[Note: This post was originally posted at Cramer Comments. I understand that its revelation may not be quite as shocking here.]
I have a confession to make.
Some of my friends and colleagues are already fully apprised of what I am about to say. But for many other family members and peers, all they know is what they have heard in rumors or gleaned from suggestive comments on previous blogs.
Today I must put this mystery to rest. Today I must accept myself for who I really am and trust that others will learn to accept me for who I am too.
The reality of who I really am inside is something that I have been coming to grips with over the last few years. At first I tried to fight it. I even wrote a lengthy treatise against it in college. But, alas, it is who I am, and I must accept it.
Some might ask whether I was born this way or if this was a choice I made at some point in my life. This is not a question that I can answer. All I can say is that for the first couple decades of my life I truly believed that I was not one. I grew up in an environment where it was not an open option for me, and it was thus not something that I ever seriously explored (or even casually experimented with). No one that I knew was a one, and if anyone was, they chose to remain in the closet about it.
Several family members and even my former pastor have recently expressed concern over the rumors they have heard about me. For the most part, these inquiries have resulted only in mild teasing, but underlying the teasing there seems to be serious concern for my well-being and my standing as a Christian. But no matter how they choose to respond, I believe that they do have a right to know.
I can say that my wife, Andrea, is fully aware of what I am about to say, and thank God, she is fully supportive of me. Moreover, my church accepts me fully for who I am as well, and for that I must thank God too. I can only hope that those in the larger Church community and even in American society will learn to accept people like me as well. Unfortunately, those prospects do not look promising on either front.
In following posts I will explain my situation in greater detail and answer any questions that anyone has. In the meantime, I must confess that it is true:
I, David Cramer, am a Christian pacifist.
David,
Thanks for this post. You’re right that its not quite as shocking here. Nevertheless, it’s a good reminder for me, having grown in a community where Christian pacifism was assumed, that this isn’t true for the vast majority of Christians.
It would be interested to hear from you, either in comments or in another post, more about how you experience community pressure against a pacifist stance among Christians. In other words, peer pressure for a just war (or civil religion) position.
Actually, in a subsequent post I lay out six pretty specific problems people have expressed with my confession of pacifism. You can check it out here. I’m going to make a series out of responding to these objections that I invite any and all to follow. However, I would ask that my pacifist friends don’t get too zealous in defending my responses against further objections in the comments. I’m viewing this series as something of an evangelistic effort toward non-pacifist Christians. Thanks.
I liked your follow up post. I am looking forward to your handling of the responses to your arguments.
I like the humor. Seemed like we were being set up for a different punchline.
I hope you say more on this site about your journey to this point. I think those of us who were cradle pacifists can be rather, well, passive about the whole thing, and it can be an unexamined belief, something accepted simply because “the Bible says so” but never fully wrestled with or thought about, and – therefore – much less lived out.