Being helpless is a luxury.
I have not avoided violence. I spent ten years working in Hospital security. I dealt mostly with violent drug addicts and violent mental health patients.
Once our team dealt with a young 6'8" Maori who had just become a schizophrenic. He had voices in his head pretending to be his ancestors telling him that he was a death god, and that he was to chose who lived and who died.
I solved that issue by talking to him, but he was nineteen and so much bigger and stronger than I was.
If he had decided to listen to those voices, and to attack those doctors and nurses trying to help him I would have put myself in the way and I would have fought to the death.
For you to explain to me that Christ wants me to run and hide while evil happens is disgusting. For you to say that you are superior to good, honest, dutiful policeman and soldiers is wicked.
You have the utter, enviable luxury of living in a community where rough men like me use our judgement, get our hands dirty, and (according to you) risk our very souls so you can feel superior and get closer to God.
Fine! I am not even mad. Love your best life. But don't you dare tell me that my choices are ungodly, and that Christ looks down on my willingness to serve my community and to be the rough hands that keep you safe.
Peaceful is to have the capacity for violence and to make the choice to not use that capability.
Jesus could have called in his followers to rise up and to fight the wicked Jews and the heartless Romans. Instead he went willingly to his death, because his sacrifice would teach his followers a lesson.
There are times that violence is needed, and it is cowardice to turn away. God gave us a brain, an organ of judgement, and then he sent his son to teach us how to use it. By his example, Jesus taught us that considered, effective violence is sometimes required of us.
But you don't need to learn that lesson. You certainly are not ready for it.
Just go back to sleep in your nice comfortable bed. Tell yourself how superior you are to police officers and soldiers. Tell yourself that prison guards and hospital guards are lesser, less worthy men.
Christ loves you all the same.
I don't have his infinite capacity.
If you want to take the lesson that you should be a pacifist to the point of death, then be my guest.
I don't believe that is either the example or the teaching of Christ.
Further, saying that Christ flipped tables and whipped near people, which isn't violence ... well, that is semantics. For Christ to swing his whip in a way that was a credible threat and cause people to be afraid, it makes no difference if the whip kissed their skin or not. Under modern laws, this behavior would still be considered to be assault.
Remember that Jesus was convicted by an ecumenical court of Jewish elders because he threatened their power and authority with his preaching the new testament. Pilate suggested that they crucify actual criminals. Everyone in attendance, Jews and Pilate, knew that the charges were political.
So to sum up, I find your arguments miss the point.
BUT if you want to go and live your life without anger or violence, then be my guest.
Peaceful is not the same as Helpless, or even Harmless. Jesus knew this and demonstrated it through his example. He was a man of Peace, not A Passive Victim.
zero violence
That isn't true.
In the New Testament (found in all four Gospels, e.g., Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-46, John 2:13-16), Jesus enters the temple in Jerusalem and sees moneylenders and merchants exploiting worshippers by turning a sacred space into a marketplace. He doesn’t act impulsively. For several days, he observes the situation, reflecting carefully. In John’s account, he even takes time to braid a whip from cords. Then, with deliberate conviction, he drives out the moneylenders, overturns their tables, and rebukes them for defiling the temple, saying it should be a house of prayer, not a “den of thieves.”
Jesus wasn’t opposed to all violence; his calculated response shows that righteous anger, when thoughtfully directed, can be used to confront injustice and restore what’s sacred.
I am not directing anyone to violence. I am hoping to remind you that the teachings of our Lord Jesus does not require us to be passive, peaceful and utterly helpless in the face of corruption and violence.
Wit Male to Female transgender patients it can be autogynephilia. That is, they have a paraphyllia (fetish) of imagining themselves as a woman.
When they are in public they are having other people participate in their sexual fetish and are becoming aroused by this.
The Wachowski Brothers fit this diagnosis, as do many others.
I deeply appreciate your insight on the subject.
I have struggled with forgiveness, as taught by our Lord Jesus. The first part of forgiveness is to accept people as they are.
I have had great difficulty in accepting that people can not be held to a higher standard. It has taken me a long time to understand that the teachings on forgiveness are without contradiction and that it is possible to forgive sinners and have standards for your community.
I get frustrated with other Christians who have taken from the teachings of the New Testament that we should forgive and accept people as they are and accept that they won't or can't change. There doesn't seem to be any place for tough love in that approach.