Jesus and Beyond:Nonviolent Social Change
Posted by dlw in Uncategorized at 8:12 pm | 
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I wrote this out for my Ukrainian friends at Orange Ukraine.
I have a book, “Gandi and Beyond” by David Cortright. It is a practical analysis of the lives/teachings of Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr and Cesar Chavez and others.
Here are some excerpts.
The main 2 mechanisms of change are: Conversion and Accomodation. I think accomodation/compromise is inevitable, but conversion is vital. We need to move some people to break off of their addiction to power and parlay it into constraints on the rest.
Here’s a paragraph on the success of MLKjr’s Birmingham campaign.
“By focusing on limited objectives, applying pressure on the economic power structure, and maintaining organizational unity, King and his colleagues exerted effective control over the campaign. Their expectations that Conner(the local sheriff) would overreact were fulfilled, and they effectively used the media to expose the brutality of segregation to world opinion. The Birmingham campaign inspired increased activism and nonviolent protest across the South. In the three months that followed, according to gov’t figures, more than 750 demonstrations occurred in 186 cities, with 15,000 arrests. Perhaps the most important lesson of Birmingham is that ordinary people have poer and can sometimes effectively organize themselves to change the course of history. The Birmingham campaign was a dramatic victory, brought about by the heroic sacrifice of thousands of local citizens and by the development and implementation of wise strategy.”
“In ‘The Strategy of Social Protest’, sociologist William Gamson demonstrates that political effectiveness depends on ‘ the willingness to break rules and use non-institutional means…to use disruption as a strategy of influence.’ Scholars argue..that protest is more likely to succeed when it disrupts the normal functioning of society…the most useful way to think about effectiveness of protest is to examine the disruptive effects…A movement can disrupt the functioning of society without resorting to violence, eg(boycotts, mass marches, civil disobedience, strikes) without violence.
Unfortunately, it goes on to describe how with even some people, a minority, using violence can give the authorities the means of smearing a movement and otherwise weakening it.
It is critical to use dignified suffering to attract sympathy and political support.
dlw:The book goes into the influences on Gandhi. It includes Jainism and the Bhagavad Gita.
Interestingly enough, though these other religions beliefs/writings predate Jesus, they came about in the 5th ctry BCE after the Jews time in exile in Babylon and after the Persian defeat of Babylon enabled the Jews and many other conquered groups to return home. If one accepts that Judaism is reasonably accurately historically portrayed in the Old Testament then this would make it likely that the Hinduism and Jainism that were influential on Gandhi were influenced by Judaism, not unlike as I have also argued was the case for Greek philosophy particularly through Pythagoras. I have especially grown in my belief that Pythagoras was influenced by Judaism from reading Christoph Riedweg’s book on Pythagoras. He makes it clear that Pythagoras was a charismatic religious-political leader who imported concepts, including a belief in the immortality of the soul, from his travels and formed his own settlement in southern Italy that was centered around sacrifice (of vegetables) and rituals.
This is quite significant for Christian history, when you consider the impact Pythagoras had on Greco-Roman cultural developments, sowing the seeds that later provided critical points of contact that enabled the rapid growth of Christianity in Greco-Roman culture. Let’s hope that some of those seeds sown elsewhere in the world will facilitate greater spread of their own brands of Christianity there.
dlw
The 29th of March, 2007 at 7:11 pm
What is the evidence for an early Jewish or Judaic influence on Jainism? Mahavir was born in Bihar, which has no ancient Jewish community, and as an inland area is unlikely to have received much foreign influence.
Be Well,
Bob Griffin
aka Muggle Or Squib
PS Hi! Hope you’re doing OK!
The 29th of March, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Its hard to find concrete evidence, particularly of ancient events of influence that the starters of religions may have had an incentive to obscure.
My point is that the historical act of the many countries being in exile in Babylon at the same time and then released to return to their home countries enabled cross-pollination. If one takes the story of the OT seriously then it would seem more likely that the Jews who experienced a cultural/spiritual renewal during their time in exile and had a position of prestige as illustrated with the prominence of people like Daniel in administrative positions, then the influence would be more likely to be from the Jews to the others, including those who planted the seeds of Jainism and other religions that developed not too long after then.
dlw
The 30th of March, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Interesting point. My problem is that it doesn’t fit with the history of Jainism, of Bihar (where both Jainism and Buddhism began), of the Babylonian Empire, the Assyrian Empire, or the Persian Empire. At a long stretch, I might wonder about potential influence from the teachings of Zoroaster, which I have come to believe influenced the Jewish community under the Persian Empire, but even that is an extremely long stretch, as between the Persian Empire and Bihar lies at the least most of northern India.
On the other hand, there is perhaps a vague possiblity in connection with the purported Jewish ancestry of the Bnei Menashe of Manipur, though that is again a bit of a geographical stretch, even if true.
I find both Gautama’s teachings and Mahavir’s teachings completely comprehensible within the context of early Hinduism, and far less so in light of early Judaism or Yahwism. I use the same standards by which I judge that the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth make sense in a Jewish context, and are out of place in a Hindu, Buddhist, or Jainist context.
Ultimately, I see the roots and commonality of these spiritual paths to be in God’s loving actions towards mankind. This is not to say that all faiths are the same (they are obviously not) nor that all paths lead to God (which I cannot know, and which, as an Evangelical I don’t really believe).
You asked on my blog (thanks for visiting–gives me a link to your blogs), where we interacted before. I’ve responded there, and am modifying that response for you here:
Our paths crossed at Theology Web, where you posted a link to your friend’s blog on Critical Realism (which you may notice I’ve got on my side bar). My handle on T-Web was/is MuggleOrSquib since I don’t do magic.
I left T-Web when I found the controversy and ad hominem attacks deleterious to my health. I’m still on the mailing list, and may from year to year still drop in for a glance, but have no plans to resume posting or responding at T-Web.
Be Well,
Bob Griffin
The 10th of June, 2007 at 2:22 pm
If you want to talk about the roots of some religion then get your information about that religion right. Jainism did not start with Mahavira rather he was one on the 24 preachers who came one after the other. The first starting with Rishabdev, who predates any exsiting religions know to man. So get your facts right before you go ahead and make hypocritical conclusions.
The 10th of June, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Well, clearly there are sticky claims of historical roots for many religions that are hard to objectively verify.
dlw