A Messianic Community Pacifism Towards Reality

This paper examines John H.Yoder’s response to Reinhold Niebuhr’s Critique of Pacifism.Pacifism is a far-reaching but often neglected trend of social ethics in western society.Its main ideological basis is Christian theology.Starting from the social crises and the international situations of his time,Niebuhr sharply evaluated the two main pacifism—modern Christianity pacifism and sectarian pacifism,and showed his realistic views in the process: the ethic of Jesus,which pacifism relies on,is a kind of love of perfectionism,which cannot be the goal of a society more immoral than the individual;politics can only pursue justice,and the realization of justice inevitably involves violence,compulsion and power struggle;therefore,the churches have to choose between participating in political society and being faithful to the call of love;the former means being guilty but socially responsible,the latter means being pure but irresponsible;most Christian citizens cannot be pacifist,because a society can only tolerate a few irresponsible people.Yoder,a rising star,from the sectarian pacifist tradition,responded to Niebuhr: the core of Jesus’ ethics is indeed an absolute love,but Jesus and its social relevance and normative ethics has not weakened by its absoluteness,because some essential concepts such as "reality","effectiveness","responsibility" and " the political" are newly defined by him and the Pacifism of the Messianic Community he created is a nonviolent-centered political form;the Christian Church was called as the undertaker of this new politics,and its duty was to present a non-violent new order to the violent old world.Yoder’s argument suggests that the Pacifism of the Messianic Community is a kind of pacifism that considers realistic factors and responds to reality.The dialogue between Yoder and Niebuhr is not only an intellectual conflict within Christianity,but also shows us the vitality of religious thought in current studies of politics.