Peace - - Church: why you can not have one without the other

When asked about my family's background I point out their denominational heritage. I consider this far more important than our ethnic heritage even though the account of my grandparent's and their families being put in a concentration camp has effected me greatly.

One of the reasons I find this more important is I generally concede I lean heavily towards a pacifist interpretation of Christianity. Although this is not a-critical as many of time I have been challenged, by close friends and even by other family members, in this position. Although I still hold to this position I would like to point out something I have learning through critical engagement with the larger Christian tradition.

There is no PEACE interpretation without the supplement of CHURCH. What I am saying, therefore, is that pacifism is an ethic stance rooted in the church and thus peace-thinking is an ecclesiology.

I started thinking this way while reading a journal article of the stance of Reinhold Neibuhr which questioned whether he had an adequate ecclesiology. Neibuhr's ethics were national and not ecclesial, he based his answer to the question "What shall we do?" in the context of the American establishment and not the Church. To use contemporary Anabaptist discourse he answered as a citizen of the polis but not as a member of the ecclesia. This discourse use the greek concepts of polis (literally: City) and ecclesia (literally: Assembly or Called-Out Ones) and reads the bible through this lens. The church, the 'called-out ones' of God, must witness and provide a better alternative for the polis, or the human political establishment. Neibuhr answered from the perspective of an American citizen who also was a Christian but in the discourse of Peace Church questions whether you can answer from both perspectives as suggest you can not.

I generally agree with that line of reasoning and I would like to here an Ecclesialogical defense of violence from some-one of the just-war interpretation.