Christians and non violence

"The whole point of Christianity, on a personal level, is a refusal to use violence even in self-defence and even when one's own life is threatened. For centuries, this radical nonviolence was celebrated by the church in its canonisation of martyrs...Martyrdom was the first and ultimate form of nonviolent resistance to injustice and, like the Christian-rooted civil rights movement or Gandhi's campaign for independence, it was precisely this staggering refusal to defend oneself... that changed global consciousness. It was what made Christians different." - Andrew Sullivan  (http://ht.ly/hdH2P)

Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Violence by Oscar Romero

“We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood,the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.” - Oscar A. Romero