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The Religious Logics of Nonviolent Action

Submitted to Program Units
1: Quaker Studies Unit, Religion and Human Rights Unit, and Religion and Politics Unit

Seulbin Lee, Vanderbilt University, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

This session explores the religious logics of a variety of nonviolent movements, ranging from the civil disobedience of M.K. Gandhi to the legal efforts of Quaker conscientious objectors in the U.S. The papers examine the intersection of religious principles and spiritual development with nonviolent direct action – whether on the streets, in legislatures, or in the courts – and each paper complicates conventional conceptions of nonviolent action in important ways."

Papers

  • Isaac May, Yale University

    Litigating the Draft and the Peace Testimony after World War I

    Abstract

    This paper argues that Quaker's legal efforts against the draft in federal courts, draft boards, and military tribunals need to be understood as core to their pursuit of the Quaker peace testimony in the twentieth-century United States. It contends that Quakers of an earlier period had tried to avoid interactions with the legal system, handling disputes internally; they increasingly relied on lawyers and legal expertise. The paper argues this shift to legal activism also made the Quaker peace testimony startlingly effective; legal victories helped to undermine the draft to such a degree that by the early 1970s, it was no longer a viable policy.

  • Johanna Mueller, Stanford University

    Negotiating the Right to Nonviolence: American Mennonite Conscientious Objectors in World War I

    Abstract

    This paper explores the impact of the Wilson administration’s 1917 Selective Service Act on pacifist religious minorities in the United States, using American Mennonites as a case study. As the first successful universal draft law in the nation’s history, its implementation changed the demands of (male) US citizenship in a way that made it difficult for members of historic peace churches to comply. Mennonites—whose ancestors had emigrated from Europe to escape religious persecution; often specifically to avoid draft laws—made up the majority of this group. Although the Selective Service Act made provisions for the exemption of religious “conscientious objectors” from combatant service, both the terms of exemption and its implementation continued to be negotiated throughout the war. For the first time in US history, the community was forced to make a case for the recognition of their theological commitment to the principle of nonresistance to the US government. I argue that conscientious objectors in WW I were early actors in the movement towards a more thorough accommodation of minoritized communities’ rights to freely exercise their religion in the US.

  • Darren Yau, Princeton University

    The Ethics of Non-Violence’s Power: On Collective Action & Sanctions

    Abstract

    Non-violent action has often struggled to find its place within contemporary ethical and political theory. While often conflated with absolute pacifism and civil disobedience, this paper draws instead on social scientists who demonstrate the tremendous expressive range of social movements that claim the banner of “non-violent action.” But once non-violent action can be associated with a range of tactics—from prayer vigils to law-breaking to statue destruction—how ought we think about the norms that govern non-violent action? Using recent work in sanctioning and debates in just war theory, this paper proposes that for large scale collective actions, the use pressure and economic harm to achieve a movement’s goal can be understood under a general ethics of sanctioning. Applying basic intuitions in just war thought for the ethics of social movements yields larger insights about contemporary non-violence’s relation to debates in labor history and war, rather than absolute pacifism.

  • Daniel Wyche, University of Chicago

    From the Scale of Despotism to the Scale of Freedom: Violence and Perfectionism in the Nonviolent Tradition

    Abstract

    This paper addresses the ways that several major figures in the nonviolent tradition, including William Lloyd Garrison, MK Gandhi, and  M.L. King Jr., understand the place of violence in the service of just causes from the perspective of principled nonviolence. I argue that only a genuinely principled, rather than merely practical, commitment to nonviolence can render violent protest intelligible, in ways that challenge standard ethical outlooks. These perspectives present especially productive challenges for forms of virtue ethics and moral perfectionism.

Business Meeting
Scott Culpepper, Dordt University, Presiding
Ann Duncan, Goucher College, Presiding
Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Podium microphone

Sabbath Observance

Sunday morning

Comments

The business meeting for Religion and Politics will be at the end of this session. Please add Ann Duncan and Scott Culpepper as presiding over that meeting (the form didn't give me the ability to add us).

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

2 Hours

Schedule Preference

Sunday, 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Schedule Preference Other

Our preference is late morning or early afternoon on Saturday or Sunday.
Schedule Info

Saturday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Tags

Quaker
military
pacifism
Legal
#non-violence #socialmovements #pacifism #sanctions #justwar #ethics #politicaltheory
#nonviolence
# religious violence
#MLK
Gandhi

Session Identifier

A23-132