Tuesday, September 22, 2026: Nonviolence: A Christian Calling - Loyalty to Christ's Peace

Tuesday, September 22, 2026The Palestinian Quaker Jean Zaru bears witness to her commitment to nonviolent resistance:    

I call myself a Quaker or a Friend. And Friends, throughout history, have maintained a testimony to nonviolence. War, we say, is contrary to the teachings of Christ. Therefore, we are challenged to live in the presence of that power which wins through love rather than through war. This is no easy testimony. It has three aspects:   

To refuse to take part in acts of war ourselves.   

To strive to remove the causes of war.   

To use the way of love open to us to promote peace and to heal wounds.   

As Quakers we believe that there is something of God in every person. Why, then, is it so hard for us to see what is of God in one another? Both sides in any conflict often have difficulty seeing the other at all, let alone seeing that of God in the other.…   

Living under military occupation has forced me to go through deep self-searching. I have been confronted with three loyalties. The first loyalty is to Christ, who calls us to love our enemy. The second loyalty is to our fellow human beings wherever they are in need or trouble. The third loyalty is to our country, its people, and its way of life…. No one can set rules for us to follow, but what we can do is testify that, in our experience, the spirit of God leads us into truth and gives us the guidance and courage we need in every situation…. 

It requires great self-denial and the surrendering of our selves to God to be committed to peace and to nonviolent action to bring about change. This technique may have no immediate positive effect, and it may lead to outward defeat. Whether successful or not, it will bring suffering. But if we believe in nonviolence as the true way of peace and love, we must make it a principle not only of the individual but also of national and universal conduct.  

Zaru writes of the ongoing commitment necessary to live out nonviolent struggle for justice: 

I believe that we are called to conversion: to be converted to the struggle of women and men everywhere who have no way to escape the unending fatigue of their labor and the daily denial of their human rights and human worth. We must be converted, so to speak, to a new vision of human dignity, what we call “that of God” in each person, even in those we oppose…. 

Ultimately, I have learned that the nonviolent struggle for justice is one struggle, and that action to subvert violence and strengthen human rights in one place is an action on behalf of all people everywhere.

I have managed to find peace within—without having to embrace with approval the violence around me. Love of one’s enemies forces me to recognize that my enemy, too, is a child of God. This realization is necessary if our enemies are ever to make the changes we are requiring of them. It is really only in the light of love that I am liberated to work for peace and freedom.