Direct action such as blocking highways and occupying key units is often seen as the only way to get things done in our democratic society. But imperfect though consent of the people is in its methods, it is better than anything else that has been tried. And those who urge other methods are sometimes their own worst enemies in the execution of their policies.
This is nothing new. As in our day, those who lived in the days of Roman power under a provincial governor swayed between respect for the order this brought into their lives and fear for the consequences of upsetting him. Then came this man of parables bringing an uncomfortable sense that he saw more deeply into things than the rest of us. They were astonished and a touch of trepidation readily turned into violent repudiation. Jesus offered reasonable discussion; they – or some of them – responded with cudgels and swords.
Perhaps cudgels and swords are the best way to deal with his persuasive activity, they thought. It had come to that with ‘other trouble-makers’, as they would term them. But we have found that victory with cudgels and swords leaves us with the problem we have been trying to solve.
Best to think ahead and work out some kind of agreement than resort to what can lead only to violence. Individuals can make their views heard in such circumstances. Christian faith may be essentially a relationship between God and one of his creatures but that Christian faith also brings more extensive issues into the open. A view of human nature as flawed rather than on its way to sublunary perfection is not the least of these. See Matthew 5.8 9.
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