Why this isn’t a “Hippie Movement” (Part 1/2)

Author: Stef Miles

There is a phrase I have heard more than once when talking about nonviolence, enemy-love, forgiveness and peacemaking within Christianity. Usually it comes with a smile.

“Isn’t this all just a bit hippie?

Recently, while sharing the vision behind the Nonviolent Gospel Network with a friend from church, this came up again. The idea that the gospel might actually form people into peacemakers, people committed to enemy-love, reconciliation, forgiveness and nonviolence, was seen as a little naïve. Nice, perhaps, but not particularly realistic. And certainly not what you would want to build a serious theology around.

What struck me most, though, was how instinctive the reaction seemed. As though the idea that Christianity should be fundamentally concerned with peacemaking and nonviolence was somehow an eccentric one. And I began to wonder why.

Why is it that when Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” we instinctively assume he must be talking about something idealistic and impractical? Why do we hear, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and somehow imagine that this belongs on the edges of Christianity rather than somewhere near its centre?

Perhaps the bigger question is this: What if nonviolence isn’t a strange addition to the gospel at all? What if it is actually at its centre?

The God We Inherited

I think part of the problem is that many of us have inherited a particular picture of God. Western Christianity has been shaped for centuries by ideas of sacrifice, punishment, coercion and the myth of redemptive violence, not least through unhelpful theories of biblical inspiration, and toxic theories of atonement (what is happening at the cross). These patterns run so deep they almost feel like inherited religious DNA.

Even in churches that constantly speak of a “God of love,” there can still be the shadow of a more retributive deity lurking behind the language. God is proclaimed as loving, yet somehow still imagined as fundamentally dependent upon wrath, punishment or violence to accomplish salvation. And once that picture of God settles into our imagination, something predictable happens. We start to soften Jesus. “Love your enemies” becomes an impossible ideal. “Turn the other cheek” becomes metaphorical. “Blessed are the peacemakers” becomes inspirational language rather than a description of Christian discipleship. We become surprisingly creative in explaining why Jesus couldn’t possibly have meant exactly what he said.

I find that fascinating. Many Christians who take very literal approaches to Scripture in other areas suddenly become remarkably flexible interpreters when confronted with Jesus’ teachings on enemy-love and nonviolence. Perhaps we should ask ourselves why.

If we consistently minimise or sideline some of the clearest teachings of Jesus, what exactly are we leaving at the centre of the gospel?

Jesus Wasn’t Killed for Being Nice

Sometimes nonviolence gets portrayed as a kind of gentle Christianity for people who don’t really understand how the world works. It sounds lovely, but surely Jesus lived in a different world from ours? Except, of course, he didn’t. Jesus lived under an empire sustained by military power, domination, fear and public violence. Crucifixion itself was an instrument of imperial terror. His teaching on enemy-love wasn’t developed in the comfort of a peaceful society where loving your enemies carried very little cost. This is why I think it is important to remember that Jesus wasn’t killed for being nice. He proclaimed the Kingdom of God within this violent world and embodied a radically different way of being human, one rooted not in retaliation, domination or scapegoating, but in forgiveness, reconciliation and enemy-love. There was nothing passive about this. It challenged the very assumptions upon which the world around him operated.

And Jesus lived it all the way to the end.

When the machinery of religious and political power eventually turned against him, he didn’t suddenly decide that enemy-love was a lovely ideal that no longer applied to the situation. He refused the sword, rebuked retaliation and, from the cross, responded to the violence of his enemies with forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” This is why the cross cannot simply be a story about human sinfulness or a mechanism for getting people forgiven. The cross is also a revelation of what God is like.

Human beings respond to perceived threat with violence, while God in Christ responds to violence with forgiveness. Human power humiliates, excludes and kills, while the power revealed in Jesus is self-giving, forgiving and restorative. And then comes resurrection.

What I find extraordinary is that the risen Jesus doesn’t return looking for revenge. The people who abandoned him are not met with accusation, and those who participated in his death do not become targets for divine retaliation. The risen Christ comes speaking peace: “Peace be with you.” For me, that matters enormously.

The resurrection is not simply proof that Jesus was right. It is the unveiling of a new creation already breaking into the world, a new humanity capable of living beyond the endless cycles of fear, retaliation, scapegoating and violence that continue to wound human relationships.

The gospel, then, is not merely informative. It is transformative.

A New Humanity

This is where I think we sometimes misunderstand what the gospel is actually doing. For many of us, Christianity has been presented primarily as the solution to what happens after we die. Believe the right things about Jesus, receive forgiveness and go to heaven. But the New Testament seems interested in something much bigger. It speaks about new creation, reconciliation and the formation of a new humanity whose life together becomes a sign of what God is doing in the world. If God is revealed in the crucified Christ, then Christians are called to embody that revelation.

This is why enemy-love, forgiveness, nonviolence and peacemaking cannot simply be optional extras for particularly idealistic Christians. They flow from the gospel itself. They are what begins to happen when the life of Christ takes shape within a community. The gospel creates communities capable of reconciliation in a fragmented world, forgiveness within cultures of resentment, and peace within systems built upon fear and rivalry. In that sense, these things are not simply moral duties placed upon Christians. They are signs of the Kingdom.

I think the early church understood this more clearly than many of us do today. For roughly the first three centuries of Christianity, many followers of Jesus rejected participation in violence, military service and retaliation. They cared for the poor, rescued abandoned children, refused revenge and endured persecution without responding violently. Historians like Alan Kreider have helped us see just how important this distinctive way of life was to the growth of early Christianity. Christians embodied a different social imagination. In the middle of a violent empire, communities appeared that were trying to live according to another story. Christianity did not initially spread through political power or coercion, but as people encountered communities shaped by hospitality, care, forgiveness and reconciliation.

In other words, they lived as though Jesus actually meant what he said. And perhaps that is what makes their witness so uncomfortable for us…

End of Part 1