Caution about how Christians respond to the death of anyone (I.e. Osama bin Ladin), is a MUST... However, the "cautions" I read the last few days, came from mostly "half-pacifists" – the kind that blithely give benefit-of-the-doubt for those who clearly committed great evil, AND NOT the -benefit-of-the-doubt to those trying to stop them...
This kind of pacifist tends to get-in-the-way of those trying to stop evil-doers, but will rarely get-in-the-way of the evil doers themselves. This is particularly true of non-practitioner
Academics who declare themselves to be pacifists - and vigorously pontificate to their charges to be so as well. Most are sequestered away in their book-lined ivory towers, busily reading someone, who read someone, who in turn read someone else.
Should peace be pursued, as a matter of principle, in all places, at all times and among all people? ABSOLUTELY!!! Is that always possible or even the best thing? No, not always. The ASSUMPTION here, is that violence always begets violence and less violence against an offending party always results in less suffering for all... There is simply no conclusive evidence to substantiate that assumption.... I give you the German Nazi experience as perhaps the premier example.
Many pacifists almost assume: "Evil can always be shamed into submission and insanity can always be reasoned with into complicity." This simply isn't true universally. If it were then open up all of the insane asylums and then suggest to God that He go easier on Satan.
To be fair there are a couple of stellar examples that come immediately to mind where pacifism worked well! Luminaries such as Ghandi and Martin Luther King are perhaps the best known. But does their example have to be normative? Or did their example work because the time and place were right for them to work? Is pacifism a one size fits all solution for all conflict? I think not. It’s a solution, but I don't think the solution every time.
Its telling how much many pacifists are willing to let the innocent suffer in the face of grinding evil (without even asking their permission), while stoutly defending clearly evil people, and their actions, simply to make their point that this might be a good idea.
