Reign of Christ Sunday (Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46)
God has put "all things under his feet." Shouldn't we be worried about such a portrayal of absolute power?
One recent morning, as I was preparing breakfast, my trusty radio companion Steve Inskeep caught my attention with a story on the success rate of nonviolent civil resistance movements. Researchers Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan looked at more than 300 cases around the world from 1900 to 2006, concluding that nonviolent resistance movements are twice as likely to succeed in achieving social, political, and economic change as movements that resort to violence. Twice as likely.
To be sure, nonviolent movements do not always accomplish their purposes. Libya and Syria have witnessed the rise of violent resistance movements in the wake of nonviolent efforts in the past few years. This research shows, however, that nonviolent movements are, on the whole, much more effective at bringing about lasting change—as happened in India in 1948 and Tunisia in 2011. These movements need time, and organization, and people power—admittedly not an easy combination to achieve. With these in place, however, nonviolent movements work.
“Civil resistance does not succeed because it melts the hearts of dictators and secret police,” Chenoweth and Stephan write in Foreign Affairs (July/August):
