As a faith community we are sustained and nurtured by the sacrificial love experienced in Calvary.  The  experience of  this love is very  special  because this love flows within  a context of violence, hatred, rejection, torture, manipulation,  etc.,  However, the  response of the Cross   is  grounded in non-violence and love. The Cross event signifies that there was a conscious and  deliberate rejection of  the use of violence by our Lord Jesus Christ.  This enabled the Cross to transform and  affirm life in it’s fullness and  to reach out to everyone.

Biblically, violence is sin.  God hates violence. There is no compromise on this. Violence from any quarter or agency  cannot finally create a social climate where fear, suspicion  and hatred are done away with.  One who takes the sword ends with the sword.

According to the Bible violence is a manifestation of Sin, producing   anger and hatred between people (even  between brothers in the same family as in the  story of Cain and Abel).  It leads to murder, alienation and separation and finally denies the moral responsibility you have for the safety, security and welfare of your immediate neighbour

(am I my brother’s keeper?). That is where relationships break down, as  fear,  suspicion and hatred sets in. That is  all that  violence can finally achieve.  We have experienced this in our own context during the past three decades.   It is a vicious circle.

Unfortunately, amidst acute social contradictions there are those who talk of just violence. Under the shadow of the Cross of Calvary which is immersed in unconditional and sacrificial love, violence can never become redemptive or liberative.

According to Walter Wink “the myth of redemptive violence speaks for God.  It does not listen for God to speak.   It misappropriates the language, symbols and scriptures of Christianity.    It’s God is a tribal  fortress.  It’s symbol is not the Cross but the Cross of a gun.  It’s offer is not forgiveness but victory.  It’s good news is not the  unconditional love of enemies but their final elimination.    It usurps the revelation of  God’s purpose for humanity in Jesus.  It is blasphemous.  It is idolatrous.”

The Bible affirms this.  Our subjective experiences in the past three decades of all kinds of violence reinforces this. Violence  has no place in the purpose of God.  As a faith community  our primary task is to expose the myth of redemptive violence of any form.

As people called Methodists we need to respond to this challenge by using non-violence as an instrument to resolve all human tensions and problems. As a Church, we need to decide and take decisive action to say ‘NO’ to all forms of violence. That is a primary mandate of our transformative role in Sri Lanka to-day.