Jumpstarter 2 of 10

Ideas to help restart your discussion

Question 2

The lesson highlights how the colonists justified taking up arms over taxes while denying Indians the right to fight for “their very existence”; how does this expose what we tend to label “legitimate” versus “illegitimate” violence, and how would Jesus’ commands about enemies and nonresistance interrogate those labels?

Another way to ask: Why did the colonists see their own fighting as “right,” but say Indians couldn’t fight even to survive? How would Jesus’ teaching about loving enemies and not fighting back challenge our ideas of “good” and “bad” violence?

Direct Answer Bercot shows that “legitimate violence” often means violence that benefits “our side,” while “illegitimate violence” is what the threatened or powerless do to survive. Jesus’ teaching, as Bercot presents it, challenges the whole framework by commanding love of enemies and nonresistance.

Support from Transcript:

He contrasts colonists fighting over taxes with Indians fighting for “their land and their survival as a people.”
He says it “never occurred” to colonists that Indians were fighting for the same things the revolutionaries claimed to fight for—“and for so much more.”
He describes frontier fighting with “bloody atrocities committed by both sides,” yet highlights the colonists’ moral blindness.
He states Christ told us to “love our enemies and not to resist evil,” and he connects disobedience to wars where Christians kill Christians.
He adds Paul taught believers not even to take a Christian to court and that it is “better to be defrauded.”

Discussion Follow-ups What kinds of violence do we excuse when it protects our comfort or property? If Jesus’ commands are taken seriously, how would that reshape what we call “justifiable”?

Jumpstarter 2 of 10

Add your phone number?

Thank you!

Jumpstarter 2 of 10