.
RW: All valid points. I see where I jumped into this conversation with a pretty simplistic question. But I’ve always just brushed off die-hard pacifists as idealistic hippies, or worse-off, sectarian Amish folk with funny outfits and IPOD-envy, totally out of touch with the real world. What if everyone in America was a pacifist? Wouldn’t al Qaeda be flying planes into buildings every other day?
AT: This second question you bring up has been around for the past 1700 years, since the days of Emperor Constantine who set the stage for a marriage between church and state. For the first 3 centuries, the Body of Christ was overwhelmingly pacifist. It was taken for granted that Christians, by the very logic of the gospel, would refuse to fight in armies while the Empire was run by pagans who either persecuted Christians at times or were totally indifferent. Since Constantine, Christians have taken on the distinct duty of ‘being responsible’ for society. This led to theologians like Augustine in the 5th c. and Reinhold Niebuhr in the 20th to come up with strategies for how imperfect Christian leaders could lead imperfect societies. After all, every President of the United States has been a ‘Christian’ and so will the next one…unless you really believe all those forwarded emails about Obama being a Muslim in disguise!
RW: Sure, a few disgruntled members of our congregation have passed those email warnings along, including a few predicting he is the Anti-Christ! But seriously, how could either Obama or McCain possibly be pacifist Presidents with bin Laden and Ahmadinejad breathing murderous threats at us and our allies? Again, it seems to me like that would be incredibly irresponsible, leading to the deaths of millions of hard-working Americans?
AT: I guess I’m just interested in asking different questions. Especially at this moment in history, I’m more concerned with the seriousness of Christian communities in the United States actually taking the Bible at face value in their own unique contexts and actually living faithfully where they are at. I think that it is easy to talk about American politics and offer some rather insane circumstances to debunk Jesus’ radical call for nonviolence. His call starts [and usually stops] in our day to day lives, not with decisions that President’s need to make in dire times. I believe that both a serious consideration of the Sermon on the Mount as well as the New Testament’s consistent call for an intentional imitation of the way of Jesus, the culmination of his faithfulness to the point of death on a cross, will lead communities to face the challenge of living by what Yoder called ‘the scandal factors’: enemy love, forgiveness and service. If we prioritize the local community, then we encounter a vocation to pledge allegiance to God’s reign, to be faithful, not necessarily effective. Sometimes, and only sometimes, people like Martin Luther King are faithful and effective. But remember, the effectiveness of the Civil Rights Movement has been tremendously slow and King died for that cause as he seemed to prophecy on a few occasions with statements like, ‘The cross we bear precedes the crown we wear’ or as Jesus said, ‘Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple’ [Luke 14:25]. In Jesus’ day, the cross simply meant death to anyone who was subversive to the Empire. King’s life and death reveal that it is still often the case for those being unpopularly faithful to Jesus' way in a different sort of Empire.