Four months ago, when I traveled to Seoul for some vacation time (a visit that included going up to the DMZ and stepping into North Korea briefly), I visited the Korean War Memorial. It’s a gigantic monument, with a large courtyard consisting of statues made in memory of the war, relics of war machines, and huge (I cannot emphasize how large) hallways with 7 foot tall stone tablets lining the walls listing the names of the dead, categorized by country and state. It’s an astounding monument that both glorifies and condemns war. As I walked around, I was struck by the inherent contradiction that exists not only in the idea of wars and our patriotic “obligation” to fight in them, but within ourselves as we are inclined toward violence.

One of the most disturbing images of Jesus I encounter in the gospels is not that which probably disturbed people of his day – the whole hanging out with prostitutes, the whole talking to women as though they were equals, the whole, you know, being crucified thing. Growing up in an American Baptist (not Southern Baptist) Church, images of the crucifixion and violence that surrounded Christ are things to which I have become almost completely desensitized.

No, the image that disturbs me most is Christ turning over the tables in the Temple. He gets downright angry, and uses a whip – though not using it on people, rather as a means of chasing them out. This harsh, violent imagery does not line up for me with the sacrificial lamb that we find in Isaiah 53, or in the accounts of the crucifixion, where Christ is almost passive, willing to have these acts of violence done to him and not responding with violence.

It is very hard for me to reconcile this inherently violent image with the Jesus that I know – the Jesus who tells me to turn the other cheek, the Jesus who tells me to hand my neighbor the shirt of my back if his need is greater than mine.

This same Christ uses a whip against his enemies? What?

It is startling for me to see Christ engaging in seemingly the same violent behavior he condemns, and frankly it gets harder and harder to say that this is a show of God’s righteous anger that we should not model, when we’ve been told to model everything else after Christ, even self-sacrificing love.

It becomes even harder when society has bombarded us with a massive influx of violent imagery and violent rhetoric – rhetoric which does, inarguably, have consequences. And that is one of the more disturbing things I have found accepted into the church – the massive amount of violent rhetoric and violent ways of speaking, so invasive that even our everyday speech reflects it (I’ll admit it here: one of my favorite sayings when someone makes me really angry is “That makes me want to kick puppies.”)

For a short time when I was studying abroad in England during college, I attended a Salvation Army church (yes, they have Sunday services, and a brass band). I was just beginning to become interested in the Church’s obligation to the poor, and the social justice movement. The Salvation Army was a good fit for that point in time in my life

I learned a lot about church community and being accepting of others despite their differing beliefs (something rather ironic in light of the SA’s recently strengthened stance against homosexuality).

But looking back on it, the SA seems to function as a great example of how violent rhetoric has permeated church discourse – we talk of spiritual “warfare,” of “bashing the Devil in,” of “taking up spiritual arms” and “the sword of truth.” So much of our speech in the church is bathed in blood, and not the good, cleansing kind.

In light of a political climate that instructs us to “not retreat but reload,” to resort to “Second Amendment remedies,” and in which death threats against public officials are a dime a dozen, it seems even more disturbing to me that the church willingly adopts and even promotes this violent rhetoric.

If we are called to be in the world but not of it, why do we insist on using the world’s violence to promote our message?

There, I believe, is a fundamental difference between the violence of Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple, and the violence and violent rhetoric that surrounds the church today: Jesus’ rhetoric was never violent. He never talked of squashing his mortal enemies. He never spoke of taking up the sword and cutting off the heads of the heathens. His anger manifested itself in one violent act, but it was not an act of violence against people, per se. He was not driving the moneychangers out because he felt they, as humans, were inherently an enemy. He attacked their livelihood and the location in which they were doing it. He did not use the whip on people, but their ideas and their arrogance.

He never advocated violence – indeed, the opposite. And I think that this something the church is called to imitate. He fought – yes, fought, in the instance of the money changers – the galling idea that the Temple was a marketplace, a message that was quickly and immediately received, but he never advocated this as an act to imitate, nor did he, in his many sermons and discussions, advocate for violence.

In light of an extremely violent world, a world in which brother stands against brother (never more clearly illuminated than in the conflict between North and South Korea, where the divide along the 38th Parallel is arbitrary and imposed by Western nations who, at the time, knew nothing of the country), we must be ever more careful in the church not to let violent rhetoric seep into our own discussions.

It is truly as one of my favorite young adult authors, John Green, wrote in his popular book, Paper Towns: “We don’t suffer from a shortage of metaphors. But the one you choose matters because metaphors have implications.”

Dianna Anderson teaches English to English Language Learners at a university in Japan, though she is moving back to the US in February. She has a Master’s in English Literature from Baylor University (where she did her thesis on Harry Potter and the Church), and a Bachelor’s in theology/philosophy from the University of Sioux Falls, in Sioux Falls, SD. Her regular blog can be found at: dianndia.blogspot.com (and yes, she’s aware blogspot isn’t really a good blog hosting place, but she’s been using it for years and hates change).