In the act of civil disobedience, we meet particular people like ourselves, not ‘the state,’ and the most enduring thing we can achieve through such act is, in the end, our relationship to the people we touch and who touch us. Our hope should not be for any strategic victories over such representatives of the state, but rather loving nonviolent relationships with them in the midst of the arrests, trials, and jail sentences.
The danger of seeing civil disobedience as an assertion of conscience over against the evil of the state is that it may obscure the opportunity for relationship.
“How many martyrs ever had any practical programs for reforming society? Since politics weren’t working anyway, one had to find an act beyond politics: a religious act, a liturgical act, and act of witness. If only a small number of people could offer this kind of witness, it would purify the world. Wasn’t there a time in England when every Quaker was in jail? What a great scene that must have been! Perhaps that’s where all Christians should be today.” Fr. Daniel Berrigan
We are called to be faithful, not successful.
Peter Thompson
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