Women and Self Defense: Living in the Not Yet

          One aspect of exploring peace, violence, and self-defense is clear – it is difficult to have a black and white answer if you are attempting to answer honestly both Scripture as well as experience (fear of assault, the desire to protect others, etc.).  There are myriads of grey areas and numerous questions with no easy answers. I still have lingering doubts and uncertainties about this problem that has haunted me for years.  For example, it is difficult to tell a woman who has experienced rape that she must love her enemy.  On the other hand, it is problematic to take only yourself into consideration and not the New Testament ethic of concern for your neighbors and enemies.  It is a difficult balancing act and I doubt that I will ever be completely at peace with it.  For example, shouldn't I be striving to meet the ideals of God’s kingdom though it is not yet fully present?   Is it possible to come to an agreement on when it is proper to use violence and when it is not?  Is the “middle ground” I am treading on actually possible to reach a consensus on?  Is it all too subjective when it is justifiable to use violence and when it is not?  Is any situation where a woman experiences fear grounds for violence?  For example, if my purse is stolen, is it justifiable to use self-defense? Alternatively, should self-defense be used solely when bodily harm is threatened by an assailant?  How does one know for certain beforehand whether to use violence or not?
 

A person also has the issue of control.  When engaging in violence, you can never be sure of the outcome.  It is very easy to harm an attacker more than intended or for some other unforeseeable event to occur.   Additionally, where do you draw the line on how much violence to use?  Many people are perfectly content with using guns while others desire to use less lethal methods (As I’ve mentioned before, I am uncomfortable with guns – they are simply too lethal for me to feel morally comfortable with).  However, there is again the difficulty of never knowing when an act may be deadly.  I am left in the precarious position of balancing both love for enemy and love for self.  Until violence is done away with and God reigns fully among God’s people, this tension will exist.  Then, God “will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever” (Revelation 21:1-4).
 

One “cannot live responsibly by a love which is abstracted and divorced from justice, and from the rational and structural elements which constitute justice…but must be held together in unity of their polar tensions.”  It is within these tensions that I find the answer to my question.  I will seek to always love others, but there are some situations where the most loving act for all involved is to use controlled self-defense to stop the assault. Even more importantly, I will work to hone my skills in preventing violence (and promoting peace), because violence is always a sad and terrible thing, even if it helps others and is a lesser evil.  I recognize this as part of the narrative of Scripture.  We live in a time between Eden and the New Jerusalem – there is sin, violence, hatred, and a world full of pain. I acknowledge the need for protecting the vulnerable from the powerful until that time.  I also recognize that violence belongs to this time of chaos and not to the time of the New Jerusalem. We live in the Not Yet - God's Kingdom has not yet fully come.  Avoiding assault through self-defense may be the lesser evil, but it still is tainted – it is not the ideal.  I long for the days when people can live together peaceably in the New Jerusalem. But that time has not yet arrived. Nonetheless, I yearn for this time of peace and safety, when women no longer have to worry about rape and sexual assault. One day I will stop looking over my shoulder and viewing most males as a potential threat. Until that time, I will continue to wade through the murky waters of loving others but using restrained violence (if absolutely necessary) in order to stop this epidemic that plagues women the world over.