Excerpts from lecture by John Dear, Spring 2011
Source: http://www.sabeel.org/datadir/en-events/ev210/files/Corner60.pdf
1) A spirituality of resistance is a spirituality of nonviolence. Nonviolence is not a tactic or a strategy, and it is certainly not passive. It is a new way of life.
2) Our spirituality of resistance is based in the nonviolent resistance of Jesus and in discipleship to Jesus, the nonviolent resister of Empire. The Garden of Gethsemane. Here come the Roman soldiers, and what did St. Peter do? … He got out his sword to kill the soldiers, thinking that in all of salvation history, if violence was ever justified this was it. But then the commandment came as Jesus said: “Put down the sword.” We
are not allowed to kill. These are the last words of Jesus to the church, and it is the first time they truly understand him and his nonviolence.
3) It reclaims the nonviolence of God and claims our core identity as God’s beloved sons and daughters. When Jesus calls us out of Empire and into justice and peace, he speaks of a God who … does not create or bless Empire but wants us as God’s children to live in the fullness of life.
4) It means we are contemplatives of peace and nonviolence. We live in relationship with the God of peace, and so we spend time every day with God in silent prayer, contemplation, and meditation… We are invited to let go of our inner imperial tendencies [and]… to welcome God’s gift of peace within us so hat we can radiate personally the peace we seek politically, so that our very presence is disarming.
5) It begins with a practice of personal, mindful nonviolence toward ourselves and others. We must practice non-cooperation with the Empire’s occupation of our lives and souls… looking deeply within at the causes of our violence and not beat ourselves up but try to cultivate interior nonviolence.
6) Our Palestinian sisters and brothers show us that a spirituality of resistance is a way of life. For Palestinians…just living and breathing is an act of nonviolent resistance… We in the West have to relearn making nonviolent resistance our daily practice for the rest of our lives.
7) A spirituality of resistance is prophetic. It breaks the silence, complicity and acceptance of Empire and war. It publicly denounces Empire and the false spirituality of violence and announces justice and peace.
8) It means being visionaries of a new world of nonviolence. We are new Abolitionists: We are announcing a new world without walls, occupation, apartheid, rubber bullets, and tear gas. We are announcing the abolition of war, poverty, racism, sexism, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction!
9) It is a spirituality of the cross, of taking up the cross as nonviolent resistance to Empire, of carrying the cross of nonviolent resistance to Empire. Martin Luther King, Jr. said we have to learn how to use suffering creatively… Instead of inflicting violence on others, we accept suffering without even the desire to retaliate as we pursue justice with love for all people.
10) A spirituality of resistance is a spirituality of hope and resurrection. Beware the push for immediate results, for success. That is the language of Empire, of the Pentagon… There is an inverse proportionality: the more we are in charge and try to do it all, the less happens. The more we let go and risk and walk forward in faith to resist Empire, the more happens. So take risks, trust God, and place your hope in God!
Eighty- five nonviolent revolutions have taken place in the last 25 years. Recently, Mubarak fled from Cairo! The occupation can end, nuclear weapons can be abolished, world hunger can end. The Empire will fall… I urge you to keep your eyes on the risen Jesus, to cultivate what gives hope, to do hopeful things, to lift up the vision of a new world of nonviolence, and to go forward in hope.
Fr. Dear, S.J. is a priest, peace activist, organizer, lecturer, and author/ editor of 25 books on peace and nonviolence.
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