A Nonviolent Imagination

Today I drove past Crabapple Baptist Church, about 5 minutes from my house. It is a totally average looking brick church building in the suburban town of Milton, GA not far from Atlanta. In our neighborhood, there are half a dozen churches just like this one within blocks of each other. One hosts a weekly farmers market. Another has a vibrant mothers morning out program, but they’re all fairly indistinguishable from the outside looking in. A church is just another church to most people.

But this particular church is the church home of Pastor's kid Robert Aaron Long. At least, it was before they revoked his membership. And this week is the two-year anniversary of the week he murdered 6 people in the now infamous massage parlor shootings. As community members all across our state grieve and mourn, I keep reading that he was such an anomaly. But was he really? Or was he partially a product of his environment?

I don’t know the Long family. I’ve never worshipped at this church.

But I am a woman who is both a product of purity culture and a survivor of sexual violence. I have spent years healing, deconstructing, and trying to make sense of senselessness. Point being these conversations are never impersonal. People are always paying attention. opinions can never be reduced to objective opinions. And the way we respond to sexual violence always matters. And when I contemplated the backstory of this young man centered around his overwhelming sexual shame paired with rage, I can tell you he is most definitely not an anomaly.

People way more qualified than me have been examining the lasting effects of purity culture for years, and paired with a theology framed by violent language, the two were bound to collide publicly. The reality, however, is that violence and purity culture collide every single day as evidenced by sexual abuse cases in church spaces. Our typical reactions, like evangelical response to John MacArthur’s handling of the abuse in his congregation, are shockingly silent. And that silence is deafening to the victims of violence who have suffered at the hands of those who claim to follow Jesus. The reality is that this isn’t just one person or one church. The problem is systemic, with rippling implications.

Christ’s words in Matthew 5 read:

21-22 “You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.

23-24 “This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.”

One thing I keep coming back to is when our theology is framed by violence and conquest, then our theology will inspire more violence and conquest. Patterns and habits form us spiritually, and when our liturgies make room for violence, then little by little we allow that violence to form us. But Jesus himself invites us to re-examine what we know to be true and leads us distinctly towards a theology that is instead, framed by reconciliation and peacemaking. When the worship songs we sing feature language decrying things like battles, victories, wars and winning - those themes will inform our theology. And yes, this is true of the hymns of old and modern melodies. And a theology over informed by battles/war and under-informed by gracious repentance, mercy, and reconciliation will perpetuate violence. Worship songs more interested with the language of a God who wins rather than simply praising God for who God is, ARE problematic. And when we become comfortable using religion to justify violence against God’s own creation, we have missed the point entirely. History shows us this over and over.

As the world grapples with the larger consequences of war in the world right now, it seems like an important time to imagine- what would our theology look like without all the imagery of violence? What will it be on the other side of eternity? Where is the resurrection? The restoration? The beauty? The wonder? The adventure? The hope?

One day, we will live in a kingdom enthroned by the Prince of Peace, marked by harmony and shalom within the family of God. Until then, many of us who call Jesus Lord and take his nonviolent example seriously, pursue radical lives of peacemaking at the Lord’s direction. Because I follow Jesus, and because Jesus’ words and example matter to my interpretation of how he overcame death by means of sacrificial love, I believe that the more ready we are to kill our neighbors for the sake of eliminating an “enemy”, we will be less and less able to love them well.

God never commanded us to win by means of overpowering. God commanded us to love, through God’s own subversive and sacrificial service. The crucifixion is evidence of this. For while we were still enemies with God, Christ died for us.

So, what does it look like to be a Christian without an enemy? If our eschatological hope is in a future kingdom where the family of God will flourish unguarded and unafraid, then how does that hope to inform our embodied apologetic of that kingdom now? In what do we put our trust? In what or who do we hope? One day there will be no more enemies- just family and believers get to participate in that forgiven family becoming a reality. Now, do followers of Jesus collide with a very real enemy that operates in the spiritual realm? yes. absolutely. But our battle is not with flesh and blood, and neither should be our weapons.

So, especially for everyday congregants, pastors’ kids, and ministers what would it look like to live now as radical enemy lovers? countercultural? a little weird? probably incredibly misunderstood?

Now, I’m not a preacher or a theologian. I’m just a mother, a student, and hopefully a future hospital chaplain, concerned with soul care and healing in all of its forms. So, my love for the church leads me to imagine a faith fueled by radical acts of selflessness and self-giving holy love paired with great responsibility. When we begin to see strangers as potential neighbors worthy of hospitality, rather than potential enemies, we begin to see possibility, creativity, and hope. When we look for the image of God in each other, we will always find it, because it is always there. The more we pursue the grace and mercy of Jesus, the more we will spread it.

Today, as I stare at this totally unsuspecting looking church in my neighborhood, and I think about everything that has taken place, I pray for the families of the victims and their loved ones. Their grief is the priority. We lament. We pray for their comfort. For their rest. For peace of heart. We stand with them.

And for me, as I reflect on my own healing, I pray that my contribution towards the church is always one that encourages my siblings in the family of God towards the restoration, reconciliation, and redemption in Jesus. Violence will lead us towards our own destruction every time- but when the Prince of Peace is the one leading, the narrow road we walk together will disarm us every step of the way.