The Canadian Armed Forces, according to a Jan. 20 Globe and Mail article, have developed a model for a Canadian response to a hypothetical U.S. invasion of our country. The model calls for Canadian resistance to take the form of ambushes, sabotage, drone warfare and hit-and-run tactics, such as the mujahedeen used in Afghanistan to resist Soviet and U.S.-led forces that controlled their country.

Such a response might avoid an almost certain bloodbath of Canadians who directly fight back in the event of an invasion. But who knows for sure? What it certainly would do is continue the dead-end strategy of resisting violence with more violence.

The unveiling of such a model should spur Christians to ask what they would do if an invasion took place. We have the teaching and example of Jesus who, when one of his followers cut off the ear of one of his persecutors, responded, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” (Matthew 26.51-52)

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Perhaps if the disciples had responded using the Canadian military model, Jesus would have escaped his captors and lived. However, Jesus rejected a violent defence of his life.

This was not a marginal issue for Jesus; an ethic of non-violence pervaded his teaching, and he urged his followers to follow that teaching and spread it to the far corners of the world. Here is our opportunity.

The Sermon on the Mount is built around this theme. Instead of fighting evildoers and waging a war of liberation to defend the poor, Jesus’ disciples should be merciful, meek, peacemakers, pure in heart, and hunger and thirst for righteousness. He concludes the Beatitudes by saying, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven.”

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Jesus then deepens the demands of the Torah by teaching that not only should we not kill, but we also should never become angry. We should not fight evildoers; we should love our enemies and pray for our persecutors.

Jesus’ public ministry began with his rejection of the devil’s enticements to worldly power. His time on earth concludes with his command to make disciples of all nations, “and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” In any reasonable interpretation, that command applies to his teachings on non-violence.

Over the centuries, Christians have devised various subterfuges to avoid facing the plain message of Jesus’ teaching. In the first centuries after Jesus’ death and resurrection, that was not so. Christians were pacifists until Emperor Constantine blessed (or cursed) them with the protection of the State. They suffered persecution and, in many cases, joyfully accepted martyrdom.

After Christians began to blend into mainstream society, St. Augustine laid the basis of just war theory. That theory is not a bad moral theory if its requirements are scrupulously observed. More often, they are ignored as partisans of special interests, without serious discernment, eagerly portray their own military adventures as justified. In the face of the enormous destructiveness of modern warfare, the theory offers no rationale for fighting wars against other nations and peoples, and scant legitimacy even for self-defence in war.

A commitment to non-violence does not mean passivity in the face of evildoers. Can one resist an evildoer without appeasing him? Well, one may refuse to cooperate with a conqueror, withholding one’s participation in even the minimum demands of the oppressor. Or one might follow Jesus’ counsel to “go the extra mile” to win our enemies to the Spirit. However, whether that is a prudent response when faced with nihilist aggression of a murderer and rapist ought to be considered. 

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A non-violent response is unlikely to become government policy in a secular Canada with citizens of various religions and no religion. However, it would be a grand example of moral leadership if Canada were to adopt means of self-defence that eschew killing members of any invading force. 

We hope such an invasion never occurs. It would take centuries for the damage and ill will created by such an attack to be overcome even if the attack were unsuccessful. In the meantime, the non-violent alternative ought to be taken seriously. Jesus calls us to be salt and light, neither combatants in nor bystanders to history’s great upheavals. Only when large numbers of people opt to confront persecution with peaceful means can humanity break the culture of death.