They threw Stephen of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. Violence has haunted the human species since our days living in caves. When we can’t get what we want, when someone is preventing us from doing what we want the almost default possession is to resort to violence to achieve our goals. We tend to praise the violence we approve of (the American Revolution) and condemn the violence we despise (street crime.) The problem with violence, even approved violence, is that it begets more violence. The young Saul witnessing the violence against Stephen perpetuates violence against the early Christians until God’s dramatic intervention in his life. As Tevye, the milkman, observes, if you practice an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth pretty soon the whole world will be blind and toothless. Jesus, of course, taught us the violence was not the answer, “Turn the other cheek.” The example of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. demonstrates that it is possible to achieve one’s ends without violence. Given our capacity for doing violence to the entire planet humans had better come up with a different default position than violence before we destroy ourselves.
