Killing kills the Spirit

...Moreover, a violent repugnant act causes the nonviolent resistance campaign to lose moral credibility...

...So let's immediately set to work getting together a public formal condemnation of violent prolife tactics harmful to persons, to be endorsed by all the leaders of the prolife movement interested in maintaining nonviolent discipline Violence when employed in abortion or assassination may look quick and efficient, but violent means take their toll...

...8...

...in his 1973 ground7 breaking study, The Politics ofNonviolent Action (Extending Honzons Books), Sharp catalogues 198 methods of nonviolent resistance and describes the many heretofore unheralded successes of these methods...

...potential allies are repelled and reprisals will seem justified...

...Both assume that certain human beings have the right to kill or extinguish other lives when certain conditions and future consequences are deemed to warrant it...

...Ackerman and Kruegler are not interested in the religious and moral justifications for espousing nonviolence...

...The only remedy for violent "helpers" who cannot be controlled is for the nonviolent campaign "to distance aggressively the nonviolent movement from those [violent] groups and make sure one's own supporters [and outside observers] understand why that has been done...

...Tough secular strategists here point out that once the thought of using violence resides in someone's mind, "there is an inhibiting effect upon his [or her] ability to explore fully the possibilities of nonviolence or take the risks inherent in serious struggle...

...Intelligence counts...

...OF SEVERAL MINDS Sidney Ccillahan KILLING KILLS THE SPIRIT THE NEED FOR NONVIOLENT DISCIPLINE T he killing of abortionist John B "Doc" Bntton by militant prohfe activist Paul Hill horrifies prolife advocates dedicated to nonviolence It's particularly dreadful to see Hill claiming Christian justification for blasting Bntton and his escort full in the face with a 12gauge shotgun Hill maintains that this homicide was a defensible use of deadly force undertaken to prevent more killing of the unborn Well, yes, I can share Hill's desire to end the unjust killings of abortion, but I can't see why an abhorrence of abortion makes his equally gruesome act of killing morally acceptable Hill's action is wrong not only because killing adults (as opposed to the unborn) is an illegal act Obviously certain social practices must be morally resisted by illegal means if a strong enough case for civil disobedience can be mounted, although it's never easy to do when you're committed to a civil society governed by law The more basic immorality of Hill's vigllantism and the flaw in his moral reasoning stems from his blindness to the fact that a political assassin and abortionist act on the same morally unacceptable presumption...

...Building on Sharp's previous work, Ackerman and Kruegler provide six detailed case studies to test their derived principles for effective nonviolent resistance principles of development, principles of engagement, and principles of conception Included are familiar accounts, such as Gandhi's Indian resistance movement and Solidarity's campaign for free unions in Poland, as well as lesser-known struggles like the Danes' wartime resistance to the Nazis and a 1944 civic strike in El Salvador which brought down a dictator...

...Nonviolent conflicts are not decided simply by the amount of endurance or repression the different sides can muster Nor does the power and repression of the opponent always determine the outcome...

...Thou Shalt Not Kill" can hardly be a command limited to the innocent, the good, our compatriots, our allies, or mature fellow citizens Christians, for their part, have been given a stricter injunction to forgive and love your enemies and persecutors, and to do good to those who harm you (or harm your children) Yet despite the ban on harming one's neighbor, evil must be overcome by good Arduous struggles to bnng about the justice and righteousness of God's Kingdom must be taken up So how can we resist evil without engaging in evil9 Surely, active nonviolent resistance is a creative solution Christian thinkers such as Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr, Jim Douglass, and Walter Wink, to name only a few, have developed a sophisticated theology of peaceful Chnstian nonviolent resistance for our time Fortunately, Chnstian theological thinkers on nonviolence do not stand alone...

...While sadly mulling over the Paul Hill debacle, I happened to spot a book on our library's recent acquisitions shelf, Peter Ackerman's and Christopher Kruegler's Strategic Nonviolent Conflict- The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century (Greenwood) I immediately grabbed it and became immersed in the authors' analysis of different nonviolent campaigns...

...Is there a message for us here...

...His work has inspired other strategic thinkers, including military strategists...

...When will we ever learn that in all sorts of crude and subtle ways, killing kills the Spirit...

...Sharp incisively analyzes the way power operates and then shows the many ways power can be thwarted...

...To engage in either abortion or assassination validates the principle that an individual has a nght to kill and take another's human life—in a good cause The key moral question to my mind is whether there can ever be justifiable homicides, apart from the most exceptional of unavoidable emergencies or the rarest of medical abortions needed to save a life Arguments for other morally permissible killings, such as those put forth in defense of capital punishment, just war, euthanasia, or suicide, appear inadequate...

...may be as formidable an opponent as one can face...

...Another point surely relevant for the prolife movement is found in the authors' explication of their principle about how to "Maintain Nonviolent Discipline...

...Perhaps crazed irrational fanatics bent on genocide can hardly be stopped, but historically the brutal Nazis in Denmark were resisted as successfully as the more civilized British in India...

...The most prominent innovator in this arena is Gene Sharp of Harvard...

...Imagination, persistence, and the capacity to accept suffering m a good cause are likely to be impaired when violence is an acceptable option, ready at hand...

...When individuals give into violence they squander all the hard-won psychological and material advantages gained by disciplined nonviolent resistance Ackerman and Kruegler conclude that assassinations, even of a dictator, never work, because "the structure of power is never simple " Other, often worse individuals will inevitably take the offender's place...

...Because of Gandhi's political successes and the increasing number of victones of other nonviolent resistance movements, a new secular field of strategic studies of nonviolent conflict has emerged...

...Even if we exclude questions of sin, other objections to violence can be made...

...In fact a more liberal regime which cleverly deploys strategic violence in tandem with its own nonviolent methods (making meaningless concessions, coopting conferences, etc...

...they seem to focus on nonviolence because of its political effectiveness Their realpohtik approach emphasizes the crucial decision making necessary at different levels of policy and stratagems—in order to respond to the confusing and unpredictable events which always rapidly unfold This strictly secular analysis, while too narrow in scope, does provide some intriguing pointers for peaceful prohfe activists First, Ackerman and Kruegler admit that the outcome of any struggle, nonviolent or military, is always in doubt, but they make a good case for their claim that attention to strategy, critical thinking, and constant reassessments and adjustments will always make a difference...