Strangely enough there is nothing passive about nonviolence or pacifism.  Nonviolence and pacifism are hard choices that must be actively engaged against the mainstream.  Nonviolence itself is a decision that counters a deeply embedded instinct to respond violently to insult and violation. Living as we do today we run the risk of sanctioning violence thus releasing the hounds, so it is time to focus on something other than being passive ‘doing nothing’ or succumbing our near natural tendencies of violence which in the end   ‘accomplishing nothing’ but go deeper in the wrong direction.

This writer has recently read that religious nationalists are trying to turn the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer into a kind of militant violent Rambo character giving license to their violent causes in the name of God.  Bonhoeffer as you know was executed days before the end of WWII by direct order of another master of retribution, Adolf Hitler.  Bonhoeffer’s involvement in a plot for Hitlers assassination was at most a matter of deep moral conflict for him, and not the kind of hero story of the modern day action movie. Religion gone astray is a match to the gasoline of nationalism and most current forms of nationalism are more like patriotism gone astray. Patriots in a democracy turn away from  the great and grand and look to service and leadership to express their love of a pluralistic democratic country. 

In my youth I was also inspired by Gandhi’s salt strikes and the profound personal sacrifice his mission of nonviolent resistance demanded of him. Then of course there was Martin Luther King.  These men and many others have modeled the idea of servant leadership. This is a hard difficult form of leadership and it cost both of them there lives in the end.  Servant Leadership is as old as the Christian New Testament, which I recommend as good reading for particularly Christians.  From powerful change agents like Gandhi, King, Tutu, Mandela it was a small easy step to realize good leaders can be effective actively committed nonviolent servants of the public good. In this time, forty years later, my 360 degree scan for contemporary servant leadership talent at the top of government comes up very short on content. For the religious, servant leadership is embedded in your sacred texts so if you believe what you say you believe, the decision to turn away from what is happening today shouldn’t be hard.  Good in The Good Decision is nonviolent service to a pent-up public that is looking for relief right now before the match reaches the gasoline and life becomes a survival story.