Christian Pacifism and Nonviolent Resistance
Christian Pacifism and Nonviolent Resistance
Christian pacifism is a broad tradition that interprets the teachings and example of Jesus Christ as a call to reject violence, refuse participation in war, and pursue justice through peaceful means. While Christians have long debated the morality of warfare, advocates of Christian nonviolence argue that Jesus' commands to love enemies, forgive persecutors, and resist evil without retaliation remain central to Christian discipleship.
The modern movement encompasses diverse traditions—including Mennonites, Quakers, the Church of the Brethren, Catholic peace activists, Protestant theologians, and civil-rights leaders—that share a commitment to replacing violence with reconciliation, civil resistance, and peacemaking. Although they differ over political participation and the use of state power, these traditions generally view nonviolence as an active method of confronting injustice rather than passive acceptance of oppression.
Biblical and Theological Foundations
Christian pacifism is rooted primarily in the teachings of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount, where believers are instructed to love their enemies, turn the other cheek, bless persecutors, and become peacemakers. Many theologians argue that Jesus' rejection of violence during his arrest and crucifixion establishes a model for Christian conduct.
Modern scholarship explores how biblical concepts such as agape (self-giving love), forgiveness, reconciliation, and the Kingdom of God provide the theological foundation for nonviolent resistance. Christian thinkers continue to debate how these teachings relate to government authority, self-defense, policing, military service, and just-war theory.
Early Christianity and the Development of Pacifism
Many historians argue that significant portions of the pre-Constantinian church discouraged military participation and emphasized martyrdom rather than armed resistance. After Christianity became closely connected with imperial government, theologians such as Augustine developed just-war theory, leading to centuries of debate between advocates of limited warfare and proponents of complete nonviolence.
Modern historians continue to examine how early Christians understood military service, public authority, conscience, and obedience to the state.
Peace Churches and Historic Christian Traditions
Several Christian communities have maintained continuous traditions of nonviolence for centuries.
Historic Peace Churches—including the Mennonites, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and Church of the Brethren—teach that following Christ requires refusing participation in warfare while actively promoting reconciliation, mediation, humanitarian service, restorative justice, and community peacebuilding.
Organizations such as Mennonite Central Committee, Community Peacemaker Teams, On Earth Peace, and Brethren Volunteer Service continue these traditions through international humanitarian work, conflict transformation, and nonviolent accompaniment.
Catholic Nonviolence
Catholic approaches to nonviolence have expanded significantly during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker Movement, the Plowshares Movement, Pax Christi International, and the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative have emphasized peacemaking, hospitality, civil disobedience, opposition to nuclear weapons, and solidarity with marginalized communities.
Recent papal teaching, particularly under Pope Francis, has increasingly highlighted active nonviolence as an important expression of Christian discipleship while encouraging renewed reflection on traditional just-war doctrine.
Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement
Martin Luther King Jr. developed one of the most influential expressions of Christian nonviolent resistance by combining the teachings of Jesus with Gandhian methods of civil disobedience.
Working alongside figures such as Bayard Rustin, James Lawson, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King argued that disciplined nonviolent action could expose injustice while preserving the dignity of opponents. Churches served as organizational centers for the Civil Rights Movement, providing leadership, worship, training, moral formation, and community support during campaigns against segregation.
King consistently described nonviolence as both a practical strategy for social change and a comprehensive Christian way of life grounded in love.
Conscientious Objection
Many Christian traditions recognize conscientious objection as a legitimate expression of religious conviction.
Throughout the twentieth century, Christians refused military service during major conflicts, often accepting imprisonment or alternative civilian service. Modern churches continue to advocate legal protections for conscientious objectors while supporting humanitarian alternatives to military participation.
Historical studies document the experiences of objectors during both World Wars, the Vietnam War, and more recent conflicts.
Global Christian Nonviolent Resistance
Christian communities have participated in numerous nonviolent movements around the world.
Examples include resistance to apartheid in South Africa, the Philippine People Power Revolution, church-based opposition to communist dictatorship in East Germany, rescue efforts during the Holocaust, peacebuilding initiatives in Latin America, and contemporary accompaniment programs in regions experiencing war and occupation.
These examples illustrate how religious organizations have combined spiritual conviction with political activism, humanitarian service, mediation, and organized civil resistance.
Contemporary Debates
Modern Christian writers continue to debate difficult ethical questions raised by terrorism, authoritarianism, genocide, racial injustice, and international conflict.
Some argue that Christian pacifism provides the most faithful response to violence by rejecting all forms of killing. Others defend limited defensive force under carefully defined just-war principles while acknowledging the importance of nonviolent alternatives whenever possible.
Recent scholarship increasingly emphasizes active nonviolent resistance rather than passive withdrawal, arguing that Christians can confront injustice through protest, economic pressure, reconciliation, accompaniment, and organized civil action.
Conclusion
Christian pacifism represents one of Christianity's oldest and most enduring ethical traditions. Although interpretations vary across denominations and historical periods, the movement consistently challenges the assumption that violence is the inevitable solution to political conflict.
From the early church to modern civil-rights campaigns, from historic peace churches to contemporary Catholic and Protestant movements, Christian nonviolence has sought to combine moral conviction with practical action. Its continuing influence can be seen in peacebuilding initiatives, conscientious objection, humanitarian service, civil resistance movements, and ongoing debates about war, justice, and the responsibilities of Christians in a violent world.
Contemporary Christian Nonviolence
Kings Start Wars. Christians Stop Them
| Tyler Huckabee | Sojourners | March 1, 2026
Christian nonviolence is presented as a forceful confrontation with political violence rather than passive submission. Drawing on Martin Luther King Jr.’s understanding of pacifism, Huckabee argues that Christians should resist war, authoritarian power, and injustice through courageous public action grounded in love.
Review: The Nonviolent Jesus
| James T. Keane | America Magazine | January 16, 2025
A review of John Dear’s interpretation of Jesus as a nonviolent revolutionary who challenged Roman imperial power without adopting its violence. The article explores how the Gospels can be read as guides to peaceful resistance, solidarity with outcasts, and rejection of coercive authority.
Blessed Are the Peacemakers: From Mennonite Nonresistance to Nonviolence to Nonviolent Resistance
Examines the transformation of Mennonite peace theology from separation and personal nonresistance toward active participation in political struggles. It considers how Mennonites have increasingly combined their traditional refusal to kill with organized nonviolent resistance against oppression.
'You Can’t Fight Your Way to Peace': Eight Conscientious Objectors on Why They Refused Military Service
| Rachel Cooke | The Guardian | June 8, 2024
Profiles conscientious objectors from several countries who rejected military service for religious, political, or ethical reasons. Their experiences demonstrate the personal costs of refusing militarism and the different ways pacifists contribute through humanitarian service, activism, and support for other objectors.
We Need to Reclaim the Legacy of Christian Nonviolence
| Robert E. DeMarais | U.S. Catholic | May 23, 2024
Surveys Christian pacifism from the early church through the Anabaptists, Quakers, Catholic Worker movement, and Pax Christi. The article argues that nonviolence is not a marginal innovation but an important Christian tradition centered on enemy-love, human dignity, and resistance to war.
Pacifists Judged: Great but Misguided
| John D. Roth | Anabaptist World | April 12, 2023
Reviews historical accounts of American pacifists who opposed participation in the Second World War. The article questions narratives that praise conscientious objectors’ humanitarian service while dismissing the religious convictions that led them to reject warfare.
The Critical Challenge of Pacifism and Nonviolent Resistance
| Neta C. Crawford | Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence | 2023
Argues that pacifism and nonviolence expose assumptions that make militarism appear natural or unavoidable. The article examines how nonviolent resistance can provide both an ethical critique of warfare and practical alternatives for addressing political conflict and injustice.
Parenting as a Catholic Pacifist in an Era of Mass Shootings
| M. Therese Lysaught | America Magazine | June 9, 2022
Reflects on the difficulties of teaching Christian nonviolence amid widespread fear of shootings and demands for armed protection. The author connects pacifism with Christian martyrdom, forgiveness, trust, and the example of Jesus refusing retaliation even when threatened with death.
I Considered Myself a Pacifist. Then Russia Invaded Ukraine
| Kerry Weber | America Magazine | March 4, 2022
Explores the moral strain placed on pacifist convictions by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The article considers armed defense, civilian resistance, Dorothy Day’s witness, and the argument that strategic nonviolent action may continue even under occupation and military attack.
What Does ‘Christian Nonviolence’ Actually Mean?
| Mitchell Atencio | Sojourners | January 25, 2022
Interviews theologians David C. Cramer and Myles Werntz about the diversity of Christian nonviolence. They describe several traditions that understand nonviolence as discipleship, political strategy, liberation from oppression, spiritual formation, or resistance to social systems organized around death.
History, Theology, and Christian Traditions
Australian Christian Conscientious Objectors During the Vietnam War
| Gary A. Sandy | Religions | November 2021
Studies Australian Christians who resisted military conscription during the Vietnam War. It explains how religious pacifism, changing conscientious-objection laws, denominational teachings, and individual interpretations of Christian duty shaped their refusal to participate.
Review: Just War Theory Is Out. Gospel Nonviolence Is the Way Forward
| Bill McCormick | America Magazine | December 17, 2020
Reviews Arthur Laffin’s case for placing resistance to nuclear weapons and Gospel nonviolence at the center of Catholic life. The article emphasizes prayer, local organizing, civil disobedience, and personal responsibility rather than waiting for church authorities to lead peace activism.
Pacifism in Church History
| Ronald J. Sider | Anabaptist World | January 9, 2020
Traces Christian attitudes toward military violence from the early church through the development of just-war teaching and the modern recovery of pacifism. Sider argues that a growing number of Catholic, Protestant, evangelical, and peace-church Christians now regard Jesus’ nonviolence as normative.
Nine Decades Ago, Pacifism Was Called Un-American
| Michael O’Loughlin | America Magazine | September 25, 2019
Examines American suspicion of pacifists through the story of Rosika Schwimmer, who was denied citizenship because she refused to promise military service. The article compares earlier hostility toward conscientious objection with contemporary Christian and Catholic debates over war.
Promoting Civil Resistance as Part of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative
| Bruce Pearson | International Center on Nonviolent Conflict | August 5, 2019
Summarizes a discussion with Marie Dennis, Sharon Erickson Nepstad, and Eli McCarthy about strengthening active nonviolence within Catholic institutions. It highlights Catholic involvement in civil resistance, Vatican engagement, peace education, and organized campaigns for social justice.
Pacifism in America: Pacifism in the Civil Rights Movement
| Ted Grimsrud | Thinking Pacifism | June 7, 2019
Explains how wartime pacifists such as A. J. Muste, Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, and James Lawson helped shape the civil-rights movement’s strategy. It also examines Martin Luther King Jr.’s deepening commitment to principled nonviolence and the movement’s later internal disagreements.
The Cost of Nonviolent Faith in a Hyper-Militarized World
| Isaac S. Villegas | Sojourners | April 24, 2019
Argues that Christian pacifism must involve much more than refusing military service. It should include anti-racism, solidarity with endangered communities, resistance to economic and environmental violence, and a continuing peace-church witness against militarized culture.
The Quest for a Nonviolent Religion
| J. Nelson Kraybill | Anabaptist World | September 27, 2018
Considers whether religious communities can help reduce violence even when society is unwilling to embrace complete pacifism. The article presents peace churches as minority communities whose disciplined witness can pull the wider culture toward less violent institutions and behavior.
Nonresistant Love
| Dean Taylor | Anabaptist World | February 8, 2018
Distinguishes traditional Anabaptist nonresistance from secular or politically strategic pacifism. The author argues that allegiance to God’s kingdom requires Christians to avoid killing, coercive government, and professions requiring lethal force while responding through truth and loving service.
The Mennonite Peace Witness Across the Spectrum
| Gerald W. Schlabach | Anabaptist World | October 11, 2017
Surveys the range of Mennonite responses to Reinhold Niebuhr’s criticism of pacifism. It discusses John Howard Yoder’s movement from nonresistance toward politically engaged nonviolence and shows that Mennonite peace theology contains numerous competing approaches.
Nonviolence Against White Supremacy After Charlottesville
| Mark Van Steenwyk and Tim Nafziger | Anabaptist World | August 2017
Two Christian pacifists examine how nonviolence can confront white supremacy without becoming passive, polite, or detached from oppressed communities. They call for solidarity, personal risk, organized resistance, and careful attention to the ways pacifist language can unintentionally preserve injustice.
Toward a New Theology of Peace
| Marie Dennis | Sojourners | July 2016
Describes the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative and its effort to move active nonviolence closer to the center of Catholic teaching. Examples from Uganda, Colombia, Iraq, Palestine, South Sudan, and other regions show Christians practicing mediation, accompaniment, and peacebuilding amid violent conflict.
A Field Guide to Christian Nonviolence
| David C. Cramer | Sojourners | January 2016
Introduces multiple streams of Christian nonviolence through figures such as André and Magda Trocmé, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Merton, William Stringfellow, and Dorothee Sölle. It shows that pacifist theology includes discipleship, liberation, mysticism, political resistance, and community witness.
Christian Nonviolence and Church History
| John D. Roth | Plough | May 20, 2015
Rejects the idea that pacifism requires withdrawal or passive submission to evil. Using examples from Christian history and modern resistance movements, the article argues that believers can oppose tyranny and injustice through organized, disciplined, and sacrificial nonviolent action.
Civil Rights and Nonviolent Resistance
Pilgrimage to Nonviolence
King recounts the theological and philosophical influences that led him toward nonviolence, including Jesus, Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Gandhi. He presents nonviolence as an ethically compelling and socially realistic method for oppressed people seeking freedom.
The Power of Nonviolence
King explains that nonviolent resistance is not cowardice or passive acceptance but a determined struggle against injustice. Its purpose is to defeat oppressive systems without humiliating opponents, thereby making reconciliation and the creation of a just community possible.
Nonviolence
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Explains the development of Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy through Christian theology, Gandhi’s methods, and guidance from Bayard Rustin and Glenn Smiley. King came to regard nonviolence as both an effective protest strategy and a comprehensive way of life based on redemptive love.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Describes the yearlong campaign against segregated public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama. Churches supplied leadership, meeting places, transportation networks, spiritual discipline, and a language of Christian love that sustained participants despite arrests, bombings, and economic pressure.
James Lawson
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Profiles the Methodist minister and conscientious objector who trained students in Gandhian nonviolent action. Lawson’s workshops prepared activists for sit-ins, freedom rides, and campaigns that required participants to withstand humiliation and violence without retaliating.
Bayard Rustin
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Examines the Quaker-influenced pacifist who introduced civil-rights leaders to Gandhian strategies and helped organize the March on Washington. Rustin linked racial equality with conscientious objection, labor rights, decolonization, and a broader international movement against violence.
Fellowship of Reconciliation
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Describes the interfaith pacifist organization that helped transmit nonviolent ideas and training to the civil-rights movement. Its members included A. J. Muste, Bayard Rustin, Glenn Smiley, and James Lawson, who connected Christian reconciliation with direct action against segregation.
Conscientious Objection and Peace-Church Witness
Statements from Religious Organizations on Conscientious Objection
| Center on Conscience and War | Center on Conscience and War | Undated
Collects official statements from churches and religious organizations supporting people who refuse participation in war for moral or religious reasons. The resource illustrates the range of Christian arguments for conscientious objection and protections for both civilians and military personnel.
Conscientious Objection and the Historic Peace Churches
| National Park Service | United States National Park Service | Undated
Explains how Mennonites, Quakers, and members of the Church of the Brethren developed longstanding traditions of refusing military service. It examines government policies, alternative service programs, imprisonment, and the tension between individual conscience and wartime demands.
Historic Peace Churches
| The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica | Encyclopaedia Britannica | Undated
Introduces the Mennonites, Religious Society of Friends, and Church of the Brethren as Christian communities historically committed to pacifism. Their teachings emphasize enemy-love, refusal to bear arms, reconciliation, simplicity, and service to people harmed by war.
Quakers and Peace
| Quakers in Britain | Quakers in Britain | Undated
Explains the Quaker peace testimony as a commitment to recognize the divine worth of every person and oppose all war. Quakers connect personal reconciliation with campaigns against militarism, nuclear weapons, arms trading, structural violence, and social injustice.
Mennonites and Peace
| Mennonite Church USA | Mennonite Church USA | Undated
Summarizes the Mennonite belief that following Jesus requires peacemaking, enemy-love, and refusal to participate in warfare. The statement also encourages mediation, restorative justice, conflict transformation, relief work, and active resistance to violence and oppression.
Church of the Brethren Peace Position
| Church of the Brethren | Church of the Brethren | Undated
Presents the Brethren conviction that all war is sinful and contrary to the teachings and example of Jesus. Members are called to refuse military killing while pursuing reconciliation, humanitarian service, justice, and peaceful solutions to conflict.
Christian Peacemaker Teams: Peacemaking and Nonviolent Action
| Community Peacemaker Teams | Community Peacemaker Teams | Undated
Describes an organization rooted in historic peace-church traditions that accompanies communities facing occupation, war, displacement, and state violence. Its teams use documentation, protective presence, advocacy, and nonviolent direct action while following the leadership of local partners.
Catholic Pacifism and Active Nonviolence
The Plowshares Movement and Nuclear Resistance
| Michael O’Loughlin | America Magazine | October 21, 2019
Reviews the history of Catholic activists who entered military and nuclear facilities to symbolically disarm weapons. Inspired by the biblical command to beat swords into plowshares, participants accepted arrest and imprisonment as part of their nonviolent witness against nuclear warfare.
Pope Francis Brings a New Lens to Poverty, Peace and the Planet
| Robert W. McElroy | America Magazine | April 23, 2018
Examines Pope Francis’ effort to restore nonviolence as a central current within Catholic moral teaching. The article connects enemy-love and resistance to war with Francis’ broader concerns about poverty, environmental destruction, globalization, and the dignity of marginalized people.
Nonviolence: A Style of Politics for Peace
| Pope Francis | The Holy See | January 1, 2017
Pope Francis calls active nonviolence a practical political method and a way of life for Christians. He highlights Jesus’ rejection of violence and points to nonviolent leaders and communities that achieved social transformation through organized resistance, reconciliation, and forgiveness.
Hawks, Doves and Pope John Paul II
| Drew Christiansen | America Magazine | August 12, 2002
Considers how Catholic teaching might integrate just-war reasoning with a stronger commitment to nonviolence, forgiveness, development, and conflict prevention. The article argues that debates between pacifists and defenders of limited warfare must respond to modern weapons and changing papal teaching.
Catholic Nonviolence Initiative
| Catholic Nonviolence Initiative | Pax Christi International | Undated
Describes a global project seeking to deepen Catholic commitment to nonviolence and develop alternatives to war and armed intervention. The initiative brings together theologians, peace practitioners, clergy, and communities directly affected by violence.
The Catholic Worker Movement: A Revolution of the Heart
| Catholic Worker Movement | Catholic Worker Movement | Undated
Introduces Dorothy Day’s combination of Christian pacifism, voluntary poverty, hospitality, labor activism, and resistance to war. The Catholic Worker tradition holds that works of mercy and nonviolent civil disobedience are inseparable responses to social injustice.
Debates and Critiques
Is It Okay to Punch a Neo-Nazi?
| Nathan G. Jennings and Kyle R. E. Jasper | Sojourners | July 2018
Presents contrasting Christian arguments about violent and nonviolent resistance to fascism. The discussion distinguishes pacifism rooted in participation in Christ’s suffering from strategic unarmed resistance intended to protect vulnerable people and defeat organized injustice.
Christianity on War and Peace: An Overview
| Ted Grimsrud | Thinking Pacifism | March 15, 2018
Surveys pacifism, just-war theory, holy-war traditions, and modern Christian approaches to political violence. It explains why principled conscientious objectors reject participation even in wars that governments or churches describe as morally justified.
Can War Be Just?
| J. Nelson Kraybill | Anabaptist World | May 23, 2016
Compares Anabaptist pacifism with the Christian just-war tradition. Kraybill argues that pacifists reject killing as a permanent way of life, while strict application of just-war principles should lead nonpacifists to oppose most actual wars.
Christian Pacifism and Just-War Tenets
| James F. Childress | Theological Studies | September 1986
Compares Christian pacifism with major principles of just-war ethics, including legitimate authority, proportionality, discrimination, and last resort. The study asks whether the two traditions are entirely incompatible or share moral assumptions that can strengthen opposition to unnecessary violence.
Rooted in Christian Hope: The Case for Pacifism
| Eugene England | Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought | Undated
Grounds Christian pacifism in faith in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. The article argues that hope in divine love enables Christians to reject the apparent realism of warfare and attempt the demanding practice of loving neighbors and enemies without exception.
A Christian Pacifist Perspective on War and Peace
| Ted Grimsrud | Peace Theology | Undated
Develops a biblical and theological defense of pacifism while confronting violent passages in scripture and arguments for defensive warfare. It presents Jesus’ teachings, enemy-love, and the cross as the central standards for Christian political ethics.
Contemporary Christian Pacifism
We Are the Alternative to War
| Stanley Hauerwas and Nekeisha Alexis | Plough | December 13, 2025
Christian nonviolence is grounded in worship of the crucified Messiah rather than confidence that peaceful methods will always produce immediate success. The discussion presents the church as an alternative political community whose members refuse to let violence determine their identities, loyalties, and responses to enemies.
A Sermon for When the U.S. Bombed Iran
| Melissa Florer-Bixler | Anabaptist World | June 25, 2025
Reflects on how Christians should respond when their government launches military attacks. The sermon argues that followers of Jesus practice nonviolence not merely because it is an effective strategy but because participation in Christ makes killing and warfare incompatible with Christian discipleship.
Bonhoeffer and the Challenge of Pacifism
| Siobhán Haire | Quakers in Britain | April 9, 2025
Uses Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s resistance to Nazism to examine difficult questions about pacifism, political responsibility, and solidarity with people facing oppression. The article considers whether nonviolence can remain morally credible when governments commit mass violence and peaceful resistance appears inadequate.
Straight, Not Narrow: Misconceptions About the Quaker Peace Testimony
| John Lampen | Quakers in Britain | November 6, 2024
Rejects the idea that Quaker pacifism requires neutrality between oppressors and their victims. Lampen argues that Friends can take sides for justice, protect vulnerable people, oppose occupation, and resist aggression while continuing to reject killing and military retaliation.
Peacemaker in a War School
| Nick Martin | Plough | March 11, 2024
A Christian pacifist recounts teaching at a United States military academy and discussing war, faith, and conscience with service members. The article shows how nonviolent convictions can be expressed within military institutions through dialogue, friendship, moral questioning, and refusal to carry weapons.
Why I Am Still a Pacifist
| Paul Parker | Quakers in Britain | December 21, 2023
Explains how contemporary wars have tested but not destroyed the author’s commitment to pacifism. Parker distinguishes the Quaker peace testimony from a rigid political formula and describes it as a continuing effort to resist violence, recognize human dignity, and search for alternatives to war.
A. J. Muste’s Christian Nonviolence
| Leilah Danielson | The Christian Century | August 2, 2023
Profiles the minister, labor organizer, and antiwar activist A. J. Muste. His Christian pacifism led him to oppose both world wars, support workers’ struggles, mentor civil-rights organizers, resist nuclear weapons, and insist that movements must embody the peaceful society they hope to create.
How Do Mennonites Think About Peace?
| Cesar Garcia | Anabaptist World | July 18, 2023
Describes the evolution of Mennonite peace witness from quiet nonresistance toward active peacemaking, conflict transformation, and peacebuilding. The article emphasizes that Mennonite approaches vary across cultures and have increasingly addressed structural injustice as well as personal participation in war.
Beyond Pacifism
| Eberhard Arnold | Plough | March 26, 2021
Argues that refusing violence is insufficient unless Christians also overcome hatred and actively love their enemies. Arnold presents peacemaking as a communal way of life involving forgiveness, economic sharing, reconciliation, and a willingness to suffer rather than injure another person.
Why Do Most Christians Reject Pacifism?
| Ronald J. Sider | Anabaptist World | October 30, 2019
Addresses common criticisms that pacifism is naïve, passive, irresponsible, or incapable of confronting violent injustice. Sider argues that Christian pacifists must answer these objections by developing organized nonviolent alternatives and accepting greater personal risks in defense of oppressed people.
Biblical and Theological Foundations
How to Resist Evil
| Leo Tolstoy | Plough | February 2, 2022
Tolstoy argues that every person must decide whether violence can legitimately be used to oppose evil. Drawing on Jesus’ teachings, he contends that governments and churches have distorted Christianity by treating warfare, punishment, and coercive power as compatible with the Gospel.
A Positive Reading of the New Testament
| Ted Grimsrud | Anabaptist World | October 12, 2017
Examines interpretations of Jesus’ death that portray divine salvation as dependent on violence. Drawing on Walter Wink and other peace theologians, the article proposes understanding the cross as God’s exposure and defeat of human violence rather than divine approval of punishment.
Was Bonhoeffer Willing to Kill?
| Mark Thiessen Nation, Anthony G. Siegrist and Daniel P. Umbel | Plough | September 10, 2014
Challenges the widespread claim that Dietrich Bonhoeffer abandoned pacifism and joined a conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The authors examine historical evidence suggesting that Bonhoeffer remained committed to Christian nonviolence while participating in political resistance and helping persecuted people.
Prescient Pacifists
| Elizabeth A. Johnson | The Christian Century | January 12, 2010
Reviews accounts of religious activists who opposed war despite ridicule and political marginalization. Their stories demonstrate the importance of believing that peace is possible, personal action matters, and love can become a force for political transformation.
Hawks and Doves
| Lisa Sowle Cahill | The Christian Century | December 12, 2006
Reviews Christian ethical approaches to war, including pacifism, just-war theory, realism, and crusading traditions. The discussion presents pacifism as nonviolent resistance rather than passivity and considers how international institutions could reduce reliance on warfare.
Armed and Defenseless: A Gun-Loving Pacifist
| Stanley Hauerwas | The Christian Century | June 27, 2006
Explains that Christian defenselessness rests on faith in the resurrection rather than optimism about human goodness or guaranteed political success. Hauerwas describes pacifism as trust that death is not humanity’s final reality and therefore cannot justify killing others.
What Kind of Pacifist?
| John W. de Gruchy | The Christian Century | July 13, 2004
Reflects on Christian resistance to apartheid and the African National Congress’s eventual turn toward armed struggle. The article explores tensions between principled pacifism, political responsibility, liberation theology, and the perceived duty to protect communities facing systematic oppression.
The Pacifist Option
| John Howard Yoder | The Christian Century | August 30, 2000
Critiques attempts to separate personal Christian nonresistance from active political resistance. The review argues that Christian pacifism can include organized social action, institutional reform, and intervention against injustice without adopting the coercive violence of the state.
Nonviolence: An Impossible Ideal?
| Dietrich Bonhoeffer | Plough | Undated
Bonhoeffer interprets Jesus’ command not to resist evil as a call to overcome violence through suffering love rather than political domination. He distinguishes Christian discipleship from a universal political program and argues that believers witness to Christ’s victory by refusing retaliation.
The Early Christian Attitude to War
| C. J. Cadoux | Harvard Theological Review | Undated
Examines evidence concerning early Christian participation in military service and the teachings of church writers about killing. The study contributes to the debate over whether opposition to warfare was widespread in Christianity before the conversion of Constantine.
Quaker Peace Witness
1915: A Turning Point in Quaker History
| Quakers in Britain | Quakers in Britain | November 2, 2015
Examines Quaker responses to the First World War at a time when pacifists faced intense social hostility. Friends organized relief work, supported conscientious objectors, challenged patriotic militarism, and developed new forms of public peace education.
History of Quakers
| Quakers in Britain | Quakers in Britain | April 17, 2015
Provides a timeline of Quaker history, including the 1661 peace testimony, opposition to slavery, prison reform, humanitarian work, and campaigns for social equality. It places pacifism within a broader religious commitment to conscience and the equal worth of all people.
Our Peace Testimony
| Religious Society of Friends | Quaker Faith & Practice | Undated
Collects historical statements showing how Quakers have understood their corporate witness against warfare and violence. The selections describe peace as a comprehensive way of life affecting personal relationships, political action, economic systems, international conflict, and resistance to injustice.
The Quaker Peace Testimony
| Quakers in Britain | Quakers in Britain | Undated
Traces the Quaker peace testimony from the declaration presented to King Charles II in 1660 through later campaigns against war and militarism. It explains how belief in the presence of God within every person leads Friends to reject killing.
Quakers and Peace
| Quakers in Britain | Quakers in Britain | Undated
Describes the peace testimony as faith expressed through action rather than a fixed doctrinal formula. Quaker work has included conscientious objection, mediation, disarmament campaigns, humanitarian relief, nonviolent protest, and opposition to political and economic systems that sustain warfare.
Quakers and the First World War
| Quakers in Britain | Quakers in Britain | Undated
Explains how British Quakers responded to the First World War through conscientious objection, ambulance work, humanitarian relief, and peace campaigning. Friends disagreed over the limits of cooperation with the military but shared a commitment to reducing suffering and opposing war.
Quakers, Protest and Changing Legislation
| Michael Eccles | Quakers in Britain | Undated
Reviews the long history of Quaker engagement with government and legal reform. The article shows how a community committed to peace has used petitions, witness, lobbying, protest, and civil disobedience to challenge unjust policies without threatening opponents with violence.
Civil-Rights Resistance and the Black Church
Interview on Meet the Press
King discusses arrests, bombings, boycotts, and the expansion of nonviolent resistance across the South. He explains why church leadership and disciplined peaceful protest could expose segregation’s injustice while preventing the movement from reproducing the hatred it opposed.
Address at the Fourth Annual Institute on Nonviolence and Social Change
King reflects on the progress and limitations of the movement after the Montgomery bus boycott. He urges continued organization, spiritual discipline, economic resistance, and mass noncooperation as the means by which Black communities could dismantle segregation.
Interview for Look Here
King explains that a boycott alone is not necessarily Christian or nonviolent. Economic resistance must be joined to love, reconciliation, and refusal to humiliate opponents if it is to produce genuine social transformation rather than a reversal of domination.
The Role of the Church in Facing the Nation’s Chief Moral Dilemma
King calls churches to reject complacency and become active participants in the struggle against segregation. He argues that Christian communities must use preaching, education, economic pressure, and nonviolent protest to challenge laws and customs that deny human dignity.
Montgomery Improvement Association Press Release: Bus Protesters Call Southern Negro Leaders
Documents efforts by ministers and movement leaders to transform local bus protests into a coordinated regional campaign. The meeting helped lay the foundation for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and expanded church-based nonviolent resistance throughout the South.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Describes the church-based organization formed to coordinate nonviolent civil-rights campaigns across the American South. The SCLC connected Christian moral language with boycotts, marches, voter organizing, mass meetings, and direct action against segregation.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Reviews the formation of the student-led organization devoted to sit-ins and nonviolent direct action. Although independent of established church leadership, SNCC drew on Christian ideas, Black religious culture, and James Lawson’s vision of a redemptive community.
Songs and the Civil Rights Movement
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Explains how hymns, spirituals, and adapted freedom songs sustained civil-rights activists during meetings, marches, arrests, and violent attacks. Collective singing strengthened courage, expressed Christian hope, created solidarity, and reinforced the discipline required for nonviolent resistance.
The Social Gospel
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Examines the Christian movement that applied religious teachings to poverty, inequality, labor exploitation, and racial injustice. Martin Luther King Jr. adapted the Social Gospel into a theology of nonviolent protest that demanded institutional as well as personal transformation.
Conscientious Objection and Resistance to Militarism
World Council of Churches Assembly Adopts Just Peace Statement
| Church of the Brethren Newsline | Church of the Brethren | November 8, 2013
Summarizes an ecumenical statement encouraging nonviolence as a way of life and a method of conflict prevention. The recommendations include peace education, nuclear disarmament, environmental justice, interfaith cooperation, and international protection of human rights.
Message of the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation
| International Ecumenical Peace Convocation | World Council of Churches | May 24, 2011
Calls churches to pursue just peace through nonviolence, reconciliation, human rights, environmental responsibility, and resistance to militarism. It also urges religious communities to protect conscientious objectors and provide sanctuary for people who refuse participation in war.
WCC Upholds the Right to Refuse Military Service
| World Council of Churches | World Council of Churches | September 1, 2009
Reports the World Council of Churches’ support for conscientious objection as a legitimate exercise of conscience. The statement calls on governments to provide civilian alternatives and encourages churches to assist people who refuse military participation.
Minute on the Right of Conscientious Objection to Military Service
| World Council of Churches | World Council of Churches | September 1, 2009
Reviews the legal and religious status of conscientious objectors around the world. It recognizes historic peace churches’ consistent opposition to military service and urges churches to defend objectors facing prosecution, discrimination, or imprisonment.
Nonviolent Direct Action and Just Peace
| United Church of Christ | United Church of Christ | Undated
Describes the denomination’s support for conscientious objection, war-tax resistance, noncompliance, and nonviolent civil disobedience. The Just Peace framework combines spiritual formation with public action against war, racism, economic exploitation, and other forms of structural violence.
Civilian Public Service
| Civilian Public Service Story | Mennonite Central Committee | Undated
Documents the experiences of conscientious objectors who performed civilian work during the Second World War rather than enter the military. Participants served in forestry, firefighting, agriculture, public health, and mental hospitals, where some exposed abusive institutional conditions.
Conscientious Objection and the First World War
| Imperial War Museums | Imperial War Museums | Undated
Explains why thousands of men refused military service during the First World War and the punishments they faced. Religious objectors included Quakers, members of other peace churches, and Christians who believed Jesus’ teachings prohibited participation in killing.
The Historic Peace Churches and Civilian Public Service
| National Park Service | United States National Park Service | Undated
Describes how Mennonites, Quakers, and Brethren negotiated alternative service for conscientious objectors during the Second World War. Their cooperation created civilian camps while also raising questions about government control, unpaid labor, and unequal sacrifices imposed on objectors.
Anabaptist Peace and Active Resistance
Protesting and the Reign of God
| Gerald W. Schlabach | Anabaptist World | June 24, 2016
Describes the movement from a separatist Mennonite understanding of nonresistance toward participation in demonstrations and political campaigns. The author argues that public protest can express allegiance to God’s reign when it remains truthful, disciplined, peaceful, and attentive to relationships.
The Sermon on the Mount and Christian Nonviolence
| Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online | Anabaptist Wiki | Undated
Examines the central place of Jesus’ teachings on enemy-love, retaliation, mercy, and peacemaking in Anabaptist ethics. The Sermon on the Mount has historically supported refusal of military service, rejection of revenge, and alternative practices of reconciliation.
Peace Theology in the Anabaptist Tradition
| Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online | GAMEO | Undated
Surveys theological understandings of peace among Mennonite and related Anabaptist communities. It traces debates over nonresistance, pacifism, state authority, policing, conscientious objection, social justice, and active intervention in violent conflicts.
Mennonite Central Committee and Peacebuilding
| Mennonite Central Committee | Mennonite Central Committee | Undated
Describes peace programs involving mediation, trauma healing, restorative justice, community reconciliation, and advocacy. The organization combines humanitarian assistance with efforts to address the political, economic, and social conditions that produce violence.
On Earth Peace
| On Earth Peace | On Earth Peace | Undated
Presents a Church of the Brethren-rooted organization that teaches Kingian nonviolence and supports communities confronting racism, war, and interpersonal conflict. Its work connects biblical peacemaking with organizing, leadership development, and nonviolent social transformation.
Brethren Volunteer Service
| Church of the Brethren | Brethren Volunteer Service | Undated
Describes a service program emerging from the Brethren peace tradition after the Second World War. Volunteers work in community development, refugee assistance, environmental projects, and social-justice organizations as constructive alternatives to militarism and competitive individualism.
Global Christian Nonviolent Resistance
Nonviolent Resistance in Latin American Churches
| United States Institute of Peace | United States Institute of Peace | April 2018
Examines the roles of Catholic and Protestant actors in mediation, human-rights advocacy, accompaniment, and reconciliation across Latin America. Religious institutions have sometimes supported governments and armed groups but have also protected activists and created channels for peace negotiations.
Franz Jägerstätter
| The Holy See | Vatican.va | October 26, 2007
Profiles an Austrian Catholic farmer executed for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army. Jägerstätter concluded that loyalty to Christ prohibited military cooperation with Nazism despite pressure from officials, neighbors, clergy, and concern for his family.
The Catholic Church and People Power in the Philippines
| Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective | Ohio State University | February 1986
Places the Philippine People Power Revolution within the history of dictatorship, election fraud, and Catholic opposition. Clergy, religious orders, and lay organizations helped create the moral authority and communication networks required for large-scale nonviolent resistance.
Kairos and Crisis in South Africa
| Kairos Theologians | Kairos Southern Africa | 1985
The Kairos Document condemns church theology that demanded reconciliation without justice and state theology that used Christianity to justify apartheid. It calls Christians to participate in organized resistance while debating the moral limits of violence within a liberation struggle.
The Churches and the Struggle Against Apartheid
| World Council of Churches | World Council of Churches | Undated
Reviews Christian opposition to apartheid through international advocacy, economic pressure, pastoral resistance, sanctions, and support for liberation movements. The history reveals disagreements over armed struggle while documenting the important role churches played in delegitimizing racial rule.
People Power and the Philippine Churches
Examines the mass movement that removed Ferdinand Marcos through strikes, demonstrations, election monitoring, and civilian defiance. Catholic leaders, religious communities, and church communications networks helped mobilize citizens and protect soldiers who defected from the dictatorship.
Christianity and the East German Revolution of 1989
Explores how Protestant churches provided protected spaces for prayer meetings, political discussion, and opposition organizing in East Germany. Weekly peace prayers helped develop into mass demonstrations that challenged the communist government without initiating widespread violence.
The Rosenstrasse Protest
| United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | Holocaust Encyclopedia | Undated
Describes a rare public protest in Nazi Germany in which mostly non-Jewish women demanded the release of their Jewish husbands. Although not exclusively religious, the episode has become important in discussions of civilian courage and the possibilities of nonviolent resistance under dictatorship.
André and Magda Trocmé and Le Chambon-sur-Lignon
| United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | Holocaust Encyclopedia | Undated
Recounts how Protestant pastors and villagers in southern France sheltered Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. Their resistance grew from Christian teachings on conscience, hospitality, and refusal to obey laws that required participation in persecution.
The White Rose Resistance
| United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | Holocaust Encyclopedia | Undated
Describes the student resistance group whose members distributed leaflets condemning Nazi crimes and urging Germans to oppose the regime. Christian conviction, conscience, and opposition to mass murder influenced several participants, including Hans and Sophie Scholl.
Recent Christian Appeals for Nonviolence
From the Proliferation of War to the Way of Just Peace
| World Council of Churches Executive Committee | World Council of Churches | June 12, 2026
The World Council of Churches calls Christian communities to resist the logic and practice of violence, defend conscientious objection, and support active nonviolent resistance to oppression and militarism. The statement treats nonviolence as a central expression of Christian witness rather than an optional political preference.
A Time for Nonviolence
| The Editors | The Christian Century | September 11, 2025
Distinguishes active nonviolence from passive withdrawal and argues that disciplined resistance requires courage, sacrifice, and sustained organization. Drawing on Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles, the editorial presents nonviolence as a practice that people with differing views about absolute pacifism can nevertheless adopt.
Militants for Peace
| Charles E. Moore | The Point Magazine | August 11, 2025
Examines the Bruderhof tradition of Christian pacifism and its challenge to assumptions that human beings are naturally destined for violence. The article presents peacemaking as a demanding form of communal discipline rather than sentimental optimism about conflict.
The Church Cannot Bless War
| C. Andrew Doyle and Stanley Hauerwas | The Christian Century | June 27, 2025
The authors argue that churches compromise their allegiance to Jesus when they provide religious legitimacy for national warfare. Christian faith should form communities capable of resisting nationalism, refusing enemy hatred, and offering a visible alternative to state violence.
Yearning for Just Peace in Europe
| World Council of Churches Executive Committee | World Council of Churches | November 21, 2024
Responds to war in Europe by calling for negotiations, prisoner exchanges, protection of civilians, and renewed Christian peacebuilding. The statement also acknowledges conscientious objection and urges churches to work for a peace rooted in justice rather than military victory alone.
A Nonviolent Resistance Movement Is at Work in Palestine
| Drew Christiansen | America Magazine | October 8, 2024
Describes Israeli and Palestinian activists using accompaniment, peaceful occupation, public witness, and joint organizing to resist dispossession and continued violence. The article highlights the role Christian communities and international supporters can play in sustaining nonviolent alternatives.
Ordinary Violence
| Elizabeth Agnew Cochran | The Christian Century | July 26, 2023
Argues that Christian nonviolence must address violence embedded in ordinary institutions and relationships, not only international warfare. The article considers policing, domestic life, economic systems, and social hierarchies as areas requiring Christian practices of restraint, repair, and reconciliation.
The Things That Make for Peace
| World Council of Churches | World Council of Churches | September 8, 2022
Calls churches to promote reconciliation, religious freedom, justice, and nonviolent conflict transformation. The statement connects peace with opposition to racism, economic inequality, environmental destruction, gender-based violence, and political repression.
Jesus and the Temptation to Violence
| John Dear | Plough | March 6, 2022
Portrays Jesus’ nonviolence as a series of deliberate choices made amid occupation, repression, and threats of death. His rejection of armed resistance is presented not as withdrawal from history but as an active confrontation with the political and religious structures of violence.
A Faith Not Worth Fighting For
| Christian Scharen | The Christian Century | August 22, 2012
Reviews a collection arguing that nonviolence belongs at the center of Christian discipleship. Contributors address scripture, policing, military service, patriotism, humanitarian intervention, and the difficult question of how pacifists should respond when vulnerable people face attack.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Christian Nonviolence
Where Do We Go from Here?
King defends nonviolence during a period of urban rebellion, growing militancy, and frustration with limited reforms. He argues that violence cannot solve racial injustice and instead calls for economic restructuring, political organization, civil disobedience, and a broad movement against poverty.
The Social Organization of Nonviolence
Defends nonviolent resistance against claims that it leaves Black communities defenseless before racist terror. King argues that organized boycotts, mass protest, noncooperation, and political mobilization provide a more effective path than either resignation or retaliatory violence.
The Mass Process of Nonviolent Resistance
Examines the organization and discipline required to turn individual moral conviction into mass resistance. King emphasizes training, shared leadership, careful planning, and collective willingness to accept sacrifice without retaliating against opponents.
My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence
Traces King’s intellectual development through Christian theology, the Social Gospel, personalism, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Gandhi. He explains how Jesus’ ethic of love could become a powerful method of mass political struggle when joined to disciplined organization.
An Experiment in Love
| Martin Luther King Jr. | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | 1958
Summarizes the principles that guided the Montgomery movement, including courage, reconciliation, opposition to evil rather than evildoers, acceptance of suffering, rejection of hatred, and faith in justice. Nonviolence is presented as both a method and a Christian way of life.
Loving Your Enemies
King argues that hatred damages both the hated and the person who hates. Christians must oppose injustice through organized mass resistance while maintaining agape love, refusing revenge, and working toward the moral transformation of enemies.
The Negro Is Your Brother
| Martin Luther King Jr. | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | June 1957
King explains the moral and spiritual basis of the Montgomery bus boycott to a national audience. He emphasizes that participants sought dignity and equal treatment through peaceful noncooperation rather than retaliation against white residents.
Nonviolence and Racial Justice
Presents five central characteristics of nonviolent resistance, including courage, opposition to evil rather than persons, willingness to suffer, rejection of hatred, and faith that justice will ultimately prevail. King describes the method as both practical and rooted in Christian love.
Agape
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Explains King’s understanding of agape as unconditional concern for the dignity and welfare of every person. This form of love allowed nonviolent activists to resist injustice forcefully without seeking the humiliation, destruction, or death of their opponents.
Stride Toward Freedom
| The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute | Stanford University | Undated
Introduces King’s account of the Montgomery bus boycott and the development of his philosophy of nonviolence. The book presents collective resistance as spiritually disciplined, strategically organized, and directed toward reconciliation rather than revenge.
Evangelical and Peace-Church Theology
A Call for Evangelical Nonviolence
| Ronald J. Sider | Religion Online | Undated
Argues that evangelical commitments to biblical authority, the cross, and justification should lead Christians toward nonviolence. Sider maintains that believers cannot separate God’s love for enemies from their own obligation to love those who threaten or persecute them.
Nonviolent Voices
| Walter Wink | Religion Online | Undated
Examines the continuing witness of Mennonites, Quakers, Brethren, and other peace churches. The article presents their refusal of war as a reminder that rejecting the sword has remained a persistent, though often marginalized, interpretation of Christian discipleship.
When the Politics of Jesus Makes a Difference
| Stanley Hauerwas | Religion Online | Undated
Introduces John Howard Yoder’s interpretation of Jesus as the founder of a visible, nonviolent political community. The church influences society not primarily by controlling government but by demonstrating reconciliation, enemy-love, economic sharing, and refusal of coercive power.
Love’s Double Victory
| Walter Wink | Religion Online | Undated
Argues that authentic nonviolent action requires inner transformation as well as outward restraint. Activists must confront hatred within themselves so that resistance seeks the liberation of both oppressed people and those shaped by oppressive systems.
Feminism and Peace
| Rosemary Radford Ruether | Religion Online | Undated
Connects feminist theology with opposition to militarism, domination, and patriarchal violence. Ruether argues that effective nonviolence requires empowerment rather than submissiveness and must challenge social arrangements that make women and marginalized communities vulnerable.
The Call to Perfection: Matthew 5:38–48
| Walter Wink | Religion Online | Undated
Interprets turning the other cheek, giving one’s cloak, and going the second mile as creative resistance rather than passive obedience. These actions confront humiliation and exploitation while refusing to imitate the violence of the oppressor.
Bonhoeffer and the Path of Resistance
| John W. de Gruchy | Religion Online | Undated
Examines Bonhoeffer’s movement from theological pacifism toward direct resistance against Nazism. The article explores whether participation in political struggle can remain faithful to the Sermon on the Mount when peaceful alternatives appear to have failed.
Ethics for This World
| Robin W. Lovin | Religion Online | Undated
Discusses Bonhoeffer’s struggle with Christian pacifism, political responsibility, and opposition to Hitler. His choices illustrate the tension between preserving moral innocence and accepting responsibility within situations where every available action may carry tragic consequences.
Historical Background: Pacifism and Conscientious Objection
| Ted Grimsrud | Peace Theology | Undated
Traces Christian pacifism from the early church through medieval dissenters, Anabaptists, Quakers, and modern conscientious objectors. The article explains how opposition to warfare became an organized religious tradition despite recurring persecution by churches and governments.
A Christian Pacifist Perspective on the State
| Ted Grimsrud | Peace Theology | Undated
Examines whether Christians committed to nonviolence can participate in governments that depend on policing, imprisonment, and military power. The article considers political engagement, taxation, voting, and the possibility of influencing institutions without granting them unquestioned moral authority.
Early Christianity and War
Early Christianity and War
| George Kalantzis | Cambridge University Press | 2023
Surveys competing interpretations of whether early Christians were uniformly pacifist. The chapter shows that Christian writers expressed varied attitudes toward soldiers, empire, martyrdom, public authority, and participation in Roman military institutions.
What Can Church History Tell Us About Pacifism and Just War?
| Matthew Payne | Eleutheria | 2021
Examines historical evidence frequently used in debates between Christian pacifists and defenders of just-war theory. The study finds substantial early Christian opposition to killing while cautioning against presenting the pre-Constantinian church as completely uniform.
Early Christian Pacifism?
| Andrew Holt | Andrew Holt, Ph.D. | November 9, 2014
Reviews scholarly disagreements over the extent of pacifism among Christians before Constantine. The article distinguishes opposition to killing from objections to idolatrous military rituals and considers evidence that some Christians nevertheless served in the Roman army.
From Pacifism to Just-War Theory
| Luke Arnold | George Fox University | 2011
Traces the development of Christian attitudes from early suspicion of military service to Augustine’s formulation of just-war reasoning. The paper considers how imperial conversion, political responsibility, and changing interpretations of scripture transformed Christian ethics.
Military Service in the Church Orders
| Alan Kreider | Journal of Religious Ethics | Fall 2003
Studies early Christian church orders that regulated the behavior of soldiers, officials, and converts connected to military life. The evidence demonstrates continuing concern about killing, oaths, executions, and the moral formation required for baptism.
Pacifism and Military Service in the Early Church
| Knut Willem Ruyter | CrossCurrents | 1982
Reviews Christian attitudes toward military participation before and after Constantine. The article considers martyrdom, Roman military obligations, church discipline, and the gradual transition from widespread suspicion of killing toward acceptance of Christian soldiers.
The Early Church and the State
| Francis C. Bainton | Abingdon Press | 1960
Examines how early Christians negotiated loyalty to God, obedience to imperial government, persecution, and military duty. The book places Christian resistance to violence within a broader refusal to treat the Roman state as possessing absolute authority.
The Early Christian Attitude to War
| C. John Cadoux | Headley Brothers | 1919
Provides a major historical study of Christian teaching and military participation during the first centuries of the church. Cadoux argues that early Christian moral instruction was strongly opposed to warfare even though individual believers sometimes entered or remained in military service.
The Christian and Military Service
| Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online | GAMEO | Undated
Surveys Christian debates over military service with particular attention to Anabaptist and Mennonite positions. It covers biblical interpretation, early Christianity, conscription, alternative service, conscientious objection, and the development of modern peace witness.
Nonresistance
| Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online | GAMEO | Undated
Explains the traditional Anabaptist principle of refusing revenge, warfare, and coercive force. The entry also examines later debates over whether nonresistance should mean separation from political activism or active intervention against injustice through peaceful means.
Catholic Peace Activism and Nuclear Resistance
The Catonsville Nine
| Jim McDermott | America Magazine | May 17, 2018
Recounts the 1968 action in which Catholic activists burned military draft files with homemade napalm to protest the Vietnam War. Participants accepted arrest and imprisonment in an effort to expose the connection between bureaucratic procedures and distant wartime killing.
A Man of Peace: Daniel Berrigan’s Life and Legacy
| John Dear | America Magazine | April 30, 2016
Remembers the Jesuit priest whose opposition to the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons, and militarism led to repeated acts of civil disobedience and imprisonment. Berrigan joined prayer, poetry, community life, and direct action in a lifelong practice of Gospel nonviolence.
The Language of Peace
| Drew Christiansen | America Magazine | October 29, 2014
Reviews Christian reflections on peacemakers including Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, and Martin Luther King Jr. The article considers how religious language can sustain resistance to warfare while avoiding both political naïveté and fatalistic acceptance of violence.
Of Many Things: Catholic Peacemaking
| Drew Christiansen | America Magazine | May 14, 2007
Surveys Catholic peace organizations including Pax Christi, the Community of Sant’Egidio, Focolare, and the Catholic Peace Fellowship. Their work demonstrates multiple approaches to reconciliation, conscientious objection, diplomacy, disarmament, and local conflict transformation.
Dorothy Day and Christian Anarchism
| Catholic Worker Movement | Catholic Worker Movement | Undated
Explains Day’s distrust of state power, militarism, capitalism, and institutional coercion. Her Christian anarchism emphasized voluntary association, hospitality, personal responsibility, nonpayment for war, and the creation of communities that practiced alternatives to violence.
The Catholic Peace Fellowship
| Catholic Peace Fellowship | Catholic Peace Fellowship | Undated
Describes an organization founded during the Vietnam War to assist Catholic conscientious objectors and promote Gospel nonviolence. Its work includes counseling, education, opposition to military recruitment, and support for Catholics struggling with participation in war.
Pax Christi International
| Pax Christi International | Pax Christi International | Undated
Introduces a Catholic peace movement created after the Second World War to promote reconciliation between former enemies. Its international work includes nuclear disarmament, human-rights advocacy, nonviolence education, accompaniment, and support for communities affected by war.
The Kings Bay Plowshares Seven
| Kings Bay Plowshares Seven | Kings Bay Plowshares Seven | Undated
Documents a Catholic-led nonviolent action at a nuclear submarine base in Georgia. Participants entered the facility, poured blood, displayed biblical messages, and symbolically challenged nuclear weapons before accepting arrest and lengthy prison sentences.
International Christian Resistance
Christian Resistance in Chile
| United States Institute of Peace | United States Institute of Peace | April 2017
Examines how Catholic institutions, clergy, and lay activists documented abuses, protected dissidents, assisted political prisoners, and encouraged peaceful democratic opposition during and after Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.
Does ISIS Prove Nonviolence Wrong?
| Charles E. Moore | Plough | January 23, 2015
Addresses the objection that extreme violence makes pacifism irresponsible. The article considers unarmed protection, refugee assistance, economic pressure, sanctuary, negotiation, and organized civilian resistance as alternatives that Christians should develop before endorsing warfare.
Statement on the Way of Just Peace
| World Council of Churches | World Council of Churches | November 8, 2013
Defines just peace as the pursuit of right relationships within communities, among nations, with the earth, and within economic life. It endorses conscientious objection, disarmament, conflict prevention, and nonviolent approaches to political disputes.
Building Peace on Earth
| International Ecumenical Peace Convocation | World Council of Churches | 2011
Reports on an international gathering devoted to overcoming violence and developing a theology of just peace. Participants encouraged churches to oppose war taxes, arms production, militarism, and other forms of participation in systems of organized violence.
Christian Churches and the Peaceful Revolution in East Germany
| Deutsche Welle | Deutsche Welle | October 9, 2009
Examines how Protestant churches provided meeting spaces and limited protection for dissidents under communist rule. Peace prayers, environmental groups, and civil-rights discussions contributed to the mass demonstrations that brought down the East German government.
Conscientious Objection: Progress and Continuing Problems
| World Council of Churches | World Council of Churches | September 2, 2009
Reviews international recognition of conscientious objection while documenting imprisonment and discrimination that remained common in many countries. The article also describes churches providing sanctuary and support to soldiers who came to oppose particular wars.
The Protection of Endangered Populations in Armed Conflict
| World Council of Churches | World Council of Churches | February 6, 2001
Examines how churches can protect civilians without automatically supporting military intervention. Options include international accompaniment, early warning, mediation, sanctions, humanitarian presence, conscientious objection, and large-scale nonviolent civilian intervention.
The Decade to Overcome Violence
| World Council of Churches | World Council of Churches | Undated
Describes an ecumenical initiative encouraging churches to confront domestic abuse, racism, warfare, economic injustice, and religious conflict. It sought to move Christian communities from abstract peace statements toward concrete practices of prevention and nonviolent transformation.
The Leipzig Monday Demonstrations
Describes demonstrations that developed from weekly peace prayers at Leipzig’s St. Nicholas Church. Clergy and activists helped preserve nonviolent discipline as crowds grew large enough to overwhelm the East German regime’s capacity for repression.
The Sanctuary Movement
| Independent Lens | PBS | Undated
Explores the network of American churches that sheltered Central American refugees during the 1980s despite federal immigration restrictions. Participants understood sanctuary as nonviolent civil disobedience against government policies that returned people to persecution and war.
Critiques and Difficult Questions
Nonviolence Is Not Neutrality
| Eric Stoner | Waging Nonviolence | August 17, 2017
Argues that nonviolence should not be confused with remaining neutral between racist movements and the communities they target. Effective resistance requires taking sides against oppression, building protective coalitions, disrupting extremist organizing, and accepting personal risk.
Pacifism and Moral Injury
| Church of the Brethren Newsline | Church of the Brethren | 2016
Connects the peace-church tradition with concern for veterans who experience guilt, trauma, and moral conflict after military service. Christian communities are encouraged to offer healing without glorifying warfare or condemning individuals shaped by military institutions.
The Debate over Violent Self-Defense
| The Christian Century | The Christian Century | August 2014
Considers whether Christian nonviolence unfairly asks victims to endure abuse or attack. The debate distinguishes personal sacrifice from imposing vulnerability on others and asks how churches can protect threatened people without reproducing systems of coercion.
Pacifism and the Responsibility to Protect
| Gerald W. Schlabach | Plough | Undated
Considers whether pacifists have responsibilities to physically protect people facing immediate violence. The article explores accompaniment, interposition, sanctuary, restorative justice, and organized unarmed intervention as ways to defend others without killing aggressors.
Can Nonviolence Defeat a Dictatorship?
Reviews evidence that strikes, boycotts, mass noncooperation, alternative institutions, and defections can weaken authoritarian governments. The material helps distinguish Christian pacifism from passivity by showing how unarmed populations can actively challenge organized repression.
The Problem of Christian Pacifism
| Reinhold Niebuhr | Religion Online | Undated
Presents a classic Christian realist criticism of pacifism. Niebuhr argues that refusing coercion can leave vulnerable people exposed to domination and that responsible political action may require limited force in a world shaped by collective selfishness and injustice.
Must Christian Pacifists Condemn the Police?
| Anabaptist World | Anabaptist World | Undated
Examines whether rejection of war logically requires opposition to armed policing. The discussion considers community safety, restorative justice, emergency intervention, racial inequality, and the need for nonviolent institutions capable of addressing serious harm.
The Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention
| World Council of Churches | World Council of Churches | Undated
Examines the moral conflict between preventing mass atrocities and resisting military intervention. The document encourages stronger systems of prevention, diplomacy, civilian protection, international law, and reconciliation before governments resort to armed force.
Christian Realism and Pacifism
| John Howard Yoder | Religion Online | Undated
Responds to claims that pacifism ignores political realities and the persistence of evil. Yoder argues that Christian realism should begin with the historical life and cross of Jesus rather than assuming that violence is the only effective response to injustice.
Is Pacifism Politically Irresponsible?
| Ted Grimsrud | Peace Theology | Undated
Addresses arguments that pacifists benefit from military protection while refusing responsibility for collective security. The article proposes that Christians demonstrate responsibility by creating effective institutions for prevention, mediation, restorative justice, and organized civilian resistance.
