I just can’t imagine a reasonable scenario where fighting back somehow helps the situation.

Fighting back is not about helping, it is about surviving. I could agree with a claim that the gospel demands we abandon our desire for self-preservation, but I don’t see that here.

Every other nation figured out how to end slavery without war, but not America. Great Britian [sic] solved it with money, but we needed blood. We have suffered much great racism as a result. You never really resolve the underlying issues when violence is used to “solve” the problem.

We also don’t solve the problem by oversimplifying history. The Civil War was not, despite what nearly every history book for high school students says, about “slavery”. Slavery was the catalyst issue for a much more complex underlying problem which had been simmering in this country since the founding fathers debated the nature of our governing constitution (nearly 100 years).
We suffer racism in this country not because of lingering wounds of the Civil War, but because people of color continue to be trapped in cycles of poverty which those in power and prosperity refuse to break because they prefer to ensure dynasties for their own children.

Imagine for a minute what would have happened if all the money spent on WWII AND the costly Marshall plan would have been spent on a “pre-war rebuilding plan” making Germany a healthy nation with justice for its people BEFORE Hitler came to power. Hitler never would have gained power in a prosperous nation.

This does not necessarily follow. A charismatic and power hungry despot could just as easily have used his nation’s newfound prosperity to stoke the fires of nationalism and imperialism.

Why don’t Christians give money to build mosques in war torn Islamic nations? Better yet, what if we decided to sell all our churches in America and use the money to build mosques in Iraq! How long could they continue to be our “enemies” if we lavished them with grace and generousity?

Forever? Why must a change of heart follow acts of charity and kindness?

All these disussions [sic] are dealing with issues that arise because somebody failed to love their neighbor and now they have made them an enemy.

That is the world in which we find ourselves. We have enemies and few neighbors. It is too late to go back and change that. Thus, the discussion is necessary.

~jhimm
—
nothing lasts.
nothing is finished.
nothing is perfect.