Peacemaking is the right mantle
for today's church, Duke theologian says

Dr. Michael Battle: "How to participate in nonviolence is a discipline the church should be teaching constantly."

PHILADELPHIA (March 25, 2003) -- A tragedy of the modern church is that it has lost touch with "being of those who can give themselves away…Unlike Jesus, we have bought into the survival of the fittest. Jesus taught us on the cross that survival is not the primary goal."

Dr. Michael Battle made that key point in addressing the community of The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. His address on "The Theology of Nonviolence" was another in a series of lectures on the seminary's theme for the year, "The Theology of Public Witness." Battle, assistant professor of Spirituality and Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School, emphasized that what it means to be the church today "s all about peacemaking and nonviolence. The nature of the church is peacemaking. The challenge is to determine how we teach this to others and how we become more public about it."

Battle has worked as an inner-city chaplain with Tony Campolo Ministries. (Campolo was a luncheon guest with Battle at the seminary and participated in a faculty discussion.) He is also vice chair of the board for the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence.

Battle, center, with John Hoffmeyer of the LTSP faculty, left, and mentor Tony Campolo, who participated in a faculty discussion after the lecture.

"That the church exists as though survival is the primary goal is one of the great tragedies of the world," Battle said. Living out this tragedy keeps the church passive and responding to choices of others. Thus, "it lacks a prophetic, active way of being."

A result of the tragedy is that through the church "individual decisions are made on how to respond to others," he said. "We respond primarily as Blacks, or as women, or as Americans, or as disabled, or homosexuals or heterosexuals. These identities are primary rather than our identity as the church. We have divided and conquered ourselves. And so we give nothing to the world." He said by assuming the kind of identity as the church that Christ teaches, the church will have something to teach, namely the "particular ways of nonviolence." Donning the mantle of nonviolence makes sense for the church "not because it is the best way to be in the world" but because Jesus modeled the behavior of turning the other cheek.

Dr. Michael Battle, left, with LTSP Professor John Hoffmeyer, who introduced him.

Other points made by Michael Battle:

• "Our fight is not one of physical violence. Our fight is to not block the flow of God that is possible through us to others."
• "We cannot know what is good by ourselves. But we can come to an understanding of what is good through others." In this sense, Battle said, other religious traditions have much to teach Christians about God. For example, they have been better than the Christian community at articulating nonviolence. "To know God is not something we can do by ourselves. God gives us others as a way of knowing God better."
• "The church is not just another power group among others in society. We are not part of an aggregate that exists for ourselves. We are a community made in the image of God" whose values reflect faith, justice, peacemaking, mercy, perseverance and patience. "The church is not competing for power among other societies." He said the church is an organization of individuals who move from their individuality into community as part of the body of Christ.